Remus Lupin was very tired. He was tired of being the person everyone looked towards to make decisions and he was tired of those same people questioning the decisions he didn't want to be in charge of in the first place. He was tired of this Godric damn war that he had been part of for most of his life, but most of all, Remus was tired of watching the people he cared most about being taken away from him way before their time and being left behind to feel the enormous void their deaths left, not only on whatever small part of a soul he had that wasn't occupied by the vermonous wolf inside him but also the void it left in every part of the world around him.
He had always been taught as a boy to keep himself as far from people as possible. After Greyback had bitten him at four years old and turned him into a monster before he was even old enough to truly know what a monster was, it was necessary for his parents to keep themselves and him separate from the rest of the world.
"Don't get too close Remus" they would say when they were out somewhere public.
"We can't risk them seeing your different Remus," they would say when he asked why he couldn't play with other children.
"Make sure you keep your classmates at arm's length Remus," they told him before he left for Hogwarts.
"People are cruel Remus, you can never let anyone see what you really are."
He often wondered if he would have been better off had he listened to his parents, if he had never let his walls down and let anyone in. No, he supposes, a life where one has loved and lost would be much preferable to a life where one has never loved or been loved in return.
Plus it wasn't like he had much of a choice where the marauders were concerned anyway. He had tried pushing them away, tried to do everything he could think of to put them off trying to be his friend, but in the end it was easier just to accept that no matter what he did they could see how much he needed friends, even if he was completely in denial and slowly he learned to open up more and to put his trust in people outside of himself and his parents.
For all the hurt their loss had caused him, he could never regret the time he got to spend loving them and being accepted by them, faults and all. He would always cling to the good memories he had.
His parents may have made him over cautious and terrified of the wizarding world and the people in it, but they didn't do so without reason. People were always going to hate werewolves, mainly out of fear. After all, the whole reason Greyback had bitten him in the first place was because his father had made comments publicly against werewolves. But his parents gave up everything for him. He had found out when he was older that on the night he had been bitten, the healers at Mungos had actually suggested that his parents euthanize him rather than raise a child infected with lycanthropy. They had refused and spent every moment after that tailoring their entire lives around protecting their son.
Marlene McDonald had been a force to be reckoned with and her loss was the first major blow he had felt during the first war. But he had the others there to help him through it and for that he was grateful.
James had been the first person to ever force friendship on Remus and taught him that friends were the extended family one chooses for themselves. He was either completely adored or completely hated by those around him. Always larger than life, dependable and loyal right to the end. Of course he had his faults, everyone does but to Remus, James was one of his very best friends, his brother and there wasn't a single moment that went by that he didn't think about James and Lily.
Lily, sweet, sweet Lily. So much love packed into such a small package. She was kind and considerate and always trying to see the good in everyone, but also completely terrifying if you got on her bad side. She was funny and brave and intelligent and had been by Remus's side and supported him even on his hardest of days. She could knock sense into him like nobody else, comforted him when he needed it and forced him out of his self pity when he lost himself in it.
Sirius had been the hardest and he had to face his loss twice. He had been Remus's first love and nobody could quite infuriate him quite like Sirius Black could while also making him fall deeper in love with every passing day. He had been enamoured with the dark haired, grey eyed boy ever since he first set eyes on him that first day on the Hogwarts express back when they were 12. The older Remus got, the more he began to realise how hopelessly in love he was with his best friend, but never imagined that the feelings were mutual.
It had started in their 6th year and had lasted right up until the night Lily and James had been murdered. Dealing with the loss of Lilly, James and Peter (or so he thought at the time), while also believing the man you loved with every fibre of your being had betrayed you all had driven Remus into a hole of deep depression, self medicated with alcohol (copious and copious amount of the strongest he could get his hands onto thanks to his werewolves tolerance) and drugs, and had him buried himself into the trenches of the muggle world rather than face the wizarding one that reminded him of what he had lost at every turn. A hole that he only began to pull himself from when Dumbledore had come to him to tell him Sirius had escaped Azkaban and offer him the position of DADA professor to help aid in the protection of Harry.
