imagine that | harry potter imagines

guilt (remus lupin x fem!reader)

Description: on the brink of the war, persuaded by guilt, remus makes a painful decision. (based loosely on peace by taylor swift)

Warnings: angst, passing food mention (cooking), mention of babies? lycanthropy related remus angst, mentions of war

(i hope it comes across enough in this that i'm not implying that life is marriage and children, children are scary and marriage is a social construct- they aren't for everyone and it's all your decision :) )

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Guilt is a feeling he's used to, a symptom of lycanthropy that no one ever talks about. It's the first thing awoken to after full moons, seeing friends and family folded uncomfortably in bedside chairs, to feel their shaking fingers curled around his hands. It's the worst type of guilt, the guilt of being the source of someone else's worry.

Guilt has been his constant companion, but never before has it felt as nauseating as it does now, stood in the kitchen doorway with his fist curled around the handle of the trunk he's been packing for a week.

He watches as she cooks, swaying in time to the music played by the old radio on the windowsill, ignoring how it catches with an ugly static sound every now and then, a fault she rectifies by humming over it as though she can't hear it at all.

She seems happy, a happiness he is about to ruin.

Even now though, he finds his mind wandering, the crime that flung him into this situation in the first place. For a moment, he can imagine himself joining her, wrapping his arms around her waist, and swaying with her, hiding his face in the crook of her neck. He imagines the stillness, the peace of that moment and he longs for it for a second, before the guilt returns to remind him, that peace isn't something he can ever give her.

His heart feels heavy in his chest as he places the trunk down by his side before gently tapping his knuckles against the wooden doorframe. She jumps a little as she turns to towards him, taking a second to register that its him before a smile forms on her lips.

"Remus." She smiles. "Dinner is nearly ready..."

She trails off, eyes dropping to the trunk at his ankles and smile dropping with them. She looks back up at him with a frown, head tilting questioningly. He tries his best to keep eye contact, she deserves as much as eye contact for this conversation, but it's hard knowing what he's about to tell her.

"Where are you going?"

It's an unnecessary question, she can already see him pulling away from her, a sorrow in his eyes she's noticed for days, but avoided desperately in an attempt to prevent the inevitable. But it's here now, and it's worse that she imagined.

"I'm sorry." Remus exhales. "I-I can't do this to you anymore."

She slowly eases the wooden spoon from her hand and onto the counter, expelling a sigh as if to make space for what she's about to take in, to create room in her chest for what she knows is about to be bad news.

"There is a life... There is a life you deserve, (Y/N)." He starts, "and it's one I can't give you."

She might have expected it, but she stills feels her heart drop in her chest. She's heard it before, a usual rant after full moons, when he hates himself the most. This is different though, there isn't to be any convincing him and she can tell just from his tone of voice. There is a strange finality to it that catches her off guard.

"W-where did this come from, Remus?"

He can trace it back two weeks exactly, a weekend spent at James and Lily's house, watching (Y/N) cradle Harry in her arms, cooing at him softly. It looked so natural to see her with a baby, his mind betrayed him momentarily as it's prone to doing, and he let it wander to a future where that baby might be his, a future he's always known to be out of reach.

It's not the first time his own imagination has betrayed him, not since leaving Hogwarts, where somewhere along the line they became adults, capable of more adult lives, serious lives with the people they love.

"We're not teenagers anymore." He starts solemnly, "We can't be as naïve as to think we can have anything of a normal life together."

"A normal life?"

"We'd never have the big house and a garden," He explains, "or kids to fill it- I can't give you a family, (Y/N)."

She inhales a breath that catches at the back of her throat and holds it in her lungs as she tries to work out how to respond, how to answer him without releasing her frustration in fumbling fit of words she doubts she'll mean, because it always comes back to this.

"I've told you already, Remus." She manages calmly. "When I fell in love with you I never asked for those things. I don't need them to be happy, not everyone does."

"I know." He sighs, running a hand down his face. "I know but it's more than the kids, (Y/N)... and you know that too."

She exhales a frustrated sigh through her teeth and shakes her head. Struck by the sudden urge to scream, to shout until her lungs are empty, until perhaps he understands that these aren't his decisions to make. But her heart is breaking, she can feel each splinter coming away in her chest.

"I don't want anything except from you, Remus."

They're words that should fill him to the brim with love, and in a painful way they do, but she shouldn't be saying them on the verge of tears, with hands shaking and lips quivering. It's that guilt again that claws its way up his throat and wrench themselves into the too honest words he says next.

"You say that now." He starts, emotions raw in his voice, "But we're going into a war and you don't deserve to have to deal with my condition on top of everything else... I won't put you through that."

"Remus," She shakes her head. "Stop."

"You'll resent me, (Y/N)." He explains, "Not consciously, but you will."

"I won't." She argues sternly, despite the crack in her voice, "Don't do this."

When her subconscious determination not to cry fails her, he takes a couple of steps forward to pull her into his arms once last time, one hand in her hair and the other running up and down her back in gentle, soothing motions.

"I'm sorry," He whispers shakily, "but it's for the best."

She shakes her head against him with a chocked sob, fingers curling around his jumper in a desperate way. He pulls back, eyes dark with grief as they watch her cry, as he gently releases her hands from his clothes and softly kisses her knuckles before lowering her hands back to her sides.

"I love you, (Y/N)."

He doesn't expect to hear it back, after this evening he doesn't deserve to, and as he plants one final kiss to the crown of her head, he reminds that this is the right thing, the necessary thing, and that he's doing it because he loves her.

It takes everything in him to step back for that last time, to return to his trunk and to grasp it in his fist again but turning his back on her to leave is the worst of all. In the short hallway of their dingy flat, the front door seems miles away, and each step towards it feels like a year.

He's glad, when he reaches for his jacket still hanging beside hers on the hooks by the door, that she hasn't followed him from the kitchen. He's glad that when he opens the front door, and the winter wind that batters the rain down onto the street is so loud he can no longer hear her cry.

He wishes he were glad when he finally shuts the door behind him, glad to have done what he believes was right and that he's done what's best for her, but all he finds in himself is that gut-twisting guilt that he's so used to, more painful than ever.