Boys Will Be Bugs

Chapter 4: Visitor

CW// brief mentions of puberty/periods

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When Remus was eleven, the family received a visitor. In the four years since they'd moved, they'd only seen a handful of visitors, mainly Ministry officials who had business with Lyall. Remus never met up with other children. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd had a friend. He was certainly very lonely, and he didn't imagine that the loneliness would ever go away, what with no school to go to, no neighbours to talk to and no siblings to play with. All he had were his parents, and as much as he loved them, he found himself getting unreasonably wound up by them on a regular basis. He'd simply been cooped up with them for too long.

Their new house was nice, if not isolating. Remus's bedroom was a good size, and there was certainly no lack of outside space. At least with no neighbours around, Remus was much more free to play outdoors whenever he wanted to without worrying about people seeing him and the scars on his face. However, he still found himself missing his old home. It had been an old house, almost ancient, so there had been plenty of secret hiding places and nooks and crannies to explore. Their new house on the other hand, while old, was nowhere near old enough to have any interesting secrets to discover, so Remus spent most of his time bored in his room, reading.

His mother was worried about his social skills. His father said that Remus interacting with a bunch of kids who made fun of his scars would do his social skills no favour.

Somehow this turned into an argument.

Remus was sick of listening to arguing, and he seemed to be the root cause of all of them, so along with the oppressing loneliness, Remus also had to deal with a never-ending cycle of guilt. And at the end of the day, all he wanted to do was go to Hogwarts.

It was Friday when the doorbell rang so his father was at home. His mother was with Lyall in the living room and Remus was upstairs, doing some unfinished schoolwork. He was still being homeschooled, and his workload grew every year as he got older. Along with maths, English and history, he was now doing subjects such as science and geography. He didn't like those subjects as much.

Remus went to the landing when he heard the door. He suspected it was another Ministry official, and therefore someone boring, but he still liked to see another human being who wasn't his mum or his dad, and spy on them, listening in to any conversations. But it wasn't a Ministry official. Or at least, if it was, it was the oddest looking Ministry official that Remus had ever seen. The man was very tall, at least a foot taller than his father, and he had a long silvery beard that went right down to his belt. He was dressed all in mauve, and his hat was very pointy. Remus couldn't help but notice that he looked exactly like the wizards described in Muggle fairytales that his mother would read to him. But the man also looked familiar.

For some reason, Lyall and Hope tried to stop the man from entering the house. Remus didn't know why. They didn't even know the man. But then it hit him: why the man looked familiar. Remus quickly ran to his bedroom, rummaged through a draw full of chocolate frog cards, picked one out and rushed back to his spot at the top of the stairs. He stared at the card, and then at the man, who was still being denied access to the house. Yes, thought Remus, it was definitely him. Professor Albus Dumbledore. Headmaster of Hogwarts. Remus's heart jumped into his throat and he decided to brave it...

He stood up and padded downstairs towards the doorway. Dumbledore spotted him first.

"Hello," Dumbledore greeted politely. Lyall and Hope turned to Remus.

"Remus, darling, go upstairs please," his mother quickly ordered, but Dumbledore cut her off.

"Actually it's Remus I'd like to talk to." Remus and Hope looked at the man in confusion, but Lyall gave him a rather different look: a mix of surprise and suspicion.