BLACK MOON ⍋ Remus Lupin

Chapter Eighty- The Storm.

(Strap in, this is a long one. Get your typing fingers ready.)

We had sat in the café for what felt like two hours, but in reality was five. We spoke about a number of things, mostly revolving around the situation that caused me to leave. Random other topics too like, what books we were into at the moment or our favourite cuisine. He was thrilled that I had now read Alice in Wonderland, going off on a tangent about how much he loved the book as a child and how much he loved how Alice was the weird person in the story as she wasn't odd at all.

We just got to know each other again. Which still felt like a very basic level. You can't catch up on almost four years in five hours. Not on a level where I could feel like I had never left. There were still moments of feeling as if we were hallucinating each other. A slight smile at each other when we couldn't pinch ourselves out of the café.

At one point when Remus began to complain about his boss and how he wish he liked work, as the shop was nice, I couldn't listen to him properly. Just taking in his features and wondering if it was true, if he was a werewolf. It is something I've obsessively thought about since the idea was presented to me.

Imagining him as being a werewolf was making me question everything I had ever read or been told. I wanted to see him and talk to him, not only to see him and talk to him, but to figure out if the allegation was true.

Nothing in the conversation could have hinted towards it being true but the more I stared at him, the more I wondered about the possibility.

Those scars couldn't have just come from being clumsy, like I had tried to imagine they had. They were faded and healed but existed in large numbers. A scar on his hand proving to be quite deep, though a soft shade of baby pink. You could see the texture dip a little with the deepness. Similar ones scattered across his bare arms. I would have looked at similar injuries on someone else and thought they had struggled quite significantly with their mental health at one stage in life. I doubt he meant to cause harm to himself though, something in my gut told me that if they were self inflicted it was accidental. Maybe with a transformation?

You'd see similar scars from people who resulted to such actions in moments of pain and I don't think that would have been Remus, he's always had the odd scar visible. I remember him being self conscious about them many years ago. Why create more in visible places if you were hesitant to be seen with them? Maybe I was just naive around the subject.

They travelled up his body as well. A few on his neck, hard to notice unless you stared and an obvious one across his face, like something had sliced across his nose and cheek. Though it was obvious, it was white, a shade or two lighter than his skin. Similar to the one he revealed to me that one time in Hogsmeade...after one of his sick days. One he decided to let heal naturally. I had almost forgot about that day he hid his new slashes behind a hood, until now.

Another scar ran through his bottom lip, breaking up the deepness of their pigment. Which I remembered him having at school. Constantly opening it back up by nervously chewing. It just looking like a sore, slightly busted lip and nothing serious.

And lastly, sparse hair on his left eyebrow from a scar running through it, which was covered by his hair. Which I only noticed when he pushed it back a little out of his eyes.

He was covered in them. An unnatural amount. Just not super noticeable until you paid attention and looked for them. His arm hair made it difficult to see the ones across his arms and apart from the deep scar on one of his hands and the pale scar travelling across his nose...you never would have noticed his scars as the first thing about him. Not unless you were leaning into a conversation and watching him like I was.

He also had purple bags under his eyes as if he needed a good sleep and silver strands of glistening hair that randomly grew through his golden brown hair. Which was rare to see in such a young man. Unless his body was in a permanent state of stress.