(no subject)
Who? Teddy Lupin
What? Letting it all out.
When? Hours after Remus leaves the room, before talks of going for ice cream
Where? At his 'parents' graves
Why? Because he needs to say these things.
Hope is the knowledge of stability
from a son in mourning
Hope is the bright shining light
keeping darkness at bay'>It was a spiral. Down and round it went until he found himself surrounded by nothing but darkness, nothing but the twisted hurt and sadness that seemed to consume him still. It was getting worse but they said it got worse before it got better. The time he’d started spending with his wife was a break from this feeling because he couldn’t ever let her see how he was hurting, just as he was realising he couldn’t let his parents or anyone else know. They would, or were, blaming themselves and that just made the spiral twist ever down pushing him further into this darkness.
Drowning was never a good feeling whether it was in water, your own blood or your emotions and over the past few months his emotions seemed to lap as his feet, then his calves, waist and now his neck and mouth. There seemed to be no escape from the ever appearing rocks that filled his pockets keeping him down. His eyes looked up for a hand to pull him out but there wasn’t one and he understood why. Everyone else was drowning from their own experiences or reaching down and rescuing someone else.
Teddy had sat so long in that room on his own, the image of his father walking out still fresh in his mind, the pain still so raw. But it was his own fault, with each passing moment he knew that, with each passing day he saw it in the eyes and actions of others. The children were the best to be around, even though they see and sense things adults never seem to they’d rather spend their time cuddling or playing games, things to distract rather that tackle this situation head on. But now with some of the adults and children away it gave him more time to think, to dwell on the past few months, an unhealthy past time. He’d thrown himself into trying to create a home for himself, hours of mindless painting and rearranging on alone, hours of just thinking where he life would end should his wife decide she wouldn’t want to come home with him.
Too much thinking, too much hurt, too much doing things alone.
And in this moment, in this place he didn’t think there was anyone he could turn to. The last time he’d tried it got someone into trouble and he couldn’t afford more conflict because of him and his blood family were too involved in how he was feeling. He did the one thing he could do.
He went to the one place he knew that he could just go and pour his heart out. Pulling on his winter coat he glanced around the quiet house before walking out of the door and apparating into the darkness.
Fingers brushed over cold marble and he knelt down on the ground, watching as traced the words written on the stone before him;
Nymphadora Lupin
Loving wife and mother
Dearest Daughter
And then;
Remus Lupin
Devoted Husband and Father
Dearest friend
“I don’t know what to do anything,” he whispered softly, “I can’t take feeling this way anymore, it’s dark and numbing and all consuming and it’s tearing everything apart including me. I watching everyone else, I see the strength they have and they people they turn to and I can’t turn to the people I want to, strangers to me or they just aren’t there. That month without Vic, it was so hard, I wanted to just hide in her arms and tell her everything but I couldn’t and I don’t blame her for not being there. I just shouldn’t have expected so much from her, she’s seventeen and, yes, my wife, but she’s still young, I’m still young. But I needed her …”
His fingers brushed over the cold grass which he began to pick at and neaten around his parents’ graves.
So much has happened, so many things and It’s been so hard dealing with them. I had a good life, a happy life, Gran and everyone else were wonderful and then you two came back. I was shocked, scared but I was so happy. I got to see my parents, I got to touch and smell them. I remember that day dad took me to the pub, it was great, we didn’t stay for long, just one drink, but we were starting to get along. I thought we were.
Then the panic started and they started going to help everyone. I know it’s what they are like, I know they help because it’s the right thing to do but I felt like everyone else’s needs came before my own. Their own son and they were spending their time with everyone else and not me. I know it’s selfish of me to expect them to spend time with me but they are my parents and for nineteen years they were not part of my life. So I think I’m allowed to be greedy and want to spend time with them, to know them. And the more it didn’t happen the more I thought I wasn’t what they wanted, I wasn’t that little boy they held in their arms and I wasn’t good enough.” Tears slowly fell down his cheeks, “And that feels so bad, being so sure that your parents would rather be with other people, spend time with other people and risk their lives when they couldn’t spend time with me. It sounds stupid but I’d just got them back and they were everywhere but with me. Didn’t I deserve some of their time? A lot of their time? I’m their son.”
A slow soft sigh escaped his lips, “then things just got worse and I ended up moving to the school. I’d told Gran me moving in with mum and dad was too soon because we didn’t know one another but she persuaded me by saying it would make mum so happy. But it didn’t, things just blew up. Oh, of course, my fault again, like so many things seem to be. It was nice being back at the school, closer to Vic and those memories of spending time with Hagrid and some of the other professors. It was breathing space but I still felt like everything I did was wrong. At first I was always locking heads with mum and then things changed and dad…he can’t…what did he say. I can’t be here right now, be here, be with me.”
