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Summary: Drablet. Loneliness is just another word. And Remus loves his words.

Words
by padfootwolfboy

The first time, it happened. The ground crumbled, and the sky fell, and the flood came. The riders from the four corners of the Earth wrecked havoc on his life. The four, like thieves to steal, like murderers to kill, like marauders. Friends. Finality. His hands shook and he turned the worn page of the book he read.

The first time the madness descended and everyone celebrated, he turned to books. To words. Because words were finite; they did change with time. They were immortal, did not die, or murder, or betray. The words in his books would stare back at him when he faced them, would speak to him when he read them. He could carry on a relationship if he only knew the right places to look and the right things to say.

Words remained solid in a world where the ground he stood on slanted to the right, where his vision led him to the left, and where his heart longed for the past.

Words, Remus. Use your words.

The second time, it happened. It was not like the first. It was an arc, an arch, a graceful plunge. The screams in his dreams were not celebratory. He restricted another so that he need not restrict himself. And the ground no longer needed stability. He learned to walk the gross curb between sanity and reality. And as always, words were there. They waited him. They comforted him.

As always, they offered the conversation, the intellect, the company he could no longer achieve. They did not present a cold back, an angered look, a crippled mind.

So when Harry questioned him, when Molly gave him concerned looks, when the world desired his body to function, he kept his mind to the words and responded in kind. He quoted to them that which he knew, that which he loved. He acted in turn and soon they left him be.

Because, as it turns out, loneliness is simply another word. And Remus loves his words.