Chapter Text
“Come on now, Remus, we have to get going,” the boy’s mother pushed him gently forward, and he reluctantly let go of the window’s edge. He reached out for his mother’s hand and took it firmly, his mind still swimming with the image of the bakery he had stopped in front of. The light had floated down, gently enveloping an assortment of breads, cakes, pies, and pastries that seemed fit only for fairy-tale princes. They had looked like the kinds of things drawn in his picture books from when he had been younger, heaped and glowing on the tables before King Richard. He couldn’t imagine the kind of wealth it would take to buy something like that, or the courage he’d have to gather to walk in and ask for one. If he entered that shop, he felt quite sure that they would send him right back out again-- that they would be able to sniff out his poverty, and put him to walking with a shudder.
“Are your shoes still holding up?” Remus pulled himself away from the thoughts of pastries and looked down at his feet. His shoes were scuffed and worn, a size and half too big (they had been his uncle’s before they were his), and the soles were thin enough that he felt each of the rocks under his feet as well as he would have barefoot.
“Yes, they’re alright.”
“Good,” she squeezed his hand, smiling at him. A curl slipped loose from her bun, bouncing against the side of her head, and she tucked it carefully behind her ear. He watched her, thinking that maybe it was time to grow up a bit. His mom never stopped at bakery windows, never blinked at prices or sighed over things they could not have. Absent-mindedly, Remus brushed his own hair into place, and stood just a bit taller.
Remus’ mother handed him the fork, and he dutifully smashed the potatoes down, mushing them and mixing in the salt and pepper, and a little bit of butter. His mom added the carrots and swede to his bowl as she chopped them, their boiled skins giving away under his fork. When his grandma had been here, she told him there were usually no skins in their stwnsh, but that his mother liked them that way and so that’s how they’d do it. Personally, Remus thought perhaps it would be better with no skins.
Finished mashing, Remus looked over the sausages on the stove and turned them around a bit. He heard the door open and glanced towards the entryway to see his father coming in backwards, lugging something in with him. Remus’s eyes grew wide.
“A present for you,” his father said. “Secondary school next month!”
The pumpkin was at least half his fathers height, and more than a few feet across. Pumpkin seeds were his favourite snack, and he couldn’t even imagine how many pies they could get out of one that big.
“Where did you get that?” He asked, excitement overtaking him.
“Mr Mallory down the street, the one with all the fields. He caught me up on my way home, said he’d like me to bring it back for the family.”
“Oh, how sweet,” his mother said, brushing past to get a closer look. Remus was close on her heels, running a hand over the smooth surface once he got up close. He beamed up at her.
“We get pie?” he asked hopefully.
“All the pie you’d like, love,” she smiled back at him, laying a hand on his head.
“Would you like to help me break it down, kid?” His father offered him a knife that seemed more closely related to the jigsaw in their backyard than anything in the cutlery drawer. Remus hesitated, looking at the outstretched hand as one might eye a suspiciously snake-like stick on the ground: with a little bit of apprehension, and a little bit of recognition.
“Sure, if you’d like,” he said after a moment, very carefully taking the handle of the knife, as far up from his father’s tanned skin as he could. He heard a small sigh from above him, but kept his eyes down, on the shiny orange of the gigantic pumpkin.
They dismantled it on the outside table in silence. Every so often Remus’ father, Lyall, would make a small attempt at conversation, but each time he got only a one or two word response. Remus felt bad for him, out in the cold, having to be the bigger person. His father didn’t even like pumpkin.
He didn’t have to pretend to like his son, Remus thought, except for the fact that he was such a good person, to his very core. He would pretend for the rest of Remus’ life, probably. And Remus would do as he always had, and keep his distance as much as he could for both of them; if his dad was unwilling to cut ties with him, he would make those ties as loose and forgettable as they could be. It was the least he could do.
And yet, one small request couldn't hurt.
“Dad?” Lyall looked up from his work, surprised.
“Hm?”
“Well… I’ve been thinking about secondary school a lot,” he said hesitantly. “And I talked to Mrs. Fitz. I’d like to do home tuition from now on. I can teach myself everything,” he added hurriedly. “Mrs. Fitz said she could lend me all the books twice a year and I can do it all myself. I wouldn’t slack off.”
