Love - A Wolfstar Story

Prologue

Love isn't easy. In fact, love is almost impossible. The ability to wake up in the morning and feel so affectionate toward one person felt foreign to me. I never believed myself to be in love, or even to be capable of it. It was one of the many beliefs that my parents had ingrained into my brain: love was a weakness and it was cruel. But then, in my first year, I met the Marauders, and the beliefs faded. Every year they grew dimmer in my mind. They became only a star in my universe of thoughts. And I learned how to love; what it meant to love. And I learned how the Marauders loved.

James was the type of person to devote himself to someone. He showed his love by being with them every second he possibly could. He always had a chocolate bar for Remus in his pocket and a fidget toy for Peter. He was the perfect type of person to love; the one you read about in books or saw in movies. If only Lily Evans knew what she was missing. James was the first person to show me how to love. By staying up with me at night when the nightmares wouldn't leave or by sitting by me in the morning, making sure I ate. And somehow, he taught me how to love him. He was a brother, and I loved him like a twin.

Peter was the type of person to give gifts all the time. Whether it was a singular chocolate frog for James or an oversized jumper for Remus, he gave gifts to the people he loved constantly. I think Peter didn't understand love very well either. Sometimes it seemed as if he could never be in love with someone at all, yet he still loved. He had once admitted to me, that he had never felt romantically for anyone around him like James and I had. He told me he thought he was broken. And I taught him that love was more than romance, it was friendship and family. Quite ironic that I was the one to tell him that, yet since then I learned I also loved Peter. I would've done anything to keep him safe from everyone else.

Remus closed off his emotions from everyone, yet if you looked hard enough he showed love with sarcasm and quiet smiles. In the common rooms when James was crying over Evans, you could see a small grin cross over Remus's face behind his book. He laced words with sarcasm, yet meant them with no ill-intent. It took me a while to realize that, sometimes I couldn't even tell if he liked me or not. Remus doesn't look like the person to cuddle or hug someone tight, but he will, and if he loves someone he will never stop doing it. At least one-third of my days were spent by Remus' side, my head either lying on his lap or on his shoulder. I don't think he knew that I noticed he liked to be cuddled and hugged and touched. But I saw that when Lily would hug him goodnight, he would always smile, a dimple on his left cheek showing. I noticed when tI brushed my hand through his hair in an attempt to mess it up, he bit his lip in happiness. Sometimes he'd trace his fingers on my neck subconsciously. It always tickled me in a way that I didn't want it to stop. Remus loved people behind a closed door, but if you opened it, he loved passionately and infinitely.

Love was scary for me, but every day I tried to understand it more. James's mother sat me down, the week before sixth year, and handed me a black leather journal with a rose engraving on the front. The night after I had run off to James's room, trying to hold in the tears so his parents wouldn't hear. I never forgot what she said to me:

"Journaling always helped me control my emotions." I had given her a skeptical look. "Just write in it for a week, and if you hate it, then it's not for you. But I think you'll be surprised by the results."

I wrote in that journal for a week, and then the next week, and then the month after that. And on December 20th, I still wrote in that journal. Some days I tried to write what I'm grateful for, other times I wrote about my day. There were a few rare occasions I tried to write about love. I wrote about my parents and I tried to understand how they screwed me up, not only physically, but also mentally. I wrote about who I loved. I wrote about what it meant to love someone, and what it meant to be IN love with someone.

Until one day the journal was open: an empty, cream-white page staring back at me. I brought the quill to the page slightly, shaking off any of the tears that had fallen a few minutes previous. And I wrote with vulnerable and truthful words:

I'm in love with Remus Lupin.