Chapter Text
Remus lifted his head groaning as he felt a strain on his chest making it increasingly hard to breathe. He spat, the metallic taste of blood coating his mouth. Inhaling his vision began to blur and he wondered what happened to him.
……………….
Remus awoke on March 10th to the smell of his mothers pancakes wafting down the hall. Remus always loved his birthday; it was the one day a year he and his parents would skip work and school, spending the entire day just the three of them. Running toward the kitchen he leaps, throwing himself into his Mom's arms breathing her in.
“Oh look at you little wolf.” Hope crooned at him.
“Muumm,” he whined. “I am not ‘little wolf’ anymore, I’m twelve now.” Remus says straightening up as if to prove it to her.
“What twelve, he can’t be, how could I not know this. Hope did you know our little one is twelve?” Lyle questioned as he strode into the kitchen to place a soft kiss to Remus’s head.
“Daad,” Remus grumbled, shoving his Dad half heartedly.
“It’s a good thing I got these then.” Lyle joked waving three tickets in front of Remus’s face.
At this he lit up. “Where are we going?”
“I thought a trip to the Royal Observatory could be fun, what do you think?”
Remus wrapped him in the tightest hug he could muster, holding on and letting Lyles' warmth envelop him.
“I only wish Sirius could come with us,” he says with a tight lipped smile ‘he would love it. Though I don’t think you could get us to leave.’
“Listen here my boy,’ Lyle crouches until he reaches eye level ‘maybe when he gets back from boarding school the three of us could go.” he offers with a smile
“Yeah Dad , that sounds good, and this way when we go with him I can show him where all the good stuff is.’
“If you two are quite ready, breakfast is getting cold.” Hope says chastising them both, placing the last of the plates on the table pancakes covered in berries dripping syrup.
At this Remus’s stomach audibly growled which prompted both his parents to let out a laugh.
…………………
The fluorescent lights above him made Remus’s head spin. He squinted in attempts to see better, his ears ringing all the while. Remus was moving but how? Voices started to penetrate the fog clouding him. They were loud, too loud, the sounds of people and machines only increasing by the moment. Remus tried to move but a wave of pain crashed over him and he let out a strangled cry, his body feeling as though it were being lit aflame. There was a voice of a woman amongst the surrounding sounds,
‘Mum?’ he croaked
She told him to stay still, not to move. His mothers hand came to rest on his forehead brushing back his hair back, his vision blacked at the edges once more and he was gone.
………………….
March 14th Remus Lupin woke to the sounds of the machine by his bed monitoring the rate of his heart and the hustle and bustle of the hospital.
“You’re awake.” the nurse to the right of him states in a thick Welsh accent.
He pushes sleep from his eyes blinking fervently
“Don’t worry son, I've paged the doctor and she’ll be along shortly.” and with that she turned and left him.
Doctor, why did he need a doctor? Clearly he was in the hospital but why, what happened to him and where were his parents? He looked around the room taking stock of his surroundings. The room was a stark white making his eyes hurt. There sat a solitary chair in the room's left hand corner next to a door that Remus presumed led to a bathroom. A gentle knock on the door alerted Remus to the presence of another, breaking him from his thoughts.
“Mr Lupin,” came a familiar voice. “I’m Poppy Pomfrey, your doctor.”
She was a tall woman looking to be in her early forties, chestnut hair framed her soft face reminding Remus of his mother.
“Doctor Pomfrey,” he started voice hoarse
“Poppy please.” she cut in.
“Ok umm Poppy," he tries tentatively “Where are my Mum and Dad, why aren’t they here and why am I?”
“There was an accident dear," she starts, he chokes feeling his chest constrict and eyes well with tears ‘your parents didn’t make it.’
Remus doesn’t remember much after that, later he was told that there had been a crash in which his Dad died on impact, whereas he and Hope had been rushed to hospital. His mum died in surgery due to the sheer amount of blood loss and he himself had only just pulled through. Remus suffered permanent damage to part of his brain, the thalamus in the crash meaning he would have chronic pain for the rest of his life. Part of Remus wishes that like his parents he had died that day.