hands (professor lupin)✔️

Chapter Five || Bleak

The rest of my stay with my parents was strange, yet calm in a painful way. I would wake up and for a split second, I wouldn't feel the pain of all that had happened. Lupin's face would still appear in my memory, but for the moment, untainted with all the hurt that followed.

And then the memories came back like a wave and I dropped back on the pillow, covering my face and hoping I would be able to fall asleep again.

I didn't get sick anymore. As much as my parents worried, I was completely fine. Physically, that is.

I would go on long snowy walks by myself at first - but then my mom insisted on accompanying me and there was no shaking her off.

Sometimes I feel like my whole life has been punctuated by people who care so much about me they won't leave me alone. Sometimes I got suicidal and hoped I'd slip and fall into the river - but my mom was always at my side so I had to stop thinking that way.

Never leaving me alone to do something stupid.

Like Ruby.

Ruby. I hadn't thought about him a single time since we parted ways. I thought he might write to me - but then I realised that at the time it would have been too painful for him. Being the kind soul that he was, he would probably want to leave me alone for a while.

That night as I sat in front of the Christmas tree and wondered how I had managed, in such a short timespan to forget what happy things felt like, I remembered Ruby's face the night before I went down to talk to Lupin.

His stern eyes, the pain I could see in his lips - how much older he looked.

I shook my head. It was hard enough to know Lupin suffered because of my unneeded affection. I couldn't think right now that Ruby felt the same way that I did. That maybe all he wanted to do was kiss me, hold me. That without that possibility, he was suffocating. And, to make matters worse, I was in love with someone else - someone who Ruby respected, but could no longer like.

This was a bad situation. And I had no idea how to make it better.

All I could really do was hope for the best and zone out. My parents took me to town where I bought some new clothes - despite the financial difficulty, my mom insisted I needed new clothes.

As time went by, I got used to the quietness of the mornings, the sound the china made when mother washed it and the phone ringing in dad's room, upstairs. I realised I loved my home and that I felt calmer and more myself there. Almost no one came to see us - my parents lived like recluses, just like I did.

It wasn't a happy time, it was a very painful time. But being at home made it slightly, ever so slightly better.

Until the day came when I had to go back.

It was a warmer day and the sun was shining quite brightly as I got in the car with my parents and they drove me to the station. We were silent most of the way, only my mom kept asking me if I'd taken everything. Randomly, quietly.

- Toothbrush?

- Yeah.

- Books?

- Uh huh.

- Gloves?

At last, we arrived at the station. The train was leaving in about fifteen minutes - we were early. I stood in a close embrace with my parents the entire time and as the warning signals rung out, I realised I was almost crying.

- You promise me you'll be kind to yourself, - my mom said, letting me go as my dad brushed a tear out of his eye. - If you're not kind to yourself, not all the kindness in the world can help you.

- If anyone tries to beat you down, petrify them, - my dad whispered, "petrify" being the one spell he was most impressed by.

- It's illegal, but all right, - I laughed, despite how much I wanted to cry.

I got on the train and waved at my parents for a long, long while before the train finally began to move and I was too far away to see them.

I was going back to Hogwarts. I had promised to myself I would try not to talk to Lupin, whatever that took. In the end, I was better at coping with my pain when he wasn't around.

Yet something else, a sort of premonition, or maybe just anxiety was bothering me.

I felt that I was going back to fight several battles at once. Somehow, for no reason at all, I had become scared. I brushed it off as well as I could and dragged my luggage into my compartment.

The journey to Hogwarts was a long one.