CHASER 3: Write about a light character committing the sin of WRATH or a dark character demonstrating the virtue of FORGIVENESS. Optional Prompts:
1. (object) swear jar
2. (word) favour
3. (word) curfew
Thanks to my betas Queen Bookworm the First and Ari 347!
Remus Lupin is not one to get angry. It is a well known fact and an important one because being friends with the three greatest trouble makers in the school has its annoyances. Countless annoyances.
When Sirius Black floods the entire Gryffindor common room, Remus Lupin does not shout like Caleb Lodden, who screams over his ruined essay, blonde curls flying everywhere as his face grows redder and redder and holds up the sodden papers which droop miserably as the ink drips steadily off them.
Remus Lupin rolls his eyes at Sirius Black who is perched on a large hedgehog-shaped floaty, "You should apologize to Caleb." His tone is emotionless but there is a hint of a smile on his lips belayed by the irritation in his eyes.
Sirius swirls his fingers lazily in the warm water which is darkening slowly as ink swirls into it. "I don't have to."
"No," Remus agrees. "You don't."
There is a pause as Remus tries to gather up his sodden belongings and Sirius watches the charcoal tinted water drops slide to the very tip of his index finger and slip silently back into the flood.
"It is exams week, you know. Everyone already has more work them they can handle, and you probably destroyed half the work the teachers have assigned." Remus's tone is carefully casual.
"Lighten up, Moony. Who cares? It's not like school work has any point." Sirius is pretending not to care, but Remus isn't sure if Sirius knows he's pretending.
That is not the point, Remus thinks, but he doesn't say anything because it is not at all worth starting a fight over.
That night Remus stays up all night in the library rewriting two essays that have been reduced to illegible clumps of parchment.
"Remus, where were you last night?" James' voice is almost whiny.
"Redoing two of my essays." Amazingly, Remus says this without any hint of irritation.
Sirius does not apologize, but further down the table, right by the blueberry muffins, Dorcas Meadows stares in amazement and whispers to Emmeline Vance, "I can't believe Remus isn't mad. I would be furious."
"You know," Emmaline replies, spooning porridge into her bowl, "Remus never seems to get mad. It's awfully curious."
When Peter Pettigrew lands Remus in detention, Remus doesn't swear at Pettigrew or curse at the prefect that caught them like James and Sirius, who have a Quidditch match the next day and know more swear words than Professor Slughorn knows potions.
Remus simply points to the newly instated swear jar and nods at the Hufflepuff prefect patrolling.
By the time James and Sirius have stopped arguing with the prefect—"It's one minute over curfew, you power-hungry bowtruckle" "Come on, do a friend a favour, you slimy badger"—who unsurprisingly remains firm if not a little shaken, Remus is already halfway down the chilly corridors that lead to the far-too-familiar desks of the detention room.
When Peter and James angrily fill the Hufflepuff's slick leather boots with whomping willow sap, and Sirius jinxes a violently woolly sweater of the Hufflepuff's, Remus shrugs indifferently and starts on his Arithmancy charts.
"How come you're not angry at that stupid prefect? We all know she was trying to get us in trouble. On purpose! Show some backbone, Moony!" James wipes the sap off his hands and smears it unconsciously on the dark blue threads of Remus's only coat.
Remus shrugs again, but the truth is that he just doesn't think it's worth it.
When James Potter steals Remus's entire stash of chocolate to give to Lily Evans, Remus Lupin doesn't stomp his foot and demand it back, like Prudence Kormen, who tosses back her sleek black cornrows and shakes her empty bag of lollipops like a rag doll.
Remus eats sugar quills instead—although, he doesn't much care for the taste, and they don't at all ease the ache in his chest when he thinks of the next full moon like chocolate does.
He smiles at the expressions of Lily Evans and keeps his mouth firmly shut even when James never apologizes for the fact that the chocolates (unsurprisingly) are reduced to an inedible mess.
