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Remus Lupin did not own many mirrors. He had always despised them, in fact; or maybe not them, exactly, rather what they represented. Mirrors were reflections, a distorted version of reality, and a passageway to ugly truths.
Remus preferred to keep his truths under lock and key, tucked neatly away inside a box buried deep in the recesses of his heart. He had swallowed the key to that box long ago so that no one may ever open it — so that no one may make him vulnerable — but then along came James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew with a trio of sledgehammers.
It wasn’t easy to open up to them even after they had become close friends. Remus preferred to bite his tongue until he tasted blood than to allow even the possibility of receiving scorn and rejection from the three boys who he called home. He could not reveal his truths in great floods lest his friends be swept away in its current. No, his truths trickled out of him slowly over the course of many years, dripping off of whiskey-wet lips or sliding down his cheeks in teary rivulets.
And if it wasn’t easy to reveal his truths to them, how could he possibly imagine baring those truths to himself?
Yet here he was, chest bare and heart open, the lid of his neatly-hidden box fully obliterated now by James’s hearty laughs, Sirius’s reassuring hands, and Peter’s knowing nods. He stood in front of a mirror, taking himself in.
There were two scars that ran laterally across his chest, raised and puffy and much cleaner than the others that laced his arms and torso. Tentatively, almost as if worrying he would rub them off with his touch, he raised a hand and slid two fingers across the length of one scar, then the other. The numbness of the skin surrounding the marks felt foreign but somehow comforting.
As he contemplated every bump and rough patch and soft spot along each line, he couldn’t help but smile. These were not the Wolf’s scars. These were his. Just two scars, made just for him. Not out of agony, but out of love. Self-love. It was a concept he couldn’t fully wrap his head around yet, but the constant encouragement from the boys certainly invigorated him to try.
He looked in the mirror. He bathed in his smile, washed himself clean in his truths. He spoke them aloud, just to be certain of their existence.
“I am Remus Lupin.”
True enough, though he had never quite pinpointed what that meant.
“I am a werewolf.”
His voice wavered and smile faltered, but he recovered it by rolling his shoulders back, straightening his spine, and lifting his chin.
“I am transgender.”
His eyes wandered from the hard contact they had been making with their golden reflections and moved downward, once again meticulously tracing his chest. He had never expected that seeing his scars would ever bring him such joy, but these two certainly did.
They were surgical scars from a muggle establishment; he insisted on not using magic to heal them, though in the first few days of recovery he did find himself reaching for his wand fairly often to ease the pain.
It was important to have these scars. It was important to remember them. When so often he saw his reflection and found only shame and disgust stirring within him, the gentle satisfaction fluttering about inside his chest was a breath of fresh air after years of slowly drowning.
With deep breath he leaned in and studied himself in the mirror, every blemish, every pore. He wondered if his reflection had always been distorted or if in truth it was his own warped sense of self that skewed his vision. He looked now, really looked, and it was as clear as the full moon on a still lake.
Remus spoke his final truth in a whisper that fogged the glass in front of him, gingerly lifting it from his splintered box and caressing it against the warmest spot in his chest.
“I love myself.”
And like a dam had burst, relief flooded out of him in heavy sobs, wet and red-faced and brows wrinkled against his nose. He cried and he laughed and he smiled until his lips ached. He doubled over the sink to keep himself from floating away in this blissful weightlessness.
Remus Lupin, the social outcast, the ugly beast, the dirty dreg, loved himself. And with this surgery complete, no one could ever force him back into a box. His body was true and he was proud to display it.
No one else would notice these two scars among the rest. He didn’t need anyone else to see his scars or his reflection to know the truth. He could see himself now, and that was enough. He loved himself.
He loved himself.