Song:
You belong with me (Taylor Swift)
When Remus Lupin looked at himself in the mirror all he could see was his scars. Smaller and larger, fresher and older, deeper and more superficial; with a simple glance he could focus on each and every single one of them. When he was young he didn't care all that much. He looked in the mirror and he focused on his eyes, on his nose, on his lips. That was until a muggle girl in his elementary school asked why he had lines on his face. And as he grew older and the scars increased, so did the comments.
"Where did he get that from?"
"He would be much more attractive without them..."
"Maybe you should try to cover them up."
His parents could clearly see that this was affecting him. And how couldn't it? He was just a boy; a sweet, kind boy that didn't deserve any of this. He didn't deserve to turn into a beast every month, to hate himself for what he was and to look at himself in the mirror and immediately notice everything that was wrong with him. He couldn't cover his face, but he could cover his arms, his legs, his torso. And that was exactly what he did. It could be boiling outside and Remus would still wear a long sleeved shirt and a pair of long pants. He knew he looked ridiculous dressed like that in the middle of August, but it was better than receiving judgemental looks on the streets. It took him years to feel somewhat comfortable with changing in front of his friends and even though he knew that they would never believe something like that about him, he couldn't help but think that maybe they thought he was disgusting.
And so, the young werewolf trailed his finger over the new scar etched on his cheek, tears silently running down his cheeks. After all, it would be stupid to wake his parents up for something as insignificant as this.
~ ~ ~
It was two o'clock in the evening and Remus again couldn't sleep. Over the past two hours he had done everything he could think of to fall asleep. From drinking warm milk and reading a book in an attempt to tire his eyes to trying out one of the muggle tricks Lily had told him and staying still with his eyes closed for as long as possible; he was always annoyed by something. The blanket was too short, he was too hot, he got too cold. The pillow was too stiff, the pillow was way too soft. He had a headache, he hadn't eaten anything for dinner....
Remus Lupin couldn't sleep and he couldn't be more furious about it.
Fed up, he got up and switched on the lights, closing the door so as not to wake Hope and Lyall up. Remus opened the window and pushed aside the curtains, looking at the room opposite from his. However, he didn't expect to see Callisto awake with her hair tied up in a bun as she raised small vials up in the lamp of the room. He gathered all the courage he had and called her name.
Callisto's head snapped to his direction, her heart speeding up as the vial fell from her hands and landed on the floor, smashing in small pieces. Remus immediately regretted talking to her. He had startled her and now whatever she was preparing was spilled on the floor. He could clearly see her eyebrows knitting together and her lips forming a tight line as she walked over to the window.
"Yes, Lupin?"
"Sorry for scaring you." He apologized, his palms starting to get sweaty. "I just couldn't sleep and you were awake, so I thought..."
"You thought we could hang out." Callisto completed his sentence with a small smirk. Remus nodded, cursing at himself for not being able to sleep. If he could just fall asleep like every other person in this neighborhood he wouldn't be in this utterly embarrassing situation right now. "Do you still have the trace on you?"
"Yes." He mumbled. Callisto nodded thoughtfully when her eyes lit up and she raised her hand as if to stop him from saying anything. "Stay there. I have an idea!"
Before he even had the chance to talk, she disappeared further in the room. The last thing he caught glimpse of was a few streaks of blonde hair as the door opened and got shut quietly. Remus waited patiently for Callisto to come back, wondering what her mind had stirred up. Soon enough, his questions got answered when Callisto mumbled a spell and he started levitating right out of his room, slowly approaching Callisto's wide open window.
He landed on the floor surprisingly gracefully, his heart speeding up as he looked at the young girl with wide eyes.
"Are you insane? You could have dropped me!"
"You're alive, aren't you?" She retorted, raising an eyebrow. He stayed silent, her lips tugging up in a smirk. "That's what I thought."
Remus looked at the room. It was fairly simple with a single made bed and a black closet. Callisto's books were on the ground, some of them opened in random pages full of notes and little diagrams. His eyes fell on the cauldron set right next to the window and the closed trunk acting as a counter for the small vials.
"What are you doing?" He asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"I'm fine, Lupin. What about you?"
"That's not what I meant."
"I know." She stated, bending down to pick up the broken glass. "Next time you want to hang out, just tap on the window."
"Do you need help with that?" Remus asked guiltily as Callisto collected the small pieces of glass and threw them in the bin.
"I've got it handled." She murmured, reaching under the bed to pick up the last shard. Remus heard her draw in a sharp breath and she removed her hand from under the bed. The piece of glass had cut her palm, blood oozing out of the wound. She quickly threw it in the bin with the rest of the shards and wiped her hand on her black shirt, reaching out for the wand.
"If this backfires, I'd prefer to get cremated. Something about being eaten by worms doesn't sit right with me." She mumbled, casting a spell with the wand. Thankfully, the cut got patched up and she sighed in relief, leaving the wand on her bed.