Lyall’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. For a moment he looked like he was about to argue a case for Remus to rethink the decision, but then something crossed his eyes, and he gave the young boy a small smile.
“Well, if Mrs. Fitz says it’s okay.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
___
Lyall laid his head back, resting it on the headboard as his wife moved about their room in the soft light, finding her nightgown and moving her pillows about. He squeezed his eyes shut, and after a moment brought his head against the headboard with enough force to rattle the pictures on the wall. He felt the bed dip next to him, but didn’t bother opening his eyes. A soft, cold hand touched his face, a finger wiping the moisture from his eyes.
“I don’t deserve to be here, Hope.” He finally looked at her, his face broken. “I don’t deserve it and yet at the same time it’s the most just punishment there is.” She stayed quiet. “He doesn’t deserve this. The two of you would have been better off without me.”
“What did the two of you talk about?” She asked after a moment.
“Home tuition. Wants to teach himself.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said yes! I said yes.. What else was there to say? ‘No, son, I’d much rather you go and spend the day being tormented and making impossible excuses’?” Lyall sat up then, grabbing Hope by the shoulders. He was quiet, as their house had thin walls, but his voice had all of the intensity of a man screaming. “He’s eleven, for God’s sake! He should be able to go to school and have friends and do whatever the hell he wants! At eleven I was.. I was..” he shook his head, as if to clear it. “I look in his eyes and I only see my son. But I look at his face and all it does is remind me of how I’ve failed him. Of everything I’ve cost him.” Hope took his hands into her own.
“Remus is strong. Stronger than either of us. He’ll be okay.” Lyall nodded, holding her hands a little tighter. “And he loves you.”
He shook his head slowly. “He shouldn’t.”
___
Remus spent the majority of the next few days in his small room. He had gotten the books Mrs. Fitz had promised him early, so he could be more productive. They were fairly simple, and once he read through each lesson he had planned for himself he would curl up in his bed with one of his three novels and read it over again. All three of them were very obviously old, and the corners of the covers were worn, but they were in otherwise pristine condition. He was in the middle of Frankenstein when he heard voices rising below him, in the kitchen. He glanced at his nightstand to check the time, but something out of the window caught his eye: a large barn owl was flying away from their house, the bright sunlight shining on his feathers. Remus stood, opened his window, and leaned out-- no, he wasn’t crazy. Forgetting the commotion that had originally distracted him, he made his way down the stairs to the kitchen.
“Mom!” he called. “Mom there was an owl out in broad daylight right under my window and then it flew away but it was definitely-” he broke off as he pushed open the door to the kitchen, where his mother was standing on one side, a letter crushed and crumpled in her fist and her arms crossed tightly across her chest. On the other side, his father was leaning on the counter, arms also crossed and watching the toaster. His foot tapped furiously against the floor, agitation radiating from him.
“I’ll just… go…” he said, backing out. His mother sighed and turned around, throwing the letter in the trash bin.
“No, Remus, you can stay, everything is fine.”
“Hope-” his father started, trying to retrieve the page. It looked like parchment to Remus- nice parchment. He wondered who it was from. His mother grabbed his father by the arm before he could reach it, staring daggers at him.
“We’re not. Talking about it,” she said icily. He pulled himself from her grip and rounded on Remus, coming up to him and leaning down to his level, even going so far as to put a hand on his arm.
“Lyall Gideon Lupin don't you dare-”
“Remus,” He said, eyes intent. Remus leaned back a bit, nervous. He looked over to his mother, but the look on her face was murderous, and he looked quickly away.
“You’ll only hurt him Lyall! This isn’t going to work!”
His father ignored her. “Remus,” he said again. “If you could go to school with kids who would treat you normally, if you could have a big safe space to go when you needed to and someone to take care of you and classes that you loved… if you could go to school like any other kid, would you want to?” Remus’ eyes had grown as he listened to his father’s impossible question. Where could he possibly go that would allow him to be a normal kid? A normal kid, with real classes and maybe even friends… He nodded his head.
“Yes, please,” he whispered.