Chapter Text
The Heroides (The Heroines), or Epistulae Heroidum (Letters of Heroines), is a collection of fifteen epistolary poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved heroines of Greek and Roman mythology in address to their heroic lovers who have in some way mistreated, neglected, or abandoned them.
Epistulae Heroum directly translates to “Letters of Heroes”. A play on the title of the poems by Ovid, given our two main characters are males and, in time, will become heroes.
But, don’t worry, our lovers will not mistreat, neglect or abandon each other anytime soon.
“At the time when I entered Ceres’s Eleusis -
the soil of Crete should have held me back -
then you above all pleased me (though you had before):
fierce love clung to me in the depths of my bones.”
The Heroides - IV: Phaedra to Hippolytus
Wednesday 11th August, 1971
The world was a weird place, that much was clear to Remus Lupin.
He had decided this fact at the age of eight, after Declan Vaughn had pushed him off the swings and said his scars were funny looking. But Remus had always thought it strange that nobody else had any scars. Why was it they didn’t see how strange skin looked without them? Maybe it was a product of being home-educated. Perhaps, in public schools, they taught children that scars were the abnormal things.
Weird thing to teach children, Remus thought.
His mum had always told him not to tell the other kids that he was a werewolf because they would think he was weird. That made positively zero sense at all. Why would they think it was strange if it was just a part of who Remus was? You wouldn’t tell someone their blonde hair made them strange, would you?
He didn’t understand why the world cared so much about the opinions of others. It only really did them harm.
Then again, harm wasn’t something Remus was foreign to. Maybe he was just stronger than everyone else? It certainly made sense. Other eleven-year-olds would be running to their mums if they had sliced open their knee like Remus had just done. But Remus was just sat on the counter with his feet in the sink, mopping up the stray blood with a flannel and waiting for it to scab over. A process he had been over many times. Though, that was usually at the hands of the wolf, this was at the hands of a sharp rock in the brook down the back of his estate.
Well… the thing was, he didn’t exactly have the option to run to his mum. She was there, of course, but she wasn’t really there. It was like the woman was constantly on some alien planet. Remus knew she cared, he remembered it from when he was little. But she sort of stopped showing it when his dad died. It didn’t bother Remus much. He was free to do his own thing.
A loud knock on the door of their home pulled Remus from his wandering thoughts. He cocked a brow and craned his nose up. The stranger smelt unusual. He couldn’t distinguish them from man or woman, they just smelled of, what Remus could describe as, sherbet lemons.
Remus almost slipped as he swivelled off the counter, rounding his feet out of the sink and placing them flat on the floor. He’d dry the wet footprints later. When he opened the front door, he looked up with a crooked brow to see an unusual looking man peering down at him over half-moon glasses. The man was old, at least sixty, and his hair was white and long, weaving into a beard that grew to his belly-button. The man wore a funny looking blue-grey dress that Remus assumed belonged so some sort of religion.
His mum had always told him to not bother with missionaries.
”Sorry.” Remus said, “We’re already catholic.”
They were, decidedly, not catholic.
“Is that the truth, young man?” The old bloke said, his voice was comforting. Remus wondered if this was what Father Christmas was like.
”No.” Remus admitted, simply, causing the man’s eyebrows to raise. Remus prepared himself for the scolding he usually got when he lied. He never saw why it was such a big deal. Instead, the man just gave a hearty chuckle that made his shoulders bob.
”Ah, well.” The old man said, “Either way, I am not here to discuss religion.”
”Okay…” Remus said, looking around rather awkwardly, then looking back at the man, “Should I get my mum?”
”Yes, I think that would be wise.” The old man smiled. His attitude was similar to most grown-ups. Grinning and laughing as though Remus was just a ‘silly child’ and that his opinions shouldn’t be valued. Remus didn’t like him already.
Remus left the old man at the front door, making his way up the stairs to his mums room. His house wasn’t very large, a two bedroom semi-detached with an old shed in the back garden that led to an underground basement. There weren’t very many basements in England, so his father - when he was alive - had dug out the garden and built a place for Remus on full moons. The walls were made of some mix of metals he’d gotten from Block and Quayle and the door was reinforced with some type of special substance Remus didn’t quite know the name of but knew it was something his dad had done.
”Mum?” Remus called as he knocked lightly on the door of her bedroom.
