New day, new escape tactic.
"I'm not suicidal anymore," says Remus cheerfully. He strides into Anton's office and takes his usual seat.
Anton's expression doesn't change. "Oh? How did you decide that?"
"Well, after our talk yesterday, I feel a lot better. I got everything off my chest, you know? And now I'm thinking that maybe life isn't so bad."
Anton hums encouragingly. "I'm glad you feel our conversation was productive, John. I've been thinking about it, and if you don't mind, I'd like to revisit the diagnoses you were given as a teen. I have some additional ideas I'd like to share with you."
Remus feels his eyebrows raise of their own volition. "You do?"
"Yes." Anton settles back in his chair and flips open his notebook. "To begin with, I get the sense that you don't know exactly what those diagnoses entail."
"Sure I do," says Remus. "Depression and anxiety are pretty self-explanatory—I'm clinically, chronically sad and clinically, chronically stressed. And then panic disorder just means that sometimes I freak out and can't breathe."
Anton smiles. "I'd argue that it's not quite so straightforward as that. Persistent depression—dysthymia—sometimes has milder symptoms than major depression, but lasts for longer periods of time. Given your responses on the questionnaire Healer Weiss had you fill out last night, I'd concur with your old psychiatrist that dysthymia is an accurate diagnosis. Consistent low mood with no periods of remission, since the age of about nine years old…low self-esteem…fatigue…it's all there. Which leads me to wonder whether the Prozac is right for you—some recent Muggle studies have shown that it's not as effective on dysthymia, so I'm thinking of switching you over to a dose of Brightening Potion."
Remus scoffs. "What's that, a liquid Cheering Charm?"
Anton smiles sheepishly. "Not exactly, though I agree the name needs some work. It's a new treatment that's just been approved for mages with long-term depressive symptoms. As I've said, we've really been trying to catch up with the nonmagical folks, so there are a host of psychiatric potions in the works that will be implemented in coming years. Quite exciting, really."
Remus doesn't share Anton's enthusiasm, but he can't find the energy to argue against it. "Alright. I'll try it."
Anton blinks, looking surprised. "Excellent! That's really excellent, John—I guarantee that you'll get better results with this than you do with Prozac." He writes something down. "Now, it seems to me that you've been experiencing some post-traumatic stress in addition to your generalized anxiety, so I'd recommend…"
Looking back after the session ends, Remus can't quite recall where he lost control of the conversation. If he ever had it to begin with.
Without the Helios Oil, Remus can't make Sirius appear beside him, but he can still summon up an echo of his voice if he concentrates hard enough. Lying in bed in the dark that night, he imagines what Sirius would say if he could see Remus now.
You're a fucking idiot, Moony.
"So they tell me."
You promised me you wouldn't do it again. Remember?
"I don't owe you anything anymore."
Sirius scoffs. Look at you. They've got you locked up like a lunatic, and they're never gonna let you out, because you're not even trying to get better.
"Fuck off."
What a pair we make, huh? The murderer and the madman. You know, they don't let us have sharp things in Azkaban, either.
"Fuck off!"
A Healing Assistant creaks open the door. "Mr. Howell? Are you alright?"
Remus takes a slow breath. Count backwards. Clears his throat.
"I'm fine," he says. "Sorry."
"I think we should discuss your parents," says Anton a few days later.
"Didn't we discuss them already?" asks Remus.
He's fully weaned off the Prozac, and it's his first day on the Brightening Potion. He feels profoundly nauseous. His mind is foggy and delayed, taking about five seconds longer than usual to process information. Remus remembers having some side effects back when he first started Prozac, but he doesn't think it was quite so pronounced.
"We discussed them briefly, yes, but I think we should revisit them. Your father doesn't know where you are, correct?"
Remus nods. "Haven't spoken to him since November."
"And why is that?"
Remus leans against the armrest and props his head in his hand. "We're not…we don't have that kind of relationship. The kind where we talk about…things."
"He's not comfortable discussing emotional topics?"
"Unless the emotion is anger, then no."
Anton scribbles something down. "You've alluded that he was neglectful."
"He wasn't neglectful," corrects Remus. "He just didn't like being around me. It was starting to get a little better, I think, after Mum died, but then he found out about my, ah, lifestyle."
"He disapproves of your sexuality?"
"Yeah. He's old-fashioned, I guess. Mum died before I came out, so he used to hold it over my head and say she'd be disappointed in me. But I don't really care."
"You don't?"
He shrugs. "What's the point? He is who he is."
John considers this for a moment. "It's wise of you to acknowledge that you don't have the power to change other people. However, that doesn't mean you're not allowed to be upset with them."
Remus's head is feeling increasingly muddled. "I didn't say I wasn't upset with him. I just said there's no point in—in wishing things were different."
"What do you wish was different?"
Remus closes his eyes. "I don't know."
"Your suicide note was addressed to your father, was it not?"
"You know it was."
"Do you think—"
"I don't know!" says Remus. "I don't know, I don't know! Please—stop asking me things, I can't—I can't think."
Anton carefully sets aside his notebook. "John," he says softly, "are you feeling alright?"
"No, I'm not feeling alright—I feel—I—I—"
Remus sways as he rises to his feet, and then topples back into his chair and vomits all over the office floor.
