Author's Note: For the If You Dare Challenge, prompt "Glass Cage". Experimented with the format a bit….
Glass Cage
(Remus is alone in a cage of one-way glass.)
And the window you look out
Is just a glass cage
Don't know what the trap's about
They didn't give you the new page
. . .
Remus stares out of the train's window, watches the bleary gray landscape pass beyond the raindrops on the glass. He wishes there would be more clear color, on a sunny day. But there's nothing he can do about it. Amidst the chaos of the Hogwarts Express, he doesn't say a word.
He never does.
They chug slowly through the fog, towards the castle he almost calls home.
. . .
And you don't know what's wrong
But you watch the fading light
The day is too long
It all feels like a fight
. . .
When he thinks they've been on the train forever, James and Sirius start questioning him about "what's gotten into" him. He says he's tired—and he has tried to sleep, but he watches the moon rise outside, too.
Maybe he doesn't know who he is. Not really. Not all the time.
No one else does, either—not behind the book.
. . .
And the last time you were known
That's so far away
Now you're all alone
Try though you may
. . .
He watches and notices and observes and analyzes and thinks, but it's like a one-way window. James and Sirius stop pressing him about it. So he pulls further away.
He alone looks through the glass.
And further still.
. . .
And with all you know
It's still hard
You feel so low
And it's a bad card
. . .
Sometimes he wishes he wasn't cursed with his knowledge; let all his curses go to someone deserving instead. He thinks that ignorance is bliss, but someone has to know all these things—the little dark truths and secrets that everyone else denies.
It does feel like everyone, doesn't it?
The difference never goes away.
. . .
And the glass is also a wall
It can block the new day
So you can't hear the sun's call
The moon is your way
. . .
He wishes he wasn't different, wasn't feared, but he is. He'll always have to live with that. But he doesn't want to.
No one would.
He's trapped and isolated, but he can still see out.
END