James is painfully oblivious and wildly defensive, and Remus can never find it in him to fight back because he knows that one day, James will look back and regret it all.
Lily gives him chocolate frogs two weeks later—Remus isn't quite sure if it's because she knows or simply out of kindness—but he takes it out of her pale palm and smiles conspiratorially as they munch chocolate behind the dusty golden wood of the library shelves.
"You know," she remarks, "it is odd how you never yell at anyone."
"Most people don't realize the full extent of what they've done. Besides, yelling starts arguments, and arguments are . . . unpleasant and usually pointless."
He feels like the part about yelling was a bit insensitive because Lily always seems to be yelling at some troublemaker of another. But Lily just stares at him with a certain kind of wonder reflected in her ivy green eyes until Remus shifts uncomfortably and she abruptly turns back to the crisp, yellowing parchment she was scribbling on.
By the time fifth year rolls around, Remus has found that there is only one thing in the world that he cannot control his anger around. Unsurprisingly, it has to do with the fact that he is a werewolf.
For as long as he can remember, Remus has wished to be normal, just another face in the crowd. His hair is a mousy brown, his face entirely unremarkable, and his height completely average. He is quiet, although not unusually so, and he is neither a genius or an idiot. If life were fair, Remus thinks ruefully, nobody would ever have anything about him to gossip on.
Life isn't at all fair though which is something Remus thinks he knows better than any other student at Hogwarts—for all his perceptiveness, Remus forgets the orphan in Ravenclaw, Hilda Notley, and the boy who got so ill he went blind and had to leave Hogwarts. No one is perfect though.
The students whisper secretively behind crisply starched blouses and trade stories like Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. "That Remus Lupin. He never looks well, you know. And I heard that he has to go home almost every month because he gets so sick!"
Remus feels the rage begin to boil up in his chest like a Grindylow, struggling and kicking to be freed. Who do they think they are to talk about him like that? Do they realize how hard it is to be him? The anger clouds his normally exceptional skills on empathy, and Remus walks away with his eyes narrowed and his mouth pressed in an ugly line.
When Sirius first finds out Remus is werewolf, he deals with it in the only way he knows how—with humour. The only problem with this, however, is that Sirius cracks jokes for the crowds. He wants the whole world to know how funny he is, and Remus wants the fact that he's a werewolf to be buried deep in the rotting boards of the Shrieking Shack and never spoken of again.
"Hey, hey, Remus, is it your time of the month?" Sirius grins as he says this, leaning against the rough bark of a tall beech tree, but Remus does not grin. He can feel the Grindylow clawing in his chest, and he glowers faintly at Sirius.
"Please quiet down," he whispers.
Sirius laughs at him. "Oh, I got another one! What is Remus's least favorite plant?" The sun shines brightly off the sharp cheekbones of Sirius's face. Remus breathes in the sunny smell of the lake and tries to soothe the Grindylow in his chest.
"Wolfsbane!" Sirius shouts this with an air of exuberance that makes Remus cringe and pray the other students haven't heard Sirius. The worst part is, it's entirely true. He cannot tell why Sirius would think it was funny.
Remus feels like he's about to explode so, he bites his lip, and holds his tongue, and walks over the freshly cut grass and back toward the castle determinedly ignoring Sirius's calls.
The first time James calls Remus 'Moony' Remus feels the Grindylow reemerge, and he grips his spoon so tightly his fingers turn an ugly whitish shade that reminds him of sour milk.
"Would you just SHUT UP JAMES!" he yells. But James, who somehow still has not yet realized just how very rarely Remus shows anger, simply puts grabs a plate stacked high with almond croissants and carelessly ignores Remus.
The day passes in a haze of furious glares from Remus and a continued air of nonchalance from James as the nickname is flung into the air time and time again.
It is not until they are smuggled into the cozy warmth of their dorm that Remus finally snaps.
