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Fuck.
Remus groaned as the morning sunlight seeped through the living room windows, piercing his delicate eyes. He guessed he’d fallen asleep before closing the blinds last night. Sleep had overcome him before he could finish the fourth chapter of the latest Joyce novel he attempted to read. Or had that happened the night before? He couldn’t remember. The days were starting to blend in. It was hard keeping track of the date, let alone closing the blinds.
As he started to gain consciousness, Remus’ surroundings became more apparent. Three mugs of half drunk black tea and three day old cigarette butts were sprawled on his coffee table. Dishes kept piling up in the sink. Police sirens and car horns were blaring outside his window. Copies of The Guardian and The Daily Prophet had formed an unkempt pile near his front door, serving as a reminder of the world that awaited him. The one he was reluctantly awaiting to face.
Barring any forgotten blinds closing routines, his kitchen usually offered sufficient darkness, the kind Remus could melt into. That helped him most days. The tiles of his kitchen floor were cool to the touch, letting him remember that he was real and not living in some fucked up episode of the Twilight Zone . Most days, he spent hours on the floor staring at his ceiling, welcoming the darkness and the cold as old friends. God, he wanted nothing more than to lay there and let the tiles consume him, but he couldn’t. Not today.
Remus glanced back at his front door. He knew that between a two week old copy of The Daily Prophet and a flyer for a new Indonesian restaurant was an invitation to James and Lily Potter’s funeral. As some may even call it, the event of the season!
Roll out the red carpet!
Alright, maybe not the best time for jokes.
Remus had actually laughed when he received the invitation a mere ten days ago.
It just was another typical Tuesday of laying on his kitchen floor for hours, when a consistent pecking noise came from his living room. After four and half minutes of unsuccessfully ignoring the annoying sound, Remus got up and made his way to the window where he saw a white snow owl holding an envelope in its beak. His jaw tensed.
Great.
At that moment, he wondered if the wolf had ever felt peckish for an owl. Remus reached his hand out and grabbed the letter. The owl gave him a quiet (and weirdly condescending) hoot then flew away. He didn’t even have to look at what was inside to realize what he had just received. Remus tore open the envelope and read:
Dear Remus John Lupin,
You have been cordially invited to pay your respects at the funeral of James and Lily Potter on Saturday, November 21st, 1981 at St Mary’s Church.
Sincerely,
Vernon and Petunia Dursley
P.S. Attire is black tie only.
Despite the agony he had been feeling these past few days, Remus couldn’t help but to burst out laughing. He, Remus John Lupin, had been cordially invited to his best friends of over a decade’s funeral by a person he had never met! He would go and stand in the corner all alone while other strangers and passive acquaintances shared their stories about how wonderful his best friends were. As if he needed an invitation to pay his respects. He would spend the rest of his life paying his respects.
But today, on Saturday, November 21st, 1981, as Remus thought about the invitation, he didn’t find it as funny.
His heart was pounding, sending echoes of crushing pain all over his chest. There were about a million things that needed to be done and no one to help him do them. As his mind began to overflow with all his impending worries, Remus began to make a list.
- Get off the floor.
- Make morning tea.
- Brush my teeth and take a shower.
- Get dressed.
- Turn the doorknob and leave.
And don’t forget to breathe.
He hadn’t always made lists in his head. When he was younger and terrified of those nights, he used to dig his fingernails deep into his skin to divert his thoughts away from the anxiety and towards the localized pain on his palms. It wasn’t perfect, but it distracted him for a while. His mother used to warn him that doing this would leave scars.
She was actually the one who first suggested the mental list to an anxious thirteen year old Remus at his Bar Mitzvah.
(“What if I mess up? What if I forget the words? Or slip and fall on my face? Or-” Hope Lupin placed a gentle hand on her son. “Oh, sweetheart. It looks like your mind is running around in circles again!” Remus dug his nails into his palms and looked up at his mother with his wet hazel eyes. Hope wiped a tear away and held her son’s hands in a tight but comforting grip. “You know what I do when I feel like this?” Remus nodded. “I make a list. You see, Remus, when I make a list in my head, it turns my big thoughts into small tasks. It calms me down. Now you try. What do you need to do today?” Remus began to list all the tasks he needed to complete during today’s ceremony. “Well done, darling. Now let’s take our time and do all of them, starting by getting out of this stuffy dressing room. Alright? One step at a time.” Before she opened the door, Hope turned to her son. “And don’t forget to breathe, Remus. When you don’t breathe, you don’t think.”)
Remus remembered how well the rest of the night had gone. The ceremony went smoothly. His speech was delivered perfectly. But the best part of that night, the thing that alleviated any remnant of anxiety he had, was looking out into the crowd and seeing three smiling faces beaming at him.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Today had been like Remus’ very own storm cloud, looming over him for weeks now. In a few more hours, the strangers and passive acquaintances would greet him with hundreds of
“I am so sorry for your loss.”
