Rest, Sad Eyes
Chapter 1: Tiresomely Ordinary
Many people could say that Remus Lupin was an ordinary boy. At ten and a half years old, he was the only child of John and Donna Lupin, a middle class couple living in Blackpool. Remus was a good student, consistently receiving top marks in all his classes at Park School, where his mother was a music teacher. He was thin, medium height, and had that sort of light brown hair that seemed dull and a bit lacking in color. His eyes were of the same hue, thereby giving him an almost translucent air that seemed to complement Remus's quiet disposition.
All in all, he was a boy that not many people gave much thought to. He was just Remus Lupin, Mrs. Lupin's quiet son who always got good grades. He was polite and friendly to anyone who approached him, and was always respectful to his teachers. No one had anything bad to say about him. But no one really remembered to talk about him anyway.
There were probably very few people in Remus's world who knew that he was far from ordinary. His parents, certainly. Remus had always been a low-maintenance child—he rarely cried or threw tantrums as a toddler, was one of the few boys in his age group who had either still maintained undeveloped hormones or simply kept them in check around his female classmates, and he was just overall a good boy. Mr. and Mrs. Lupin knew very well that they had a lot to be thankful for when it came to their son.
But of course, most people who knew or bothered to notice Remus already knew he was a good boy. What many of them didn't know though was that he was a wizard, "set to attend Hogwarts next year" his father would remind him every few weeks for the past year. It was a prestigious school for witches and wizards around Great Britain, and considering that Remus had shown magical abilities at a very young age, John Lupin assumed his son would have a place at his alma mater.
"I have a good feeling you'll be sorted into Ravenclaw." His dad had said only this evening over dinner.
Of course, this was about the tenth time he had heard such a prediction from his father in the past couple of years, but Remus couldn't help but smile excitedly each time anyway. He liked the idea of being as smart as his dad.
"Now, tell me again," his mother started as she poured herself a glass of wine, "Ravenclaw…that's the house for the smart kids?"
Remus's father grinned and nodded, puffing his chest out slightly. "That's right."
His mother rolled her eyes but smiled in spite of herself. "So how'd you get into that house? Bribe the headmaster?"
"Oh ha ha."
"And what were the other ones again?" his mother continued, gently pushing her fork through a tomato wedge in her salad. "There are four houses, right?"
"Besides Ravenclaw, there's Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Gryffindor." Remus answered for his dad.
His mother chuckled softly as she jabbed her fork into a crouton. "I love those names. They sound ridiculous."
Remus glanced sideways to watch his father's reaction, who was simply grinning wryly at his wife. "Ridiculous as they might sound," he began slowly, as if he were carefully choosing his words so they might have the proper impact on his wife, "those were the surnames of the four founders of Hogwarts. They were honorable witches and wizards and we hold them with high regard."
His wife bowed her head solemnly. "My apologies. I meant no harm. I certainly didn't mean to sully the good name of Ravenclaw and Snugglepuff."
"Hufflepuff."
Remus couldn't help but laugh. He knew very well that his mother was somewhat familiar with the different Hogwarts houses in spite of her muggle upbringing.
"Now," Remus's mother continued, "Hufflepuff…they're the nice ones, right?"
His father shrugged. "They're known to be nice…loyal, hard-working. You would have made a fine Hufflepuff, my dear."
She smiled. "I would normally take that as a compliment but considering your personal house pride, I'm assuming it would be an insult to be called anything but a Ravenclaw, from you."
Remus's father chuckled. "You know me too well."
She nodded in return. "Yes, I do." And then she added, smiling, "I've always known you to be an old, pompous, intellectual snob."
He glared at her.
"What?" She asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "I find your pomp and snobbery to be charming."
"Is that so?"
"Well…more amusing than charming, but I thought charming would sound nicer."
Remus's father rolled his eyes at his wife, and went back to focusing on his dinner. Remus, however, was determined to keep the subject on Hogwarts. At around the same time next year he would be attending said school, and couldn't help but want to talk about the place that would become his home for seven years.
"Do you really think I'll get sorted into Ravenclaw though, Dad?" he asked. "I thought you had to be witty and clever to be in their house."
His father glanced at him briefly and frowned. "Aren't you though?"
Remus shrugged. "I like school and everything, and I study—"
"Which is pretty damn good, if you ask me. You have perfect grades."
"Well," began Remus's mother, "that's book smart. Remus is asking about wittiness. Cleverness. That's entirely different. It's the intelligence you have without your books. And I, for the record," she said, turning to her son, "believe you have all of that. I may not have ever seen the splendors of Hogwarts or met the genius that is Albus Dumbledwarf—"
"Dumbledore" her husband corrected her, sighing.
"Right, Dumbledore. I may not have had any exposure to any of that, but I know my son, and I know what he is. I know that you have everything it takes to be a Ravenclaw."
"And then some." His father added, winking.
Remus smiled.
His mother reached across the dinner table, resting her hand on her son's. "And even if you aren't made a Ravenclaw, do you think your father and I will care? It's not like house placement is based on rankings or anything. From what I understand, they're based on who you are as a person, right John?" she asked, glancing over to her husband.
He nodded, smiling at Remus. "It's true. And remember, who you are as a person isn't just defined by your personality traits, but what you do with them, and how you value them. There was a very bright boy in my year, Vincent DuGrey, who was so intelligent we all wondered why he wasn't in Ravenclaw—"
"What house was he in?" Remus asked.
