Harry Potter Oneshots

Desolation [Remus x Reader]

ahaha, look, and ACTUAL update wow...

[insert awkward smile]

He'd been shy at first, always keeping to himself and never stepping a toe over the line. That was until he met the other three — they brought out the happiness in him, you could see it. With his best friends, he looked as if nothing in the world mattered besides them. 

You didn't notice much besides that in your first three years at Hogwarts. In the fourth, however, you would sometimes catch him staring at you. Did he know you'd caught him looking more than a few times? Probably not.

At first, you suspected nothing of it — he was a growing boy with normal hormones. He probably looked at other girls often, too. You only talked a few times — in classes you had together and occasionally in the hallways and corridors of the school. Nothing less, nothing more. Besides, Remus Lupin didn't seem the type to want to make friends with you. He had his group of Marauders, and you had yours.

Over the summer holidays, he shot up, towering over most of the student population with his shiny prefect badge. When you saw him, your heart skipped a beat for some peculiar reason. You didn't think much of it then. He had definitely grown into his delicate features more, but he was still that same quiet boy that didn't talk to you much.

Contrary to your prior belief, he actually started to talk to you more — you thought it might have been part of his prefect duties to make sure everyone was doing alright, but then you slowly started to note that he didn't talk to any other student as much as yourself (besides his friends and Lily Evans, the other prefect).

You found yourself blushing whenever he smiled warmly at you or held the door open for you, your fingers brushing for the slightest moment as you thanked him with cherry-coloured cheeks. One day you realised it. The thought of it scared you, but you told yourself that falling in love and heartbreak would one day be the least of your worries with the upcoming war.

Creeping stealthily through the corridors one evening (you'd lost track of time in the library, and now the sky was pitch-black) you yelped when someone pulled your inside an empty classroom and pushed you against the wall, covering your mouth with one hand.

"Y/n," Sirius Black's face was now distinguishable in your vision, "do you like Remus?" It was such a blunt and straightforward question, it took you by surprise. So much so, you found the answer slipping out of your lips instantly, and it took your brain a couple seconds to register what you had said. By the time you realised, Sirius had left you alone in the dark room.

The next part was fuzzy in your memory, but you and Remus had both confessed your feelings for each other, and were now walking hand-in-hand through Hogwarts with radiant smiles on your faces.

There had been a moment when you were told by Remus that he suffered from monthly transformations into a "monster". He told you that it was okay if you wanted to end the relationship then and there, as long as you promised not to spill his secret. Seeing the salty, wet tears roll down his scarred cheeks pulled at your heartstrings painfully. You cupped his flushed cheeks in your palms and told him you wouldn't be going anywhere.

He hugged you so taught, you thought you might just suffocate. But you didn't complain, because despite him losing control of himself every full moon, you felt safest in his arms.

You two had your arguments here and there, but managed to maintain your relationship until you graduated, when almost the whole of your year shed tears and said goodbye to the place you'd called your second (or first) home for seven years.

You and Remus stayed together even after school was over, fighting courageously for The Order of the Phoenix, against the Death Eaters that loyally served Voldemort. There were no more carefree days of lying in the warm summer sun — war had begun.

"One day, I promise we'll be able to enjoy the sunshine and start a family," Remus promised you one night. How would both of you know that those words would haunt one of you forevermore.

The curse that hit you caused you extreme, nearly unbearable pain. You writhed in pain, the stinging you could feel everywhere would leave both a physical and mental scar. It wasn't the torture curse, but it might as well have been with how much pain it was causing.

Then, the burning was gone and all you could feel was a blinding sting as you lay on the soft earth, unmoving, your chest heaving as you desperately sucked oxygen into your on-fire lungs. It was the first time Remus had killed someone.

Only, he wished that he had been there sooner to save you. He wished for the tears to stop flowing down his face, so he could see your face more clearly. Remus' warm hands grasped your shoulders gently as he whispered, pleading.

"No, y/n, please," his heart hurt. "Don't leave. Hang on — we'll get you t-to Saint Mungo's I-I— you can't leave me, please..." You smiled weakly at him, your e/c eyes meeting his brown ones for the last time. Remus' heart held hope as he saw the bit of fight still in you, in your eyes. "I love you, y/n—"

"I love you too, Rem," you croaked. Speaking made your throat burn even more. "Don't cry, baby," you said as your fingers wiped away his tears. "Rem, promise me something."

"Anything," he said, not even hesitating. Little did he know how much the promise would hurt.

"I want you to promise me that you'll move on." He protested, but you silenced him, "don't waste your time on mourning, Rem. You're so precious, one of a kind — you deserve the world." Then he saw the light, hope and fight fade from your usually lively features slowly. Desperately, he tried to feel your pulse, but it was becoming slower... weaker.

"No, no... y/n," he cried.

"Promise me, Remus," you muttered, "promise me." But before he could reply to you, your head lolled to the side and he felt your weak grip on his hand slacken. Your pulse was gone, your skin was becoming cold and corpse-like.

"I promise," he murmured, before a pained scream ripped at his throat and he broke.

<><><>

"Y/n, I-I'm getting married to Tonks this evening," Remus spoke, almost twenty years later, in front of your gravestone. "It... feels wrong, but not, at the same time. I think that... it's because I haven't been able to keep my promise properly."

The scarred man lay the bouquet of flowers he was holding onto the earth in front of your grave, a single tear rolling down his cheek. He had dark, tired circles underneath his eyes, and his cheekbones had become more prominent.

"I still love you," he said. "I mean, I do love Tonks — but I don't think she could ever replace you." Not being able to sit in front of your grave much longer, Remus got to wearily to his feet and trudged away, hands stuffed into his pockets and head hung low.

He visited you everyday, told you how he was going, asked you questions — even though he knew you wouldn't answer him. In a way, he had kept his promise, and he also hadn't. He had done what he thought would not be possible — he moved on.

Sure, he loved Tonks, but you were still the love of his life. And as he stood at the end of the isle, watching the bubblegum-haired woman walk towards him in a wedding dress, he could see you in that dress, smiling at him with fondness in your eyes and happiness radiating off of you.

|| Word count: 1300 ||

aahh, this is crap but oh well. it worked better in my head.