”Mm?” He heard from the other side.
”There’s an old man here who wants to speak to you.” Remus told her, raising his voice slightly to be heard through the wood.
”Alright, darling.” She called out back, her voice thick from sleep, “Be down in a minute.”
Remus knew there were many things in his life that people thought were strange. Like the fact he turned into a wolf once a month. Or that he had to teach himself everything everyone else learned in school. Or that, when his mum wasn’t working, she was sleeping. She slept quite a lot, his mum. Maybe it was just an adult thing. He’d probably understand one day.
“She’ll be down in a minute.” Remus said to the man at the door once he had returned downstairs.
The man regarded him for a moment, then, “May I come in?”
Oh. Right. Yeah. That was probably something he should’ve offered. Oh, well.
Remus nodded and stood to the side, opening the door wider and allowing the old man to come in.
The warm smile grew on the old man’s face and Remus followed his gaze to see his mum walking down the stairs.
His mum, however, did not return the look. Instead, as though to cancel out the old mans warmth, her face drained of colour and her mouth thinned into a stony line that Remus rarely ever saw on her.
”Dumbledore.” She said, steadily, halting at her place on the stairs.
”Ah, Miss Howell.” The man, (Dumbledore?) beamed, “How lovely it is to see you again.”
Remus’ mum walked the rest of the way down the stairs, filling the room with a silence devoid of a response as she crossed her arms and stood beside Remus.
”Can I help you?” His mum asked, her tone slightly defensive.
“I was wondering if we could have a little chat.”
*
Remus had been ordered upstairs by his mother, but he knew, if he craned his ears enough, he’d be able to listen into the conversation. So, thats how he found himself sat at the top of the stairs, taking in as much information as he could.
”I believe your son would be a wonderful addition—“
”You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? He’s a werewolf. How on earth do you expect to keep both him and other students safe?!”
”There are precautions we can put in place, Miss Howell.”
“I’m sorry, but no. I’ve spent every day since Lyall died making sure Remus has nothing to do with your world.”
”A logical decision. But what, may I ask, do you plan to do when Remus becomes aware of his abilities? Wouldn’t you rather he have control of them?”
”I’d rather he not have them at all.”
Silence.
”Professor Dumbledore, magic has caused an immense amount of damage to all of our lives. I want Remus to be normal. In your world, his lycanthropy will stunt any chance at a stable job. At least here all he has to worry about is coming up with an excuse to be off once a month.”
“As I understand it, Remus is not in muggle school at all?”
Another silence. This conversation was getting harder and harder to understand.
”Miss Howell. My offer is not one of malice. I merely wish for Remus to live as normal a life as he can. Don’t you think he’d have a better chance of that among his own kind?”
”Own kind? So you have plenty of werewolves at Hogwarts, then?”
”Admittedly not. However, I also understand that Remus’ home education prevents him from socialising. The wizarding world is much more accepting than the muggle world. This could be a great opportunity for Remus to make friends.”
Silence.
”Please, Miss Howell. Consider it.”
Five years, three weeks and one day later…
A lot had happened since that day in the summer of 1971. Remus had learned a great deal about not only the world but also himself.
The main point being, the universe loved to hand him grand ‘fuck you’s.
The first ‘fuck you’ happened when Remus was four. More a ‘fuck you’ to his dad, really. When Fenrir Greyback, a werewolf he had once insulted whist trying to imprison, gave him an incredible amount of karma by infecting his son.
The second happened shortly after, when Remus’ dad was so ridiculously embarrassed by Remus he decided to take himself on a long holiday. A long holiday off an overpass, scarring whatever poor lorry driver had to wipe him off his windshield.
The third ‘fuck you’ was when his mother decided she’d rather give up than look after her own son. Though, Remus often wondered if this was even a ‘fuck you’ at all. He came out of it being much more mature and much more self-aware than kids his age, knowing how to do the majority of everything by himself.
The fourth was a very inconspicuous one, at first. He wouldn’t call Dumbledore’s appearance at his home a ‘fuck you’, more some of the events that followed. The one where he discovered he was supposed to be a part of an entire other world of magic was one. But that was just the beginning of his string of ‘fuck you’s. Namely, the one where he got sorted into slytherin. This would’ve been fine, Dumbledore had told Remus he’d be accepted no matter what when he got to Hogwarts. But he neglected to leave out the part where Remus would have a hard time accepting anyone else.
