InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "welp"

Professor Remus J. Lupin (galarusblaidd) wrote in breaking_point,
@ 2009-11-19 10:52:00

Entry tags:

*complete, 2024 11, character: james potter, character: remus lupin

RP: We're all mad here.
Who: Remus Lupin, James Potter (Sr)
Where: Godric's Hollow
When: Thursday, 19 November, 2024
Rating/Warnings: Nope
Summary: Remus and James spend an afternoon just talking and catching up

Once again Remus had found himself getting up in the pre-dawn greyness to find he wasn't the first one up and Harry was again off on some emergency. That the emergency turned out to be Lily returning and James was gone as well only meant Remus moved out to the back garden and stayed there. He wouldn't be needed to fill Lily in as her husband and son could do that well enough. It would be more important for the three of them to connect as a family. Besides, Remus and Lily had been friends, but never as close as he and James. She likely still believed him the traitor anyway and wouldn't even think to ask after him.

So, after confirming what was going on briefly, mostly through listening from the kitchen where he'd been getting water to take out with him to train, Remus slipped back outside and stayed there much later than usual. It was past lunchtime when he finally started thinking of heading inside for some food.

He'd collected half a dozen good sized stones, split them into another dozen each, and then transfigured them into small targets. A simple charm set them in motion at various heights and distances to allow him to get in some target practice with moving targets. Alternating charms and hexes, he took out the first dozen easily enough. Then he decided he'd just finish them all off before heading inside.

After all, if anyone needed him, they should all be used to looking for him outside after a month.

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galarusblaidd
2009-11-29 11:46 pm UTC (link)

"That's not a theory. That's my biggest fear at the moment," Remus commented dryly. Even without half his memories or whatever knowledge he'd accumulated over the missing ten years, Remus knew enough about how magic worked to know that eventually the energies involved would seek a balance. No one knew how or why they had come back. No one really knew how long they'd be allowed to stay. They all hoped it was permanent. There wasn't any proof that it wasn't.

But there was always that possibility.

"And I'm not saying you have to fall apart or sink into a maudlin funk for days. I just meant...oh, hell, I don't know what I meant. Honestly, just ignore me, Prongs." Waving the mood away and wishing he could wave his confusion over everything away with it, he reached for the glass of pumpkin juice.

Still, he had to chuckle as James spoke of playing Quidditch with generations. Easiest way to distract a Potter from any topic of conversation -- get him talking Quidditch. The fact they rarely looked as happy discussing most other topics (with a few exceptions) might have been a small bonus for anyone who cared about them.

"I've no doubt about that," he chuckled.

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marauderprongs
2009-11-30 07:04 pm UTC (link)

"Moony, I was going to do that anyway," James teased, nudging him with an elbow as he retrieved his own glass. "I'm not going to pretend it doesn't bother me. But I'm taking it for what it is and I'm focusing on the good. What else can I do?" He shrugged, clearly considering the subject exhausted. There were other things to talk about, since they had a minute and the giddy emotions surrounding Lily's return had been nudged to the background for the moment.

"While we're still being—you know. I wanted to ask you about your visit with W– with Peter." How odd. Every bit as odd as talking about great-grandchildren, to talk about Peter as if he weren't one of them. "You've said he didn't seem interested in working matters out. What... exactly did he say?"

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galarusblaidd
2009-11-30 09:29 pm UTC (link)

Remus blinked in surprise. He hadn't, if truth be known, been expecting James to pick that subject of all subjects to discuss. Certainly his friend couldn't consider this a lighter topic of conversation! And if he was trying to get Remus to stop brooding, this wasn't the way.

"Exactly? Where would you like me to start?" His voice carried more than a hint of bitterness he couldn't seem to control. The encounter had left Remus more emotionally bruised than he wanted to admit. "Did you want my personal faults? Or all of ours together?"

Remus shook his head with a small huff, turning so he could stretch out and lay along the length of the wall behind him -- easier to hide the emotion he knew would be betrayed in his own eyes.

"He doesn't believe in second chances, for one. Not for himself or anyone else for that matter. Laughed in my face when I told him I was happy to see him alive. He's apparently disgusted by the thought we have children. And, he thinks he's the afterthought to all of us -- you two especially. I had the impression he really feels it was always all about you and Sirius."

Closing his eyes to the sunlight above, Remus took a deep breath and let the pain go. He wasn't about to rant any further about Peter. In a way, it was more about James and Sirius, after all. They'd always been the leaders and it was they who were the ultimate tools of the betrayal. Remus was more collateral damage.

"He's not the same Peter we knew," he continued quietly, eyes still closed. "The sarcasm wasn't new, but the edge it was wielded with would have impressed even Severus Snape, I think. He's grown hard and bitter and he's only nineteen, twenty years old. Did we miss something? Was that hiding under there the whole time? Or did we cause it?"

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marauderprongs
2009-11-30 11:53 pm UTC (link)

"I want all of it." James sounded grim. If he was going to go confront this stranger who had been their friend, he wanted to be armed with every bit of information available to him.

He listened quietly to Remus's description, trying to force the new information to line up with the image of Wormtail in his head. It wasn't working. What had they done to make Peter so bitter toward them? Seven years as friends and roommates; how had they done Peter wrong? What could he possibly have to blame them for? If it was really that James and Sirius had been the more outgoing and attention-grabbing of the four, well, there wasn't much James could do about that. He'd never had the impression Peter wanted to be the center of attention. But they'd been good friends to him, hadn't they?

"I don't know. It makes no bloody sense." James was staring off in the direction of the house again, elbows braced on his knees. "I'm going to find out, though. He and I need to talk."

