Remus Lupin is four, twenty one, thirty eight, when he watches his life fall apart in front of his eyes.
Loneliness is something he could write books about. For some reason, this is the only thought that crosses his mind as a bright white light flashes before him. Loneliness. He thinks of years sat in a dark corner of his childhood home, dreading the full moon. He thinks of that month when James and Sirius and Peter ignored him for what he was. He thinks of twelve years of darkness in which every light he'd ever known ceased to exist. He thinks of now, lying on his back and staring at a fading ceiling of the first place that taught him that home wasn't four walls and a roof, but three teenage boys and a teenage girl, with nothing but a blind hope.
But then, love is also something he could write books about. He could write of a jilted relationship with parents who bore the guilt of their sons condition, who both feared him and loved him in equal parts. He could write of a boy with dark brown hair and a knack for making a fool of himself, a boy with black hair and a tragic past (he doesn't think that, at one point, he would have written about a boy with sandy hair with an inability to walk in a straight line without tripping over something. He doesn't think it, but he does). He could write of a girl with red hair and a laugh that is hopelessly infectious. He could write about a young boy, a baby, growing into a man who has somehow let himself be tricked into believing that it must be him that saves the world.
He could write of a girl with purple, pink, blue, orange, red hair and a baby boy with pastel blue hair.
But then, surely, for someone to understand loneliness they must first understand love.
He knows this feeling. It's pain. Raw and physical. It's crying into the night and being called a monster. It's clenched hands and bitten down nails and tear streaked cheeks and a scar on his left arm.
It's transforming at four o'clock in the morning.
It's-
I'm James Potter.
Remus Lupin.
So, no. We won't do loneliness, we'll do love.
Brotherhood.
What it feels like to be accepted.
Remus Lupin was accepted until he was four years old.
His father was often absent, yes, with work and studying and making sure everything 'at the office is okay', but when he came home, he would bounce Remus on his knee and tell him fantastical tales about werewolves and fairies and Cornish pixies that escaped in the office and caused chaos for hours. He teaches Remus about the different kinds of magical creatures, the dangerous ones, and Remus spends hours pouring over moving pictures of various creatures.
His mother makes him sandwiches in the shape of pixies, and forms faces out of the pizza toppings, and they indulge him. For his fourth birthday, they get him a kit that can help him find magical creatures. He finds a gnome in their garden, behind the swing set at the bottom and watches in rapt awe as his Dad dispatches of it. His mother leans against the kitchen door and smiles.
He knows werewolves are bad from the second he's old enough to talk. He knows because his dad tells him about the one they have 'at the office' to monitor its transformations. Remus never found out whether it was male or female, what its name was, or what its favourite meal was. He only knew the werewolf as 'it'.
When he's four years old, his dad pisses off the werewolf community by saying they're dangerous and should be 'terminated on sight'. Remus is bitten that night.
Remus Lupin, at five years old, learns how to cut the crusts off his own sandwiches. He reads stories about werewolves hurting people, and quickly realises that he is a bad person. His kind tear people apart in their sleep, they kill for fun, for pleasure and they enjoy it. He's a monster.
His mother walks in on him reading one, a heavy book he found in the wizarding library his dad used to take him to, and doesn't stop him.
She tells him he needs to understand what he has the power to do, and that he needs to try to control it. At six years old, she looks at him with fear the night after the full moon. He comes upstairs- from the small basement they added to the house to 'deal with his issues'- crying and she looks at him with fear.
He has a scar down his arm that takes three months to heal properly, because the werewolf inside him doesn't understand why he can't run and jump and play.
At seven, he is able to bandage his own wounds, and at eight, he knows how to dress them properly. He knows what creams work and which ones don't better than any doctor.
At nine, his dad looks him in the eye and smiles for the first time in five years. He tells Remus that they've started working on a cure, and Remus knows, learns again and again and again that there is something wrong with him.
At ten years old, he breaks his leg falling down the stairs into the cellar and his parents leave him until after the full moon, when he's crying and crying because he can't walk up the stairs to come down and get him. He's down there for nineteen hours. He reminds himself as his mum pours skelgrow on his leg, hands shaking, that they love him. They just don't know how to show it.
At eleven years old, he meets James Potter.
James Potter comes from a family where his mum still cuts the crusts of his sandwiches, even though he's eleven years old, and he doesn't need that anymore. He comes from a family where his dad sits him down every evening and they play chess, or cards or quidditch. James Potter believes in magic in a way that Remus Lupin never has. He believes in it like it can change the world, and Remus sees it as another way in which he will never fit in.
James Potter is the first person who makes Remus feel like he doesn't need to prove anything.
James Potter holds out his hand like his father taught him and Remus takes it shyly because his father never taught him. They stand next to each other in the line for the sorting, with a boy named Sirius Black, and Remus doesn't think about how he could kill everyone in the room if they caught him at the wrong moment. And, no doubt, how most of the people in this room wouldn't hesitate to kill him if they caught him at the wrong moment. Werewolves aren't people.