It wasn’t completely hopeless, finding people he could tolerate in a house of irritating twats (a school of them, honestly). And, on the eve before everyone was set to leave for Remus’ first Christmas at Hogwarts, he would meet the girl he now called his best friend.
*
”Don’t sit there. Thats Loony Lupin.” Remus heard a group of girls snicker from behind him. He payed them no mind, however. There was no need to. Dessert was chocolate fudge cake today. Simple, but Remus’ favourite.
“That’s a very rude thing to say.”
Remus looked up to see a girl had sat on the other side of the slytherin table, opposite to him. She had skin as pale as her blonde hair and a frown on her lips, which were a full pink in contrast to the rest of her almost ghostly appearance. He turned his head to see the group of third-year slytherins were looking at her with an expression Remus could only describe as disgust.
“Oh, look.” One of them, a blonde girl, drawled, “Daft Dora, coming to the rescue.”
“Nobody calls me Dora anymore. I’m not three!” Not-Dora protested.
”You’re not very creative when it comes to nicknames, are you?” Remus pointed out.
The third year girls gave him the same look of disgust, only now it was paired with incredulousness. He wasn’t sure why. It was a valid point.
”Alliteration isn’t the only way to insult someone, y’know.” Remus said, “Like, if I wanted to insult you, I’d probably call you a thick-headed prat.”
The girls gave a collective gasp and looked at Remus as though he had just lit their nans on fire. Not-Dora, however, giggled behind her palm as the other girls stalked away in outrage.
”Good one.” She snickered.
”Good what?”
”Insult.” Not-Dora said, her chuckles giving way to a grin.
Remus didn’t intend to insult the girls, he was merely giving an example of an insult that happened to be true. He just shrugged.
”I’m Pandora.” The girl said, Remus looked up from his chocolate fudge cake.
”Remus.”
*
Pandora was, in many ways, one of the most brilliant people Remus had ever met. Though, he would never tell her that. She had figured out Remus was a werewolf not six months into their friendship and had was more outraged at the fact Remus hadn’t felt like he could tell her than the fact he turned into a murderous beast once a month. “It’s not so different than menstruation, really.”
Like Remus, Pandora didn’t give a rats arse about what other people thought. Now he was older, he understood more of the ‘why’ behind insecurity. Though, he had never felt it himself.
So, that brought him to his fifth and final ‘fuck you’. It was realised in his fourth year, when Pandora introduced Remus to Dirk Cresswell. He was a Hufflepuff and a year older. Pandora’s first boyfriend. She’d gone out with him because he had told her that he was learning gobbledegook and she thought it was interesting. She liked boys who were different, Pandora did, she’d explained to Remus that differences are how you set the good people from the dickheads. Normal boys talked about which girls had the best arses. Different boys, like Remus, had meaningful conversations and cared about her day. However, she had dumped Dirk three months later and was far too proud to admit she had been wrong about him.
But, the point was, Remus had panicked at this stage. When they were together, Remus had felt a sicky-stab in his gut. His stomach twisting with what he eventually figured out was jealously. He was mortified. Part of him thought he would’ve never dated anyone in his lifetime, perfectly content without the drama of it all, but come to find out he fancied Pandora?! It was horrifying. It was madness-inducing. It was entirely untrue.
This is where the real ‘fuck you’ came in. After he woke up from a rather compromising dream involving not Pandora, but her bloody boyfriend. Now, out of all of the strange things he didn’t care that he was, he probably cared the most about this one. It was where he had truly come to terms with ‘normality’. Why normality existed. Why people lived off of it.
It was stability and peace of mind. The simple fact of knowing who the people you come into contact with are and how you should interact with them. That normal people did safe things. That abnormal people were dangerous.
This didn’t mean he cared about what people thought of him being queer. It wasn’t hurting anyone, so why should he? It was the point that a relationship was two-sided. That he wasn’t the only one making decisions. He wasn’t the only one thinking anymore. He was going to have to, eventually, find 1. A gay bloke who 2. Accepted his lycanthropy and 3. wasn’t a prick or a nutcase. Remus thought he had better chance of snogging Crouch (not that he’d ever want to fucking do that).
