MORE THAN WORDS ⇉ REMUS LUPIN [1]

three

REMUS LUPIN DIDN'T LIKE TO STAND OUT IN A CROWD, HOWEVER, HE ALWAYS SEEMED TO due to being friends with the loudest people in the school. Not that he minded, of course, he was glad to have people who accepted him for what he thought he was.

At the age of six, the young boy was bitten by the known werewolf, Fenrir Greyback in his backyard, after his father had insulted the older werewolf. The younger Lupin would spend the rest of his life as a werewolf, changing in the full moons. Remus felt like an outcast, as a threat to other humans, and a monster. But his friends and Hogwarts changed all that, he no longer felt as deeply as he did when he first arrived at the magical school, but the feelings didn't go away. Each day, looking at himself in the mirror, Remus saw a monster, a monster with scars covering his face, with no explanation to tell people how he got them.

So he put his head down, focused on his education in hopes people wouldn't notice him, but James Potter and Sirius Black didn't help with that. However, they did help with the full moon that made Remus change into something he didn't want to be. His friends have helped him like he couldn't imagine, they had learned how to become Animagus's. James became a stag, Sirius became a black dog and Peter became a rat. Therefore coming up with their nicknames Prongs, Padfoot, Wormtail, and Moony.

Whilst Remus wasn't like Sirius, chasing a different girl each day, worrying whether someone liked him. He couldn't help but think that because of his problem, he would never settle down, never fall in love, and never have children, because in the back of his mind, a small voice would keep telling him that no one could ever love a monster like him and it wasn't long after that voice appeared that he began to believe it.

So he accepted it, he accepted he would never find anyone and accepted he would never have a family. But Remus thanked his lucky stars he had his friends, otherwise what else out there was there for him. After the bite, his father had become distant, blaming himself for what had happened to his son and his mother just didn't understand what was and how this could happen. Although she loved her son dearly, things were just never the same, because Remus wasn't the same. He just couldn't open up like he used to, he no longer felt he deserved the thing everyone needs; love, because a man took that away from him, with one single bite.

++

"This is the year, I can feel it." James told his three other friends, "she's going to finally say yes to a date." Remus just rolled his eyes, knowing that this year, once again, wouldn't be the year that Lily Evans agreed to go out with his friend. Remus had witnessed James follow Lily around like a lost puppy since the first year, and always sniggering when Lily said no. Remus would tell James he was going around it the wrong way, but James was loud and brash, the complete opposite to Lily, and until he fully realized that, Remus knew many more rejections would come his friend's way and many more eye rolls would be pointed at James's way.

Sirius patted his best friend on the back, "I have faith in you buddy." James just nodded at his friend, "thank you Padfoot, at least someone does." He sent a playful glare to Remus.

"I'm only speaking the truth, and sometimes James, the truth hurts." The messy-haired boy stuck his tongue out at Remus, who chuckled. James stopped abruptly making the three other boys bump into each other harshly. Behind him, Peter bumped into Remus's back, "what the-?" The plumper boy asked before Sirius cut him off speaking, opening the door to the compartment James had stopped at.

"Talking about me Smith? And before you say anything, yes I will go to Hogsmeade with you." Sirius said whilst smirking, as Remus just shook his head. Whilst Sirius never meant any harm, he tended to think every girl had heart eyes for him and would be swayed by his charm and 'dashingly good looks' as he would say, but sometimes Remus just shook his friends at his womanizing friend.

Sirius was talking to Alice Smith, a girl Remus had became acquainted with classes and had seen around the Gryffindor common room. He knew of her crush on Frank Longbottom, who Remus also knew. In the compartment, Remus could tell by the dazed look on James's face, Lily Evans was also there.

But in the corner of his eye, through the glass window opposite him, Remus saw another girl, someone of whom he didn't recognize. Remus was sure that he knew almost everyone in Hogwarts, he was very observant of the people in the different houses, but this girl, sitting beside the window, head down and nose in her book, was a new face to the young boy.

Peeking out from her book, chuckling at the look of Lily's face, Remus caught a glimpse of the new face. Her tanned skin and chestnut hair framed her face, and Remus couldn't help but want to know more about the girl. Who was she? And why had he never seen her before? Especially if she was friends with both Lily and Alice, he was sure he would have maybe noticed her at some point.

The girl turned her head, and Remus immediately realized he was staring, and knew she had felt his eyes on her. Turning red slightly, Remus did the first thing he thought of, he smiled at the girl and to his relief, she smiled back. Remus couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something about the girl, and Remus wanted to know more about the girl with the beautiful smile.

Remus didn't hear the rest of what was going on with his other two friends, he was too busy In a trance, looking at the girl until he was snapped out of it by Sirius storming off. That was his and his friend's queue to finally leave the girls in peace, giving the girl one final look and shy smile, Remus grabbed Peter by the arm, scurrying off suddenly, keeping his head down low, trying to hide the blush that was creeping up from his neck onto his face.

++

Finally entering an empty compartment, each of the four boys placed themselves onto the seats. James lent forward, elbow on his leg and head in his hand. "What am I doing wrong? She doesn't want anything to do with me." He said disheartened, as Sirius sneakily grabbed one of the sweets Peter was beginning to feast on.

"She must be blind, Mr. Prongs, to deny your love." He told James sarcastically, who just huffed, not finding his friend amusing, seriously wondering where he was going wrong.

Remus just stared at James, not knowing whether he was joking. "I'm not quite sure you realize this James, but you haven't exactly asked her out in a romantic way." He told him, as James sat up, puffing out his chest in defense.

"What do you mean Moony? I am romantic, remember last year I conjured her flowers and gave them to her." He told him, as Sirius nodded his head, agreeing with his friend. Peter looked up from his feast, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Wasn't that the time when she started sneezing and her eyes swelled up slightly?" He asked as Remus folded his arms, answering before James could but in.

"Exactly, Lily has hay fever, and Mr cupid over here gave them to her in summer, when hay fever is seen the most." He told James, who just slumped back in his chair, defeatedly.

Remus knew the train ride into the fifth year would be a long one, with James repeatedly going on about the ginger-haired girl, and the pranks the four would be pulling this year, whilst Sirius and Peter would argue about who got what sweets like they would each year. But the train ride for Remus would be different this year, he wouldn't sit in peace, reading his books as he usually would, trying to block out the noise coming from his friends. Instead, he had one thing on his mind; the girl he had never seen, but he now knew, had the brightest smile of them all.