damnation - r.j.lupin

irremediably and entirely devoted to you

boys don't cry - the cure 

☆☾

Remus Lupin always hated his childhood home. Lost in the English countryside near London, it had everything to be perfect. A small living room opening onto a functional kitchen, always a fire in the chimney, a large window that let in light and a huge garden.

He remembers his mother planting flowers in spring, his father working wood in the workbench, the smell of freshly cut grass mixing with the scent of summer which was slow to arrive.

He gets chills just thinking about it. His parents left a long time ago. And since the incident with Greyback, the Lupin family's loving home no longer exists, shattered by the guilt, fear and dread of their werewolf child.

Since then, the house no longer smells of wood, the flowers have wilted and the fire has gone out.

Smoking at his window, Remus brushes his fingertips against the wooden frame.

Homo homini lupus est.

He remembers engraving these words on his fifteenth birthday. He read it in a Latin book that belonged to McGonagall. Man is a wolf to man. He thought it would help him gain perspective on his situation and that he wasn't the real enemy. He thought it would help him hate himself a little less.

Years later, he laughs in front of these words and passes his hand over his face before exhaling the smoke. His eyes rest on a poppy, gently stroked by the wind. Red.

Olivia.

Red like her lips, like her scarf. Like the passion that drives him as soon as he sees her.

14 of April today. Her birthday. He thinks of the red scarf he gave her two years ago. Already.

He hasn't seen her since that Christmas evening. Her look, a mixture of incomprehension, disgust and anger before she slammed the door to 12 Grimmauld Place, he can't get it out of his head.

He never wanted it to happen like this. Once Olivia went back up the stairs, Tonks appeared in the hallway, obviously very drunk. She approached him, leaned against him and before Remus could do anything, her lips were against his. He was about to push her away, but it was already too late.

He stubs out his cigarette on the windowsill but stays for a moment, enjoying the warm breeze on his skin.

The last four months have gone by at a crazy pace. Remus went on mission after mission, sometimes responsible for recovering information, sometimes responsible for patrolling Diagon Alley or the Ministry. He knew that Olivia was placed at Hogsmeade with Tonks.

Remus preferred to stay here and no longer sleep at 12 Grimmauld Place. The rare times he goes there, to see Sirius or for meetings, she doesn't show up. Like a ghost of her presence. Knowing her in the same building as him, on the floor above, without being able to see her and talk to her was pure torture for him. It hurt him physically.

He is far too cowardly to face Olivia again, to face her anger. He couldn't stand it. Not again. Even if he did nothing.

So he flees.

As he did the first time at Hogwarts, as he did in front of his parents to no longer see pity and fear in their eyes, as he did after the first war.

All he can do is run away. He tried all his life to escape from his lycanthropy, but he understood that he could never achieve it. But now it seems there's one more thing he can't run from, and that's Olivia.