Boys Will Be Bugs

Chapter 48: Hope

Remus knew his mum wouldn't be looking her best when he saw her, but he hadn't expected just how ill she was starting to look. It was difficult to see a person's state when talking to them through the fireplace, so she had taken Remus by surprise when he arrived back at home. Lyall had picked him up alone, saying that Hope was resting. Remus was briefly disappointed not to see her waiting for him at the platform, but he was glad she was resting at least. Anything to get her better was worth it.

But she didn't seem to be getting better at all. Her skin was pale, and had a slight yellow tinge to it. She looked weak, fragile, as if one touch could break her. It scared him. His mum had always been so strong, so dependable. Seeing her like this almost made him angry. He didn't know why, but it just felt wrong. Like it wasn't possible for her to be this ill, so he didn't trust what he was seeing.

She hugged him in greeting as soon as he returned and stirred her from her sleep on the sofa.

"Cariad! Come here, let me look at you properly." She held him at arm's length, smiling. "I swear you get taller every time I see you." She hugged him again. Remus was fairly quiet, replying as little as possible. After chatting with her endlessly over the past few months at Hogwarts, he now had nothing to say. He felt nervous hugging her in case he hurt her, and he didn't know how to pretend that nothing was wrong.

He excused himself to his room as quickly as he could. He didn't know much about liver disease, or liver failure. He should have found some books about it in the library, but he was too scared to be told something he didn't want to hear. But the reality was standing right in front of him, and Remus was forced to entertain the question he'd been dreading: was his mum actually going to get better?

The house felt different, it felt... quieter. Everything was still in its place, even more so since Lyall's stuff had been returned once he moved back in. In fact, under any normal circumstances, Remus would be ecstatic by the idea that not only was all his dad's stuff back where it belonged, but there was no arguing between his parents anymore either. It was as if all of their problems had been solved with the wave of a wand. But it was superficial, all of it. A sheet placed over a pile of rubbish. Because their problems hadn't been solved at all; they were instead far worse. If this is what it took for Remus's parents to coexist in harmony, then Remus didn't want it.

Hope wasn't able to do much. She mostly just slept while Lyall did the housework. Remus stayed away from the house as much as he could, because he couldn't handle the constant reminder that his mum had turned into a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode at at any given moment and destroy everything in its wake. Remus was directly in the crossfire, and he tried desperately to put as much space between him and his mum as he could, which he hated doing. He felt like the worst person alive, keeping away from his own mother, who needed him around now more than ever. But he just couldn't do it. He had to keep his distance.

He spent most of his time in the village, chatting aimlessly to Mrs Bethan, attempting to make conversation with her unsmiling daughter. Otherwise, he'd simply walk around, exploring every nook and cranny he could find, distracting himself from the thought of home by learning every inch of the area he lived in. He enjoyed the clearing of trees behind the main village shops, leading down a row of large residential houses. It wasn't exactly a forest, but Remus was still hidden from view if he stuck to the middle of it. He got into a habit of collecting leaves and rocks and acorns, for no reason except to put them in his pocket and line them all up in his room on shelves and his desk and his bedside table. His room became a deconstructed forest within a week.

When he wasn't exploring the town, he was sitting around and eavesdropping on people's conversations. The benefit of being able to understand Welsh was when he caught conversations that clearly didn't want to be overheard, so the two participants had switched to a language they were convinced no one else around them understood, amongst all the tourists who had been attracted by winter markets and the residents who didn't speak Welsh in the first place. Remus picked up some particularly juicy gossip on these occasions, mostly about someone cheating on someone else or some illegitimate baby. His neighbours were obsessed with kids born out of wedlock. He found it weird.