Character: Remus Lupin
Prompt: Suitcase
Remus sighed, running his fingers over the faded gold letters of his suitcase. He'd had the thing for years, let it become shabby and tattered like so many other possessions of his. But this one was different. It wasn't like his robes or his wand or his boots. He didn't allow it to grow old like this because of some self-sacrificing need to fade into the background or because he couldn't afford a new one. No, he could very easily have charmed the letters back on, fixed the case up with a bit of simple magic. But he didn't. And he never would.
He remembers the day he was given this suitcase. It had been a gift when he'd left Hogwarts, presented to him by his proudly smiling friends. He had read the engraving on the side with raised eyebrows, sceptically glancing up at his friends.
"Why does it say Professor RJ Lupin?" he'd asked with a bewildered little laugh.
"Well, we'd thought about writing 'Professor Moony', but that didn't sound too professional," Sirius had told him, grinning widely.
"No," Remus had laughed, shaking his head. "I mean, why Professor?"
James had cocked an eyebrow at him, shoving at his shoulder. "Because, mate, you're going to be the best Defence professor they've ever seen!"
It wasn't just that James and Sirius and Peter had had faith in him…it was the fact that they'd believed that eventually, someday, the world would be a better place for people like him. That they'd had enough confidence in him and in his abilities that they'd decided on him being a professor before the possibility had even crossed his mind. And now, with two of them dead and the other in prison…he couldn't let that last piece of his friends go. So he left the suitcase as it was, unable to bare the thought of changing a single thing about it