“My condolences.”
“I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
And no, they had no idea what he was going through. No one did. But what he dreaded the most was the polite conversations he would have to make with dozens of nosy vultures itching at any opportunity to ask him their questions.
“Did he look different?”
“Had he been acting weird?”
“Was he less present than usual?”
The worst part is that Remus knew exactly which question they actually wanted to ask.
“How could you not have known?”
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Just get off of the floor.
And that's exactly what he did. No need to dwell on the past. There were things that needed to be done.
Remus grabbed the closest mug and dumped out the remaining black tea. He placed the tea kettle on the stove and waited for the water to boil. All done manually, of course. Magic had ruined his life more times than he could count. The less he used it, the better.
As he reached for the tea bags, his eyes drifted to the chipped wood on the cabinet door. His heart ached at the memory of James throwing around a miniature quaffle, determined to give Harry a head start on his Quidditch career. Lily and Remus kept warning him that he would break something. Hence, the chipped cabinet.
This was why Remus kept to the dark kitchen floor. Everywhere he went, he was haunted by the memories of what once was, and what might have been.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Next on his list was basic hygiene, which he found difficult to keep track of lately. But he was determined to look at least somewhat presentable. Mary would have his arse otherwise.
After his much needed shower, he wiped the steam off of the mirror and stared. In spite of the lack of self care he had been exhibiting as of late, his body remained its usual lanky freckled self with a few additional bruises he’d received one night the week prior. He was still mapped with silvery lines, delicately highlighting every contour on his body. He selfishly thought about the fingers that had once traced them.
Remus’ eyes shifted to his red carpet outfit. Neatly laid on his bed was a pair of black dress pants, a black jacket, a black tie, and a white button down. If that didn’t fall under Petunia’s dress code, he didn’t know what would. Remus really knew that “attire is black tie only” was code for “don’t show up at my sister’s funeral in your weird wizard shit.”
Can’t say I blame her.
He let the towel tied around his waist fall to the floor, and began dressing. He may have felt like a hollow shell of a human, but at least he would look neat and well kept. That ought to fool the guests.
He slipped each arm into the white button down slowly and with care, so as to not wrinkle it and destroy the illusion. His fingers reached the buttons, and began closing the shirt. Each button would make its attempt to hide the scarred man underneath. His scars. Each one serving as its own personal reminder of his past lives. And they really were past lives. Every memory associated with a scar had happened to someone else. A different Remus Lupin. One with hope and joy and a love so grand, he believed it came straight from a Shakespearean sonnet.
Never again.
Remus’ fingers reached the last button, and he stared into the mirror. He looked fine. He’d walk out of the flat and those who’d walk pass would see him as clean. They’d never think to look into his eyes. If they did, they would see someone who was tired and finally worn.
Haha they should make irons to remove wrinkles from worn people.
He tried not dwelling on the past, but as he spent hours sinking into the floor, he sometimes thought about it. He often believed he was the problem. His love had controlled every thought, every feeling, every moment of his life since he’d been twelve years old. It had consumed him, and he consumed it. His love was his oxygen, inciting all this carnage. Every breath he took ignited him to love bigger and deeper until it silently burned his life to the ground.
He was a forest fire, letting his love fuel a path to complete and utter destruction. And there was no way to stop it.
As he walked towards his front door, Remus could see the ash settling all around his flat. From the old picture frames to the unmade bed to the chipped cabinet, he was reminded of all the destruction he had caused.
How could he have let this happen? How did he forget to think?
“And don’t forget to breathe, Remus. When you don't breathe, you don’t think.”
He guessed he hadn’t breathed properly in a long time. Because of him. Ever since he came into Remus’ life, all the air in the room had escaped him and was replaced with something poisonous. This grand, addicting, consuming poison.
And there was no way to stop it.
Remus ran through the list one more time.
- Get off the floor.
- Make morning tea.
- Brush my teeth and take a shower.
- Get dressed.
- Turn the doorknob and leave.
There was nothing left to do but leave.
His hand hovered over the doorknob, and, just for a moment, he let himself pretend. He pretended that he hadn’t been hurt, betrayed, lied to. He pretended that he really was in some fucked up episode of the Twilight Zone , and that if he turned around, they were all still there, bound to chip another cabinet.
He let himself pretend that he was still there, all grand, poisonous, and completely consuming.
He let himself pretend that he was wearing anything but this white button down.
Remus twisted the knob and took a deep breath. Never again would he let love take over his every breath. Never again would he love this big.
I’ll love some littler things.
And he left.