Chapter Text

Remus

Do you miss the quiet when it’s gone?

It’s something you take for granted, probably. Most people do. They don’t even notice when it’s there. Sometimes I feel like it is only me who longs for it, when the only thing you can hear is yourself, and your own thoughts, and the empty space in your head.

I haven’t felt that for a long time.

That was what the pills were supposed to do, presumably, but the empty bottle that lies on my bedside table only reminds me of the silence that I’ll probably never get back.

My mum had really high hopes for these ones. But she has high hopes about everything, and all I do is crush them and squash them into sadness under the heel of my shoe like a bug. I hate it- I hate the look on her face when I inevitably tell her that no, the medication didn’t work, and yes, I'm still hearing them.

I know I'm disappointing her. It seems that’s all I do these days, but at least my dad is more realistic. 

I heard them arguing yesterday night, while I sat on my bed and tried to ignore the fact that my walls were about to close in on me.

“It’s beyond our reach, Hope,” he was saying in a placating tone.

“So you want to send him away?” she demanded, slamming the oven door.

“We’ve just found him a new school! You want to pull him out before he even tries?” 

I drown out the words under my pillow, so I’m not sure if the conversation that follows is the voices of my real parents or the fake ones made up in my brain. 

“How can you not know? You’re a psychiatrist, for god’s sake, Lyall. You do this kind of stuff!”

Oh yes. My dad, the esteemed professor of psychiatry. I mean, you can tell it just by looking at him- with his tweed suits and tortoise shell glasses. He always wears a slightly bemused expression when you talk to him, like he’s not sure if what you’re saying lines up with the latest theory he read about human interaction.

Ironic, isn’t it?

“Remus, are you ready, love?” my mum yelled from the kitchen below me. 

“Coming,” I shouted back, stuffing a jumper into my fraying backpack and running a hand through my unkept hair. 

A quick glance in the mirror told me that the entire back section was sticking up. I grabbed a brush and hastily tried to flatten it. 

Tired eyes stared back at me. I hold bragging rights (to my mum's dismay) that my dark circles look almost like black eyes. 

“Remus?” 

Throwing the comb aside, I raced down the stairs two at a time, emerging into our cramped little living room, where I was greeted by the smell of pancakes. 

My mum smiled up at me. The only person in the house who is possibly as tired as me is her, but she still looks beautiful.  Not in a weird way, obviously. She’s my mum. I just mean that where I always look like I’m about to drop dread, she wears her fatigue like a trophy. Look at me, look at all this shit I have to put up with, and I’m still doing ok! That kind of thing.

I hastily splashed some milk into my tea and began to eat my pancakes, which were pre-cut.

“It’s eight o clock, love,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “I’ll have to drive you or you’ll be late.”

Secretly I knew she was happy about the fact that I couldn’t take the bus on my own, but I didn’t say anything. 

“How are you feeling?” She asked tentatively. 

I shrugged. “Fine.”

She looked at me, evidently waiting for me to say more. When I didn’t, she sighed.

“You’ve got to take this seriously, Rem. You heard what Professor Dumbledore said. If this doesn’t work out, then….”

Professor Dumbledore was the headmaster at the new school I was starting- the only school in London that had consented to take me halfway through my A levels.

I’d gone with my parents to meet him at the start of summer. It was a pretty fancy private school, very different to all the ones I’d been to before. The entire campus was surrounded by huge golden gates, and the playing fields stretched over miles. In fact, the building itself was made of high towers and winding turrets, so that my first impression as we drove up to it was that it must be a castle.

Professor Dumbledore was a strange man, I’d thought- first of all because of the fact that his silvery beard was long enough to tuck into his belt, and second that he ate what I counted to be 7 sherbet lemons throughout the entirety of our meeting.

My dad couldn’t stop sucking up to him though.

“We’re ever so grateful for your help, sir!” and “Remus understands what a true privilege learning here is!”

As if I didn’t know that- I’d been out of school for almost six months. To be honest, I was pretty relieved to be back. I didn’t think I could spend another week at home in my room.

Looking up at my mum I gave what I hoped was a comforting smile.

“Don’t worry, mam. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

She smiled back at me, then looked at the clock and gasped. 

“8:10!” She said, standing abruptly. “Come on, or you’ll be late!”

