My Father's Son.
Important OOC: What is mentioned in this fic are things that Remus would have only told the Marauders (and most likely Lily as well) throughout their years at Hogwarts because he was living through it while they were together. The whole thing is a very touchy subject for him and it's not something he would easily share with anyone else (my guess is he would have only mentioned bits and pieces to Tonks but nothing too specific). So, for everybody else, it is for mun info only. Unless he talks about it later on, of course. This was just needed to be written because a) it's good for backstory purposes and b) it has been on his mind too much lately.
Thanks.
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this is real. So I let go, watching you, turn your back like you always do; face away and pretend that I'm not but I'll be here 'cause you're all that I got.'>You are four years old when you become aware of just how much you want to be like your father. You want to be just as tall - so tall that it's as if he can reach the tallest tree, or can somehow reach that sky that looks so high above you. You want to be as strong as he is, and just as wise. You want to have that ability he has to make bad dreams disappear. When you voice this wish to your parents one night your mother beams as your father just grins, and she adds that she hopes so, too. That she'd be so proud, and that she's sure one day you will do it.
"One day you will be just like Daddy."
You are seven years old when your first transformation happens, and the second you're awake from it your whole body feels like it's broken. They lied, you realize; all those healers that warned you about how it would feel lied. Did adults always lie? It's such a silly thought at a moment like this when you can barely move or even breathe, but it's easier to concentrate on that than on how you feel. This is just a bad dream. It has to be. It hurts so much more than they warned.
As you bite your lip to not cry out as you roll over, the taste of blood makes you almost gag but you're able to stop as your mother walks in the room. And as soon as you take a look at her all you can do suddenly is stare.
She has been crying. Again.
She has been crying so much throughout this past month, and it's all because of you and what you are now. So you make yourself smile as much as you can. She shouldn't cry. Mums should never cry, should they?
Suddenly your father is standing next to her since he's done talking to the healer he managed to bring so he could help with the wounds you created for yourself throughout the night, and now you start questioning if dads are supposed to cry, too. It's so obvious he's been crying like Mum. For you. It's all because of you. The strongest man in the world, crying because you're a werewolf. A Dark creature. That Dark creature he'd talk about on Halloween nights to scare you, and then you realize maybe that's why they're crying. They're scared of you.
Before you can ask them to not cry, however, he scoops you into his arms and takes you to their room. He settles you carefully on their bed and they lay down on each side as they talk quietly. Soothingly.
"It'll be okay, Remus," you hear them whisper as you fall back asleep. "We'll be right here when you wake up."
You are ten years old when you stand by the entrance of the kitchen, watching your mother as she sits at the table looking so defeated that you don't know what to do. Do you go to her? Comfort her? Then you remember the reason why she is like this, and why Dad stormed off, and you don't move.
After years of tests, potions, hospital stays, and one experiment after another you have been informed just less than an hour ago that those healers that have been promising to find a cure no longer have any hope. That the best thing to do is keep adjusting, and that all those things you got put through have been for nothing. Mum had insisted that they had to keep trying. Dad had just looked away. At home neither of them spoke, and now it's just you and your mother because your father stepped out before a word could really be said.
Is it possible that years can fit into just an hour? you start to wonder. Because suddenly, at ten, you feel old. You feel tired, and lost, and all you want to do is to feel better. Feel like someone else, anyone else.
"Mum," you say quietly; tentatively but with a smile on your face. You are a master at it by now; you can smile when you need to. When they need you to. Because it's important to stay strong for them, and happy. You let them down already by no longer being their little boy and turning into a werewolf, so you have to smile. Especially now, when you all know that you will always be a werewolf. "Mum, we can--"
"Not now, Remus," she says as she stands, wiping away the tears on her face. "You should go read. I'll be up to tuck you in a bit."
And you nod, because that's what you do. You go up to your room and you read. You have to please them, so you don't question their words. You don't even remind her it's still a few hours until your bedtime, but later on you find out it doesn't matter.
She forgets to come and tuck you in, anyway.
