WHERE: The place Remus dwells, or a public place like a cafe, or Peter’s hideout, TBD to be honest.
WHEN: August 22, 2029
WHO: Peter & @rjupin
It appeared that he had forgotten how to breathe. As Peter’s eyes laid themselves on Remus, he thought that he’d collapse, crumble, fall apart, limb by limb. His lungs were failing him, squeezing together until there was nothing left, until suddenly, out of nowhere — he took a breath, deep yet shaky, his eyes no longer focused on Remus but instead on the world behind him.
“Please let me explain,” he said, eyes still failing to meet his best friend. ( Was that term still correct? Was Remus still his friend, let alone one of his best ones? Or was that history, now? Peter let all those question tumble through his mind and felt his lungs collapse once again. ) “I —- listen, Re, I haven’t done the shit they’re all saying I did yet, right? I did some shit, and I want to explain, just … just let me explain, yeah?”
He looked back at Remus, his eyes pleading. Peter felt small, smaller than a rat — like a dirty bug on a wall, observing, only looking in. Like a pest. He was prepared for anything, but hoped for the best. ( Always relying on the goodness of your friends to save the day, aren’t you? Hoping that they’ll save you, that they’ll still your inner demons, that they will love you, unlike yourself? How foolish. ) “I can explain.”
How could Peter possibly explain? How? He’d used the excuse for Peter too, that he hadn’t done everything he would do yet -- the person in front of him wasn’t the same person who’d done the terrible things he did. YET. It was that yet, it was that almost, it was the fact that Peter was capable of such things that gave Remus whiplash. It also made him angry enough to rip Peter apart if he so wanted to.
“You may have not done it yet, but you WOULD, wouldn’t you? You’d do it? To Lily? To James? To Sirius?” His voice was eerie, like the calm before the storm. As much as Remus could point the finger, as much as he could easily be angry -- he also felt guilt. He believed Peter’s farce in the end, he’d believed that Sirius had been the betrayer, that Sirius had done all these terrible things that Peter had actually done. Was he just as bad? No, no one was as bad as what Peter had done. At least, that’s what he tried to tell himself.
“What are you going to explain? You know, I always knew it was too good to be true. All of us. Together til the end -- the bloody fucking M A R A U D E R S, I always knew we were too good to be true,” Remus scoffed as he could feel tears pool in his eyes, a white hot anger bubbling in his stomach. This wasn’t how he liked to express himself, this wasn’t his usual MO. But he couldn’t help it -- this wasn’t just war, it wasn’t just friendship, it was betrayal.
“What are you going to explain that’ll make this all better, Pete?” Finally, he tried to catch Peter’s eye, looking helplessly at his best friend the person who betrayed the people he loved most.
“I call it an espresso squared — it’s two double espressos, in one mug. Also known as an atomic caffeine bomb,” said Amelia, taking a big sip from her mug. She reserved cups of coffee of this strength for truly strenuous time. ( This past month, she’d almost exclusively drank espresso squareds — could you blame her? ) “Merlin knows I need it.”
“Merlin knows I NEED it too, though it sounds positively dangerous,” he quipped with a twinkle in his eye. Though, with what they’d been through in their time coupled with the timeclash -- he’d had enough dangerous excitement for a lifetime. “Should I make one myself or just observe the effects it has on you? For science, of course.”
❝ i wish i could say that i am a LIGHT that never goes out,
but i flicker from time to time. ❞
CHANCE PERDOMO? No, that’s actually REMUS LUPIN from the MARAUDERS ERA. You know, the child of HOPE LUPIN and LYALL LUPIN? Only 20 years old, this GRYFFINDOR alumni works as UNEMPLOYED and is sided with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. HE identifies as a DEMIMAN and is a HALFBLOOD ( WEREWOLF ) who is known to be SELF-LOATHING, PETTY, and PERSNICKETY but also UNDERSTANDING, CLEVER, and PERCEPTIVE. — &&. ( JINX, PST, SHE/THEY, 24. )
CHARACTER INSPO ( he doesn’t need much because he’s remus fucking lupin but ): lucas sinclair ( stranger things ), dizzee kipling ( the get down ), monty green ( the 100 - that show can ROT but! ), malcolm ducasse ( jessica jones ), william hill ( this is us ), max medina ( gilmore girls ), if captain holt and terry jeffords from B99 had a kid – it would be remus.
OTHER: pinterest
I. Hogwarts, while a nice reprieve, gave Remus a sense of fear and he was determined, absolutely determined to keep to himself. He would not be an affliction onto other children, he would not burden them, he would not form relationships only for them to be embarrassed & repulsed by what he was. But he didn’t seem to have a choice – James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew chose him and never let him go. His brothers, his family, his soulmates, he never knew he’d be able to feel such love for other people who weren’t blood. It was with that love that he got that he started to return, it was then people found that Remus had a sense of humor but an even greater capacity to love – everyone but himself. When his best friends became animagi for him, he cried, he cried because he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to be so alone. That people cared enough about him to also transform themselves into animals so they could be with him. To this day he doesn’t understand it & is convinced he never will, but it doesn’t make him any less grateful. Without them, he knew he’d be much more miserable than he was, without them, he feared he’d be nothing but a problem his father made him out to be. That he’d be nothing but a monster. They, along with friends he made, were his humanity and it’s why in the first war Remus is ready to do whatever it takes to win because he can’t lose them. He’ll lose himself, his mind, his soul, before he loses the people he cares about.