The word Gryffindor confuses him.
He's not brave, he's a monster. He's not noble, he's a coward. He's not strong, he's weak.
When everyone else opens long letters praising them on their house the next day, he gets one saying that they've spoken to Dumbledore and arrangements for his 'condition' have been made. His heart sinks down down down and his only comfort is the knowledge that at least he hasn't received a howler like Sirius did.
He forces himself to smile, and Peter smiles back. James stuffs another piece of bacon into his mouth and grins widely at Sirius, ignoring the howler completely. There's a second when Remus thinks Sirius isn't going to make it, but he swallows, takes a deep breath and grabs a sausage.
So, yeah. When he's four years old, he loses acceptance but he finds it again at eleven.
He loses a father who holds him close and a mother who whispers her love as she tucks him at night. They hadn't been perfect, by any means, but they were his, and they'd loved him as much as they could with what they had, but not enough to accept him.
He stays at school for the Christmas holidays, feeling more at home in the shrieking shack than he does in his parent's basement. His mother sends him some chocolate, and his father sends him a letter with some money attached. It's small, but it's more than he was expecting.
Sirius comes back to school with a cut on his hand that keeps bleeding, and a new attitude. Remus returns to school with a newfound need to prove to his parents that he is more than just a werewolf. He is not the 'it' that lived in the office in a cage in the corner. He is a young boy and he understands charms and he loves history and he has friends and a life and none of that is affected by him being a werewolf.
He throws himself into the pranks James and Sirius are planning, and watches Sirius' face fall when he thinks nobody can see. He hopes, prays that Sirius' family are better to him than Remus' are to him, and spends an extra hour on his potions homework, just to take his mind of it.
He learns how to make light burst out of his wand, and uses the lumos spell to help him read at night. He spends his spare time running down the corridors with James, Sirius and Peter, and he doesn't think about his problem until it's the night before the full moon and he's saying I'm feeling ill again to James.
They walk him to the hospital wing, concern etched all over their faces and Remus had forgotten what it was like to have someone care.
He wakes up in the hospital wing, a long cut down his arm. It's ten past twelve in the afternoon and it's the first of July. He'll be going home soon, catching a train to go to a place where his comfort is four, empty walls and a hard bed with two parents who ignore him because they don't know how to understand him.
James, Peter and Sirius walk in and suddenly it doesn't seem so bad.
James with his glasses that are too big and keep sliding down his nose, but he refuses to let Remus size them down because he's too stubborn. Sirius who walks like he owns the school, even though he's one of the youngest there, and Peter who walks in clutching a large bar of chocolate from the sweet shop his mother works in.
James, Peter and Sirius who smile because he's one of them.
Remus returns to his house- it's not his home though, because his home is red and gold and three boys who share a room with him who laugh at his puns even though they're never funny- and his mother hugs him hello. His father gifts him with a new book that Remus grew out of three years ago, but he thanks them anyway because they're trying.
He reads the book and it tells him about castles and dragons and there are no werewolves. They've moved on from telling him he's a monster to denying it, Remus realises, and throws the book across the room. It lands with a thud, and Remus refuses to leave his room for three days.
Remus Lupin returns to Hogwarts and things immediately go to shit. He's twelve now, and not the bottom of the school. He helps the first years find their trunks and watches them look around in the same awe he had when he first arrived, heads tilted back and scared smiles on their faces. He wonders, as Sirius kicks James in the back of the knees so his legs buckle, if they'll find the same sort of home he found here.
James and Sirius both make the quidditch team, and they're gone. They're dedicated and committed and showing up to training in a way they never are for their lessons. Remus is proud, and him and Peter go to every game in full house memorabilia.
Two months in, and Peter asks him why he still goes away every month, and Remus doesn't mean to tell him, but he does.
I'm a werewolf, he says, and that's it.
He watches the shock flicker over Peter's face. Peter, who is a pure blood, but was raised by a muggle and a squib, understands the gravity of the situation. Peter who flinches and slides away, just a little bit. Peter who tells Sirius and James when they get in from quidditch training. Sirius who looks at Remus, a strange expression on his face, and Remus waits for the insults.
James leaves the room, and Sirius follows him. Peter hesitates, starts to say something, and then hurries after them. Peter doesn't know how to deal with the magnitude of what Remus is, so he has to throw the decision onto someone else, but it's not Peter that's left standing there, watching the second family he knew walk away. It's Remus.
Remus spends a week in the library, hiding between the books and the shelves and knowing that if they can't find him, it means that he's avoiding them and not the other way around. Sirius finds him the next Saturday, and tells him that he's being silly.
I'm sorry, Sirius tells him, I know what it's like to- he stops, I don't know what it's like to be, y'know, but I know what it's like to be unaccepted. Sorry.