Now, unsurprisingly, Pandora had figured out his sexuality almost as quickly as the werewolf thing. Though Remus’ sudden appearance at quidditch matches probably gave him away. It was not his fault the Gryffindor team was so easy on the eye. She had been more bloody bothered about the amount of gravy Remus liked on his Sunday dinners than she was about him being queer. All she had done was further stress her point that, whatever man he eventually find, would not be what society deemed as ‘normal’. Brilliant. Another one to add to the list.
With that concluded, we were all caught up on the glorious hand Remus had been dealt. Let’s hope the future is bright.
Monday 2nd September, 1975
“This is ridiculous.” Pandora said, clutching her timetable tightly. Remus was almost sure he could see her eye twitch.
”What is it?” Remus asked. Already scribbling down notes on his timetable, sat opposite her. Something he had done every year since he started. It was breakfast and also the second day of fifth year. Classes only started on the second day, thankfully.
“We’ve only got one free period together!” She sighed, shoulders deflating as her eyes scanned over the parchment.
“Which day?” Remus asked, not very bothered. He spent most of his time with Pandora anyway. They’d live.
”Tuesday third period.”
Remus jotted it down.
”Oh, Merlin.” She said, “We’ve got double defence against the dark arts first thing on Thursdays.”
Remus sighed, looking to see that, in fact, they did.
“A. Cadwalader.” Remus read.
”Pardon?”
”The defence against the dark arts teacher for this year.” Remus said, looking up from his timetable, “Sounds welsh.”
”Probably.” Pandora said, folding her timetable and sliding it into her pocket, “You reckon he’ll be any good?”
“Hopefully better than the last one. I swear I’ve scourgified my shoes fourty times and I can still feel the sand in them.” Remus sighed, now just scribbling down whatever nonsense he could think of.
”I don’t know why she insisted on us practicing our duelling outside.” Pandora said, bending down to pick her bag up from under the table, then sliding it onto her shoulder, “That’s what duelling mats are for.”
”Mm.”
”C’mon.” She said, standing up, “It’s potions first. You know how Slughorn is about punctuality.”
”He’s fine about it.” Remus said, following suit, “You’re just arse kissing to get into his club.”
“Says the prefect.”
Remus groaned. He’d, somehow, already forgotten that Dumbledore had chosen him to be one of the newest slytherin prefects. The other fifth year prefect was a girl named Dorcas Meadowes. Remus had never met her properly, he never much gave other people in his house the time of day, apart from the train ride in. She seemed absolutely thrilled to be there (she had slept the whole way, completely neglecting her patrol duties).
Oh god, patrol. That was not something he was looking forward to. He didn’t mind the walking about the halls part, especially at night when nobody was around, more the having to bother telling people off. Part of him wondered why he was chosen. He was good at school, sure, but he wasn’t a model student. Then again, compared to the rest of slytherin, a werewolf probably looked like the pope.
After potions, they had divination. A class Remus had only chosen because he didn’t know what to pick and Pandora had begged him. Both of the lessons called for little effort; mainly just going over the curriculum for the following term. Same with period three. Transfiguration. Remus liked professor McGonagall. She engaged in conversations with him more than most adults did and often praised Remus’ work without showing it off to the class like she did with other students because she knew he didn’t care for attention, plus she’d say cheeky things like, “I don’t mean any disrespect to professor Slughorn, but I do think you’d do a great deal better in Gryffindor.”. Part of Remus agreed, though the other part didn’t really care. Dickheads were everywhere. He didn’t doubt they’d be in Gryffindor too.
Just as they were dismissed for lunch, Remus snuck off for a fag in the fourth floor boys bathrooms. He usually went at break, but his break today was occupied with the schedules for his patrolling times. Sundays from midnight until one and Thursdays from eight until nine. Fucking brilliant.
Even though the fourth floor boys bathrooms were a trek from the great hall, it was the only one with a window he could reach to open. Plus he had gotten quite tall over the summer, pretty sure he was over six foot now, and wanted to see if he could reach it without having to risk a foot bath whilst standing on the toilet seat.
As it turned out, with a smug grin, Remus could just about reach it. He perched himself atop the tank so the smoke wouldn’t have anywhere else to go and let out a sigh of relief for his first silent moment since he’d stepped on the Hogwarts express.
