a/n: yes, another story! Yay for getting crap stories in your inbox more often!
this one does possess a a few similarities to the fic i posted a few days ago called 'give me a choice.' then again the main topic of both of these is a werewolf, so…
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Prompts:
[character] Remus Lupin
[quote] "And I fell in love the way people fall asleep - slowly, then all at once.
[word] mystical
[object] Marauder's Map
[setting] The Leaky Cauldron
Word Count: 1165
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Werewolves did not date.
Werewolves did not love.
Werewolves were to fight and kill and hunger for blood and death.
Werewolves were to be shunned and hated and stay a monster to everyone.
These were the things every young wizard or witch has ever been taught.
These were the things that Remus Lupin had been taught as a child, before he was bitten, before he had become one of the werewolves.
Before he had started getting disgusted looks thrown his way by every person who knew of the disfigurements of the young wizard.
Disfigurements, or transformations?
He hated it. So, so much.
He knew he would lose his entire future.
Going to Hogwarts, getting a job, his aspirations as a teacher.
All gone, because of that stupid, stupid, stupid werewolf who had bitten him as a mere toddler.
A future.
A whole entire life.
Gone.
He was elated when he was allowed to go to Hogwarts, when old Headmaster Dumbledore had let him attend the magical school.
But he knew it wouldn't be enough. He knew that when he was grown and not simply a student at Hogwarts anymore, every employer would turn the 'monstrous thing' down.
He was not a monstrous thing.
It was not his choice to be this way.
He had never wanted this.
But sometimes, he could forget the pain of who we was and the weight of the future he knew would someday descend upon him. Sometimes he could laugh and talk with his three best friends and be happy and not think about the future he could never have.
But there were other times, too, when all he could think about was the monster he was, and when the only thing in his mind was the pain of what it was to be. And some of those times, he would think about the girl he had fallen for, the girl he could never, ever have.
How could he have done this?
How could he have fallen in love?
He knew it could never be possible, and he knew that she would never want him, a monster.
He knew it, yet he still loved her.
It was a mystical thing, the love he had. Sometimes it surfaced and sometimes it stayed hidden. It swirled inside of him, a flame that sometimes roared and sometimes was only the dimmest spark inside of him.
He had fallen in love the way that people fall asleep. He had fallen in love slowly, but surely, and then all at once he realized it:
He loved her.
It was no simple crush, no immature teenage love, he knew it, he knew it every time that he thought about her and wanted, needed, her to love him back.
It was odd, yes, how he would sometimes stay awake for hours, gazing at her name on the Marauder's Map, wondering, staring, gazing at the name of the girl he loved.
The girl he could never have.
And that was how one dark night, sitting alone in his blankets, the curtains closed and a Privacy Spell set on them, staring at the name on the weathered and worn piece of paper, he saw it move.
He saw the name move, slowly at first, then faster and faster as if she was running.
He saw her run to the Astronomy Tower and get to the very edge of the map.
For a few moments he stared, debating on whether or not he should slip into his clothes and run and see what the hell she was doing up there. But then:
But then she disappeared right off the map, as if invisible or somehow gone. As if she had suddenly gone into the Room of Requirement, but there was no such thing as that up there.
And then he realized.
Shitshitshit, he thought, all rational thought leaving him as he tumbled out of bed and ran out the boys' dormitory, running through the Common Room and bursting through the portrait of the Fat Lady.
He ran, ran, ran as fast as was possible, through the corridors and up the steps. Two of the professors chased after him, yelling "What do you think you're doing?!" at the top of their lungs.
He didn't care, he didn't care, all he cared about was the girl he loved and the fact that she was probably dead.
He burst through the door to the Astronomy Tower and rushed to the open window, the wind chilling him to the bones but he didn't care and he hit the sill and stared over the edge and it was dark dark dark but he could see the broken bleeding body.
Everything seemed to stop.
It was a muddle in his brain, a dark cloud of thought and emotion.
He couldn't think.
It wasn't real, he told himself.
No.
But it was real, and suddenly it hit him, it hit him like a crashing wave, and he roared in pain and anger and sheer grief, and his legs collapsed beneath him, and all he could see was the body, the body of a girl, a girl he had loved for so long. And he couldn't breathe, and the sobs racked his body as he screamed in grief.
He would let the world know he loved her.
Then he realized he was changing, it was a full moon, and oh Merlin no he was changing, transforming into the monster he was.
The monster nobody could ever love.
It was too much, and he let go of his surroundings and let the exhaustion and pain and anger and grief take over as he slumped against the stone, eyes rolling up in his head.
He sits alone, a smile playing on his lips as he waits for her to arrive.
He clenches a box in his hand, a blue velvet thing that holds a small thing.
Perhaps it was an odd place to propose, the Leaky Cauldron, but it was enough for him and the woman he loved.
He was enough for her.
Everything was perfect.
She comes over to him, plopping down in the seat across of him, her vivid gray-blue eyes twinkling with joy.
He felt a twinge inside of him.
Something… something wasn't right.
He blinked and shook his head. No, no. He was here and this was real.
He was going to propose to her.
He smiled and they talked, and they laughed, and finally when she was about to go, he stopped her.
"Wait."
And he knelt, and she gasped in joy, and he was about to ask when he felt that twinge again…
This wasn't right.
No, no, it was right, he told himself.
It was.
But no, it wasn't…
And then he woke, gasping for breath, and then he realized that none of it was real, none of it at all, and he broke down.
The werewolf's heart was not about to let go.
Even though the girl was already long, long gone.