"Why would it backfire?" Remus questioned hoping that he wouldn't get the answer he was suspecting Callisto would give him.
"That's Vera's wand. I still have the trace on me."
"Oh, so you used someone else's wand to carry me mid-air!" He hissed, his eyes narrowing.
"Oh shut up, Lupin!"
"Fine." He grumpily mumbled, looking at the cauldron curiously. "What are you making?"
"Calming drought." She answered, chopping up some lavender with a small knife. "Why are you awake?"
"I have trouble sleeping sometimes." He mumbled, looking down at his hands.
"I'll keep some drought for you then." She chirped, pouring the chopped up lavender in the potion. It immediately turned a bright pink color and Callisto stirred it three times, a blue hue appearing on the edges of the liquid. Remus watched as she skillfully dissected the crocodile heart. She didn't look disgusted like he was every time he had to chop something that once belonged to a living being.
"Stop looking at it like it's gonna bite you Lupin." She chuckled, twisting the knife around her finger. Remus' head perked up at her choice of wording but he recalled once again, that biting and being a werewolf weren't mutually exclusive.
"It looks appalling, Callisto." He confessed as she dropped the minced up heart in the cauldron. She wiped her hands on a towel and plopped on the bed, her blonde hair spreading around her face.
"It's already dead, Lupin. It can't hurt you and it's not in pain." She mumbled, turning to face him.
"That doesn't make it less disgusting." He insisted. Callisto waved her hand dismissively and pointed at the open trunk at the other side of the room.
"Can you hand me one of the medium vials?" She asked, shuffling a yawn. Remus nodded and got up, opening the trunk to get out the vial. She had an unnatural amount of vials, Remus thought as he took one and handed it to her. "You're a lifesaver Lupin."
"Why do you have so many vials?"
"I sell potions to people that can't even boil water properly." She explained, getting up. The potion had now turnt a potent blue color and she poured some of it in the vial, securing it with a lid. "You'd be surprised at how many people suck at Potions."
"Me being one of them." He said, raising an eyebrow. Callisto smirked and beckoned for him to come over.
"Bottoms up, Lupin." She handed him a glass with the blue potion and he brought it to his nose, a sweet smell invading his nostrils.
"Why doesn't it stink?" Madame Pomfrey has given him the potion on various occasions after the full moon and he could easily recall the vile smell and taste of the potion that reminded him of sweaty socks mixed with flowers.
"Secret ingredient." She answered, using the wand to clean the cauldron up. The spell came off to strong and a jet of water shot on her face. "Don't you dare laugh, Lupin."
It was too late. Remus was chuckling as silently as he could, feeling his stomach hurt as she wiped her face with the back of her hand. Callisto pouted, hoping that her hard gaze would intimidate him but at the moment, she looked too ridiculous to scare off anyone. He downed the potion, feeling it work much faster than he remembered.
"Bloody hell, that's strong." He yawned, rubbing his eyes.
"There's a reason people buy my potions, darling." A hint of arrogance in her voice as she levitated Remus back to his room. "Goodnight, Lupin."
"Goodnight, Claire."
~ ~ ~
"We need to talk."
If Vera and Thomas Claire could chose a way to wake up in the morning it certainly wouldn't be by having their daughter barge in their room, open the curtains wide and pull the covers from them, while these words came out of her mouth. They were adults and in their book, there was no reason to feel nervous when Callisto announced that she wanted to talk, only that they knew that they were the ones that caused this situation to begin with. Not to mention that their daughter had unfortunately inherited the same hard gaze that they took pride in, yet right now, made them want to cry. Yes, the Claires were grown up adults.
Callisto's patience was running short. Tomorrow morning she was supposed to leave for Hogwarts and her parents had yet to explain why they abandoned her with her aunt. Vera got up, wrapping her robe tight to her body as she closed the curtains and walked out of the room, looking at her feet. Thomas motioned for her to follow him and Callisto reluctantly did so. She could already predict what would happen. Vera would offer to prepare breakfast as if pancakes could make up for the lack of their presence in her life, then Thomas would start praising her even though he barely knew what she had been doing all those years and as a way to wrap up the shitshow, they would both claim that they loved her.
Callisto sat on the couch, crossing her legs. Her black skirt moved up her thigh and she impatiently swung her right leg, observing the fishnet pattern of her stockings.
"Why did you abandon me?" She asked, preparing to hear Vera's attempts at deflecting. Instead, Vera and Thomas sat opposite from her, sincere looks on their faces. Unknowingly to Callisto, Vera indeed considered proposing breakfast but she decided against it. If there was any possible way for them to get her back, it would be by finally telling the truth.
