INSTEAD, james potter [1]

Chapter Thirty-Five

Lyra had finished her essay on Dementors, and she had already asked Remus if he could read it over, which was exactly what he was doing. He was also underlining things, which made her a bit nervous. 

Remus smiled as he put the essay down. "Alright, it's pretty good. There were a few mistakes, but that's because it's outdated information. I underlined it. But overall, it's already E-quality. If you corrected these things, it will be an easy O."

"Thanks," the blonde said hesitantly, reaching out to grab her essay. She was considering reading it over to figure out what she had done wrong, but she found herself looking at Remus instead.

"So..." she trailed off, awkwardly scratching the back of her neck. She already regretted it, as she had no idea what she was going to say, so when she forced something out, it became even more awkward. "How have you been?"

Remus didn't react to how awkwardly she said, instead he was only looking at her strangely, as if he was trying to figure her out, like she had with him already. "Depends. Do you want the truth or the lie?"

That gave Lyra enough of an answer. But she didn't want him to feel like he couldn't talk to her. Because as she looked at him, she saw Remus. Not a werewolf. "Do you trust me enough to give me the truth?"

"Do you trust me enough to hear it?" he retorted. It was an unusual look on his face. While he usually had a smile while looking at her, he was only frowning. "Because I don't know if I can tell you if you're going to be scared of me forever."

"I don't know," Lyra said honestly, looking down so she didn't have to see the inevitably sad look on his face by her confession. "I haven't exactly experienced this before, and I don't want to give you any false hope."

As she looked up at him, he was nodding. He seemed to have expected this reaction, but that didn't mean that it hurt him any less. "Well, thank you for that, at least." 

They were both quiet, and the Slytherin hesitated before speaking up. "I know this is totally out of place for me to ask. But would you mind telling me your story? If you don't trust me enough to tell it, then I completely understand."

"My dad used to work at the Ministry," Remus started his story, refusing to meet her eyes. "A werewolf named Fenrir Greyback was on trial back then, he had murdered two children. He pretended to be an unimportant muggle, but Dad knew differently. He knew he was a werewolf."

Lyra listened intently, hearing how Remus seemed to hate telling the story, but didn't want to stop. "Greyback got off. Dad said something about how he deserved nothing but death. Greyback didn't like that."

"I was in bed, sleeping. Then he came through the window, ready to take his revenge." Taking a deep, shaky breath, Remus gripped his own hands to keep from shaking. "Dad made sure he didn't kill me. But he couldn't stop him from infecting me."

"My parents refused to believe it. Their little boy, a werewolf," the Gryffindor scoffed, closing his eyes to keep tears from building up in his eyes. "They took me to all these healers, but there's no cure for Lycanthropy."

It broke her heart to see him this vulnerable, which he had never been before. "We started moving around a lot, so nobody noticed there was something off about me. Mum and Dad made sure I stayed home most of the time, just to be sure."

He continued, still not looking at her. "During full moons, Dad locked me in a room and cast several Silencing charms. But as I got older, I got stronger. They were worried they couldn't keep me contained for much longer. I was knocking down doors and breaking windows."

"Dad tried to home-school me, because none of us thought I would ever go to Hogwarts," Remus revealed sadly. "We all thought I was far too dangerous for that. But one day, Professor Dumbledore came to our house."