You are thirteen when you start wondering if your parents would notice if you just don't come home from school anymore. Things are as normal as they can be when the full moon is far away, but when your body starts to show how affected it becomes by it you start to see the changes in your parents as well. Those changes become more and more obvious each year that passes. They grow more and more quiet. Sometimes they barely even talk to you when you are home for a full moon. Dad tries, but it's as if it pains him to even look at you in those days. Mum seems to be growing more and more frightened.
But you don't say anything. You just take it, because what else can you do? Can you really expect them to be like James, Sirius, and Peter? Part of you screams YES. They are your parents, aren't they? Dark creature or not, they are still your parents. But the other part just gives up and accepts things as they are. You just take the good days and try to ignore the bad ones.
It's really the only thing you can do.
You are seventeen when you sit across from your father, in the same kitchen and at the same table where you saw your mother seven years ago. Her funeral had been that morning, and now it's just the two of you who have a responsibility to run the house.
It feels empty without her. The two of you didn't have the best relationship - it could really barely be considered as existent, let alone good - but she was still your mother. You still miss her, and there is a part of you that will always long for that mother you had before you were bitten. The fact that she no longer has to suffer is the only comfort you have. She's free from this curse you brought upon the family.
"When do you have to go back to school?"
You don't even have to turn back from looking out the window to realize your father isn't looking at you. The full moon is in a couple of days, and he probably can't bear to look at how peaky you look after he buried his wife. "Until the end of the week. But I can stay--"
"No, it's all right. You don't have to."
"Dad--"
"I said it's fine." His voice is quiet but there is such finality in his tone that you purse your lips and nod.
You can't really say anything else anyway, because he's out the door before you have a chance to.
You are thirty-seven when you promise your unborn child you will never be like your parents. Tonks is asleep and you speak quietly to the baby as your thumb caresses her belly.
"I'm sorry," you whisper as quietly as you can to not wake Tonks up. "I'm sorry for leaving you, but I did it thinking it was for the best. I was mistaken, however, and I am so sorry. I will spend my life making it up to you. Both to you and your mother." A sigh. "I know I made mistakes, and I know you both deserve so much more... But I love you. Both of you, in ways that no one else ever will be able to love you. Of that you can always be certain. I promise."
You will never be like them, you repeat until you're almost asleep. You will celebrate every accomplishment your child has, you will love them and cherish them and they will know. They will always know just how loved they really are.
That is probably the best lesson your father ever taught you, even if he didn't teach by example.
You are thirty-eight, twenty years later, when you realize you are more like your parents than you ever hoped to be.
That's what it feels like, at least, as you are forced to remember things that you always tried to bury as much and as deep as you could and they are compared to what you have been doing lately. What you are accused of doing. What you have done. It has taken you a bit to realize it, but you have become him with some hints of her, and...
Merlin.
Looking up at the night sky you just stare up at the stars. You can still remember those nights, before you were bitten, when the three of you would huddle under a blanket and stargaze for hours and hours until you were too tired to keep your eyes open. You still remember holidays together, Christmases, and the normalcy of those first seven years. Sometimes you even wonder if perhaps you glorify those years because they are the best ones and best memories of your parents that you have, but it's not like it matters, anyway.
Despite everything, despite how much you do not want to be like them, you don't blame them. You cannot blame them, because you still justify their actions. The way they kept pretending the first few years as if nothing had happened despite the monthly transformations, and then the way they seemed to withdraw from you as the years passed and each transformation kept getting more and more violent. You justify it. Everything.
But as much as you understand, you cannot forgive them. Not completely, anyway, even if they lost their little boy by age six and then they were left with a Dark creature instead. And it is because of that reason that you do not want to be like them anymore; because you want to believe that you can be better than them. That you can love your children unconditionally and convince them you love them how your parents did not.
Once you told your son how they had been great parents, and it had not been a lie. They really had been great parents, when they wanted to be. It was the rest of the time that was the problem. And now you are struggling with that same predicament; are you truly a good father, or are you simply a good one when you let yourself be around? Is Teddy right? You tell yourself no at once, but maybe it's wishful thinking. Who could know for sure if you really are like him? Like them?