“I’ve fucked everything up and all I wanted was some time with my parents, time to know them and not fight for their attention. I was training hard to be an Auror, I was helping look after the younger children, and I wanted them to be proud of me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, to know they’d be proud of me.”
Pushing the tears from his cheeks he sighed deeply, “Then came what is probably my breaking point. What Severus did all those things I went through because he took me, because I let him take me, everyone trusted him and I thought I should do the same, I wanted to help and helping almost killed me. I lost more than blood that night, I lost myself. I was a bargaining chip to get her back, I was glad I was going home, thankful of the things Gran and Aunt Bellatrix were giving up so I could come home and then the realization began to sink in. They should have let me die; they should have kept Bellatrix on our side because she’s done so much damage since. Those children she killed, what she did to Rose, all of it, it’s because they took me back. When I visit Rose and I see the fear in her eyes I know that I would give up my life in a heartbeat to take that fear away from her and undo the pain she has been caused by Bellatrix going back to Voldemort. Gran would still have her sister and those two children would have their lives. I should have died; I shouldn’t have let myself be taken. Anything, something just to stop what had happened. If Gran still had Aunt Bellatrix she wouldn’t have left her home and Rose wouldn’t wake up at night screaming for her mother and wouldn’t be too scared to sleep. I should have died…it’s all my fault.
“I shouldn’t have clung on.”
He was shaking now, cold and at breaking point, “Things would be easier and in the long run people would be happier. Mum and dad would heal, they would have their family with Maise and I would be remembered as someone better than the person I am. I’ve failed so much, I’ve failed my parents, my Gran, Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny, I’ve failed them all by what I’ve become and I don’t deserve Vic’s love. If I hadn’t left Gran’s then I wouldn’t have been at the school for Severus to take me, if I had stayed with her then maybe things would be better, maybe I would…” Teddy choked back a sob and hid his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. How could he fail so much, how could he have let his life slip away from under him, what events brought him to his breaking point at the graveside of his parents? It was all just too much for him. How could he cause so much destruction in those he loved? He was that hammer that he’s used on the wall at Lenore’s home and his loved ones were the wall that the hammer smashed into. He was destroying everything.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered under his broken breath, “I’m sorry for being a disappointment, I’m sorry for failing and I’m sorry for how much I’ve hurt everyone, I never meant to be like this. I never meant to be so weak.” Slowly he looked back to the grave stones, re-reading the worlds upon them, Loving wife and mother, devoted husband and father.
“I don’t want my life to be like this, I never wanted it to be like this. I want to be able to make Gran smile and laugh again, I want to be the devoted husband my father was, the dear friend and son, I want those things but I don’t deserve them. For the way I’ve hurt and caused pain to people over the past few months I don’t’ deserve any of this. I can hear Severus in my head, ‘Quiet that heart Lupin’ and yet he told me to ‘fight for love’. Quiet or fight, which is it? What am I supposed to do, where am I supposed to go?” Slowly he raked his hand through his dull brown hair, a colour it had been for a good few weeks now, “I can’t tell Vic this stuff, if she knew the truth about how I felt, or Hermione, or Gran, if they knew the guilt I felt for the pain I’d caused them…I know what they would say, I know they would tell me it wasn’t my fault but it is, all of it is my fault. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Pulling out his wand he cleaned the moss from the gravestones and neatened the grass up around the places his parents’ bodies had been buried when he was just a baby. “Forgive me for everything I’ve done, please, find a way to do that.” And yet he was talking to stone and not his parents, the ones who were alive, the ones he was hurting and breaking piece by piece. “If I could start over again I would, if I could find a way to be that little boy you want and love I would do it. Anything just to stop all of this. Maybe I should leave, go away and never come back. No, I can’t, I couldn’t do that to Vic, she deserves better. A husband who will be there for her…I used to be so much better than all of this.”
Closing his eyes he felt the weight of everything on his shoulders and he wanted to just stay here in the darkness and seek some kind of comfort from talking everything out. There was so much conflict inside of him, so much pain, regret and anger. He placed the stones he had brought with him on the headstones to show someone that there had been someone there for them, someone who loved them and remembered them…even if they were no longer there and dead. “I wish I could fix all of this and make it all better; I wish I could tell someone everything I had just told you. I love you both, dead or living I love you so much.
So he sat in the darkness, looking at the gravestones of people who were no longer dead, telling them all the things he’d not been able to voice over the past few months.
