Remus huddled in on himself as he stared out the window. The skies had opened to allow buckets of rain to fall with little care. The weather seemed to reflect his mood perfectly.
It was warm inside. The warmth of the fire in the corner of the room still reached him despite the fact that he wanted to be as far away from those comforts as possible.
He was a monster. An animal. That was all he would ever be seen as.
He may only turn into a monster once a month, but that was still enough for him to be able to harm someone if he wasn't careful. He could give someone else his curse by mistake. There was no antidote for something like this. There was no way to undo it.
Remus Lupin, the son of the infamous werewolf hater, was a werewolf.
It was, perhaps, one of the biggest ironies Remus knew. His father couldn't even look him in the eye anymore, and his mother, Merlin, his mother, tried. Remus knew she tried her best, but she couldn't stop the tears and revulsion that filled her eyes every single time he was in the same room as her.
He wished he could just leave. He didn't want to make his parents suffer because he wasn't able to simply die after being bitten. It wasn't just Remus that was suffering but his family too.
There was just no way to make the situation right. No way to fix this but death, and his mother had ensured that everything that he could possibly use to harm himself was nowhere in sight.
Remus glanced at the half-finished book that lay next to him. That was the only thing that would stay with him without judging him. The books that his mother had left him were the only things he could rely on.
They would be there for as long as he took care of them, and Remus intended to take care of them for as long as he possibly could.
….oOo…
Hermione allowed a lone tear to slide down her face, before quickly wiping it off. No one needed to see her tears. She didn't want to worry her parents any more than they already were at her lack of friends. They didn't need to know anything more than that.
She had tried so very, very hard to fit in with everyone else.
Nothing Hermione had ever done worked. She had tried, at first, to figure out whatever interested the other children her age and slowly develop an interest in that. Her mother had suggested it, and helped by buying Hermione several things that had been extremely popular, but Hermione couldn't understand what was so interesting about dolls and toys. It had only taken a few hours for Hermione to return to her books after receiving the books.
So she had tried another way, one that came more naturally: being smart. Hermione didn't know when it had begun, but she could barely remember a time when her reliable companion had not been at her side.
That had only made everything worse though. Being ignored by everyone had turned into being mocked and teased by everyone after any teacher praised her for doing well.
Hermione hated it, but she knew that she would never be able to give up reading if she tried, especially not when that had been the only thing she had ever been able to rely on.
Her heavy bag lay in an unordered mess off to her side with books spilling out like a hidden stash of candy, which was exactly what those books were to her. They were her relief from the world beyond them, the world that Hermione was constantly forced to interact with.
It didn't matter. None of it did.
Strange things would always happen but Hermione had her books, and that was all she needed.
…oOo….
Remus could barely believe his eyes.
He had a Hogwarts letter. His hope of ever attending Hogwarts had died when he had contacted lycanthropy. Remus had never heard of a werewolf being allowed to attend Hogwarts, but he was a danger to everyone who went there.
There had been an extra letter explaining that something would be done to assist him on full moons. Remus assumed that this would be some place nowhere near the other people.
He couldn't allow himself to get close to anyone, he knew that much without being told. Despite Remus wanting company, he couldn't afford to make friends only for them to become curious about him. That would only get them hurt, and he couldn't allow that.
Remus was going to Hogwarts to learn magic, not to make friends.
It had been like a dam had been broken within his parents. Every single story that they would remember was retold with as much vigour as he had ever seen in them. It had been truly fascinating watching them behave as if they were completely different people.
He was excited about Hogwarts.
…oOo…
She was a witch! A witch!
Hermione could hardly believe it. She was an actual witch.
Of course, that would explain all the strange things that happened around her. It had been fairly suspicious at first, after all, how did no one know of the existence of magic if it had always been there?
Hermione had been squirming in her seat as she attempted to hold back the questions that had been piling up in her head as Professor McGonagall explained everything logically.
Her parents had only smiled fondly as she bombarded the professor with any question that popped into her mind. There were several questions that the professor did not answer, but she had promised to take Hermione to some place called 'Diagon Alley' to get books.
Books.
The wizarding world would be full of knowledge that she had never even dreamt of before. It was all just waiting for her to find it, read it.
There was also the small, niggling hope at the back of her mind that Hogwarts would be different
…oOo…
Hogwarts was everything Hermione's past schools were. She was ostracised for her knowledge, when she had only learnt that much in an effort to fit in. She was shunned by a quarter of the school for who her parents were, and she didn't even fit into the part of the school she was supposed to fit into.
It was terrible. Even her own house mates made snide comments every time she passed.
Hermione restricted herself to the library, filled with the only companions that she had ever known. Although, now they were multiplied by the number of books that were able to be stored within the enchanted library, ensuring Hermione that she would never need to go without one again.
It had only taken her a week to notice the amber-eyed boy who was also constantly in the library. Hermione vaguely remembered him in the Sorting. She waited another week to approach him, just in case there was someone who joined him.
There wasn't.
So Hermione decided to take the seat across from him, gathering all of her supposed Gryffindor courage in doing so. The boy looked startled.
"I'm Hermione Granger, and you are?"
…oOo…
The slight scrape of the chair alerted him to company, but he didn't react. There were often people who took the chair from his table to some other table where their friends were.
"I'm Hermione Granger, and you are?"
Remus nearly flinched at the realisation that he was being spoken to. Only the professors spoke to him. No one in Gryffindor bothered speaking to the quiet boy.
Remus didn't know whether the change was welcome or not, but he knew not to get attached to the girl who was trying to talk to him. Perhaps she would leave him alone soon. Everyone got bored with him eventually.
"R-remus Lupin."
"You're a Gryffindor, aren't you? I mean-"
Remus stopped paying attention to the girl's speech. Her voice made her sound like she had rehearsed it several times already, even though Remus knew that wasn't possible.
Soon, it had become a routine for the two of them to meet at the library. Hermione continued to attempt to drag Remus into conversation, and Remus found that he didn't mind her chatter too much if he didn't pay too much attention to it. He did occasionally contribute though, but not often.
It had become familiar and expected for Remus, so much so that he had begun to almost look forward to their meetings. It became his little sanctuary from the outside world, where the Dark Lord was stirring a war to take over the wizarding world.
It was refreshing to have someone who didn't look at him with revulsion in their eyes. Of course, Hermione didn't know of Remus' condition, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Until suddenly, Hermione just stopped joining him.
…oOo…
Hermione knew Remus wasn't interested in conversation, and was only occasionally talking to her out of kindness.
She didn't want to be a nuisance to Remus, who had been kind enough to speak to her instead of ignoring her as the Ravenclaws often did.
Hermione wasn't going to bother Remus any more than she already had.
…oOo…
Remus had finally had enough. He had seen Hermione wandering from class to class, alone as she had always been. Ignoring the warning at the back of his mind, he walked up to Hermione.
"Hermione?"
"Remus?"
"What happened?"
"What do you mean?" Hermione looked slightly confused.
"You don't join me in the library anymore. The library is too quite without your chatter. I've missed you. Please come back."
Written for Quidditch League: Wigtown Wanderers Captain [Hermione/Remus]
Written for Game of Life Challenge: squirming, antidote, candy
Written for CoMC Assignment 6: Write about someone trying to befriend another who's hard to reach, either with status (i.e. pureblood and muggleborn) or that person is closed off.