❝The monsters were never
under my bed.
Because the monsters
were inside my head.
I fear no monsters,
for no monsters I see.
Because all this time
the monster has been me.❞
[MARAUDERS ERA]
[METANOIA SERIES B2]
[COVER: -VOIDLEGENDS]
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— chapter eleven — FOR EMERGENCIES
—
HER MIND KEPT replaying the scene over and over again. Remus getting angry, saying everything he did, and then suddenly it was over. He was gone, she was crying, and she felt so pitiful. It wasn't as if she cried in the library – that was a true sign of weakness – but she easily escaped from there and outside onto the empty corridor did she then let her sobs be let out.
She was running towards the Room of Requirement, afraid to ever step into the bathroom with Moaning Myrtle ever again (she could still remember the look on Alfie's face; it haunted her), and then the door appeared and she quickly ran inside there and onto the large, warm bed and let out her sobs without guilt. Without the fear that someone would see her, catch her, and call her out on her weakness. She wasn't looking over her shoulder to see if someone was watching, she was just crying. She was just sobbing for the first time in years and it felt so nice because she hadn't felt safe enough to do so since Sirius left.
If her mother were there, Remelda knew what she would say. How weak, how pitiful...I raised you to be strong, and yet you disgrace me with your tears. And then more tears fell. That did nothing to help prevent the tears, but it helped more of them fall. She felt like such a failure, such a letdown, and she knew she couldn't. Remelda couldn't leave Regulus, she could never. That would be the ultimate failure – leaving her brother when she was the only person he truly had left. She wouldn't become Sirius...
Except, that wouldn't be Sirius at all. Well, maybe Remus was lying, maybe he and the Potters didn't go to court and try to save the two of them. Maybe they weren't threatened with going to Azkaban if he ever spoke a word to them again. Maybe it was a lie. Maybe none of that were true and she was being a fool trying to believe it. Maybe he never thought of them again, having a new brother and new parents. Having a nice family where he felt safe and comfortable and never even thinking back on the promise that he had to Remelda that night he left. It could've been all a lie, yet she was still trying to believe it.
That part in her mind – the part that still clung onto the hope that Sirius loved her – wanted to believe it so badly. Did believe it. She wanted to believe it because she needed her older brother, especially at that moment, and he wasn't there.
The sobs became louder at that thought. At the thought that it was all her fault that Sirius wasn't there to comfort her. She was sure it could be heard from the corridors. Remelda, though, didn't find it in herself to care.
―
A week passed and she hadn't heard a word from Remus. He hadn't come into the library, at least, by himself. Just yesterday the Marauders, Lily, and Nadia came into the library and sat a table far away from Remelda. It was far enough that she couldn't actually hear that they were saying, but close enough that she could see every defining feature on all their faces. Remelda tried not to look at them, but how could she not? How could she not notice the fact that Nadia had been spending an extreme amount of time with them? Or that Remus looked much happier and there wasn't a large amount of large bubbling inside him?
