Obligation meant something different to everyone. To some, it meant getting up every morning and stumbling into the office before a cup of coffee was able to revive and revitalise. To others, obligation was waking up to the same person for thirty years and staying married to them, despite the fact that all love and spark had been absent for decades. Obligation meant keeping a family together, although they were united in nothing but name. Obligation was a sense of duty and doing something not out of desire, but out of respect for routine, for the love of others or for genuine necessity.
Every family had a secret at the start.
"John, I don't understand," Anna whispered, her eyes filled with tears. "Why are they threatening you?" Her husband slammed his coffee cup down on the wooden table so roughly that some of the tepid liquid spilled over the rim.
"If I knew how to stop it, I would," he snapped. "Don't look at me like it's my problem. I haven't done anything." Anna bowed her head.
"It's that temper of yours," she murmured. "It's upset someone important now and look at what a mess you've got yourself into."
"Shut up," John hissed, shoving a forkful of scrambled egg into his mouth. "Don't talk about what you don't understand."
Anna's gaze fell to her untouched plate and she stared at the breakfast for a few minutes. Her husband continued to eat in silence, aside from his loud slurping of coffee and audible chewing of soggy toast.
"Have you paid off the goblins yet?" Anna asked quietly. There was more than a nervous edge to her voice and at the look on her husband's face, her anxiety was quite justified.
"DON'T TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" John roared, banging his fist violently on to the table. The plates clattered and shook as a few tears rolled down Anna's cheeks. John took a deep breath. "I'll deal with the goblins," he told her, calmly but with a dangerous, steely note to his tone. "I've got it all under control."
"John," Anna whispered, her voice shaking and tears pouring steadily but silently down her cheeks. "John, who were those men who took you away in the middle of the night? What did they want with you?" Her husband's face lost all colour and he shook his head.
"Nothing, darling," he muttered. "Nothing at all."
"Was-was it to do with the goblins?" John glared at her.
"Nothing to do with them," he repeated in an flat tone. He paused to gaze at his terrified wife for a moment. "Annie, honey. There's no need to worry."
"Every single time I go to Gringotts!" she cried, her tears suddenly flowing down her face and frightened sobs bursting out of her heaving chest with every breath. "Whenever I go to Gringotts, I see them and they look at me like...like they know who I am. It makes me feel like I'm stealing from them! I can't stand being hated by them. I've never felt comfortable in your world."
John's eyes widened slightly and he took his wife's shaking hand in his own, equally unsteady grip.
"Annie, it's your world too now," he told her, in an unnaturally high voice. "You're being paranoid. The goblins aren't victimising you." But Anna was too far gone and she shook her head.
"No, John, they are," she sobbed. "Ever since I had Remus, everything's been going wrong. We can't pay back this money, you didn't get that big promotion last year and now a group of strange men start calling for you in the dead of night? Something's not right, John. You know it's not."
Her husband took a deep breath.
"It's this group of dark wizards, Annie," he explained quietly, his voice hardly audible. "Those men want me to leave my family and fight for them." Anna looked horrified.
"No!" she choked. "John, you can't do that!" He shook his head and smiled the ghost of a warm smile.
"I'm not going to," he reassured her. "They can threaten me with whatever they want. They're hardly what I'd call strong at the moment! I'll never join them." He stood up and walked around to his wife's chair. Long arms wound around her and she hugged her husband back, clinging to him tightly and sobbing into his chest.
"That's the brave man I married," she murmured into his arms. "That's the man I love."
From upstairs, a little voice sounded.
"Mummy, where's my teddy bear?"
Anna quickly broke away from her husband's arms as her five year old son padded downstairs. She stood up, wiping at her eyes with her apron.
"I don't know, Remus," she replied, trying her best to smile. "I'll have a look in a second." The little boy nodded and glanced at his father. Neither male spoke until John drained the last of his coffee and picked up his cloak from the hook in the kitchen.
"I'd better be off now," he told his wife. "I'll be back late. Big meeting at the Ministry." John kissed her cheek lightly and for a second, it appeared as though he might leave without even acknowledging his son. Eventually, his better nature won over and he leaned across to ruffle the boy's hair.
"Be good, son," he told Remus. "Don't pester your mother."
Why exactly he said that to his son every morning, both Remus and his mother would never know. There had never yet been a day when Remus even slightly bothered Anna with bad behaviour or anything else.
LATER THAT EVENING...
"...and Little Red Riding Hood lived-"
"-happily ever after," finished Remus, a huge smile on his face. He was sitting on the sofa with his mother, their favourite book of Muggle fairytales in her hand. John hadn't read to Remus in years but the boy's father had always preferred The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Anna couldn't quite get used to the cackling stumps or the hairy hearts or anything that didn't end with 'happily ever after'. She smiled at her little son and stroked his forehead.
"That's right, happily ever after," she laughed. "Time for bed, Remus."
"Where's teddy?" Remus asked, echoing his question from that morning. Anna jumped to her feet. Her son hadn't asked again all day and she'd completely forgotten to have a look for his favourite toy.
"I'm going to look now, Remus," Anna replied guiltily. She called from the next room as rustling and the scraping of chairs proved her willingness to search for the toy. "Did you have him yesterday?"
Remus tried to recall when he'd last seen the teddy bear. It was a hot week and he'd been playing outside in the garden yesterday afternoon. He was sure that Snuffles had been sitting outside on the rug by his mother's huge flowering fuchsia. Carefully, Remus tiptoed out to the front door and pushed it open slightly. The rug, blown around by the wind, was still positioned almost exactly where it had been the previous day. Surely Snuffles was still lying on the grass somewhere?
