Four To The End (prev Shifting Lines) Book Three (Marauders Era)

Chapter Two - Problems With The Parents

Author's note: CW for reference to cutting a hand (in a nightmare), implied child abuse, pet illness

~*~

Don't do love, don't do friends...

Don't need a relationship...

One track mind, one track heart

If I fail I'll fall apart...

I know exactly what I want and who I want to be

I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine

I'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy

- Oh No! By Marina and the Diamonds

-x-

He was lost in the passageways which stretched high above him, like he was even smaller than he really was. He wandered for ages, crying for his parents until he heard their voices. He took off running and found the stone door. His parents were on the other side. He could hear them talking. He began beating his fists against the door, begging to be let in. Then he realized the door needed blood so he cut his hand, pressing it against the stone. It swung open and he stumbled into a bedroom that didn't seem very familiar, but he knew it was his. It was dark. He could hear his parents arguing as he went into his room. There was someone else there, hovering a few inches off the ground. They darted forward and grabbed him, jumping out the window. They kept flying as they dropped him. He twisted around as he fell, seeing there was a giant wolf waiting below, its mouth wide open as it waited for him to fall right in. Remus began screaming as he plunged right into the wolf's mouth and the teeth sank into him—

13-year-old Remus Lupin woke with a jerk, panting heavily. For a few seconds he couldn't figure out where he was. All he saw were stone walls and he was terrified he was down in the passages again—

Then he saw Arthur, his elderly snowy owl, on his perch.

My room, he thought, slumping down. I'm at home.

He still wasn't used to being down in the cellar, even though he told his parents otherwise. They had spent a lot of time and money refurbishing the cellar to be livable for him, and it was better for him there. His wolf room was in the cellar too. This made it easier for him to get into bed after a rough moon, since his mother wasn't strong enough to get him to the attic anymore.

Sighing he lay back down, intending to try to go back to sleep until he heard footsteps overhead. The unmistakable sound of his mother's slippers. He listened to her approach the cellar door, then her coming down the steps, and finally her stopping outside his room door.

"Remus?" She opened the door, not even knocking. "Darling?"

"Is something wrong?" he asked, reaching over to turn his bedside lamp on.

His mother hovered uncertainly in the doorway, clutching her dressing gown at her chest. "You screamed," she explained, coming into his room. "It sounded... awful."

Remus pushed himself up even more. "I'm sorry—"

"No, no." She sat down on the edge of his bed, reaching down to rest a hand on his arm. "This is the fifth night you've screamed, darling."

Remus swallowed, looking away from her. It hadn't even been two weeks since he arrived home from Hogwarts, and out of those eleven nights, he had had nightmares for seven of them, and this was the fifth time he had woken up from them. He hadn't realized he woke his mother up too. Hadn't realized he screamed.