And they move on. James starts to ask Lily Evans out, and there's some Slytherin called Snape that follows her around. James hates him on principal because he's a Slytherin, and Remus wonders why James doesn't hate him.
He asks him and James tells him you're Remus. you're Remus. You're not a monster.
It's the first time someone's said that to him and he doesn't know how to reply. James takes his silence to mean he's ready for questions and asks him question after question after question. His dad tried to ask him questions once; how long does the transformation take? Are you aware of Remus when the wolf takes over? Do you have a desire to kill?
James asks him whether food tastes different as a wolf, whether he can heal super quickly, and whether it's easier to run on four legs or two. Remus answers willingly, happy someone has an interest that isn't with malicious intent.
You're not a monster, you're not a monster.
In between questions from James, him and Peter manage to stumble on the kitchens after running away from the 'crime scene' of the fourth floor. Peter gets lost repeatedly, so James draws a map. It's rough and crude, and Remus gets bored and he traces it more accurately onto a large piece of parchment. Where James' drawing had silly scribbles and these stairs come out... here Peter! Remus' is elegant. He forces Sirius, with all his calligraphy lessons, to write the place names.
He goes home for Christmas. His parents try to hide it, but he can see they're falling apart at the seams. They make digs at each other, jokes that aren't jokes about the rubbish not being taken out, the washing up never being done and the bathroom window being left open so the floor rots. Remus watches them collapse and realises that this is because of him. His mother blames his father, and his father refuses to accept it and they can't move on.
They even get him separate presents. His father a book on 'controlling the inner wolf' that Remus throws in the bin the second he gets it, rage burning inside him, and his mother gets him a record from a new muggle band called Queen.
He takes it back to school, set on throwing it away then and there because the him that used to listen to muggle music with his mother was the him that still believed he was a monster. Sirius nicks it from him the first night back and slides it into the record player in the common room. They play it the whole night and Lily asks to borrow it, and Sirius falls in love. He asks an older student who James is vaguely friendly with- Frank Longbottom- to bewitch Peter's radio to turn on to whatever station is playing Queen.
Sirius decides to cut his hair like Brian May, and it lasts for three days before James decides Sirius looks stupid and that no one apart from Brian May should have hair like Brian May.
It spends the whole night jumping from station to station until James casts a shoddy mufliato spell and it's quite for a while.
Before he boards the Hogwarts express to go home for the summer, he pauses. Peter jumps on his back, and he stumbles forward. Before he can complain, there's a bar of chocolate shoved into his hand and James' owl- who refuses to go with the rest of the owls (Peter takes the piss because even James' owl is too good for everyone else)- flapping around his head.
He doesn't have time to consider that he's saying goodbye to his home.
James throws some cards down, and Peter jumps in to deal, and Sirius is quiet. Remus knows how he feels.
The summer is uneventful. Peter sends them all a box of 'misfits' from his mum's sweetshop, and Remus eats bar of chocolate after fizzing jellyfish after popping candy sticks. He goes to James' house and James' mum greets him like he's her son, and Sirius smiles and Peter laughs at James' dog.
Third year starts with a fight. It's not a physical fight, but it's a fight nonetheless. Sirius spends the whole train journey on edge, and Remus doesn't notice because he's too tired from the last full moon. James notices, because when does he not, but he can't change anything.
The sorting hat screams Slytherin and Sirius' jaw clenches and James' hand twitches, but nobody moves. Regulus moves to the Slytherin table and doesn't look at Sirius once, and Remus feels guilty for something he hasn't even done.
James, Sirius and Peter spend all of September with leaves in their mouths, and Remus assumes its some stupid competition they have going on. He leaves them to it.
They attend Care of Magical Creatures for the first time, and Remus falls in love with it, but the professor is so wrong. She tells them dragons are dangerous, cruel creatures, and that it's easier to kill than it is to get away safely. Remus wonders when she'll the say the same about werewolves, but he quickly learns that she won't.
She won't say anything about werewolves because werewolves aren't covered in care of magical creatures. Care of Magical Creatures is a lesson about dealing with the friendly magical creatues, and werewolves are not friendly. They're covered in Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Remus sits in lessons learning about himself in a lesson designed to protect students against evil forces.
Sirius must catch on because he starts coming up with stupid excuses for where Remus goes every month. Before long, James joins in. When Peter slides Remus the notes he missed, James will be telling an extravagant tale about Remus battling giants and saving the world. Nobody believes them, it's obvious, but they listen in rapt admiration because its James Potter talking, with Sirius Black adding little bits of information that James 'neglected to mention'.
Remus learns that acceptance comes in many forms, and he learns how to make polyjuice potion properly. Another secret passageway is discovered and he adds it to the map. He's partnered with Lily in Muggle Studies, and she tells him about record players and televisions and telephones. He tells her about his Mum's job as a nurse in St. Mungos and about his Dad's job at the ministry, glazing it over as not 'really understanding it properly'. Lily listens anyway.
