Dirty Little Game ♠ Professor Lupin

Twenty six: Try My Best

I remember exactly when I realized Remus Lupin was a werewolf.

It was shortly after the Christmas break. The fresh scar on his arm was impossible to miss That's when did I realize that his scars weren't his past but his present. Suddenly my mind opened up to new possibilities and everything fell into place.

It was so simple I was angry with myself that it took me so long to figure it out. I suspected it was because of how close we were. The darkest place is under the candlestick, you know. I never imagined that anyone like this would make contact with me, let alone be my lover.

How did I react? I was scared as hell. Remus wasn't the first werewolf I knew, after all, Greyback was in my life for as long as I can remember. That's why I knew it was better to stay away from people like him. Greyback was the cruellest person I knew. Fortunately, I didn't spend so much time with him to find out for myself, although every time he so much as looked at me, I felt shivers down my spine. However, I have heard stories about him from other people. Stories that I wouldn't be able to repeat myself.

Remus wasn't like that. That's why it was so hard for me to accept it. Remus was the complete opposite of Greyback, at least as far as I knew him and I wanted to believe I knew him well. Remus was the most tender man I have known in my entire life. If the need arose, I'd put my life in his hands for him to do with it as he saw fit. Yes, I trusted him so much.

Since then, I have been wondering what happened. So many questions with no chance of being answered. Was he bitten or was he born like that? How did he get all those scars? How did he deal with it? And most importantly, how was he such a good man despite this?

I wasn't going to admit to him that I had discovered his secret. After all, how were werewolves perceived by society? They were loners, sub-wizards and for some not even humans. Even I, up to this point, used to despise werewolves and thought of them as monstrous. Remus completely flipped my perception of them.

It was one of the things that suddenly became so obvious - no wonder Remus' robes looked the way they did, when it was so hard to get him a job. The fact that Dumbledore had hired him, probably well aware of his ailments, was a whole different matter which I couldn't judge impartially.

I didn't want him to think I felt sorry for him. I knew what it was like to be surrounded by pity and I didn't want him to feel that way in front of me. It wasn't worth it.

If I thought Remus and I had been strange for the previous three months, we had to be in another dimension now. After we broke up, he tried to treat me like any other student but he didn't always succeed. Sometimes, while everyone else was busily writing on their parchments, we looked at each other for longer than was appropriate or exchanged glances during meals in the Great Hall. It somehow comforted me that it was difficult not only for me but also for him.

Everything had changed now. He was ignoring me completely. He didn't respond to my "good morning professor" when I showed up first in class. I didn't catch him staring at me anymore, he didn't even look in my direction, as if he subconsciously knew where I was all the time. And when I volunteered to answer his question he pretended not to notice, even when my hand was the only one raised.

I didn't know what he thought about me or if what I said meant anything to him at all. Maybe it did, maybe it made him angry. I wouldn't be surprised if he was angry that he made a teenager, whom all she could do was cause him trouble, fell in love with him.

It hurt me. Not the fact that he reacted like that, because he had every right to do so, but the fact that I was the reason for it. I failed him. I didn't know what I expected, that the truth would never come out? We didn't live in a fairy tale, people didn't forgive such things. There was no happy ending for people like me.