Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Character suffering from Anxiety and Depression, minor suicidal thoughts, minor and mostly accidental self-harm. If you're easily triggered I would recommend going back now.

Also, to my sister, Bunny: Do not read this. It will trigger you. Just don't do it.

Remus lays on his bed, staring out into space. He gets like this sometimes, for no apparent reason. Like the entire world is so…big. Everything is so much effort and Remus has no motivation to do it. He woke up some time ago, he's not sure how much, and knew immediately that it would be that sort of day. There would be no school, no food, and quite probably no sleep. He will lay here in his bed and stare at nothing.

Sirius pokes his head in at some point, telling Remus that he needs to get up. Remus doesn't respond. Sirius continues to try to get his attention, and Remus tries, he tries to respond. After almost two full minutes he finally manages to look Sirius in the eyes. All that time and all he succeeds in doing is moving his eyes.

He feels a tear fall down his cheek, he ignores it. What does it matter, after all? Everyone knows how pathetic he is.

"Remus, really, are you okay?" Sirius asks, Remus thinks it's a bloody stupid question and feels angry because how can no one understand that he's not okay, that nothing is okay, that it never will be again. Another tear falls, and the anger goes with it, leaving behind the numbness he'd awoken with.

"I'm fine Padfoot," Remus mumbles to Sirius. It's not what he'd meant to say. He was trying to tell Sirius that he's not, he's scared and he's alone and what if it doesn't go away this time, what if he stays like this forever, trapped in his own mind and unable to break free. But it's not what comes out, it never does, no matter how much he tries. The tears have stopped falling now. The fear, the anger, the sadness, it's swirling and overwhelming until he can't feel it at all. He supposes it's not really numbness he feels after all, he's just feeling everything at once and can't process it, can't react to it and that's why he's here, stuck, trapped. Like his brain is so confused it doesn't know what to do and he can't control it anymore. Not his thoughts not his body, nothing.

Sirius sees through him, realises it is happening again and sits down beside him. He starts talking about random things, things that don't require Remus' participation, but gives him something to focus on, something from outside his own mind. A tether he can use to pull himself out.

Suddenly all Remus feels is fear, what if he pulls himself out and things are worse out there? It may be hell in here but at least the only thing that can hurt him is himself. What if he leaves the prison of his own mind and finds that freedom was the real evil all along? Remus feels like he's mentally hyperventilating, screwing his eyes shut and shaking his head rapidly as he digs himself further into his mind. But on the outside, nothing changes. He hates it, if Sirius knew, if he could see, he'd drag Remus out of here, the thing Remus fails to do himself.

What is he meant to do? He wonders once he has mentally calmed. His thoughts are clear, and he feels no more of the fear and sadness, yet still he cannot move his body, cannot speak, cannot do anything but listen as Sirius talks and relax inside his mind. He knows if he starts trying to break through again it will all restart, so he doesn't. He just wants a break from all the pain.

Remus has no idea how long it has been, but James and Peter have just returned, and Sirius tells them Remus hasn't spoken a word in hours and he doesn't know what to do anymore.

James takes over, relieving Sirius to go to their next lesson, all of them knowing better than to leave Remus alone or in silence. He's so grateful for that. None of them can truly understand what it's like. To be trapped in your own mind, nothing going on around you to distract you. Alone, silent, and there's just nothing but unending numbness and yet overwhelming fear that things will always be this way. A wish that you could end it yet unable to muster the required motivation, nor break through the numbness keeping you trapped within your mind. They don't know what it's like to hate so much that you may just owe that numbness your life. But they do know that it is the single worst experience of Remus' life, and so James begins to talk just as Sirius had. He tells them about Transfiguration that morning and about his latest ploy to win over Evans. That earns a slight quirk of Remus' lips. Remus is so relieved because that was a movement, he moved, he really did. That means he's coming out of it, it will all be over soon. He just wants it to be over.

"What do you think?" James asks after a while of talking about the latest prank idea he and Sirius have come up with.

"Evans'll be impressed with the spell work," Remus replies. It's not quite what he wanted, there was a lot more to that thought that was supposed to come out, but those words were so hard to form, so hard to find, and when they eventually slipped out on their own, he no longer cared to control them or alter them. He'd spoken, he'd done it, he could rest now. Remus floats back off in his mind for a while.

A tear slips down his face as he realises his friends have wasted a day speaking to him and all he's done is internally whine. He hates that he's like this, hates that he can't be better, yet something shouts at him in his mind that he doesn't care and the numbness returns. Something of it must have shown on his face because when Remus' eyes, quite easily, move to look at James, he seems hopeful. Remus is fighting.

Remus can't really move his body yet, but he's managed words a few times now and his eyes move of his accord. Remus curls a finger slightly and feels more tears fall down his face because it hurts, feeling hurts and he doesn't want this but the numb, the trapped, the lack of control, it's worse, it's horrible, it's worse but now things won't shut up, they won't stop hurting and he doesn't know what to do, he can't go back he can't move forward, he can't escape. He's beyond the numbness that had encircled his brain but is trapped on the very edge of his mind, unable to fall back into the rest of his body.

He wants out, he wants freedom, but he can't move past the depression that sets into his very bones. Bones he can't even move.

The tears fall faster now and he thinks his face has screwed up in torment, his breathing is irregular, but he cannot make it stop.

Suddenly he curls himself into the foetal position and he has his body back, but he's not sure he is better off. He is sad and despite his friend being right here with him, he feels alone. An unending loneliness he cannot ignore.

James grabs his hand, halting the scratching he hadn't realised was beginning to make his arm bleed. James lays behind him, wrapping an arm around him and holding him close.

He doesn't speak, knows now is not the time for talk, now is the time for emotional comfort, for the physical reassurance that he is there of his body solidly against Remus'.

The tears stop eventually and Remus can't stand to continue laying there because what if he gets trapped again. Remus quickly sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. James sits up too, watching him carefully, trying to work out which stage of things he's in. Remus feels dizzy and nauseous from the little movement. When James wraps his arms around Remus again, Remus collapses against him. He doesn't cry, it's not about that, it's exhaustion and Remus uses this moment to catch his breath.

James helps him get dressed. He sets out his clothes, stays with him but looking away as Remus slowly manages to undo the buttons of his pyjamas, fingers clumsy and struggling to deal with the intricacies of button manipulation.

James helps him puts his clothes on, he does up one shoe, patiently waiting as Remus does the other, beginning to cry again half way through because it's so much, it's so hard and he doesn't want to do this he doesn't like it he wants to go back to bed and cry and hide and never have to leave he doesn't want to leave.

A hand is placed on his shoulder, Remus looks up. He finds Sirius looking down at him, James reassuringly placing a hand on his thigh as Peter stands nearby, smiling encouragingly.

"You aren't alone, Remus," Sirius tells him, Remus nods at him.

He stands up.

Remus goes to his final lesson, spacing out so frequently that, educationally speaking, there was little point in his attending. But, mentally and emotionally speaking, the fact that he made it meant everything. He'd done it, he'd broken free.

Remus struggles to keep calm as he remembers that at some point, sooner rather than later, he'll be trapped in his mind again.

Remus is afraid.

NOTE:

I'm sorry so many of my stories have been depressing lately. I'm not having a great amount of luck in life at the moment and I'm using my writing to process it all in an attempt to not fall into the hellish pit you've just read about here.