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galarusblaidd
2009-12-01 02:40 am UTC (link)

"He threw me out, Prongs. I told him I'd mourned his death for seven years, that the very first thought I had when the story came out about you and Lily, was to check up on him. And, he told me to stop pretending and get out of his space because he didn't want me there any more."

It didn't make any sense. Until he'd come to this time, until that stupid war, Remus would have bet money on the bonds that bound the four of them together. Then, in one conversation Peter had managed to cast doubt and uncertainty across it all.

Had Peter always resented them? Had Remus himself always been the afterthought to Peter it would seem if everything had always been about James and Sirius? What did that mean for what they'd done for Remus? He'd credited their incredible gift of becoming animagi with the easing of his curse those last years at school. Had that all been a lie for Peter? Just a way of getting in good with the other two?

And if this was something new, what had they done? What on earth had they done to cause him to turn on them so completely as to destroy James and Lily, their family, everything the four of them had worked for?

No, James was right. It made no sense.

"I wish I could hate him," Remus said so softly he wasn't sure James would even hear it -- or that he really wanted him to.

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marauderprongs
2009-12-01 08:23 am UTC (link)

James frowned deeply. He couldn't even imagine those words coming out of Peter's mouth, let alone directed at Remus. "Confunded?" he asked, knowing it was probably a vain hope but needing to ask nonetheless. "Or Imperius? Is there any chance?" Wouldn't that be a neat way to explain Peter's sudden and astounding about-face? At least that, James could understand. At least that, maybe he could do something about.

In the too-silent garden, he caught Remus's quiet words, but he didn't answer. He didn't know how to. Should he wish for the ability to hate Peter? He had a feeling that if he could actually bring himself to believe that Peter had sent Voldemort after Lily and Harry, willingly and deliberately, he might be able to find it in himself to hate the rat very easily. But he couldn't. And he wouldn't be able to—he wouldn't be able to react at all—until he knew why.

"I've got to go and see him. I need to hear what he has to say myself. If that's really the way he feels... then maybe I'm the only one who can clear things up." If he could. If he even wanted to. Trying to make sense of his feelings on the subject just made him feel sick to his stomach.

Straightening up, he looked over at Remus for the first time since bringing up Peter. His mouth tightened as he struggled for a minute over how to phrase his next question. "Remus... did you ever get that feeling? I'm not talking about recently, the whole Secret-Keeper thing, we fucked that up and I am sorry for it, but... earlier. Did you ever think Sirius and I—that you were an afterthought to us?"

It hurt to ask the question, because he honestly didn't know the answer. He thought they'd been good friends to Remus, but he'd always thought they'd been good friends to Peter too. And as Lily would be quick to agree, he'd been something of a self-centered jackass back then. Had he been alienating everyone without realizing it?

Before he went to confront Peter, he had to know. Whatever part he might have played in this, he needed to know it.

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galarusblaidd
2009-12-01 04:14 pm UTC (link)

That question forced Remus to open his eyes and sit up to look at his friend. He hated that Peter was making them all question themselves like this. They'd been good friends, great friends. Then one day Peter decides to turn his back on them and now they all were questioning everything that had ever gone on between them.

"James, how could I ever think that when you did so much for me?" Meeting the other man's gaze steadily, Remus reached across the plates of food to grip his friend's shoulder. "You noticed the shy awkward boy I was on the train with clearly no idea how to behave around people. You learned I was a werewolf and not only kept my secret, but stayed my friends. You spent almost three years working to become animagi to help me."

All right, maybe there'd been an element of rebellious excitement in secretly doing something like that, but Remus had always known the main purpose had been to help him. There were probably several scars he was missing across his chest and arms because they kept him safe during those years. Squeezing James' shoulder gently, he dropped his arm and sat back.

"The only time I have ever felt like an afterthought was sixth year, when Sirius pulled that horrid prank on Severus. I admit, then I felt a bit of an afterthought to him in his quest to scare the shite out of Severus. But, I forgave him eventually.

"You know, I always thought it would have been Peter who asked me to room with him after school. But he found a flat and moved in and never invited any of us over. Sirius just threw an arm around me one afternoon and said 'Moony, let's find us a flat.' You made sure you had a place for all three of us in the wedding party and made Lily pick a date that wasn't near the Full Moon. And yes, later, when the five of us would get together I could see all of you pulling away. But how often were we all together? All of us had missions and even at that, I saw you and Sirius more than I saw Peter in those years. He was always busy with 'research'." Remus sighed. "Maybe he was putting distance between himself and us even then and we just couldn't see it. We were all more focused on the war and we weren't the same unit we were in school any more because of it."

And that's what was killing Remus now with his assignment from Dumbledore.

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marauderprongs
2009-12-02 09:59 am UTC (link)

"All right, all right, Moony." James held up his hands in surrender, but he was smiling. "You win. We were the greatest friends of all time."

But they'd helped Peter, too. So many times over the years. Why would they have done that if they didn't consider him one of them? Why include him in their little Marauder band? Why make sure he managed his Animagus transformation? How could Peter possibly have come to think he wasn't important to them? If it had really been all about himself and Sirius, what would have been their reason for banding together with the other two at all? If it had been only hero-worship they'd wanted, they'd had plenty of that outside their own dorm room. They wouldn't have needed to cultivate a false friendship for that.

"You're right," he agreed heavily, nudging his glasses out of the way to knuckle his eyes. "He wasn't around much after the wedding, was he? But we always thought he was just busy - his job, and the war... He came when he could, or at least that's what he said. Should we have tried to see him more often? Would that have helped?"

Rhetorical questions just as Remus's had been. They couldn't know what may or may not have changed the tide in the past. All they could do was try to keep it from turning the same way this time.

And that was what was killing James about his assignment from Dumbledore. Because apparently stopping this tide was his job, and his alone. Maybe it did have to be him.

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