Remus quickly stepped outside on to the lawn. The thick blades of grass felt warm beneath his feet as there was still a considerable amount of heat in the air. Up above, the sky was clear and starry, with a huge white moon gleaming down on the scene. Remus knew that he wasn't supposed to go outside by himself but if he found Snuffles before his mother came back downstairs, she'd never realise. Besides, it would save her the trouble of looking.
After a few minutes however, it became evident that Snuffles the bear was not outside on the grass. As Remus turned to go back inside, disappointed, he heard a noise behind him and whipped around to see something emerging from the bushes.
Snuffles was moving through the air towards him, but not as though enchanted by his father's magic. A pair of snarling fangs held the teddy bear, almost as if enticing the little boy with it. Dropping Snuffles on the grass, the fangs opened wider and seemed to laugh maliciously at the frightened child. The ground and air both seemed much colder all of a sudden.
Remus did not scream. His single thought was that his father would come to save him. His father had used his magic to help his son before and although he would severely reprimand him afterwards, Remus would endure it. Just as long as his father came to save him…
As the creature lifted up its head and howled, Remus prayed that his father would hurry. He longed to reach forward and grab his teddy bear away from the animal but that move would bring him closer to the huge fangs. There was however, no need for that thought. The animal pounced, leaping through the night air until it landed right on top of Remus and knocked him to the ground like a wobbling china figurine. It was at that moment that the boy realised that his father wasn't coming.
As he screamed out a useless plea for help, Greyback sank his teeth into Remus's tiny shoulder and growled in a twisted satisfaction as the boy finally stopped writhing below him and was finally still.
The werewolf watched his unconscious prey and then jumped over the bushes at the front of the garden as a huge, black raven delivered a single sheet of paper to the front doorstep of the house.
John Lupin,
Your half-breed son shall serve as a reminder to you in the future. This will undoubtedly take some explaining to his Mudblood mother.
Consider this our final message.
TWO MONTHS LATER
"You can't leave us, John!" Anna wept, clawing at the front of her husband's robes. "Not like this…" He shook her off, appearing to be disgusted.
"My first-born son," he breathed. "I can't ever look at him again. The shame of it…"
"NO!" Anna screamed. "It's your fault! You didn't warn me what those men would do! I didn't know to keep him safe! We should have told your Ministry, to get protection and help!"
John's face was deathly white and his hands were shaking.
"Every month, Annie," he whispered, regret and disgust in his voice. "I can't do it every month. I can't watch my boy turn into...that."
"And I'm supposed to?" Anna cried, hysterical. John nodded.
"You're not a witch! You weren't raised with the knowledge of this condition- of how wrong it is."
"NO!" Anna yelled. "YOU STAY! STAY FOR REMUS! STAY FOR YOUR SON!"
"No," John hissed. "My son died two months ago. He was killed in a tragic accident." John grabbed a few books from the bookcase and shoved them roughly into his bag.
"How can you say that?" Anna cried, tears running into her long hair. "Remus is still alive and he needs his father. You've helped to condemn him to this life. Stay with him." Anna's tone was pleading. "Stay for me," she begged. "I love you, John. This world terrifies me and I need you. How can I bring up our son alone in this world of yours?" But her husband shook his head.
"Annie, I can't stay. I'm not like you. I can't have a...a werewolf as a son." John Lupin spat the word out like it was poison. Anna stared her husband in the face.
"Why did you marry me?" she whispered, almost as if she was finally seeing her husband's face without a mask for the first time in nearly six years. John's expression hardened. The room was silent.
"Because you were pregnant."
"Is-is that it?" Anna sobbed harder than ever. "You didn't love me at all?" John shrugged.
"Merlin, Annie! I was just doing the right thing! I wasn't signing up for this-" he waved his hand around furiously "-all this bullshit with the full moon! I'm not staying! I want my life back!"
"But I'm your wife," Anna wept. "Remus is a wizard. I'm not even magic. How am I supposed to raise him?" John Lupin looked at her in anguish.
"I don't know! It's not my problem now!" He seemed to be on the verge of cursing her. "Merlin, if you hadn't been stupid enough to get yourself pregnant in the first place, we'd be alright!" Anna's face fell. She gazed at her husband through her tears.
"It wasn't a problem to you when you asked me to marry you. I wanted to make sure that you really wanted that wedding. I thought you loved our child." John grabbed his hair with his hands.
"Annie, I did! Back when he was a normal kid! Back when our worst problem was that he might choke on his milk or that he might not show magical ability as quickly as the other kids! But now-" John swallowed, "-now we've got a new problem. He turns into a fucking monster every month! I didn't sign up for that. If you'd have told me that at the start, I would never have married you."
"You-you wouldn't?" Anna's heartbreak was almost audible. John shook his head after a micropause.
"I'm sorry. Don't try to contact me again."
With that, John Lupin picked up his small case and walked out of the front door. Anna sank to the floor and cried. Cried for her lost love, cried for her poor Remus and most of all, cried for the hard life which she would have to live.
Upstairs, a little boy sat with his back against the door, covered in scratches, bruises and deep cuts. Unlike his mother, he was not crying. Like his mother, he knew that it was not her fault that his father had been shouting.
Remus understood, at age five, that his father was leaving because of him.