James decides they need to make a proper map of Hogwarts, one with staircases that move on it and all the secret passageways on it. Remus reluctantly gives up his map to Sirius to scribble all over and update, and they start to draw out a new one.
In between trips to Hogsmeade for butter beer and fizzing jellyfish, they create a map. It's not as intricate as Remus', with more purpose than decoration, but it functions the same.
Remus sees outside the shack for the first time, and hears it called the shrieking shack by a villager. It's haunted, they tell him, by a dead werewolf. It only howls on a full moon.
He. Remus wants to say, he or she.
Sirius, naturally, loves the idea that everyone thinks that Remus is a ghost, and spreads the rumour around. He comes up with some devise to scream even when Remus isn't there, so its less like a dead werewolf and more like a dead spirit, and Remus is thankful even though Sirius calls him Ghosty for a week.
Remus stays at school for Christmas, telling Sirius that it's just easier for him and his parents. He doesn't tell him that the fighting got too much last summer. Sirius knows he's lying, but also knows that he doesn't want to share.
Remus realises on the way home for the summer that this is least favourite part of the year, watching Hogwarts fade into the distance.
He changes his mind when he gets to the platform and his friends all leave and suddenly he's alone again.
Remus' parents fight one night and he leaves to just walk. He gets up and walks out, unable to take it anymore. He ends up in a dodgy neighbourhood, and he hates it. Hates the dark shadows and the dark shapes on the wall and he wants to leave when he sees Lily.
She's standing alone in the middle of a park, hair strung up into a loose pony tail that seems like it's been done more for convenience than style. He walks over and she greets him with her usual cheerful manner, smiles and hi how are you? And Remus learns that Lily can't lie when she's upset.
He sits with her and she tells him about the word freak being tossed around and he tells her that he knows how she feels. She tells him that he doesn't. She tells him it's her own sister and Remus wants to say it's my own father but he doesn't.
He pats her back and tells her that she's the best witch he knows, and she leans against him and it's okay, for a while. It's two hours later and they've been quiet for a while and Remus whispers it's my fault my parents are going to split up.
And Lily whispers that's okay.
If it were anyone else, they would have told him that he's wrong, that sometimes couples just fall apart, they don't love each other anymore, but not Lily. She just softly whispers that's okay. And Remus believes her.
Remus believes anything Lily tells him, because she smiles when she says it. She smiles like she has all the answers and he trusts her, for some reason he doesn't know yet. He won't know for years.
He goes to James' the next day, and the next and the next. His mum teases them about not being able to stay away from each other. She knows, though, how shit all of them have it. Remus watches James' Dad call Sirius son, and his mum hug him before he leaves, and Remus knows they know. She hugs Remus, tells him he's angel when he brings her his dirty plate and asks him if his mother wants to swap him for James.
He sees Lily again, bumps into her on Oxford street, of all places, and she ditches her sister to be with him. They walk round London, and go to all the areas they were too scared to go alone. She learns that Remus likes chicken, but he isn't a fan of pork, that he sometimes flips his hair to get it out of his eyes, but it's not conceited like it is when James does it and that when there's a breeze he tips his face into it.
Remus learns that Lily has a knack for finding good places to eat, that she sings incredibly badly- but only in front of people she feels comfortable in (he shouldn't feel as pleased as he does)- and that she has a complete inability to pass a charity shop without stopping to see what bargains she can find.
She explains muggle money to him, and shows him the wonders of the cinema. They buy a large bucket of popcorn for way too much money and go and feed the ducks along the Thames with it when Remus decides he doesn't like it anymore.
They return to Hogwarts on a Friday. Their fourth year starts with Sirius jinxing the sky in the Great Hall so that it actually rains inside instead of only looking like it will. Remus sits next to Lily at the welcome feast, and she laughs at the puns nobody else laughs at and swears when she realises she forgot to pack her new textbook for potions.
James asks her out again the following Thursday, and she tells him she'd rather go out with the giant squid and Remus laughs so hard his stomach hurts. Lily shoots him a smile and a wave before floating of, arm slung through Marlene's. James watches her go, confused and scorned all at once.
Remus notices things other people don't. He thinks it comes from so many years of being deemed 'shy'. He notices now that Lily and Sirius strike up an odd little friendship. He notices that Peter is struggling to keep up in Charms, and also that he's too proud to admit it. He notices that Lily's friend Snape doesn't only want to be her friend.
They finish the map and James' dad gives him a cloak of invisibility for his birthday. They start exploring the castle at night, and taking secret trips down to the kitchens for snacks at midnight. It's on one of the (many) drunken evenings on top of the astronomy tower that Remus decides the map should be able to tell you where everyone is all the time (they spent an entire hour trying to track Peter down, earlier, only to find him in the kitchens).
