𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐈𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐄 [𝐣.𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫]

4: 𝔴𝔢 𝔡𝔦𝔡𝔫'𝔱 𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢

Remus Lupin had what one might call "anger issues".

It was that red-hot rage that blinded him, blood pounding in his head, fists aching for something to break. Preferably someone's nose.

It was that high, being unable to control your own thoughts, no rationalizations, just the inexplicable urge to pound something dust. It was the adrenaline that numbed your body, told you to keep going.

Oh, how he wanted to pound Sirius Black to dust. All those words, all those bigoted, prejudiced words. He wondered why he had to feel such a magnetic pull to Hogwarts's resident douche. He wanted to punch and kick and scream hurtful words at him, words he knew would make his perfect face break in half.

But afterward, after you've calmed down and begin to regain a stinging feeling in your fingers, after your breaths even out, after the adrenaline is all worn off, you're just plain sad. After you lose control, fight the intangible hurt that's built up in your chest, you wonder, god, what the hell is wrong with me? 

It's that dull, hollow feeling of shame, that quiet resentment towards everyone who ever walked the Earth, including yourself. Once you strip an angry person of that high, you just get a really sad, defeated individual.

Anger is only ever a reaction to fear or sadness. It does not act on its own but flares up as a protective armor over our vulnerabilities.

Remus Lupin had a lot of vulnerabilities. And somehow, despite his walls and moats and all the security systems he'd guarded around his heart, Sirius Black had crept his annoying ass in.

So now, he was sitting in the middle of the floor in his dorm room, which he'd torn to pieces. He could feel the blood scabbing on his knuckles, and the throbbing feeling that would definitely make his hands very sore if he didn't do anything soon, but he didn't care. He could clean up the dorm room quite easily with his wand. One flick and orderly chaos would be restored again.

He just didn't feel like it.

Besides, chaos-chaos wasn't that much different from their dorm room. The clothes were all scattered across the floor, but differently. Maybe it was even an improvement. The desks were clean now, thanks to him having swept everything off in a fluid motion. 

He could hear people pounding on the door, he could feel the headache building between his eyes, he could smell James's disgusting socks, and his skin felt like it was on fire.

He hated how loud everything was. Not just sound-wise, but life-wise. Life was so vivid and bright and loud and prickly and he just wanted to curl up into a ball and squeeze his eyes shut and never see another human being again.

Talking was overrated. Interactions were overrated. Life was overrated.

He tore off his robes, ignoring the blood that decorated his arm cuffs. He'd fix those later. He threw on his favorite sweater, stepped over a few week's worth of essays, and sat on his four-poster bed.

He jammed his fingers in his ears and let the messy dorm haze over. He let his eyes blur all the sharp colors and objects into one flat, more manageable pancake. Then he blinked, feeling a stinging sensation in his eyes.

He hadn't blinked in a while, apparently, so he closed his eyes extra long to prevent them from drying out. Then he fumbled for a chocolate bar he'd found still on his nightstand. It was broken, crumbled to pieces when he'd been rampaging.

Suddenly, as if he were Einstein, his mind came up with an analogy for a bar of Honeyduke's Chocolate.

Chocolate is good, whether broken to pieces or not. I wish I was a bar of chocolate.