Still Here.

Disclaimer: Not mine. But Lupin's underwear is.


I stare at your crooked profile and I reach out hesitantly and close my hand over yours.

Do you remember when were kids?

James hated the fact you were friends with Lily.

Sirius made your nose bleed for five hours.

Peter never did much.

And you found me.

Do you remember when we were kids?

Maybe you'd rather forget.

It was a beautiful day. Your limp hair glistened in the sunlight, pink tinges stained your face and your muddy hands flailed in the air when James took what was left of your dignity and hung you up in your birthday suit.

You were so angry at Sirius. You were so embarrassed that you rushed off to the bathroom and tried to re-size your nose back to normal. You were so furious that your anger somehow caused your whole nose to explode off your face.

Peter was always in the background, praising James and Sirius like the good cheerleader he was and followed them tirelessly around like a dog on a leash. And he laughed at you, just like everyone else. He laughed and laughed till he cried.

And I nearly killed you.

Do you remember when we were kids?

I know I haven't. I can't.

Right after James' cruel demonstration, right after you called her a mudblood, she'd stopped talking to you. And James continued to make your life even worse.

Sirius was quite proud of himself and the whole school knew about it in less than an hour. You spent three nights in the hospital wing in scars where shards of glass grazed your pale skin. No else bothered to visit you.

Peter was thrown in to do their dirty work for them as usual. It was his fault you had to a buy a new cauldron.

But I didn't mean to. You were whiter than a corpse, good as dead, as you lay confined on the bed beside mine. Your porcelain hands were cold, your slender fingers were like fragile webs that I was afraid if I held them for much longer, it would break.

And to think that was just the beginning of your downhill.

I stare at your crooked profile. Your crooked nose. The crooked line of your lips. The crooked contours running down your gaunt face of purple shades and rivers of blue veins. Emotionless. A finely carved sculpture of white marble.

Showing no sign of weakness, of a broken man that needs fixing from a perpetual war that has ceased into a smudge of bruises and permanent scars.

"You're a free man."

You glance sideways, without really looking at me. Your lips slightly part and your black eyes seem troubled, like you're trying to fight the urge to say something or to stay quiet.

In the end you grant me just a fraction of a nod and look away.

But our hands haven't moved.


Looking for Lupin's underwear? I'm wearing it. Sorry.