Remus watches James ask Lily out again, and then watches him realise, when she turns him down, that he doesn't have a thing for ginger girls, he has a thing for Lily Evans. Remus watches Sirius look around him one night and realise that he's not quite so alone anymore. Remus watches himself realise the same thing.
Peter finds the radio that James had hidden, one evening in December, and they sing loudly to every song that comes up in the common room. They have hot chocolates with tiny sticks of chocolate in them, and cinnamon dusting and it's the stupidest thing Remus has ever had to drink, but Lily forced him to try one and he loves it.
He opens the newspaper in January to read about an attack on muggles, most likely carried out by a werewolf. He folds the newspaper gently and leaves the table.
Hogwarts mourns for the loss of peace, and Remus mourns for the loss of freedom and safety. He shoots a glance over to the Slytherin table, where Lucius Malfoy has an arm slung around Narcissa Black, and Bellatrix Black is laughing, waving a newspaper in the air and he hates it.
He hates that some people are deemed better than others, purely because of their parents, their blood, their money. He hates that they rub it in, and he hates that they're allowed to do it.
Remus returns home in the summer to find ministry men want to question him. He complies and they don't arrest him. They warn him and tell him he's dangerous and if he tries anything funny, they'll find him and he'll be in Azkaban.
He gets a letter from a werewolf community the next week, asking if he's interested in joining the fight for freedom. He tells them no. The reports appear in the newspapers the next day, of werewolves joining 'Voldemort'. Fly by death, his mother translates, reading the name out, voice dark.
Fight for freedom is their official tagline.
The 'fight for freedom' for his kind, he realises, means taking away that of witches like Lily Evans. He doesn't tell anyone he was asked to join, and wears it like armour. It's a secret he uses to protect himself when his father screams at his mother at three o'clock in the morning. I'm doing what's right.
Fifth year begins, and everything slowly starts to fall into place.
He walks the halls with Lily in the evenings and they talk about the weather and the quidditch teams and they don't talk about Voldemort. She wears her hair down and her laugh is infectious. She points out what's right with the world, and doesn't have a problem with telling the world when it's wrong. She bumps into him and he bumps into her.
Before he knows it, his trusted group of three expands to include a bright-eyed red-haired girl. She winks at Sirius when he winks at her, now, and she slings an arm round Remus' waist when they're next to each other. They're friends and it's so weird to trust someone that's not James or Sirius or Peter, but it's nice.
She doesn't make dick jokes every three seconds, and she talks about boys that she likes, and he tells her whether or not they're worth the effort. She sets him up on a date with Mary, and he finds he quite likes her.
For the first time, he isn't alone when he transforms. He wakes up as werewolf and there's a stag looking at him in wonder. He snarls at it, and it takes a step backward. A dog moves in front of it, a rat sat on its back. The teenage boy struggling to breath recognises them as his friends and the wolf calms. The next day, before Madame don't-call-me-Polly-Sirius Pomfrey shows up, he wakes up to three grinning faces.
He tells them they're stupid and they grin wider. He tells them it was the most dangerous thing they've ever done and James looks at him, shrugs and says it was bloody brilliant, though, wasn't it?
And Remus can't tell him no. Because it was. His wolf, in all its ugly glory, has a pack. So, he spends the full moon running through the forbidden forest with a stag, a dog and a rat and it must be the weirdest mix of animal anyone's ever seen, but he doesn't care.
He watches Lily Evans' heart break, and watches Sirius run after her, an apology for something he didn't say on his lips. He watches James stand there, shock written all over his face and Remus refuses to move. He's never felt anger like this, never felt a need to protect and shelter before, but he feels it now. Remus glares at Snape, and Snape glares right back before storming off.
He just- James starts, and can't finish.
Remus nods. He did.
So Lily's heart breaks and Snape tries to win it back. Remus learns, sat in the common room with Lily's legs slung over his and Mary on the other side of her, that Lily is a forgiving person. She's forgiven Snape for many things over the years. Marlene, standing by the fire with her hands on her hips, refuses to let Lily forgive him for this. Sirius, standing beside her, agrees.
Remus also learns that he never wants to see Lily defeated ever again.
So Lily talks to Snape, calls him Snivellus, and Sirius has never looked so proud. She tells Remus about feeling like she doesn't belong anywhere, and Snape was really the only person who got that, but he's gone too now.
I understand. Remus tells her. She cocks her head to one side and doesn't answer, but she believes him. Sirius gets ice cream from the kitchens and the three of them spend far too long eating it round the fire with a long-forgotten card game by their feet.
The next Hogsmeade trip, they meet up with Lily and her friends. Having never properly spent time with the four girls before, the trip was somewhat awkward. Lily beats Peter in cards- something no one else has done since first year, and Mary beats Sirius in finishing a pint of butterbeer. Marlene's love of muggle music is rival to Remus' and Dorcas wins three games to two at pool against James.