What? Letting it all out.
When? Hours after Remus leaves the room, before talks of going for ice cream
Where? At his 'parents' graves
Why? Because he needs to say these things.
Hope is the knowledge of stability
from a son in mourning
Hope is the bright shining light
keeping darkness at bay'>It was a spiral. Down and round it went until he found himself surrounded by nothing but darkness, nothing but the twisted hurt and sadness that seemed to consume him still. It was getting worse but they said it got worse before it got better. The time he’d started spending with his wife was a break from this feeling because he couldn’t ever let her see how he was hurting, just as he was realising he couldn’t let his parents or anyone else know. They would, or were, blaming themselves and that just made the spiral twist ever down pushing him further into this darkness.
Drowning was never a good feeling whether it was in water, your own blood or your emotions and over the past few months his emotions seemed to lap as his feet, then his calves, waist and now his neck and mouth. There seemed to be no escape from the ever appearing rocks that filled his pockets keeping him down. His eyes looked up for a hand to pull him out but there wasn’t one and he understood why. Everyone else was drowning from their own experiences or reaching down and rescuing someone else.
Teddy had sat so long in that room on his own, the image of his father walking out still fresh in his mind, the pain still so raw. But it was his own fault, with each passing moment he knew that, with each passing day he saw it in the eyes and actions of others. The children were the best to be around, even though they see and sense things adults never seem to they’d rather spend their time cuddling or playing games, things to distract rather that tackle this situation head on. But now with some of the adults and children away it gave him more time to think, to dwell on the past few months, an unhealthy past time. He’d thrown himself into trying to create a home for himself, hours of mindless painting and rearranging on alone, hours of just thinking where he life would end should his wife decide she wouldn’t want to come home with him.
Too much thinking, too much hurt, too much doing things alone.
And in this moment, in this place he didn’t think there was anyone he could turn to. The last time he’d tried it got someone into trouble and he couldn’t afford more conflict because of him and his blood family were too involved in how he was feeling. He did the one thing he could do.
He went to the one place he knew that he could just go and pour his heart out. Pulling on his winter coat he glanced around the quiet house before walking out of the door and apparating into the darkness.
Fingers brushed over cold marble and he knelt down on the ground, watching as traced the words written on the stone before him;
Nymphadora Lupin
Loving wife and mother
Dearest Daughter
And then;
Remus Lupin
Devoted Husband and Father
Dearest friend
“I don’t know what to do anything,” he whispered softly, “I can’t take feeling this way anymore, it’s dark and numbing and all consuming and it’s tearing everything apart including me. I watching everyone else, I see the strength they have and they people they turn to and I can’t turn to the people I want to, strangers to me or they just aren’t there. That month without Vic, it was so hard, I wanted to just hide in her arms and tell her everything but I couldn’t and I don’t blame her for not being there. I just shouldn’t have expected so much from her, she’s seventeen and, yes, my wife, but she’s still young, I’m still young. But I needed her …”
His fingers brushed over the cold grass which he began to pick at and neaten around his parents’ graves.
So much has happened, so many things and It’s been so hard dealing with them. I had a good life, a happy life, Gran and everyone else were wonderful and then you two came back. I was shocked, scared but I was so happy. I got to see my parents, I got to touch and smell them. I remember that day dad took me to the pub, it was great, we didn’t stay for long, just one drink, but we were starting to get along. I thought we were.
Then the panic started and they started going to help everyone. I know it’s what they are like, I know they help because it’s the right thing to do but I felt like everyone else’s needs came before my own. Their own son and they were spending their time with everyone else and not me. I know it’s selfish of me to expect them to spend time with me but they are my parents and for nineteen years they were not part of my life. So I think I’m allowed to be greedy and want to spend time with them, to know them. And the more it didn’t happen the more I thought I wasn’t what they wanted, I wasn’t that little boy they held in their arms and I wasn’t good enough.” Tears slowly fell down his cheeks, “And that feels so bad, being so sure that your parents would rather be with other people, spend time with other people and risk their lives when they couldn’t spend time with me. It sounds stupid but I’d just got them back and they were everywhere but with me. Didn’t I deserve some of their time? A lot of their time? I’m their son.”
A slow soft sigh escaped his lips, “then things just got worse and I ended up moving to the school. I’d told Gran me moving in with mum and dad was too soon because we didn’t know one another but she persuaded me by saying it would make mum so happy. But it didn’t, things just blew up. Oh, of course, my fault again, like so many things seem to be. It was nice being back at the school, closer to Vic and those memories of spending time with Hagrid and some of the other professors. It was breathing space but I still felt like everything I did was wrong. At first I was always locking heads with mum and then things changed and dad…he can’t…what did he say. I can’t be here right now, be here, be with me.”
