CHAPTER ONE
REMUS LUPIN WALKED from the brick wall of Platform nine and three-fourths and inserted himself into the human chain—at least, mostly human. You couldn't be too sure who was what while a resident of a wizarding society. So, Remus brought himself away from his neighbor in march, and forced his feet in front of each other.
Kings Cross hasn't changed, he observed, trying to keep himself calm, another static point. Remus supposed that static points were good; books said so. At least, the clichéd self-help books that Remus had searched through in Muggle libraries said so (Was he hoping to find one titled "How to deal with the fact that you're a monster"?). However, he couldn't be too sure when his life was an obnoxious cluster of repetition. Honestly- how could he not be bored of it? There was only so much of his own gloominess that Remus could take.
Remus quickly halted this train of thought when he'd come to find that it was his turn to board the Hogwarts Express (A groan from a student behind him—"Hurry up!"). Reaching one shakey foot up at a time, Remus brought himself onto the heightened train and his luggage—a scuffed leather satchel with too many charms placed on it—followed behind him with a slight thump.
Remus held in a grimace; finding a seat on the train was terrible. Is The Hogwarts Express charmed to only make enough seats for each student, he thinks, or am I very bad at finding a spot. He supposed it was the latter, but the school did know ahead of time how many students were enrolled, so Remus was slightly doubtful.
Thump, thump, thump. The sounds of the hundreds of students boarding behind him were nearly enough to cripple Remus to his knees. Since his first year at Hogwarts, the thought of being so close to so many innocent people at once caused a constant tremble in his heart and twitches to his fingers.
"Hurry, hurry." Remus began walking faster and faster towards the end of the train, becoming more and more frantic for a solitary compartment. His heart rate became rapid and soft at once and Remus vaguely thought of a hummingbird residing in his chest—of course, after a moment Remus decided he was undeserving of something so docile.
Remus brought these thoughts away from his mind, not that they were very comprehensible at the moment, and focused once again on his mission through his sweaty, twitching palms and fraught mind. Looking back, perhaps Remus would've sworn that this was why he was allowed to be left in his isolation. However, his own mind was clouded by blind anxiety, and short breaths—wild as if he were currently blowing up hundreds of balloons—left him far too exhausted to care about anything currently but being alone, so he allowed it. Remus encouraged it, even.
Through a haze of vividly indescribable motion, Remus briefly allowed a saving thought to cross his mind: The compartments near the end.
Of course, this wasn't his most genius moment- most everyone knew that the train filled from front to back due to the overly eager students anticipating the Welcoming Feast. Even the I'm-too-cool-for-Dumbledore-and-his-most-unprofessional-antics fraction of Slytherins adored the Welcoming Feast.
So, Remus half stumbled and half walked towards the end of the Hogwarts
Express in deep, deep need of refuge.
Upon arriving to the end of the lengthy train, Remus nearly bowed to his knees for forgiveness; he must've done something wrong recently. Were werewolves considered as beings so unworthy of such a simple favor as an empty compartment? Probably, Remus thought, I apologize very sincerely, dear gods. Remus rushed out an apology to every muggle and wizarding deity he could think of, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, as if it would cause the people around him to suddenly disapparate to somewhere far from him, or—even better—make Remus normal.
So, Remus lingered in front of a compartment with only two people inside of it—both that didn't look quite as approachable as he would've liked despite their matching robes—and brought a shaky hand up to slide open the compartment door. Of course, not without a soft chain of knocks.
"May I sit here?" Remus's voice came out near a whimper, and his head faced downwards to avoid eye contact with the people of the compartment.
WORD COUNT: 725
I'm kind of nervous, because I'm not too sure if Remus with social anxiety will be something alot of people will enjoy, but I really like the idea that before the Marauders met, Remus was a lone-wolf (heh) and had alot of anxiety towards harming people that he was eventually able to rid himself of.
Btw, it may seem like it with this short chapter (I've never been great at writing long chapters, but I'm trying!) that it's Remus- centric, but the story isn't! It's going to involve all of the boys and their own afflictions.
I'll have the other half of my daily goal (1,725 words) up tonight, too.