The thing was, Remus’ dormmates were utter bellends, to put it simply. There was Amycus Carrow, probably the most normal out of them all. And that was saying something as Remus was pretty sure he sometimes heard him transfiguring goblets into mice then slaughtering them in the bathroom. Then there was Antonin (or ‘Tony’) Dolohov and Bartemius (or ‘Barty’) Crouch Jr. They came as a matching set in their dormitory, often sneaking in Regulus Black and Evan Rosier (Pandora’s twin brother, but he’d get more into that later) and shooing anyone who threatened to interrupt their strange cult-like meetings.
And finally, the fifth member of their horrendous shit show of an assigned group, Severus Snape.
Snape had had it out for Remus since their very first year when Remus, the oblivious eleven-year-old, very sincerely suggested he find a spell to wash his hair with since the shower clearly wasn’t working. Since then, the greasy twat had tried to do everything he could to get Remus expelled, or at least removed from the dormitory.
Now, at first, Snape had tried to come up with a reason based on the fact, once a month, Remus would disappear for a night. He had theories that ranged from some contagious illness that meant Remus shouldn’t be around them to that he was doing heroin and was trying to get them to do it too. Remus thought it was a little ambitious for an eleven-year-old, but admired the effort.
Anyway, the theories didn’t last long as… well, uhm. How can he explain this?
It’d all started in third year, when one night Pandora had had enough of Snapes constant nagging and had told him the reason Remus snuck out was to see her. They were fourteen at this point, and fourteen-year-olds believed anything. The rumour went around that Remus and Pandora, the perfect loony couple, had finally gotten together. Honestly, neither of them minded, they weren’t interested in relationships and they didn’t care about what people thought.
That was until Dirk, of course.
Pandora was now with another boy and Remus was still sneaking out. Thankfully, Dirk trusted that Remus was not sneaking to to his girlfriends dormitory. But that, unfortunately, meant the only explanation for the rest of the awfully nosey student population was that Remus, to put it simply, was a slag.
It was brilliant! People had started treating him like some sort of heterosexual sex wizard and he was a gay virgin! Crouch and his gang had died down on the insults, more than likely insecure that the barmy kid was getting more than they were. Remus got to practice his rejection skills on the girls that had started to flock to him like owls to mice. Not to mention, people had finally stopped trying to copy off him in class as his slag reputation was getting more attention than his swot one.
Remus was pulled out of his thoughts by a flash of translucent but aggressively offensive colours.
”Loony Lupin in the loo. Loony Lupin in the loooo!”
”Hello, Peeves.” Remus said, blowing his last drag out through the side of his mouth, aiming out the window behind.
Peeves tutted, laying back in a sitting position mid air and balancing his chin on his fist as though leaning on the arm of some invisible chair, “Loony Lupin’s a prefect now. I don’t think he should be smoking.”
”Isn’t it a bit noncey to float into bathroom stalls?” Remus asked, taking another drag then raising his arm to tap the excess ash out the window.
Peeves gave a world-ending huff and slumped out of his sitting position, “You kiddies. Back in my day, they would shriek and scurry off like their pants were on fire.”
”Talking about kids’ pants still sounds noncey.” Remus pointed out.
Peeves just wailed, flew up to the ceiling and crashed down into the toilet bowl just under where Remus was sat.
”I call him a nonce and he flies between my legs.” Remus muttered to himself, shaking his head. He twisted as he stubbed out the cigarette on the windowsill. But, just as he was about to hop off of it, he noticed a scribble of black ink against the painted white slab.
LET THE CHILDREN USE IT
LET THE CHILDREN LOSE IT
LET ALL THE CHILDREN BOOGIE
A smile cracked at Remus lips for a flurry of reasons. The first one was, obviously, the fact it was Bowie. The second was whoever had wrote it had probably intended for it to look punk, but the scrawl had come out looking, the only way Remus could describe it, like if the queen put on a leather jacket. Trying far too hard to look cool.
And the third, well, Remus just couldn’t resist.
He pulled out his wand and whirled it around. Muttering a quick incantation, the tip of it morphed into a square, ink-soaked felt. A trick Remus had taught himself in third year after being sick of looking for fancy bloody quills and clunky bloody ink pots.
It’s lose it before use it, Ziggy
He stared at his (a little messy) handwriting with a triumphant smile, then transfigured his wand back into, well… his wand and made his way to the great hall.
Remus Lupin’s Timetable, 5th Year