He loves her, have you noticed? Sirius asks Remus. There is no need for him to gesture to whom he's talking about.
Yeah. Remus replies, because he has. Can't say I blame him.
The two look up to Lily throwing her arms above her head in triumph and laughing as Peter looks forlorn. He buys her a pint to celebrate, and she hugs him. She's bright, bright, bright and Remus feels like everyone's staring but they're not. She's green eyes and she's red lips and laughing long and hard.
She's the way James' eyes light up, and the way he flicks his hair back and the way he stumbles when he walks. She's the reason Sirius' shoelaces are tied together, and she's the reason Mary leans against Remus when they leave, their hands bumping together.
Remus laughs too much and he realises that acceptance isn't necessarily a thing that you earn, but something that is a right. It's a right and it shouldn't be taken away.
(But somewhere, deep, deep, deep inside him there's a fear that it'll be taken away again)
He gets a letter in the summer that says simply he did it. He goes to the Potter's the next day, and Sirius is sat there, a scar on his cheek and in his heart but he's smiling bigger and wider and longer than Remus has ever seen.
I'm free, he tells them and Peter laughs.
His mother and father split up that summer and Remus has to choose who to live with. He looks at his father's new house, with three bathrooms and a fancy kitchen, and their old house, with its broken tap and falling apart steps and chooses to stay at home. He does, however, give his father a book with the words how to be Single emblazoned on the front of it. It's rude and snarky and Remus doesn't care.
His mother makes him sandwiches one night, with the crusts cut off and in the shape of pixies. Remus looks at them and wonders why she's trying to rebuild a relationship that died years ago.
He goes to the Potters for a week, with Peter, and Mrs Potter teases them about being inseparable and Remus looks at a house he's only ever been in three times and realises he feels more at home here than he does at home. Sirius refuses to stop taking the piss out of Peter's hair, and for once, even Remus has no defence for him. It's blue and looks ridiculous.
So, he shoots a spell that makes it change colour slowly from blue to pink to purple to red to orange so he looks like one of those expensive muggle Christmas trees that are constantly changing colours. He laughs and it feels like he can't remember what it's like to be sad.
The Gryffindor girls- the ones they like, anyway- come to visit. Marlene greets Mrs Potter like they're old friends. Remus supposes they are, with her parents being Mrs Potter's cousins or something. Mary stares in awe at the sloping lawns and large, red brick walls. It's the first time the eight of them have met up over the summer. It's weird. It feels natural, though.
They get absolutely smashed, lying on the Potter's front lawn by the pond. Dorcas and Mary sing loudly into empty bottles of wine, laughing and giggling more than they are singing. Sirius joins in and they have an impromptu karaoke, boys vs girls. Lily throws her bottle into the year and screams that this is going to be the best year yet, sixth year. Sirius laughs.
James is sat beside her, and she leans against him. Her hair spreads over his shoulder and she waves the bottle around, something chaotic against something so still. There's leaves in her hair and Remus sees James force himself not to pick them out. They hurt to watch, the sparkle in James' eyes and the expression on his face that screams that he loves her and the total oblivion on hers.
So Remus falls back, lets his head hit the ground and stares up at the sky. It's dark, filled with stars and he thinks it means that everything is going to be okay.
Mary is sweet where Remus is bitter. She has soft blonde hair and lips that look like a heart. Her laugh is bold, though, and she's so, so confident. She's cheeky but innocent and it's so complicated to be around her that Remus feels dizzy. She wears soft jumpers and jeans when they're not at school and pink lipstick and her blue eyes seem to be able to tell what he's thinking.
He kisses her and she kisses him and Remus learns that it's okay to let go, to live.
He's spent his whole goddamn life sticking to the rules and trying to prove that he deserves to be where he is, and the only one doubting himself was him. So he kisses Mary and she believes he deserves to be there because she kisses him back.
Sirius whoops and Peter let out a pained cry, and it's all going to be fine.
Sixth year starts and all he knows is stress. He's on patrol every Tuesday night with Lily, and she talks his ear off about different recipes and various ways for cheating at Poker that she's heard of and would Peter realise if she tried them on him?
They haven't been back for three weeks when she figures it out, his big secret. His reason why he understands why she doesn't fit, even though his blood is pure. Remus cries on Sirius' shoulder in their dorm, sobs wracking his body and he didn't know she meant this much to him. Didn't realise her opinion was one he valued so highly. Lily storms in and tells him to please stop being stupid, she's had it figured out since first year, and he's the best person she knows now would he please stop crying because they're late as it is for their meeting.
Remus blinks. She's had them all outsmarted at every move. For some reason, he isn't surprised.
James and Sirius enter some weird prank war that Remus refuses to get involved with, and James wins. He makes Sirius tell Myrtle that Peeves wants to go on a date with her but is too shy to ask, and Myrtle moans for weeks when she finds out he was lying.