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of nervousness in my chest. There were crowds of kids all spilling into the open golden gates, on top of which in curling metal letters sat the word ‘Hogwarts’. 

My mum parked and looked up at me anxiously.

“You’ll be alright, won’t you Remus?”

I nodded briefly, opening the car door to the disappointment of my mum, who clearly wanted to pester me a little more.

“You’ll call me if anything happens?” 

I nodded again.

“And you know where to go if you don’t feel well?”

“I’ll be fine, Mam!” I said, stepping out of the car and closing the door before she could say anymore. 

I hauled my backpack over my shoulder and set off into the direction of the school, stuffing my hands as deep into my pockets as I could.

I felt distinctly grateful that sixth formers didn’t have to wear uniform, watching some tiny kids fiddle with their massive blazers.  One boy looked like he was drowning in his as his mum kissed goodbye to him. 

The school looked even bigger up close. The massive tower that spiralled up from the entrance doors looked over me somewhat menacingly.

What kind of a school even looks like this?

In fact, it looked even fancier on the inside. The floors were a smooth brown, clearly having recently been polished. Lining the walls were display shelves after display shelves of various trophies and medals that glimmered at me threateningly. 

Shit, even the ceiling was decorated- it looked like the roof of a church, painted with figures draped languidly over sofas, staring down at me in a way that managed to be intimidating.

I felt distinctly out of place.

I probably shouldn’t have stood there staring at the lavish ceiling for so long, because I was immediately assaulted by a nasty looking man wearing a hi-vis. The name on his greying lanyard read ‘Mr. Filch’. He grunted at me. 

“ID?”

“I don’t have any,” I replied slowly. “I’m new.”

He shook his head, leering at me between half closed eyes. “No ID, no entry.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but I was saved by a strict looking woman who approached us from her corner of the entrance hall. Her brown hair was tied back in such a tight bun I thought it might fall off any moment, and her lips were pressed into a line.

“Is there a problem here, Argus?” She asked, her voice thin.

I immediately made a mental note not to cross her the wrong way.

“This boy doesn’t have his ID,” he said, staring suspiciously at me as though I might take out a rifle any minute and shoot the place down.

“I don’t have any ID,” I explained once again, though I directed it this time at the lady rather than the unsavoury security guard to my left.

“I’m new.”

She gave a sudden start as though recognising me.

“Ah yes. Remus Lupin?” She said, peering down at me over her spectacles.

I nodded quickly.

“He’s alright, Argus, I’ve got an ID for him in my office,” she said to Mr. Filch, who looked tremendously disappointed that he wasn’t able to kick me out of the premises and muttered something under his breath.

As I trailed along behind her, I could feel his glaring eyes boring into the back of my neck, as though I was spreading dirt all over his polished floors, which I wasn’t, because my shoes were new.

“I am Professor McGonagall, the deputy head,” the lady was saying, looking at me as sternly as she could manage through the side of her glasses.

“I dare say Professor Dumbledore mentioned me? I’m sorry I couldn’t meet your parents when they came by. I was, er- otherwise occupied”

She took a sharp left turn into the corridor, making me skid slightly on the squeaky floors. I thought bitterly that Filch must have over polished them on purpose. He seemed the type of guy to get off on making kids fall over.

“It is rare to have a student join us in year 13,” she continued, and the sniff in her voice made me feel vaguely like I was breaking the rules just by being there.

“Of course, owing to your… special circumstances, the headmaster felt it best to make an exception. You’re lucky you were doing the same exam boards at your old school, Mr. Lupin.”

She sniffed again, and I wondered what her reaction would be if I told her I’d only showed up to a month of school last year.

Her office seemed suspiciously Spartan compared to the lavishly decorated corridors, with just one brown shelf full of books and another full of ominous looking folders. 

Considering the only human interaction outside of my psychiatrist and my parents is the guy from the corner shop, I think I did a pretty good job at talking to her like a normal person- nodding in all the right places and smiling politely. I only slipped up once, when she was handing me my new timetable, because for a moment, her shadow morphed into a cat. My double take must have been too obvious because she frowned at me as if I wasn't listening.

Turns out I was in her form, which I was expected to be at every day for the 20 minutes before lunch. And my timetable wasn’t half bad- plenty of free periods and two late starts. 

In fact, as I walked down the corridor to my first lesson (Latin), I was feeling pretty good