This is for the 'One Line' Competition on the HPFC Forum


To Disappear

The water looked so deep and inviting. He tried to imagine sliding off the bank, feeling the sharp edge of the liquid overcome him, emerging into a world that was not his, getting away everything on solid land. It seemed like distant dream.

For some reason, the sun was shining. Someone should have told it that today was no day for the warm rays to splay themselves over the untouched, never-ending lake Remus had found. It felt to him that the weather should reflect his mood: stormy, dark, unchanging because so much had happened in such a small space of time. Though so much was uncertain, one thing was infinitely solidified in his mind: he was alone.

He stared at the unmoving water. It looked unnatural. He wanted to jump, fall farther and farther away the burningly bright sky, until it was just a memory. He wanted his lungs filled with water, desperation to linger in his bones, the similar and dissimilar feeling of changing. He wanted to wriggle his toes freely, just because he could. Instead he had the world on his shoulders and no one to share it with. He had the memory of his friend's manic laughter, a scream, and baby without parents, a finger, he had long-forgotten good times and the change that each full-moon brought looming quickly.

Maybe tomorrow, he supposed, and then he wouldn't be himself.

He wanted the Hogwarts years back, when the change meant fun nights with James, Sirius and Pete. When Sirius constantly blabbered on about how many girls he thought he could get, and James being hopelessly in love with Lily Evans. And Pete – well, Pete was there throughout it all, shy and quiet as ever, more like a shadow of Sirius and James than a friend of any of them.

Hopelessness swirled with the light, cool breeze. Remus felt guilty, though he had not done anything wrong. It was Sirius who had betrayed his closest friends – and a defenceless baby, no less – not Remus; and Sirius who had killed all those muggles.

Yes, he thought, brushing the too fresh memories of the demise of best friends away, it would be nice to get away from everything. Changing was different from simply running away, the change was painful and slow, turning into an uncontrollable monster. Running away, diving into the tempting water, however, was staying firmly Remus John Lupin yet still completely forgetting.

The water looked so deep and inviting as Remus stood up, glancing wistfully as a slight wind picked up, moving the water, creating melodic music, and walked away, because he didn't like to think of himself as a coward.