If there is one lesson that Remus Lupin has learned in life, it is that if you
wish to survive you have to be able to roll with the punches. Unfortunately,
after thirty eight years he is finding that he has become exceptionally weary
of the practice.
It was not enough that some arbitrary fate had decided that he would be cursed
with lycanthropy. This was something that he long ago came to accept and has
learned to deal with on both a physical and emotional level, much the
same way that anyone with a debilitating disease or physical condition
learns to do. After all, the wolf was what he became, but it was not who
he was, not inside, and he had always refused to let it define
him as a man. He has even learned to accept the fact that he will quite
likely to be shunned by anyone who finds out about it. People are
frightened of that which they do not understand, and it is easier to
reject outright than to attempt to reach an understanding. But for every
dozen or hundred who shunned him, there would be one or two who accepted
him, who had the grace to see beyond the curse to the soul who suffered
from it. These people he has always prized with a devotion which makes
the word "friendship" seem a pale and weak thing beside it. When Remus
Lupin cares about someone, he cares with every fiber of his being.
Unfortunately, that very caring is what makes the loss of each
comrade such an intensely soul destroying experience for him. He never
believed that he, the werewolf who had not been expected to live through
adolescence, would end up as the single surviving member of the
Marauders... his friends, his brothers, his pack.
The events of a single night of madness almost eighteen years ago had driven him
to the edge of suicide, maddened him with grief for the loss of almost
everyone he loved in a single, cruel stroke. It had taken him many years
to come to terms with it, to heal the ravages left from the death and
betrayal that had left him so utterly and completely alone.
So when fate seemed to have finally given him a break by returning Sirius
to him, Remus had been overjoyed. Losing his position at Hogwart's had
hurt, as had Snape's unbelievable cruelty - but it had seemed a minor
injury beside the overwhelming, unbelievable miracle of having Padfoot
in his life again. An innocent Padfoot, who had not been the
betrayer after all.They had lived together, worked together, and
travelled together for two years, doing whatever tasks Dumbledore set
for them.
Remus had helped heal the emotional and physical scars Sirius suffered in Azkaban,
and Sirius had healed the loneliness in Remus's heart. It was at that
point that their relationship changed, becoming even closer, until
finally they had taken the step from being friends to being lovers...
and Remus had, for the very first time in his life, allowed himself to
dream of a future.
That was when fate, the ever fickle mistress, had once again ripped Sirius
from him, and Remus felt like a part of his soul had been ripped out at the
same time. He hides it well, but ever since Padfoot's death, he has
mostly just been going through the motions of living. There is an
emptiness within him, a void that nothing and no one seems to be able to
fill...Except the wolf. And that frightens him more than anything else
in the world.
He got through the end of the war primarily for vengeance, to see the end of
those who had destroyed so much of his life. But the victory, for him,
tastes of ashes, and the relief that many people feel as their world
returns to normal is not something that he shares.
He occupies rooms at 12 Grimmauld Place, remaining mostly because it was the
last place he and Sirius were together - plus the fact that he really has no
where else to go. On the outside he seems much the same, perhaps quieter
and sadder than he had been before, but still the same old reliable
Lupin upon whom everyone can depend.
But he can feel something stirring inside him, something he hasn't told anyone -
that in the darkest hours of the night, even when there is no moon, he
can often feel the wolf within him begging to be set free.