"You're going to burn a hole in that curtain if you keep glaring at it." James is cross legged on the messy pile of scarlet covers adorning his bed as he munches on a struggling pack of raspberry bludgers. Remus hates raspberries and the smell drifts under his nose, so potent that he sniffs in distaste. "Come on, Moony!" James continues.
It takes less than two seconds for Remus to leap to his feet and grab James by the collar. "Don't. Call. Me. That," he snarls, and James, who for once in his life genuinely looks shocked, drops the bag of raspberry bludgers.
They zoom upward, and fly repeatedly at Remus's head as though someone is pelting gravel at him. If Remus were thinking he would cast a shield charm, but he's not so he bats the candies and pushes James away with such force that he stumbles backward—right into the fireplace.
It is over in a minute. Remus leaps forward and pulls James out of the fire, and James yanks off his flaming tie and rolls out the sparks on his smouldering robe.
Their frantic shouts draw Peter to the room, but before Peter can properly asses the damage, Remus has disappeared.
He runs further and further down Gryffindor tower, knocking down everyone in his way as he leaps over stairs. The boy who said he looked to pale to not be a vampire or 'something like that'. The girl who whispered that he had a terminal illness. Everyone has done something, and when Remus almost shoves a tall Gryffindor girl headfirst over the stairs, he can't even bring himself to feel sorry.
He makes to the great hall in record time and just in time to see Severus Snape, who swears to Lily that Remus is a werewolf. But the pity that usually swells in his heart when he sees Snape is consumed by a white hot ball of rage, and as Snape leaves the hall, Remus kicks a heavily cushioned chair so heavily, it's maroon pillows bounce in the air and it's legs scratch so deeply into the floor that they leave gorge marks.
Somehow, some rational part of his brain is screaming at him to stop, and so Remus turns and sprints towards the grounds. There he crushes three small strawberry plants and snaps five of the dark wooden posts in the loamy soil of the school garden.
He is just about to run away again—Merlin, he is going to have so many detentions—when he hears heavy breathing behind him, and he almost falls over in surprise. Peter is standing directly behind him. Peter's usually pale cheeks are flushed and red, and he leans heavily on a nearby tree.
"What's wrong?" Peter asks.
"What's wrong?" Remus gives a humorless laugh. He can hear James and Sirius approaching, their feet crunching heavily on the dry grass. Remus takes a deep breath and begins. "What's wrong is that I don't know what I would do if anyone else found out I was a werewolf, and all of you seem determined to make sure that someone finds out. What's wrong is that everyone always whispers about me like I don't exist, and I don't even know who suspects and who doesn't. What's wrong is that you guys are my best friends, and you're going to get me ostracized for the rest of my life."
All four of them are silent for a moment, and then James speaks up. "We're sorry, Remus. We really are, but look, has anyone found out yet or even suspected? Not even one person."
"Snape," Remus hisses slowly.
"Snivelly, Smivelly," James says, waving a hand carelessly. "Don't worry Remus, no one will find out."
"And we'll help you fix this mess. A few Confundus charms, a couple pranks, and no one will suspect a thing," Sirius chimes in.
Remus looks at the mess around him and feels a kind of horror building in his chest as he realizes all that he's done.
"It'll be fine, Remus. Just fine," Peter softly says, and Remus has no choice but to believe him.
He can feel the heat rushing to his cheeks and promises himself that never, never again will his wrath get the better of him. (It is a promise that he comes very close to keeping.)
Then he is swept up by his friends and all Remus can do is be grateful for them, and all they're trying to do, and try and forget about the embarrassment of the morning.
The next morning, Remus sits down to eat his toast as though nothing has happened. Beside him, Lily Evans plops heavily onto the bench. "How do you do it? How do you not lose your temper?" Her cheeks are flushed and unsurprisingly, she looks quite mad.
Remus stares at the scratch marks of the floor and feels as though all the liquid in his mouth is being vacuumed away. He shrugs awkwardly and stares at the wide swirls in the amber wood of the table.
"Well, however you do it," Lily says, "You're lucky." Remus bites his tongue.