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The full moon has been particularly brutal this time. His body throbs from the relentless cycle of breaking and mending. His flesh feels taut, stretched far too thin. He’s gotten new scars. Far more than usual. They start at his shoulders, stretching all the way down to his wrists. Lines shallow and deep, twisting, turning, overlapping. The wool jumper he wears to cover up his morbid arms keeps rubbing against his fragile bones, making him wince. He is so overstimulated that even the cool breeze feels like needles pricking his skin. The only reprieve is the soothing stone of the Astronomy Tower beneath his legs. His normally vigilant senses are frayed, scattered all over the place. Perhaps that’s how he doesn’t notice James approaching him with his usual restless skip.
“Remus! Why are you up here all alone?”
James tilts his head to the side, and his expression drops when he sees the look on his best mate’s face. Gently, he eases down next to Remus, careful not to touch him. Remus hasn’t told his friends his secret yet. He hasn’t told them about just how filthy and vile he is. He hasn’t told them how sometimes, touch feels like torture. But somehow, James knows—he always does—and he keeps just enough distance, in that quiet, understanding way only James can.
“Why are you sad?”
“I’m not sad.” Which isn’t a lie, not really. Remus feels so many emotions right now. Disgust, pain, exhaustion, disappointment, grief. It’s almost funny, to summarise them all into a word as simple as “sad”.
“You are sad.”
“How do you know that?”
“‘Cause you’re eating chocolate.”
Which is true. Remus has a bar of chocolate in his hands. Black chocolate. He suddenly feels self-conscious about it. He shoves the bar into the pocket of his jumper. Picks at the loose thread at his sleeve.
“What does that have to do with anything.”
James snorts. “Because,” he pronounces the word slowly as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world and Remus is too thick to understand. “You eat chocolate when you’re sad.”
In moments like these, Remus marvels at the enigma that is James Potter. How can someone be so restless and lost in their own head, yet still manage to observe and read others so clearly? Remus feels stripped bare under the gaze of James Potter, itching to hide but unable to move.
James sighs when he realizes Remus isn’t going to answer. Instead, with no care in the world for hygiene, he lies down and closes his eyes, waiting for Remus to follow his lead. Remus doesn't know how long they lay there, side by side, in silence. He focuses on the slow breathing of his best mate, the cool stone against his back, his legs, his head. Slowly but surely, his bones stop aching. His skin relaxes, and his scars heal. His ribs shift to make room for his lungs, and his heart mends itself back together. Remus Lupin doesn’t know how he found such a good friend, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Not even to be completely human.