I'm tired of projecting an image that I'm not, I'm tired of hiding behind my masks, I'm tired of dying inside every time I laugh…
And, so I present this fic to you, told by an angsty Hogwarts Remus around sixth or seventh year, and if it ties into Ambiguity, so be it.
I own nothing.
Uozumi
The Real Me
I'm tired of projecting an image that I'm not, I'm tired of hiding behind my masks, I'm tired of dying inside every time I laugh. You all see me for what I say, for what I do, but are you really seeing me? Am I really what you think I am?
No, not at all.
I'm Remus J. Lupin, I'm the one who everyone thinks is perfect, who everyone thinks is the teacher's pet, who everyone was shocked in fifth-year to know that I wasn't prefect.
Who wants to be prefect?
I do. I desperately do. I want to be able to have people look to me and congratulate me and to pay attention to me and solely me. I'm tired of paying attention to everyone else; I'm tired of being the levelheaded one, the one who's strong, the one who's keeping James and the others in line. How am I supposed to keep a prefect in line? Why wasn't I picked? Why is it that James and Sirius are constantly under fire? I don't want a detention, but can't someone yell at me? Do I have to purposefully screw up to gain attention? Could I purposefully screw up for it?
Sirius just ran into the commons, telling us all about his prank. I wish he could have asked me to come along, but we both know I would have said, "No, I have homework, I'm catching up from being gone at 'grandmother's'," which is also known as the Shrieking Shack.
I wish I wasn't a werewolf, although I pretend that I've accepted it for their sakes. James, Peter, and Sirius all became animagi for my sake, and I'd like to thank them, but there's still this emptiness deep inside of me, and it's killing me slowly with each passing moment. Then, when they see that it is, when they look into my gray eyes and see empty voids, they ask what's wrong.
"Are you feeling okay?"
"Do you want something?"
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Can I do anything?"
"Are you all right?"
"You aren't getting sick, right?"
"No, no," I reply, holding up my hands, palms facing them always, "I'm just fine, just fine, please don't worry about me."
Then they drop it.
Part of me wishes they didn't think I was sincere, part of me wishes that they would drop off the face of the earth, and another part just wants them to pester me more about to, let me express what I'm really feeling inside, what I have all bottled up, waiting to be released, what I hide…
I want to look one of them in the eyes and say, "Yes, you're right, I'm not okay, I don't feel good anymore, but I'm not sick, I'm just tired."
I am.
I'm tired of all this lying, all these masks. I'm tired of the numbing, aching emptiness inside that only seems to worsen when someone looks at me, someone asks me, someone pities me.
If I cried and someone came up and put their arms around me, I'd just spiral farther downward. At the thought of pity, I cringe. I want to scream at them, I want to throw thing, I want to rant and rave and scream and cry and just let it all out, but I can't. All I can do is paste that damn smile on my face, and say, "Why, nothing's the matter."
"You're imagining things."
"What makes you say that?"
"Whatever do you mean?"
I wish I could just say, "Yes, you're right. I think that I'm the lowest of the low and when you ask me, I just feel even lower."
I want to scream and tell them to shove off, to stop talking to me. I want to act like I'm little and just throw a fit and then sulk. I can't. I'm seventeen, not four. I want to say that if they asked me a question that ended with die or live, I'd choose die. I know it's a morbid thought, but I want to die, I want to leave this earth, to leave the pain, to leave the pity…
I want to just shut it all away. I don't want to face them anymore, I don't want to leave them all when seventh-year ends, but I don't want to stay, I don't want to show them that I've died inside, and that I'm will to die on the outside as well. That might be a long and taxing process to strip down the massive walls I've barricaded the real Remus J. Lupin inside of, but I want to and need to do that. I need to take the wall down and look out at them, show them the true soulless voids my eyes can be, open my arms, and say, "Hello, I'm Remus J. Lupin, I just don't care anymore. If you're looking for your friend, he's right here, you've just never been able to see him before, to really see him, to see what kind of anguish runs through his mind, through his body. Oh, you might think I'm not Remus J. Lupin, but trust me, I am, I am more than what you think he really is."
I wonder what they would do if I said it.
I already know what they would do if I died. They'd all cry and ask themselves what they could have done for me, say what a wonderful person I am…
I don't care. I'm not as trite as the other teenage suicidal people out there, I am not a statistic, I am different.
I'm not doing this for attention, I'm doing this to escape.
If I truly wanted attention, I would act out in class, just stop doing homework, stop doing what I don't want to do. If I wanted attention, I would barricade myself in the dorm and let no one in no matter how hard they tried to get inside to talk to me. What would be the point, if you're seeking attention, to kill yourself to get it? There's some perverse reasoning. You can't experience the attention if you kill yourself, so the statistics are wrong, everyone's cracked, and I'm just sitting here, my nose in the book so I can keep telling everyone that I'm fine, and that I'm normal, and that I love them, and that I don't mind being a werewolf anymore, and I love how James is prefect…
No.
I can't do this anymore, I need to just stop being this falsity. I need to show them the true me, I need to say, "Damn the homework, I'm tired, I stayed up as Moony all night long, and I don't want to do the homework at all! I hope you all just leave me alone, because I'm about to go stackers when you look at me like that and –"
"Remus?" James blinks from the seat across from me where he, Sirius, and I are studying in the library.
I guess when I slammed my book shut, I overdid it.
"What?"
"Is everything okay?"
He and Sirius watch me, I hesitate, then smile, "Of course, it was merely a fly," then I open my book and resume taking notes, damning myself to hell.
THE END