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Remus doesn’t feel well, hasn’t felt well for a while. He looks up at the ceiling but he just sees the bits of static that move around in the blackness and look a bit like tiny bugs, because he’s got a big new curtain that blocks out all the light from outside.
It came on after dinner, and he thought it was probably something he ate that his stomach didn’t like because that happens sometimes if you eat too fast, which he always does. But it’s usually gone away by now, and it hasn’t, in fact it’s gotten worse. He turns over and pulls his quilt to his mouth with his fist. The face of the clock on his bedside table glows slightly but he can’t remember which hand is meant to tell you the hour so he whispers very quietly, ‘What time is it?’ and it whispers back, ‘Thirteen minutes to midnight. Shouldn’t you be asleep?’
He closes his eyes. Thirteen minutes to midnight was definitely too late to go and tell his parents, he’d wake them up. His teddy is still sitting at the headboard next to his pillow so he reaches behind and grabs him, brings him as close as he can to his heart, along with his knees, so he’s curled up all round like a dog but it doesn’t make the feeling go away. He’s starting to think the pain might not even be coming from his belly. It could be in his chest, or his mouth, or his toes. It might even be coming from outside. The more he thinks about it, the more it seems like it isn’t a pain at all. It’s something bad that’s going to happen, and it’s going to be his fault because as he separates out the threads of the feeling one of them is definitely hiding his dad’s wand before he goes to work or using all his mum’s perfume to make a potion.
He lies there for a while longer trying to press down on the feeling as hard as he can but it doesn’t go away, and he realises quite suddenly that another one of the threads is the man coming in through the window. It hits him with a painful strike that runs through the middle of his body and he knows it will happen again, that he will make it happen again and he grasps at the switch on his bedside lamp. He looks around squinting through the black and blue spots burnt into his eyes by the light but there aren’t any men in his room and he begins to cry.
He calls out for his mum even though he knows he’ll wake her up but it’s his dad that appears at the door first, and he's moving towards him very fast, so he kicks out and wails to make him stop until his mum squeezes past through the doorway to land on his bed and wrap him in her arms. Both his parent are asking, what is it, what’s wrong, but they sound so worried and he’s crying so hard. He tells them, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and he knows there’s something else he needs to say but his head is so full now and his face is so wet that he stops trying to speak. He carries on crying while his mum strokes his hair, holding him against her chest, until the room is quiet apart from his sniffling and her soft shushing murmurs. Her nightie is soft and blue, with those little bobbles he likes to pick off while she reads to him.
When he raises his head to look back at the doorway, his dad is gone, and it’s just him and his mum in a big round ball on his bed. He starts to remember what it is he needs to talk about, the feeling of ruining his mum’s perfume and the man in the window so he says, trying very hard not to let his voice become a whine or a whimper, ‘I think something bad is happening.’
It’s quiet for a few moments, because Remus is holding his breath, knowing if he lets it out now he’ll start crying again, and his mum isn’t replying. He waits a little longer, then pulls back slowly to see her face, keeping his hands clenched in her soft blue nightie so she doesn’t think he’s letting her go. She isn’t looking at Remus but he can see her eyes are red and wet and very sad and her mouth is moving like when she watched the beginning of Bambi and now he knows it’s true, that he’s making something bad happen, because he’s made his mum want to cry. It starts him up again, and he goes back to being stuck at, I’m sorry, though his mum, crying too, insists he shouldn’t be, that he hasn’t done anything wrong.
When they’re both finally quiet again apart from their sniffles, there’s a pain in Remus’ head that thumps like a heart. He doesn’t think the man will come back in through his window tonight because his dad has told him many times that their house is extra safe now, and the man never ever visits the same boy twice. Still, he asks his mum if he’s allowed to keep his light on tonight and she says, oh, my love, of course, of course. They stay in their ball a while longer, and Remus closes his eyes. He wants to ask about what the feeling is but he’s so tired now that when his mum asks if he’s alright he nods and lets go of her dress. She kisses him on the head and stands up with her hand still on his cheek. ‘My brave, brave boy,’ she says and Remus doesn’t know what she means. The last bit of her he sees is her hand wrapped round the edge of his door to stop it from closing, and then it’s gone.
He turns around to look at the big dark curtain then back and forth around his bed until he finds his teddy, fallen down the gap between his bed and bedside table. He knows that because the man hurt him, he’s going to turn into an animal sometimes now and he’s sure it’s got something to do with the feeling in his stomach but he’s not sure why. He pulls his teddy tight to his body, covered in quilt up to his chin, and falls asleep facing the window.