Harry Potter Imagines/One Shots BOOK 2- #Wattys2018 #WattPride

Remus x Reader

Remus Lupin slept peacefully that cold Friday night. Even though he liked sleeping in his old dorm room with the other Marauders, he sometimes felt extremely lucky to have the luxury of having a room for himself considering his position as Prefect in his sixth year, as after-transformation nights would be the hardest and the ones Remus needed to sleep through the most. 

But, his peaceful slumber wasn't kept up for long. The incessant and loud banging of a door- the one belonging to his own room- woke him up. 

He sat up in mere confusion, rubbing his eyes. 

'What time is it?'- He mumbled to himself, looking out the window and concluding that it had to be around three in the morning. 

The knocking in the door became even more incessant, worrying Remus. He jumped out of bed, hesitating for a second before opening the door. 

'Y/N?'- Remus asked, his heart skipping a beat and his emergency side triggering. But Y/N couldn't answer. 

'Y/N, love, speak to me'- Remus understood in a second what was going on. 

'Remus'- She gasped, trying in pure desperation to get some air into her lungs.-'I can't breathe.'

'Y/N'- He felt like pulling his hair out. He dragged her inside, closing the door behind him. As soon as he did, Y/N collapsed to the floor on her knees in front of him, her legs giving in, as she burst into tears. 

'Y/N!'- Now he was desperate. He kneeled down next to the girl, trying to cup her face with his hands. She resisted, she cried. 

'I can't breathe'- She continued to cry, holding onto Remus for dear life. 

This happened very often. Remus' girlfriend, Y/N Y/L/N, struggled with severe anxiety due to her troubled childhood. Brought up in a household where abuse was often idolized, sheets reeked of alcohol, Unforgivable curses were used on little kids who were to choke up their tears and heal their own scars. Until the Y/L/N siblings got to go to Hogwarts. A blessing, really. It was the light at the end of the tunnel. When they arrived, people took care of them, they made friends who loved them dearly, they got food by the million and, most importantly, they got a home away from what they previously called home. 

And that's when Y/N met Remus. 

She had made acquaintances with Lily, Marlene and Alice, and consequently, with the Marauders- Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew and, most importantly, Remus Lupin-, who made Y/N feel loved and like she belonged. But her relationship with Remus was different. They sulked around each other for a few years until, in their fourth year, Remus finally grew a pair and asked the question. Since then, they had been a perfect pair, one for the other, no matter what happened. 

Remus was one of the few people who knew about Y/N's anxiety attacks. They didn't desperate him anymore, he knew exactly what he had to do when those things happened. But still, it hurt him badly to see his girlfriend, the light of his eyes, the love of his life suffer like that. 

Remus cornered Y/N against the wall, so she could hold her balance against something. He cupped her face with his hands. 

'Y/N, love, look at me.'- He pleaded, but she wouldn't budge. He carefully forced her face to his, trying to lull his eyes into hers. 

'Y/N, breathe. Breathe darling, I'll help you.'- Remus said and tried to get her to concentrate on breathing in the same frequency as him. Eventually, Y/N calmed down, regaining control of herself. Her lungs gave into her pleads and allowed air in, slowly, deeply, as she tried to breathe in in silence. Remus' eyes were fixed on hers- they were her calming bay, mesmerizing, beautiful, hypnotizing.-. Her body didn't stop shaking, and tears weren't kept at bay, though. 

When she finally could breathe by herself, she moved her hands to rest on Remus'. 

'You okay now?'- He asked softly. She nodded slightly, tears continuing to flow down her face. -'Do you wanna talk about it?'- She shook her head this time. Remus knew way too well though, she probably had had a bad dream about her childhood, or something that had to do with the scarring memories that said time in her life recurred to. And the dream had triggered her anxiety and made her come to him.

'Come on. Let's go to bed.'- He whispered softly, picking her up from the floor in his arms. Y/N basically collapsed in his arms, crying into his shoulder and shaking fiercely still. 

He rested her down on his bed, crawling under the covers with her. He wrapped an arm around her waist, allowing her to rest her head on his chest and sling a leg over his. With his free hand, he caressed her hair, then moving to her shoulder blades, where his thumb repeated a relaxing pattern over and over again. 

He whispered sweet nothings in her ear in the softest of voices. He had learned over the years how to lull her into sleep after an anxiety attack, so he had his ways. 

At one moment, she looked at him with glassy eyes. He returned the look, his heart clenching and shattering at the view of Y/N in such pain. 

'What, darling?'- He asked softly. 

'Thank you.'- She whispered softly, for the first time in two hours. Remus felt his heart slowly well with joy and warmness. He kissed her lips for a fraction of a second, his lips barely brushing hers before he pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

'You don't need to thank me, gorgeous.'- He said, his thumb resuming its pattern.-'I will always be here for you.'

He felt Y/N smile softly, and rest her head against his chest again. The trembling had gone down and the tears had stopped flowing -finally-, allowing Y/N to calm down completely. A few minutes later, he heard her deep, slow breathing- she was finally asleep- and he allowed himself to finally relax himself. Desperation and despair finally left his body completely, she was safe now in his arms. And his eyes couldn't help it any longer, and his thoughts slowly slipped past the last of his mental race, going into a deep slumber until late in the morning.