"I got pregnant with you about a year after I got married to your father. We had been trying for quite some time but after I went to the hospital for my monthly check up, the healer informed me that there were very few possibilities that I could ever be able to have a child. I already knew that something like this might happen but I didn't want to believe it until a professional told me so. You know, it is a chronic problem in our family...in my family, and it took years and different treatments for your grandmother to have me. Then I got pregnant with you and it was like a little miracle. Nine months passed and I gave birth to you. You were such a beautiful baby. Your blonde hair was standing up like small spikes and you would drool all the time, but you were the most beautiful baby I had seen in my life." She paused for a moment, Thomas squeezing her hand reassuringly.
"You came home after about a week. At the time we lived in an apartment in London. The first few months were hard but I knew it was going to be that way. You couldn't sleep at night and when you did you would wake up at these ungodly hours and scream. I-I couldn't take it! Your father is far more patient than me, it's always been this way. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had thought multiple times about leaving you with him. He would raise you properly, I was sure of it. But I couldn't just leave you Callie... After the fourth month I expected that things would get better, but then you started getting sick almost every week. It would keep you up at nights, you wouldn't be able to keep food down and you would cry all day. The doctor just prescribed some potions for you and you took them with your milk. Things were supposed to get better, but that never seemed to happen. I had second thoughts again and Thomas knew, but at that point I didn't really care. I don't know what made me snap, what made us snap...All I know is that one day we told your aunt we wanted to give you up for adoption. It hurt, but I was never fit for this life. I just hoped that you would find a home with people that weren't as lost. Your aunt was furious when she heard it. She didn't want us to give you up in the hands of strangers. So, she took you in."
"After that your mother and I were heartbroken, but things slowly started to look up for us. We would visit you from time to time, but you were too small to remember. Every time we would see you Vera would get so depressed after because she missed you. We both did. But we knew we couldn't look after a child. Look at us, Callisto. We would never make good parents to an eight year old with as much spunk as you. We slowly started visiting less and less, but we still missed you terribly. So, we stopped writing to you and here you are now..."
Callisto just stared at them. Her dark blue eyes were void of any emotion, concealing the turmoil happening inside of her. She was right all along. These people weren't her parents. Parents were supposed to love their children and the blonde doubted they did even though they repeatedly told her so. How can you give up something you love so easily? Toddlers were supposed to be hard. That was how it went for every family. But they didn't just give up their children because they got sick and tired of hearing them cry every evening. But even if they did love her, and gave her up because they truly couldn't raise her then why bother to visit and write all these letters? She was only ten when they stopped writing completely and she was left alone trying to figure out with the naïvety of a young child what she had done wrong. Hell, she even thought that someone stole her mail and that's why she never received any responses.
But no, they just missed her.
What a bunch of bullshit.
"Callisto please say something." Vera pleaded, tears flowing freely down her pale cheeks. Over the span of fifteen minutes she had aged ten years, her features looking broken down and dull.
"Stay out of my life." Callisto stated, her voice betraying everything she felt inside. She felt so incredibly stupid she wanted to tear her hair out and scream until nothing came out. Her eyes were stinging with tears, but she blinked rapidly, stopping them from falling. Yet, nothing could compare to the pain in her chest. Her heart was shuttering in a million pieces like it did when she wrote her final letter, the tears smearing the light blue ink. "I don't want to hear from you ever again. I don't want to see you ever again. You are nothing to me, do you understand?"
"Callisto, please." Her father, no, Thomas pleaded. "We want to make things right. You don't trust, us but please give us a second chance."
"I WROTE TO YOU EVERY WEEK FOR A WHOLE YEAR!" She shouted, tears falling freely. She didn't know if they were because she was in pain or if they were the result of the anger flowing in her veins. "AND I GOT NOTHING BACK! I DEFENDED YOU SO MANY TIMES WHEN PEOPLE SAID YOU DIDN'T LOVE ME!"
"Honestly I don't know why I'm even surprised." She hissed, her voice lowering significantly. "I came here wanting to hate you, but part of me hoped that maybe something had happened and you gave me up not because you wanted to, but because you were forced to. You are not my parents, so don't you dare try to contact me again. I'm leaving."
She stormed up to her room and slammed the door shut, angrily taking the clothes from their hangers and throwing them in her trunk. She bit her lip to stop from letting out a scream, but it wasn't enough. Callisto bit on her palm, letting out a muffled cry ignoring the pain from biting down on her hand so hard. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth and she pulled away, a string of pale red saliva connecting her lips to her palm. She closed the trunks shut and opened the door storming down the stairs, shaking from anger.
The trunks thumped against the floor, hitting the back of her leg but she didn't care. She opened the door and ran out of the house ignoring Thomas' shouts as Vera stood by the door, covering her mouth with her hand as she cried.
She didn't know but a pair of dark brown eyes followed her as she walked down the street, tears blurring her figure as she disappeared.
~ ~ ~
The song fits more the balcony scene, so here you go. I love this song a bit too much...Tbh, for the first few chapters I hadn't prepared any songs, so excuse that.
I'd love to see your comments and thoughts on the story!
Bye luvs xx.