Ad Infinitum (Remus Lupin X Reader)

IX • Nox Quae Omnia Commutavit

IX • Nox Quae Omnia Commutavit • The Night Everything Changed

15 YEARS AGO; 1978

"There she is!" I looked up and saw my mother with a wide smile on her face. "Want to help me grade, dolly?"

"Yes!" I said, scrambling out of my room and following my mom to her office.

"Did you have a good day?" Mom asked as she hoisted me into a chair beside her desk.

"Yes," I said, grabbing a pen from the cup of pens on her desk. "Miss Hester let us do puzzles after we were done with math."

"Did she? What puzzle did you do?"

"Puppies," I said, kicking my feet.

"That sounds nice," she said, brushing my hair back. "Where's dad and the boys?"

"They were going out in the woods," I said.

"Hm. And they left you here alone?"

"Yeah. But it's okay. I don't want to go in the woods anyway."

"That's okay. That means you can be here, with me. Do you remember what to do?" She slid me a paper.

"Yeah," I said, propping myself on my knees to get closer to the table. I drew a smiley face with the pen next to the number my mom wrote at the top of the paper.

"Perfect," she said with a smile.

I beamed as she slid more papers over to me. She would put numbers on them and I would put the smileys. The smileys were my job. My mom hummed under her breath as she graded the papers in her bright red ink.

"Mommy, I want to be a teacher," I said as I carefully drew a smiley face at the top of a paper.

"Do you?" she asked with a big smile. "Well, I think you would be the most wonderful teacher."

"When I'm a teacher, I'll always put the smileys on papers," I said. "Miss Hester only puts smileys for when we get good grades."

"I think everybody deserves a smiley," Mom said, "no matter who your grades are. Some people can't get good grades no matter how hard they try. But if they're trying their very hardest, why shouldn't we give them a smiley regardless? Everybody's best is different and that's okay."

I nodded as I drew another smiley.

"Being a teacher isn't just putting smileys, though, dolly," Mom said. "It takes a lot of patience and empathy."

"Empathy," I repeated quietly.

"Empathy is understanding and feeling what others are feeling. So if someone feels sad, it's sharing that sadness and understanding the sadness."

"Sometimes I get sad when my classmates are sad," I said and drew a smiley. "Mary lost her cat last week and I felt so sad I cried."

"Empathy can be other feelings too, though. It could be fear or anger or happiness."

"Empathy," I murmured to myself as I wrote.

"And sometimes empathy is hard," she said. "It makes you feel sad a lot because a lot of people are sad. But when we feel empathy, and when we take that sadness, we're helping the sad people deal with it by carrying some of that sadness. That way, they don't have to carry so much."

"But what about other feelings? Like happiness?"

"Happiness is special. It's meant to be shared. When you split up happiness, it grows."

"Happiness grows."

"It does, dolly, and that's why we smile. It helps happiness grow."

"And that's why we draw smileys, so that happiness grows?"

"Exactly," she said and smiled, leaning to press a kiss on my forehead. "That's why you're so special. You have the nicest smile in the world, dolly, and you spread so much happiness."

"I'm tired, mommy."

"Okay, then, dolly, let's get to bed," she said and helped me out of my chair. "You made some really nice smileys today."

"Thank you, mommy."

She smiled and helped me get ready for bed, tucking me in.

"Where's dad?" I asked as she sat on the edge of my bed.

"He put the boys to bed and left for work."

"He's protecting people?" I asked, bringing my blanket up to my chin.

"He is."

"When will he be home?"

"I don't know, dolly."

I frowned.

"Get some sleep for school tomorrow," she said quietly, leaning to kiss my nose. "I love you."

"I love you too," I said, watching as she stood and left my room, closing the door behind her quietly. I heard as she went to my brothers' rooms and made sure they were sleeping. Warm in my bed, I fell asleep.

***

I awoke to the sound of screaming. I sat upright, hearing my heartbeat loud in my ears. I slowly slid out of my bed, inching toward my door to listen. I jumped when I heard another cry.

"Mommy?" I whispered, my voice wavering. I pushed my door open and crept into the hallway. I quietly followed the sounds of my mother crying, stopping outside of the living room. I froze when I saw her, my mother on the ground, a wolf towering over her, his snout tucked into her neck. My father stood with his wand outstretched.

Light flew from his wand and hit the wolf, which yelped and recoiled. As it pulled away from my mother, I saw its muzzle wet with blood. My mother's neck seeped with blood and she gasped for air with each breath. More lights hit the wolf, and suddenly, it retreated. My father followed after it, leaving the front door open after him as he pursued the creature.

I crept forward, my eyes wide. My mother was still on the ground, trembling and bleeding and choking on something.

"Mommy?"

She didn't respond to the sound of my voice, so I kneeled beside her and grabbed her hands.

"Mommy?"

Still no response. I leaned my head into her chest and cried, the coppery smell of her blood overwhelming my senses. I cried into her chest for a long time, until her chest was no longer moving and her neck stopped flowing with blood.

I didn't understand what I had seen, but I did understand that my mother was gone.

I laid with my head against her still-warm body until I was pulled away, carried into the bathroom by my older brother. He drew a bath and scrubbed the blood from my hands and my hair silently, his face blank.

"I want mommy," I said with tears in my eyes.

"Mom's gone," he said, looking at me sternly.

"Why?"

"It was a werewolf," he said. "I learned about them at Ilvermorny. They're... they're bloodthirsty creatures. And they kill for the sport."

I started crying, feeling my brother pull me into a hug. He was crying too, shaking, although he tried to hide it.

My father returned hours later, his face grim and covered in filth. He didn't say a word to me or my brothers, and when I hesitantly chanced returning to the living room, Mom was gone, only a dark patch of red left on the carpet.

That was the night everything changed.