Although finding out Sirius had in fact not betrayed them all had given Remus hope, they never did find their way back to what they had been before. They had both let each other down far too much, Sirius by not trusting him enough, thinking him a spy for Voldemort and therefore not telling him that Peter was actually the secret keeper, and Remus for not questioning if Sirius had been the one responsible for the death of the Potters. Even though they loved one another, their friendship had been strained, neither saying all the things they needed to say to one another. A few weeks before Sirius's death it had finally come to a head and they had it out properly, getting all the hurt off their chests and finally Remus had hope that he would get his best friend back or maybe, just maybe they would one day get back to what they were to each other before. Two weeks later he watched the green light strike Sirius in the chest and his body fall through the veil to the other side.
Tonks, who had gotten to know through the reformation of the Order, had been there for him after losing Sirius. She was also in pain over the loss of her cousin and she pulled him out of the hole of his depression following the battle at the ministry. He had been fascinated by her since meeting her and they had developed a friendship over the course of the year. He fell for her but knew that he could never curse her to a life with him. When she had admitted her feelings for him a few months later he had rejected her, telling her that he was too old for her, too poor for her and she could never have a life with someone like him and deserved better. Watching her waste away in her sadness and longing for him had almost broken him and finally after seeing how Fleur had accepted Bill after his attack by Greyback on the night of the battle at the astronomy tower when Dumbledore had died, Remus admitted his feelings of love for Tonks and they had been married a month later. He never thought he would ever have a chance at real true love and somehow he had been lucky enough to find it not once, but twice.
Although he wanted nothing more than to hide away with Tonks in the muggle world somewhere away from the war, to keep her safe, to keep her alive, she would never have allowed it and he had another reason to stay. Harry, who was a dead ringer for James and his personality was the equal combination of both his parents. So he had stayed to protect the last living piece left of his best friends. He had followed all the things Dumbledore had requested of him, done everything the old man had asked in the hope of saving the boy and watching him grow like his parents would never get the chance to. When he looks back at it all now, perhaps if he had not followed every word of a man who he could now see was a master manipulator things would have turned out different. But, as they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty.
Now he was here, in hiding and somehow in charge of the safety of so many people, when all he really wanted was to go for a nice long nap and awaken again when it was all over. He had once been someone who stood beside his friends, fresh out of Hogwarts and ready to take on the whole world if need be to put an end to this war. But now he just couldn't take losing anybody else so they hid away, hoping for a miracle and just trying to stay alive.
He thought back to his conversation with Kingsley earlier that day before the man had left to go on a supply run. They had been discussing the vigilantes and the continuing attacks on death eaters and KIngsley had suggested they turn a blind eye and let them take care of the problem where the order was unable to. But Remus just couldn't in good conscience ignore the murders. They were dark and twisted and he knew that Harry had always believed that they needed to win the war as the side of light, not lowering themselves to the darkness of their enemies and he just couldn't bring himself to ignore the killings and turn a blind eye when it was against everything Harry had stood for.
Remus eyed the wooden box in front of him, filled with the empty bottles of wolfsbane Snape had brewed for him. The man had come to him yesterday and told him that the ingredients they had, had run out and there was only one bottle left that would be used for this month's full moon, and so next month, for the first time in a long time, Remus would be facing the full moon, and every full moon after it without the potion. They would have to find somewhere far enough away from the camp to chain him up so he could not hurt anybody when he was in his wolf form. A dark part of Remus's mind couldn't help but think at least he wouldn't have to think or feel when the wolf was in control, that he would get a break from everything in the dark space of his mind he occupied during the time when the wolf would be at the forefront during the transformation without the wolfsbane. He quickly shook his head as if doing so could shake the thought out of existence.
"Ahem"
Remus jumped at the unexpected interruption from his inner musings and turned to see Bill Weasley looking very haggard, blood dripping from open cuts and clothing rumpled. He would smell the lingering magic off him from what had obviously been an attack.
"Shit Bill, what happened?"
Bill stepped into the tent, dropped into a chair and put his head in his hands. "We were attacked. Three dead and two more injured." He looked up, meeting Remus's eyes, "They took Kingsley."