II. Remus is extremely petty and perhaps, besides his self hatred, it’s his biggest flaw. He’ll never forget a slight, he’ll be passive aggressive to a fault and if you piss him off, there’s no end in sight for his dramatic and emotional wrath. It’s silent, it’s offhand comments here and there, jokes gone a little too far, he knows what to say to make people tick and doubt themselves, boggarts fascinate him for a reason after all. Though, he usually uses his apt perceptions of people for good, if you anger him he can easily take what he knows about you and use it against you. There’s a very dark part of him, the side of him that knows how to do monstrous things without becoming a werewolf, that existed before the war ( he’s been fighting himself for as long as he can remember ), something deep in the depths of who he is. It fascinates and frightens him, he wants to run from it but he also wants to look at it under a microscope.
III. Though a young Remus would never think he could, an older Remus touched many peoples lives. Unaware of the impact he has on others, Remus is incredibly self loathing. It’s very pervasive in how he lives his life, in how he thinks about himself, most of this stemming from being a werewolf. It blows his mind, that people in the future know his secret and still think the best of him when he’s been taught that what he has is an affliction. That he himself is an affliction. Sure, he had the Marauders and a select few friends who knew about his secret but having the entire world know now is such a change that he’s started to feel a bit more free. The timeclash makes him a bit more fearless, because what more is there to lose now that the secrets out? There’s so much to change, so much that can change now that this happened in their timeline, he figures it’s a toss up that he can’t quite control. One thing is certain, having Wolfsbane during transformations has changed his life and a part of him doesn’t want to go back to his time without it.
NOTES
[ DRUGS TW ] WORLDS worst drug dealer, it started because he bakes an amazing pot brownie & other baked goods. People told him he could sell it and he made connections with a lot of people within the Wizarding world and otherwise that have ailments in which his weed brownies give them relief? So Remus just felt bad charging people, The person he gets his weed from loves his brownies so much, he gives Remus weed JUST so he can make them for him and his business. Plus, the person likes Remus and the brownies help his Grandma. If anything, he’s happy to be lending his existence and his skills to helping people in a real way – he knows the Order is important work too but this brings genuine joy to people’s faces, something invaluable in the middle of a war. He’s a big intellectual stoner but uses it the most during the before and the aftermath of transformations. [ DRUGS TW OVER ]
loves twitter and loves getting into fights on twitter but mostly loves all the education on twitter
[ GENDER CONFUSION TW ] The women and femmes in his life are the most important – in regards to his gender, he’s always felt really traditionally feminine in a lot of ways and really loves leaning into those gender roles & stereotypes. He’ll come over to your house to tidy, he’ll make you a cuppa and some baked goods ( baking was something his mother taught him to do and she passed down an outrageously big cookbook to him ). When he lives with people, he’ll clean up a storm, he’s very much one to sit down and talk about feelings even though he’s shit at sharing his own. Remus will never be able to understand his gender though, because he doesn’t have the tools and sees himself as so much monster that it’s a lot to unpack. In modern times had he survived, Remus would’ve put himself in fucking therapy after the second war to be a better husband and father. In fact, he would’ve been a proud stay at home dad who could give some of those Real Housewives a run for their money when it came to drama and pettiness. Ugh, SCENARIOS MAN. [ GENDER CONFUSION TW END ]
Cheeky and sarcastic AF.
I’m sure there are people within the Order, at least higher up, that know that he’s a werewolf like I can’t imagine they don’t? Dumbledore has sent him on missions with other werewolves, sure, but he’s not accepted and though Remus is willing to do just about anything for Dumbeldore – he couldn’t stay away from his friends that long and has been focusing on being a soldier more than anything and taking as many dangerous missions as he can because when he’s not suffering™ through transformations he’s a quite useful soldier.
Feel free to know he’s a werewolf, I imagine most people would know by now if they cared enough about it?? So there’s that!!
my biggest pet peeve is when people write lupin as the wet blanket mom friend prefect type, like…did you read prisoner of azkaban tho??
literally shoots chewing gum up peeves’ nose 20 seconds into his first lesson ever
passive-aggressively puts snape’s boggart in drag after snape insults neville in front of his class
and THEN, gives zero fucks about snape’s increasing rage as word gets around that HE DID THAT
speaking of gives zero fucks: gives zero fucks about trelawney’s attempts to crystal gaze for him
somehow miraculously bullshits his and harry’s way out of repercussions after snape catches harry with the map and has every right to put harry in detention for the rest of his life (AND he keeps composure while his teenage self is savagely badmouthing snape right in front of him, no less)
is prepared to straight up murder his former best friend in cold blood in front of 3 of his students and totally would have done it if not for harry’s intervention
gives harry the map back because, fuck it, he’s not a teacher anymore, give em hell, kid
like i get the whole tea/sweaters/laid-back-professor aesthetic, but remus lupin is a magnificently flawed and sometimes straight up terrifying character…he’s so much more than fandom’s portrayal of him as this mild-mannered, careful person, and i think that part of the reason he’s so interesting to me is that he seems just like that at first, but you have all this dark shit lurking just beneath the surface. one of my favorite moments in the entire series is when he goes into that extremely scary place and he’s about to murder peter, because you know that each DADA professor so far has had some dark secret, and even beyond the werewolf reveal, remus’ payoff is SO good. he’s such a good character honestly
contexts in which jkr introduces her readers to remus:
book 3: in his first scene he conjures a patronus and passes around chocolate
book 3: in his second scene he teaches them all a spell focused in overcoming fears with laughter
book 5: in his first scene he rescues harry from an abusive household, and smiles widely at harry while he does it
book 6: in his first scene he is handed a large slice of cake
book 6: in his second scene everyone is sitting around a fire at christmas drinking eggnog
book 7: when he rolls up to The Squad in grimmauld place he passes around butterbeers and hermione lights a fire in the fireplace
rowling does this thing where even if remus is having The Literal Worst Time he is almost always introduced in the context of warmth and light and comfort, which he more often than not is directly providing to others
