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

Chapter Eleven - Realization

Author's Note: CW internalized homophobia, fear of child death, emotional manipulation, brief thoughts of ill pet.

-x-

Remus wasn't sure how he got through the final days of August. He kept to himself as much as possible, ignoring the fact it was hurting his mother and angering his father. He spent a lot of time out in the woods to avoid them.

To avoid her.

To avoid what she said.

At night he lay awake, her words turning over and over in his head. There was also a lot of thinking about David Bowie, and the fact Hope was so certain he was... like that. He wanted to ask her how she knew, but didn't want to ever bring up the subject again.

Not like that, I can't be.

The protests felt feeble now, since the pain of what his mother said about David Bowie. She said what wizarding society thought about people like that. Disgusting, immoral, wrong. It wasn't anything new. It just... hurt a lot. Hearing his mother say that about someone who was like that.

And it hurt trying not to think about why it hurt so much or felt so personal.

He didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to think about everything that happened over the past year. Didn't want to think about what happened when he heard that romantic song and thought about Sirius. Didn't want to think about why he spent so much time thinking about Sirius's appearance—his long hair and his long legs. Didn't want to think about why the ending of Some Like It Hot affected him so much. Didn't want to think about why his arguments and attempts to rationalize everything were getting weaker and weaker.

It was like... working on a potion. All the ingredients were put in at specific points and it was a weird mess until the end, and there was the potion.

Remus didn't want it to be the end, he didn't want to see what the potion had become.

But when he woke up on the last day of August (after a night of many nightmares) he sat in bed staring at the wall, a heavy stone of knowledge weighing inside of him. He bent forward, clutching at his chest as he tried to get rid of it, wanting to reach into his chest with his bare hands and claw this heaviness out. It shoved against him, making it hard to breathe, making it hard to exist.

He choked and moved his hands to his face, pressing his palms against his eyes as hard as he could. His thin shoulders shook for a few moments, until finally he was able to somehow lock the words away and push them into the back of his head.

If he ignored it, completely ignored it, maybe it would go away.

Or I truly am a freak, he thought as he got ready for the day, his limbs heavy. It took him multiple times to button up the shirt he grabbed from a dresser drawer without even looking, and when he finished he realized not only were the buttons done up wrong... it was a pajama top. He ripped the shirt off, buttons flying everywhere, and threw the shirt against the far wall.

"Remus," his mother said when he sat down at the table five minutes later wearing a t-shirt. Backwards. "I thought perhaps we could go for a walk today. You and me."

"I'm busy," he muttered into his porridge. Couldn't they see he had been turned to bloody shreds even though it wasn't the full moon? That his entire being had been ripped and torn to pieces until there was nothing left? How could they not see?

Hope gave a slight gasp. "Ah—you—but you're leaving tomorrow. I wanted to spend time with you."

"Go for the walk with your mother," Lyall said from behind the paper.