"Gryffindor. He was placed in Gryffindor even though he was best student in our class. He was prefect and even head boy. But the sorting hat – that hat that you'll be asked to wear during the sorting – placed him in Gryffindor, probably because he just valued bravery and courage over intelligence."
"Was he brave?"
His father shrugged. "I guess. I don't ever recall him cowering in the face of anything."
Remus fell silent as his parents continued on their dinner. He definitely valued bravely, and he briefly wondered why his father hadn't been placed in Gryffindor. He liked to think of him as a brave man who was protective of his family. Perhaps it was like his dad said – the sorting wasn't just based on personality traits, but what a person valued. His dad definitely valued intelligence over bravery, even if he had both qualities.
*~*~*~*~*
Twenty minutes later, after finishing dinner and helping his mother with the dishes, Remus was lying on his stomach on his bedroom floor, pouring over his math book and trying to complete his homework. This would be his final year studying mathematics, as it was not a subject taught at Hogwarts, much to his mother's dismay. His mother, being a muggle professor at The Blackpool Sixth Form College, thought certain muggle subjects were important to learn, mathematics being one of them. Mathematics, English, and learning a foreign language, and of course, music. Donna Lupin was an accomplished pianist, and had been giving her son lessons since he was four years old. She had also insisted on teaching him French, the language she taught at school, beginning last year. So in addition to his own school homework, Remus had to make time for piano and French lessons almost every day. Not that he minded much. He honestly preferred his mother's lessons to his schoolwork, and half-wished that he was being home-schooled altogether like the other witches and wizards his age and younger. But both his parents worked full-time – his mother at the college, and his father at Obscurus Books, a wizarding publishing company – and so neither of them could teach him full-time.
Still, it was just one more year. Less than a year, actually. It was nearly the end of October. Come March 10th – his birthday – he would receive a letter from Hogwarts by owl post congratulating him on his acceptance into the school. By June he would be done with his muggle studies for good, and he would be getting ready to attend Hogwarts. By September, he would be at Hogwarts, sorted into one of the four houses. Hopefully Ravenclaw. He wanted to please his dad. But more likely Hufflepuff. Possibly Slytherin, though he dearly hoped not. He couldn't help that he was a bit ambitious when it came to his studies. But then again, his father had once said that usually only purebloods were sorted into Slytherin, which he was not. The house that seemed most unlikely to become his, Remus thought, was Gryffindor.
As much as he would have liked to call himself brave, he was anything but that. Remus might have had the highest grades in his class, but he could barely muster up the courage to raise his hand and participate in class. He didn't like trying new things, even new dishes that his mother would occasionally surprise the family with on some evenings. He certainly didn't have the sort of bravery that Gryffindors looked for. He wasn't daring. Quite the contrary. He never played aggressive fighting games with the boys in school, and they called him a weakling. He brought his treasured music box to class for "Show and Tell" when he was about six, and the kids laughed and called him a girl.
He remembered the day quite vividly. Brad Watson had chased him around the playground offering to braid his hair. Kierra Nakofsky, a girl in his class, had defended him and shoved Brad to the ground, earning herself a time-out, and earning Remus even more taunting for being defended by a girl. He had gone home humiliated, and in a fit of anger, had thrown his music box onto the living room floor. His father, of course, was able to repair it with the wave of his wand when he got home from work, but the helpless and hurt look on his mother's face when he broke the music box had been internalized in his mind. She had given him that music box. He had had it, actually, as long as he could remember. It had just always been in his room. He had the tune committed to memory because his mother used to sing a lullaby using the tune from the music box. She sang it, apparently, when he was a baby. She occasionally revived the song on a few occasions, once during a terrible storm when Remus was young and afraid to sleep in his room. Another time when he read a book about vampires and he was convinced he would be kidnapped by one, and again, was afraid to sleep in his room.
Remus closed his math book and stood up, reaching his arms up overhead to stretch out. He was done with his school homework but still had to spend a few minutes doing review exercises in French for his mother. He walked across his bedroom to his night stand, where he had left his French reader. Next to his book was his repaired music box. It was small and egg-shaped, and about the size of an actual egg. He opened the lid, allowing the gentle tinkling music to play through. His mother's voice sang in his mind:
Weep you no more, sad fountains;
What need you flow so fast?
Look how the snowy mountains
Heav'n's sun doth gently waste.
But my sun's heav'nly eyes
View not your weeping
That now lies sleeping,
Softly, softly, now softly lies sleeping.
Sleep is a reconciling,
A rest that Peace begets.
Doth not the sun rise smiling
When fair at e'en he sets
Rest you then, rest, sad eyes,
Melt not in weeping
While she lies sleeping,
Softly, softly, now softly lies sleeping.
Remus frowned slightly, listening to the words in his head. He did weep quite a bit, in spite of whatever his parents might have said about his quiet infancy. Brave people didn't cry. Or, his father didn't cry, at least. Remus definitely wasn't Gryffindor material then. He wasn't brave or daring or strong. He was wimpy and quiet. He was just ordinary, boring, bookworm Remus. But it didn't bother him. Well, not too much, anyway. If he ended up in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, that was alright by him.
*Author's Note: The lullaby is actually an anonymous poem collected by John Dowland in the early 1600s. If you're curious of the tune to which it's set to: "Weep You No More Sad Fountains" from the Sense and Sensibility soundtrack (1995). Also: did you notice a certain OC's name in this introductory chapter? ;)