Taking a drag of the cigarette you're smoking - you'll stop tomorrow, you tell yourself - you suddenly start to wonder if your mother is proud.
Maybe you really are your father's son, after all.
Thanks.
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this is real. So I let go, watching you, turn your back like you always do; face away and pretend that I'm not but I'll be here 'cause you're all that I got.'>You are four years old when you become aware of just how much you want to be like your father. You want to be just as tall - so tall that it's as if he can reach the tallest tree, or can somehow reach that sky that looks so high above you. You want to be as strong as he is, and just as wise. You want to have that ability he has to make bad dreams disappear. When you voice this wish to your parents one night your mother beams as your father just grins, and she adds that she hopes so, too. That she'd be so proud, and that she's sure one day you will do it.
"One day you will be just like Daddy."
You are seven years old when your first transformation happens, and the second you're awake from it your whole body feels like it's broken. They lied, you realize; all those healers that warned you about how it would feel lied. Did adults always lie? It's such a silly thought at a moment like this when you can barely move or even breathe, but it's easier to concentrate on that than on how you feel. This is just a bad dream. It has to be. It hurts so much more than they warned.
As you bite your lip to not cry out as you roll over, the taste of blood makes you almost gag but you're able to stop as your mother walks in the room. And as soon as you take a look at her all you can do suddenly is stare.
She has been crying. Again.
She has been crying so much throughout this past month, and it's all because of you and what you are now. So you make yourself smile as much as you can. She shouldn't cry. Mums should never cry, should they?
Suddenly your father is standing next to her since he's done talking to the healer he managed to bring so he could help with the wounds you created for yourself throughout the night, and now you start questioning if dads are supposed to cry, too. It's so obvious he's been crying like Mum. For you. It's all because of you. The strongest man in the world, crying because you're a werewolf. A Dark creature. That Dark creature he'd talk about on Halloween nights to scare you, and then you realize maybe that's why they're crying. They're scared of you.
Before you can ask them to not cry, however, he scoops you into his arms and takes you to their room. He settles you carefully on their bed and they lay down on each side as they talk quietly. Soothingly.
"It'll be okay, Remus," you hear them whisper as you fall back asleep. "We'll be right here when you wake up."
You are ten years old when you stand by the entrance of the kitchen, watching your mother as she sits at the table looking so defeated that you don't know what to do. Do you go to her? Comfort her? Then you remember the reason why she is like this, and why Dad stormed off, and you don't move.
After years of tests, potions, hospital stays, and one experiment after another you have been informed just less than an hour ago that those healers that have been promising to find a cure no longer have any hope. That the best thing to do is keep adjusting, and that all those things you got put through have been for nothing. Mum had insisted that they had to keep trying. Dad had just looked away. At home neither of them spoke, and now it's just you and your mother because your father stepped out before a word could really be said.
Is it possible that years can fit into just an hour? you start to wonder. Because suddenly, at ten, you feel old. You feel tired, and lost, and all you want to do is to feel better. Feel like someone else, anyone else.
"Mum," you say quietly; tentatively but with a smile on your face. You are a master at it by now; you can smile when you need to. When they need you to. Because it's important to stay strong for them, and happy. You let them down already by no longer being their little boy and turning into a werewolf, so you have to smile. Especially now, when you all know that you will always be a werewolf. "Mum, we can--"
"Not now, Remus," she says as she stands, wiping away the tears on her face. "You should go read. I'll be up to tuck you in a bit."
And you nod, because that's what you do. You go up to your room and you read. You have to please them, so you don't question their words. You don't even remind her it's still a few hours until your bedtime, but later on you find out it doesn't matter.
She forgets to come and tuck you in, anyway.
You are thirteen when you start wondering if your parents would notice if you just don't come home from school anymore. Things are as normal as they can be when the full moon is far away, but when your body starts to show how affected it becomes by it you start to see the changes in your parents as well. Those changes become more and more obvious each year that passes. They grow more and more quiet. Sometimes they barely even talk to you when you are home for a full moon. Dad tries, but it's as if it pains him to even look at you in those days. Mum seems to be growing more and more frightened.
