"It doesn't matter what they say, we are still human beings."
"Not to them, we will always be monsters to them. If that is what they say we are, how can we not be any different? If they treat us as monsters, we are. We can't be human beings if they won't let us be."
"There is a way."
"You've been fighting since you were eighteen to have them see you as a person, and what has that gotten you? Just more people knowing who you are, not wanting to take you in. You have no money, you live in a shack at best, and what of me? My life is not much better. I barely keep myself fed. They look at me as if I'm going to attack at any given moment, as if I would just spring upon them, regardless of appearance. We are numbers, statistics, fucking dog tags to them!" I pulled the chain out from underneath my blouse and waved it in the air.
"We'll get there, it takes time." Remus looked as patient and calm as ever, but he was truthfully swimming in the hopelessness of it all.
"How long before another killing?" I waved the Daily Prophet in his face, "We are worse off than the muggles! We need to do something, they will kill us all, in cold blood or by leaving us to starve. They will be murderers without remorse because we are only 'dangerous beasts,' we are things to be destroyed, a plague on all human kind."
"If we can find a cure..."
"A cure? A cure!? Remus, you can't believe that we'll ever find one? It is lore, its like trying to rid human nature of hatred, its impossible. Even if we do find a cure, how long will it be? How many more need to suffer by this? It is not our choosing to be slaves to the moon. They do not care. We are as good as dead anyway. I can feel myself dying day by day, the weight of the burden, the pain of being hated, and it's killing you too."
"I can't just sit and let it be, just watch us all suffer. If we just step aside, it will still be."
"And what of it then? When we are free will we still help others like us? Will we remember we were once as persecuted as them? Fear drives human beings to hate, and we will always be feared. People fear what they do not understand and there will always, always be misunderstandings. Human nature is too rash, something will always separate us all. Beliefs, race, family, origin, or simple personality. Nothing can fix it, so it might as well be us."
"We can stop it." Remus looked so discouraged and hopelessly lost that he had to sit down. "I know we can."
"What of your life after that? Will there be any more purpose to it? I know I would rather die than be in this hell, because believe me, we are in Hell right now. Besides, once that is done, you will die, I can tell you. One without a purpose is a lost soul."
Remus simply sat and thought, I thought I saw a tear roll down his white face. Defiance lined his jaw, but also did weariness. I felt a pang of sympathy for what I had been saying, true as it was. He was broken now and it was I who had broken him. After all he'd been through, all he had withstood, I broke him with those simple words. Remus gave a sigh. "I suppose you're right, but I will have saved everyone else. We are slowly perfecting our inequalities amongst our society. One day there will be no need for people like me."
"But who will have purpose then? Will it be worth it to live in Utopia? It will all be meaningless bliss. There is no pleasing human nature."
"We can try."
"Try is never good enough, and yet we always do and failure results. But we learn from failure. What happens when everything is learned?"
"We'll know it when we get there." These words hit me full force in the stomach. These words in themselves had crushed all my momentum. I stood speechless. "Remus, fulfill your purpose, and once it is done, your soul can rest easy. And once I see the purpose in life, my soul can rest easy too."
Months passed, and a vitality grew in Remus again, such a vigour that I wished I couldn't still remember that lost look in his eyes that never did fully leave my memory. I grew to realize why he needed to do what he did for us all, for our freedom. I began to regrow the hope that I had lost with my childhood, and we grew close o each other. I felt such a love for that look of determination that appeared on his face. I loved his face, his almost entirely grey hair, his eyes of sadness and joy at once. I wished to hold on to that sweet night in October, when he had kissed me. We sat in light of a waning moon, underneath the young oak tree.
"Remus, have you ever felt alone?"
"I think that loneliness follows with how well you can cope. How well you can change your life for the better. But yes, I have been alone so long, but it still hurts." Suddenly all I wanted to do was take away his pain. I found a purpose, a meaning in him. I lived to be his relief from the burden he had chosen to carry.
"I love you..." I wished in an instant in my shame that I could have stopped myself from whispering those words, to be able to grasp them in the air and prevent my heart from reaching his ears. My misgivings faded at once when he leaned in and whispered into my ear those very same words. He kissed me then, soft and sweet, yet bitter and harsh. My world turned upside down from then on, and I knew then, that no matter what, I had a purpose.
17 October, The Daily Prophet
Remus J. Lupin was killed today during a peaceful protest for werewolf rights in the front halls of the Ministry of Magic. Angry onlookers fired multiple hexes into the small group of wolves. They ministry was too late to intervene and as a result three wolves were pronounced dead at the scene. Lupin was standing in the front line and was hit full force with four separate shots. Still alive, they bound him and took him outside to a tree where they hung him in the fashion of muggles, on the basis that he was not fit for a "proper wizarding death." The other two wolves were hit with spells that had combined and hit with such force that they died nearly instantaneously.
18 October
The blood of a martyr is the most influential yet unstable way of ensuring the future of a people. As with others in the past, the death of Remus J. Lupin changed many lives, including my own. Such a inspirational man should never be forgotten. And I hope that what I foresee comes to pass, as I will not be there to witness it. For this will be a historic day in our history, it will be a long winding road to freedom, and once we get there we may not know what to do, but that will have to wait. Some things are only to be seen with the heart. Now I know where my own heart is, and though many do not see it, simply by staring at this page, the person who finds this will certainly be able to feel it.
The meaning of life is not to die, but to die with a purpose. If we do not die fighting for justice, fighting for truth, fighting for liberty, fighting for what will one day no longer be fought for, but earned, can we say we really lived? What have we done with our lives unless they served a purpose to the world? Even if it is not a lasting mark, it will make a change. And that change, that difference is worth your life. I have not lived, and therefore, I have really not died. My heart has simply been broken, because my purpose was to love, and I lost that chance, so to be where my love has gone is all that matters.
May I join Remus in eternity.