Searching Light (Remus Lupin)

19: Retrouvailles

When I was five, I burned myself using my fire powers. My mother was trying to show me how to channel anger, but after I got burned, she and my father had an argument about how I was too young. I thought he meant that I was too young to practice my powers, but when I got into Hogwarts and become practicing magic, I thought about it more, and realized the possibility that he meant I was too young to channel anger, because five year olds don't have that much anger or control, and that I probably shouldn't continue practicing fire because of it. I remember him yelling about how I can learn the basics on the other elements, because those were mostly safe, but not fire. I specifically remember him yelling about how I was only 5 years old, which made sense, obviously.

Anyway, so I was burned. I was crying of course, and my mother picked me up, and brought me into the house, setting me on the kitchen counter by the sink. She caressed my burn, then made a thin layer of cool water around my arm. I remember her smile, and her honey voice telling me it will be all right, that even she burns herself sometimes. She played with my fingers and would make me laugh by putting soap into her hands and blowing bubbles into my face. I was so upset after that day about anything fire related, but then I remember what she said. That day was an important day, because she taught me that even the best of us mess up sometimes. I remember being in her arms, the bubbles on my face, the cool water on my arm, and her reassuring smile that everything was all right. I felt safe with her. I was her daughter. I was totally safe, and whole, and incomplete, but she loved me, and I knew it.

I can feel my pulse beat in my arms as I watched Remus' face. I had been dreaming about this moment, the moment where I am revealed, the moment where I am finally unmasked. The moment when I am completely whole and completely vulnerable, in front of him. I feel naked; I feel the urge to cover myself up, to build the walls right back up again, to erase his memory with my magical training because in that split second before he says anything, I am the most terrified I have ever been in my entire life. I am petrified, terror-stricken, and I feel the tears on my face but I don't remember my eyes stinging or filling up. I am completely vulnerable, and that terrified the living hell out of me.

"Like, you can control the elements?" His voice is calm. I am unraveling in front of him and he is calm, why is he calm, why can't I be calm?

He doesn't know the whole story.

I breathe deeply, and the air is cold in my throat, and I want to cry out, I want to collapse onto the ground and make the world forget about me and fade into the grass, invisible, in my own little ball, my own crashing world where everything is on fire, including me, where nothing can save me, where nothing can pull me up and wipe my tears and kiss me and tell me everything is going to be all right and blow bubbles in my face and hold me and caress my burn, because now I am burned, now I am completely, head to toe burned to my black core, a world on fire with no light, a world where nothing is pure, nothing, nothing, nothing, except Remus.

"Yeah," I breathe, and then I think he realizes that I'm crying. His eyebrows furrow, and he holds my face with his soft palms and his rough fingertips.

"Amber, I'm still your boyfriend, I still want to be with you. What's wrong?" He comforts me, concerned, and I start to sob hysterically, standing, frozen like the snow beneath my feet, and everything is crashing as I understand exactly what I have to tell him.

"Remus," I take his hands off my face in between sobs, trying to hold myself together, "I killed my aunt and uncle. My fire powers got out of control and-" I lose my balance, and even though I recognized the fact that I had four amazing friends and a boyfriend, I have never felt more alone and more isolated, and more melancholy in my entire nearly 16 years.

He is not horrified as I had imagined, but merely picks me up, trying to glue me back together, and I don't know how it happens, but then he is on the ground too, and I am in his arms, and he is holding me, and I am freezing and my tears are freezing to my face, icicles on my blotched complexion. I just want to sink... I want to fade, crying hysterically, and I can't do this anymore.