Remus loses every game for a week to Sirius at exploding snap, and then to Peter at gobstones (though he lets him win the first game because Sirius had just beaten Peter, and Sirius is a sore winner). He plays quidditch against James and Sirius and Peter one evening, all against all, and James nearly falls of his broom he's laughing so hard.
He stays at school for Christmas, waves goodbye to James and Sirius at the platform. They board the train together, heads close and if he didn't know better he would say they were brothers. Sirius sends him a binder for Christmas, and when he opens it, its full of photographs of the four of them. It's sappy for Sirius, but he loves it.
Snape tells them in the first lesson back that Regulus has dropped out, and James stands up as fast as Lily grabs hold of Sirius. There's a low, muttered threat and Snape steps back, casting an ugly look at Lily that has the hairs on the back of Remus' neck standing up.
You shut up you worthless piece of shit.
And Lily doesn't make eye contact with Snape, but she also doesn't defend him. He leaves and she leans over to Sirius and whispers he knows how to be an arsehole.
Sirius nods, eyes closed and Remus doesn't know what to do other than to force him to work, to prove he's better. He pushes and pushes and Snape doesn't know how lucky he is that Remus is there to stop Sirius from forcing him down the tunnel behind the whomping willow. Sirius pretends he's fine, he winks at Lily, Marlene, Dorcas, Mary, but his smile drops the second the dormitory door closes, and he just collapses in on himself.
Remus spends a month watching every step around Sirius, concerned he's going to break. It takes him getting far too drunk after a quidditch match they lose for Sirius to start acting like Sirius again. He's not the same though, and Remus knows he's not the only one to notice (Sirius checks The Prophet every morning for a list of those caught, and those dead when he's never even opened it before), but they all pretend that he's fine because that's what Sirius needs.
James doesn't talk to Sirius after the incident. It's a month before Lily pulls them together and tells them to sort their shit out because there's bigger problems in the world and the thing Hogwarts needs right now is a little laughter, not more misery. Remus watches her go, hair bouncing from left to right, and his eyes flicker to James because has a wry smile on his face that screams that he will not let himself be beaten by Lily Evans.
Remus thinks that, eventually, James will let himself be beaten by Lily Evans, and that he will be rather happy about it.
Sixth year slowly ends, the days dragging on as the nights get shorter and the days get longer. Sirius claps him on the back as they watch James try and throw Lily in the lake, and she laughs instead of cursing him. They're sat on the banks, Peter picking grass and lazily flicking it into the wind.
Mary slides her hand onto his, a soft smile on her lips as she, too, watches Lily and James flirt with an impossible outcome that everyone seems to be fully aware of but them. Marlene complains behind them that the year is ending too quickly, and even though its been a long one, Remus doesn't want it to end.
He watches Hogwarts fade in the distance, as the carriage that once held four now holds eight, and they're all packed in far too tightly, but he wouldn't have it any other way. James buys everyone a chocolate frog from the trolley, and Sirius laughs too loudly as Dorcas' escapes and jumps out the window.
The return to seventh year is a sombre one. The war everyone knew was coming has started, and Remus doesn't know how to cope with watching the list of names grow longer every day. James is Head Boy, and Lily is Head Girl, and Remus is happy for them, but he thinks that maybe the school needs James to prank people so that they remember how to laugh again.
You would think, Remus muses one December afternoon, watching the fire dance in the Gryffindor common room, that the war would tear people apart.
It hasn't. He knows this because the map is open on the floor, and the only two people that aren't with them, are represented by two, entwined banners somewhere by the Quidditch pitch. He doesn't think he's seen Sirius smile that widely since Snape fell off of his broom in the second week with no magical intervention. Peter scrambles over to the map and his eyes soften, and Remus feels, for once, at peace.
He learns later, when Lily and James return, hands as entwined as their banners had been on the map, that James had finally, finally asked her again. Sirius holds his hand out, and James reluctantly hands over some money. I knew you'd give in by the time he got to a thousand, Sirius says smirking, and Remus thinks Lily might want to hit him, but she pulls him in for a hug instead.
It's a funny thing, being this happy when the world is burning around you. He wraps an arm round Mary, kisses her forehead and watches Sirius try to do a cartwheel under Peter's instruction by the fire. Laughing, he has to get up to stop them before someone falls into the fire.
When you feel like this, he thinks, its impossible to return to sadness.
(its only a month later, and he understands how very, very wrong he was. Lily comes back to school with a dead father, and a sister who hates her. James comes back with two dead parents and they hold each other tighter than they ever have before, a shared pain bringing them closer than they should be after only a month of relationship. Remus thinks, wistfully, they should be learning about each other through karaoke and long walks, not through funerals and meetings about what they're going to do after Hogwarts)
Sirius winks more, and Lily looks more crestfallen every time he does. They don't sneak to the Kitchens anymore; they don't have time. They study for exams that are never going to matter because the likelihood is they're going to be dead within five years of leaving school judging by how long the list of the dead is each week.