“I’ve fucked everything up and all I wanted was some time with my parents, time to know them and not fight for their attention. I was training hard to be an Auror, I was helping look after the younger children, and I wanted them to be proud of me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, to know they’d be proud of me.”
Pushing the tears from his cheeks he sighed deeply, “Then came what is probably my breaking point. What Severus did all those things I went through because he took me, because I let him take me, everyone trusted him and I thought I should do the same, I wanted to help and helping almost killed me. I lost more than blood that night, I lost myself. I was a bargaining chip to get her back, I was glad I was going home, thankful of the things Gran and Aunt Bellatrix were giving up so I could come home and then the realization began to sink in. They should have let me die; they should have kept Bellatrix on our side because she’s done so much damage since. Those children she killed, what she did to Rose, all of it, it’s because they took me back. When I visit Rose and I see the fear in her eyes I know that I would give up my life in a heartbeat to take that fear away from her and undo the pain she has been caused by Bellatrix going back to Voldemort. Gran would still have her sister and those two children would have their lives. I should have died; I shouldn’t have let myself be taken. Anything, something just to stop what had happened. If Gran still had Aunt Bellatrix she wouldn’t have left her home and Rose wouldn’t wake up at night screaming for her mother and wouldn’t be too scared to sleep. I should have died…it’s all my fault.
“I shouldn’t have clung on.”
He was shaking now, cold and at breaking point, “Things would be easier and in the long run people would be happier. Mum and dad would heal, they would have their family with Maise and I would be remembered as someone better than the person I am. I’ve failed so much, I’ve failed my parents, my Gran, Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny, I’ve failed them all by what I’ve become and I don’t deserve Vic’s love. If I hadn’t left Gran’s then I wouldn’t have been at the school for Severus to take me, if I had stayed with her then maybe things would be better, maybe I would…” Teddy choked back a sob and hid his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. How could he fail so much, how could he have let his life slip away from under him, what events brought him to his breaking point at the graveside of his parents? It was all just too much for him. How could he cause so much destruction in those he loved? He was that hammer that he’s used on the wall at Lenore’s home and his loved ones were the wall that the hammer smashed into. He was destroying everything.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered under his broken breath, “I’m sorry for being a disappointment, I’m sorry for failing and I’m sorry for how much I’ve hurt everyone, I never meant to be like this. I never meant to be so weak.” Slowly he looked back to the grave stones, re-reading the worlds upon them, Loving wife and mother, devoted husband and father.
“I don’t want my life to be like this, I never wanted it to be like this. I want to be able to make Gran smile and laugh again, I want to be the devoted husband my father was, the dear friend and son, I want those things but I don’t deserve them. For the way I’ve hurt and caused pain to people over the past few months I don’t’ deserve any of this. I can hear Severus in my head, ‘Quiet that heart Lupin’ and yet he told me to ‘fight for love’. Quiet or fight, which is it? What am I supposed to do, where am I supposed to go?” Slowly he raked his hand through his dull brown hair, a colour it had been for a good few weeks now, “I can’t tell Vic this stuff, if she knew the truth about how I felt, or Hermione, or Gran, if they knew the guilt I felt for the pain I’d caused them…I know what they would say, I know they would tell me it wasn’t my fault but it is, all of it is my fault. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Pulling out his wand he cleaned the moss from the gravestones and neatened the grass up around the places his parents’ bodies had been buried when he was just a baby. “Forgive me for everything I’ve done, please, find a way to do that.” And yet he was talking to stone and not his parents, the ones who were alive, the ones he was hurting and breaking piece by piece. “If I could start over again I would, if I could find a way to be that little boy you want and love I would do it. Anything just to stop all of this. Maybe I should leave, go away and never come back. No, I can’t, I couldn’t do that to Vic, she deserves better. A husband who will be there for her…I used to be so much better than all of this.”
Closing his eyes he felt the weight of everything on his shoulders and he wanted to just stay here in the darkness and seek some kind of comfort from talking everything out. There was so much conflict inside of him, so much pain, regret and anger. He placed the stones he had brought with him on the headstones to show someone that there had been someone there for them, someone who loved them and remembered them…even if they were no longer there and dead. “I wish I could fix all of this and make it all better; I wish I could tell someone everything I had just told you. I love you both, dead or living I love you so much.
So he sat in the darkness, looking at the gravestones of people who were no longer dead, telling them all the things he’d not been able to voice over the past few months.