But you don't say anything. You just take it, because what else can you do? Can you really expect them to be like James, Sirius, and Peter? Part of you screams YES. They are your parents, aren't they? Dark creature or not, they are still your parents. But the other part just gives up and accepts things as they are. You just take the good days and try to ignore the bad ones.
It's really the only thing you can do.
You are seventeen when you sit across from your father, in the same kitchen and at the same table where you saw your mother seven years ago. Her funeral had been that morning, and now it's just the two of you who have a responsibility to run the house.
It feels empty without her. The two of you didn't have the best relationship - it could really barely be considered as existent, let alone good - but she was still your mother. You still miss her, and there is a part of you that will always long for that mother you had before you were bitten. The fact that she no longer has to suffer is the only comfort you have. She's free from this curse you brought upon the family.
"When do you have to go back to school?"
You don't even have to turn back from looking out the window to realize your father isn't looking at you. The full moon is in a couple of days, and he probably can't bear to look at how peaky you look after he buried his wife. "Until the end of the week. But I can stay--"
"No, it's all right. You don't have to."
"Dad--"
"I said it's fine." His voice is quiet but there is such finality in his tone that you purse your lips and nod.
You can't really say anything else anyway, because he's out the door before you have a chance to.
You are thirty-seven when you promise your unborn child you will never be like your parents. Tonks is asleep and you speak quietly to the baby as your thumb caresses her belly.
"I'm sorry," you whisper as quietly as you can to not wake Tonks up. "I'm sorry for leaving you, but I did it thinking it was for the best. I was mistaken, however, and I am so sorry. I will spend my life making it up to you. Both to you and your mother." A sigh. "I know I made mistakes, and I know you both deserve so much more... But I love you. Both of you, in ways that no one else ever will be able to love you. Of that you can always be certain. I promise."
You will never be like them, you repeat until you're almost asleep. You will celebrate every accomplishment your child has, you will love them and cherish them and they will know. They will always know just how loved they really are.
That is probably the best lesson your father ever taught you, even if he didn't teach by example.
You are thirty-eight, twenty years later, when you realize you are more like your parents than you ever hoped to be.
That's what it feels like, at least, as you are forced to remember things that you always tried to bury as much and as deep as you could and they are compared to what you have been doing lately. What you are accused of doing. What you have done. It has taken you a bit to realize it, but you have become him with some hints of her, and...
Merlin.
Looking up at the night sky you just stare up at the stars. You can still remember those nights, before you were bitten, when the three of you would huddle under a blanket and stargaze for hours and hours until you were too tired to keep your eyes open. You still remember holidays together, Christmases, and the normalcy of those first seven years. Sometimes you even wonder if perhaps you glorify those years because they are the best ones and best memories of your parents that you have, but it's not like it matters, anyway.
Despite everything, despite how much you do not want to be like them, you don't blame them. You cannot blame them, because you still justify their actions. The way they kept pretending the first few years as if nothing had happened despite the monthly transformations, and then the way they seemed to withdraw from you as the years passed and each transformation kept getting more and more violent. You justify it. Everything.
But as much as you understand, you cannot forgive them. Not completely, anyway, even if they lost their little boy by age six and then they were left with a Dark creature instead. And it is because of that reason that you do not want to be like them anymore; because you want to believe that you can be better than them. That you can love your children unconditionally and convince them you love them how your parents did not.
Once you told your son how they had been great parents, and it had not been a lie. They really had been great parents, when they wanted to be. It was the rest of the time that was the problem. And now you are struggling with that same predicament; are you truly a good father, or are you simply a good one when you let yourself be around? Is Teddy right? You tell yourself no at once, but maybe it's wishful thinking. Who could know for sure if you really are like him? Like them?
Taking a drag of the cigarette you're smoking - you'll stop tomorrow, you tell yourself - you suddenly start to wonder if your mother is proud.
Maybe you really are your father's son, after all.