The enchanted false-window in Remus's room has changed its view. The empty black sky now contains a single dot of white light that meanders slowly across the dark expanse. It's not twinkling, so Remus deduces that it must be a planet. A lost planet with no star.
Remus's body acclimates to The Brightening Potion. It works about as well as Prozac does, which is to say, it helps a little, but not enough to change his mind about whether he should be alive.
"I'll have to reflect on that" is Remus's new go-to response whenever Anton brings up something ugly and painful that he doesn't want to talk about.
It works as an answer for pretty much everything:
"How did you feel when Sirius and your friends suspected you were a traitor?"
"Where do you think your negative self-talk originates?"
"Why do you think you sought out substances to cope with your grief?"
"Do you think you internalized your father's negative opinions about werewolves? Does that impact your self-worth?"
"Do you intentionally withhold food from yourself?"
"John," Anton says eventually, showing a rare glimmer of exasperation. "I know what you're doing. You're deflecting."
"I'll have to reflect on that," says Remus.
Outside the window, the little planet ambles back and forth.
If Sirius was the sun, then Remus was Pluto—a cold speck just big enough to be glimpsed through a telescope, held in orbit by a force so bright and powerful that it could touch even him. But now the sun was gone, and Pluto was drifting aimlessly through the chasm of space, reaching for the memory of light.
A week later, Remus refuses his morning dose of Brightening Potion.
"I don't want it," he whispers.
He's still lying in bed, curled up in fetal position. He's given up on trying to lie his way out of here, and every session with Anton only makes him feel more raw and exposed and broken, forced to look head-on at all the things he doesn't want to see. There's nothing left to do but…nothing.
When Anton arrives, he sits on the edge of the bed and pats his back. "Rough morning?"
Remus closes his eyes.
"I know it's difficult when you're on a new medication," says Anton gently, "but consistency is the most important thing. If you skip doses, it'll only get worse."
Remus tastes salt on his lip and realizes that he's crying. He doesn't bother to wipe the tears. "How can it get worse?" he whispers.
Anton sighs. "The physical symptoms will intensify—the nausea, the cloudiness, the headaches."
Remus starts to cry a little harder. "I don't care," he gasps. "God, I don't care."
He curls in on himself even tighter and sobs.
"I'm sorry," says Anton softly. "Clearly, you're very upset. Can you tell me what's on your mind?"
Remus shakes his head. "All I want to do is die. I can't think about anything else. There's—there's nothing."
Anton stays with him until he's exhausted his tears and drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Remus is utterly without choice.
They force the Brightness Potion into him despite his protests; they hook a feeding tube to his stomach when he refuses to eat; they cast cleaning charms on him when he doesn't have the energy to shower. They stick him in a padded room for his transformation and carefully heal him in the morning. It's a waking death. The only thing they can't make him do is talk, so silence becomes his final weapon. Anton still comes and sits with him for an hour every day, but Remus doesn't say a word.
Remus doesn't remember deciding to do it, but he doesn't remember deciding to do a lot of things. All he knows is that one minute, his blanket is laid neatly over his body, and the next, some kind of feverish desperation overcomes him, and he has the blanket knotted around his neck, pulling at the two ends with all the strength he has left. It takes only seconds for the wards to go off and for the Healers to come stun him. The half-strangulation leaves an angry red ring around Remus's neck for hours.
After that, he isn't allowed to be alone.
"I have a proposition."
Remus opens his eyes. A Healer he doesn't recognize is standing over him with an eager smile.
"Proposition?" he mumbles. Aside from Albus's visit, Remus has been speaking exclusively German, so the English word catches him off-guard.
She flicks her wand, and Remus is shoved up into a seated position. He squints, trying to get a closer look at the Healer's face, but it seems to blur and cloud over whenever it starts to come into focus—the woman is wearing a glamor. He glances down and sees that she's not actually wearing Healer's robes.
"Who are you?" he asks. He glances around the room; they're alone, and the door is shut. "How'd you get in here?"
"It was an interesting challenge," the woman chirps. Her voice is disguised, too—it's slightly tinny, a few degrees too high to be natural. "It's a good security system they have here, but every human system has a flaw. So, it's just a matter of knowing where to look."
Remus is too numb to be afraid, but his body sends him a shot of adrenaline to remind him that he should be. "What do you want?"
The woman smiles again. Oddly, it doesn't feel sinister. "I want your help for a project I'm undertaking. I work in the Department of Mysteries, you see. Or I did, until I ran into some…differences of opinion with my colleagues."
She holds up a small potted cactus. "This is a portkey set to activate in five minutes. I'd very much like for you to accompany me."
Remus blinks. "Why do you want my help?"
"I need someone with both highly finessed skill and raw magical power. Someone resourceful and scrappy, who can think quickly on their feet. Booksmart, too—you got ten O.W.L.s, didn't you? Graduated top of the class?"
"You're leaving something out," says Remus. "There's plenty of people with all those attributes. What do I have that, for instance, Kingsley Shacklebolt doesn't?"
She considers him for a moment, cocking her head to the side like a bird.
"You have nothing to lose," she says plainly.
Remus can't argue with that.
"What sort of research are you doing?" he asks. "I imagine it must be quite dangerous. And at least a little bit illegal."
She hums. "I'm attempting to construct a…window, of sorts. Between the world of the living and the dead."
"A portal?"
"Not quite. Think of it more like—a veil."