Remus watches a couple blossom. He lives for the quiet Thursday evenings, when they all congregate by the fire in the common room, playing game after game of Chess or Poker or whatever other stupid game Marlene invents that week. Lily sits by James, as he wraps strands of her hair around his finger and Sirius watches them like they're the only light he knows, and Remus knows how he feels.
We're seventeen, he whispers, one Saturday night. They're on top of the Astronomy tower, and they've had a little bit too much gin, and Abba is playing quietly in the background. James blinks at him, his arm slung round Lily, and they're both wearing matching, soft, smiles that suggest that there's a secret that only the two of them know.
We're seventeen, he repeats, we should be doing this every night, not planning a fucking revolution.
Sirius looks up, startled at the violence in Remus' voice, but he can't bring himself to stop nor care. He rants for an hour that night, voice tired and loud and so, so drained of all the bullshit that's happening.
(They were seventeen, he'll think again, many, many years later. He'll be standing outside a doorway he won't have been through since Sirius died, and it'll be raining but the kids the other side of the door are seventeen and maybe they need the same guidance that he did when he was there age)
But, somehow, despite all the shitty people in it, the world keeps spinning and the seconds keep ticking. Remus gets bored, now, in lessons. He never used to. He watches the world outside and yearns to join it, but also wants nothing more – when he looks at how young they are, how naïve and innocent – to be back in first year, staring up at the ceiling that mimics the sky outside with wide-eyed amazement.
They go to a wedding, randomly. Remus guesses the muggle world doesn't have to stop, doesn't have to put a hold on their dreams and plans and life experiences because of a war that doesn't involve them, like he has to. Lily invites them, and James holds her hand as they watch her sister get married.
When I get married, James tells you later (he's drunk), it's going to be better than this.
You believe him.
Sirius drinks a bottle of champagne to himself, and Lily's brother-in-law asks him if he knows how much that cost, outraged and disgusted that someone can have such appalling manners. Sirius is able to tell him exactly how much money its worth, because his cousins are from the Champagne region in France and he used to summer there when he was younger. Remus has never heard Sirius say he summered anywhere, but he laughs anyway.
They end up outside, the loud music and the happy, dancing people too much when they're this depressed about a war that might not ever end. There's some conversations that you remember forever. And even though he's consumed over a bottle and a half of champagne (amongst other things), and he's so tired, and the odds are really rather stacked against him remembering this one, he does.
What's it feel like? Sirius asks, smoke billowing out of his mouth. He rocks back and forth on his feet, eyes not moving from the sky and the thousands of stars that reside there. Remus doesn't have to ask what he means, none of them do. They just know.
James swallows, and for some reason this conversation is oh, oh so important. Remus sees something like realisation dawn on James, as he replies, voice soft, like coming home.
You can't make homes out of human beings, Remus says then, voice low. He remembers being told it when he was younger, remembers repeating it to himself again and again as he slowly found himself thinking of home as people rather than buildings, its too much pressure.
He leans forward, resting his forearms on the white railings like they're the only thing holding him up. He, too, is staring at the sky. Peter stumbles out then, and a burst of noise follows him. James turns his head, looking behind Peter to the other side of the glass panes. Peter is laughing, somehow balancing four drinks in his hands, spilling them every couple of steps. Sirius turns to greet him (and to get a drink), and Remus watches his friends.
He watches James watch Lily dance inside, arms above her head and her hair floating behind her like a memory of where she's just been. James' eyes look calmer than he's ever seen them, soft and warm and happy and safe.
Coming home. James whispers again, and Remus wonders if he feels the same when he looks at the three of them standing beside him.
(he does)
They stay like that for a while before Sirius, inevitably, gets bored and pulls them back inside. They allow him to, and James immediately locates Lily on the dance floor, pulling a reluctant Peter behind him.
Remus remembers this conversation to:
We'll make it out, Moony.
One of us has too. Remus agrees: it's only logical. There's eight of them.
I don't know if I'd want to if it was just me. Sirius replies, eyes haggard and a lot older than seventeen. Remus doesn't reply.
There's just some things that it is impossible to find the response for.
The rest of the year passes quickly. Remus spends lessons staring off into space, beside him, Sirius tries to find the perfect way of folding a paper aeroplane, and Peter absently flicks Sirius' scraps around the edges of the table. James scrawls notes, chucks them down at whoever will pick them up and read them, and Remus, every now and again, will indulge him.
It's so, so easy, and they all know that the sympathetic glances they get sometimes, and the lack of punishments are because everyone's being punished enough outside of the protection Hogwarts offers.
The world ends on the 15th of July. Or rather, the little world they've built themselves amongst the talking portraits and moving staircases and the magical ceilings – that world ends. And as one door closes, another door opens, and eight young soldiers emerge.