The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

The Dream

The Dream

"NO! NO! NOOO NO! NO!" Remus sat up in bed, panting, his heart beating a tattoo against his ribcage so hard that he was sure the bones would puncture it or else it would seize up in a cramp.

"Lumos!" A lighted wand tip shone across the room, and Sirius held it aloft. All three of the others were sitting up, looking at Remus from their beds. James grabbed his glasses and quickly lit the lantern on his bedside table. "What's the matter, Rey?" Sirius asked, worry in his eyes.

Remus hadn't had the nightmare since he was a kid. He'd had it frequently then - but that had been years and years ago, he'd nearly forgotten it since. But things had been awoken in him lately - deep things. He covered his eyes and folded nearly in half, sobs wrecking through him. Sirius couldn't take it. He got out of bed and hurried over to Remus, jumping up on his bed so he was sitting next to him and he pushed the hair off Remus's face and tugged him to his shoulder so that his tears fell into the crook of Sirius's neck.

Peter looked down, away from them.

"What happens in this dormitory stays in this dormitory," Sirius said heavily. "We take care of each other here first and foremost and nobody talks about it or makes jokes about it outside these four walls. Understood?" He looked at Peter mostly. "I don't give a damn how... silly... it looks. If one of us needs the others, we're going to bloody be there for them any way we can."

"Agreed," James nodded.

"Yes," squeaked Peter.

"Alright." Sirius cupped his hand to the back of Remus's head. "Rey... it's okay. We're here for you. All of us are. You're okay."

Remus choked and pulled back, face red and crumpled, and James threw over his handkerchief. Sirius caught it and handed it to Rey. "Here," he said, "Potter's lent you his handkerchief."

Remus pressed it to his face.

"What happened, Rey?" Sirius asked gently.

Peter nodded, "Yeah, what happened? Talking it out might help you feel better 'bout it."

"Greyback," whispered Remus, "I dreamed of Greyback."

It wasn't strictly true - Greyback was there, link a lingering presence. The dream was much more than that, though. He'd had it reoccurring since he'd been a child, though not anywhere near as frequently in recent years. He'd stopped having it after Dumbledore had come and offered him his place at Hogwarts on his eleventh birthday, really. It had only happened twice since then. Once while he stayed in St. Mungo's, when he'd had the argument with his father about continuing at the school, and just now, tonight, with the threat of Greyback returning looming over him.

In the dream, Remus sat at the Lupin family dinner table, but it was, oddly, in the middle of the woods, in a clearing filled with dozens and dozens of flickering fireflies that zipped and hovered around the table. It would've been quite pretty, save for the shadows moving just beyond the treeline. There, in the trees, Remus caught flashes - glimpses of a horribly scarred face sneering and grinning as the moon rose overhead. The clouds overcast, keeping the changes at bay. The face would peer around a tree and Greyback would lick his lips and his teeth and a low cackle would echo through the woods. Remus turned to his father, sitting to his right at the head of the table, reading a scroll as though it were the morning paper. In big black letters on the side Remus was looking at read The Werewolf Restriction Act. Lyall's voice was much more robotic than he ever sounded in real life, but he was sitting there, listing off the reasons why werewolves are nasty and why werewolves don't deserve rights, as though he were reciting it for an academic test, almost a chant... Remus took in the juxtaposition of the list and the grinning face of Fenrir and it created an anxiety in him that built and built, like a volcano...