Work Text:
Remus often dreams of burning. The circumstances are different: sometimes within a burning wreckage, before an altar, upon a funeral pyre. Most frequently, though, it is because of the sun. Remus fears the moon, so he dreams of running so far away from it that he reaches the sun. He immolates himself to nothing but ash and it is so calming, so soothing, so blissfully warm.
Remus often dreams of burning. (They are dreams, not nightmares.)
They’re playing with fire, is what Remus thinks the first time that they’re caught after hours. The four of them. Four little boys, too young and foolish to think anything bad could happen. It’s fun though, which Remus supposes is why he is out there to begin with.
James is too arrogant, Sirius too flirtatious, Peter too scared. But Professor McGonagall looks at the way Peter trembles, how Sirius flinches, how James’ eyes burn, and she seems to take pity. They’re sent back with a warning.
Remus thinks she mustn’t have seen him, or at least not seen that starved look in his eyes. If she had, perhaps they wouldn’t have gotten off with just a warning. Because Remus? He’s hungry, he’s starving, he’s desperate. He’d take a detention, a lashing, a beating. All he wants is for them—the boys and the professors—to know that he’s not made of glass; he’s not afraid; he can take it; he’s handled worse.
(He just doesn’t want them to know why.)
Lily tells him that she knows. Remus looks at the ember of her hair and he knows she will keep him safe.
My knight in shining armour, Sirius calls him jokingly whenever Remus prompts him to eat, keeps his fingernails from digging into his forearm, reminds him to sleep.
But if Remus were the knight, he would be slaying the dragon, saving the prince from evil. He’s not doing any of that. Remus is the dragon, inching closer and closer towards the prince. Still, he lets Sirius say it, because they can all fantasise, can’t they? They can all dream, in the way that Remus dreams of burning. It never hurt anybody.
He can’t help but wonder when the real knight will come, though.
Sirius likes to smoke. Remus fancies the idea of it (or maybe just fancies Sirius and everything he does). Breathing smoke into his lungs, watching the ash flitter to the ground and the embers glow at his feet; it sounds poetic. It sounds like as close to burning as he can be. He doesn’t fancy the carcinogens, though; the tar pooling in his lungs, slowly killing himself.
Remus isn’t suicidal. He’s scared of death. It’s a shame that he seems to like all the things that bring him closer to it.
They’ll burn out one day. That’s what Peter says, because Peter always sees the worst of things and Peter always sees what’s true and Peter always brings them down to earth. They hate him for it, they love him for it. Remus tells him to never stop, because James’ ego could do with it, as could Sirius’ cockiness. He doesn’t mention his own forlorn fantasises, his own bitter wishes.
James thinks they’ll last forever. Sirius hopes they will. Peter knows they won’t. Remus doesn’t say a word, doesn’t agree or disagree, so Sirius clings to James in the hope that it’ll stop them from crumbling.
I want to implode, Remus tells Sirius one night in the astronomy tower. He wants to shatter upon himself into a million shards, like glass, even though Remus isn’t made of glass.
Sirius is smoking (When is he not?) and Remus can’t sleep (When can he?). The wind tousles Sirius’ hair and disperses the smoke that he exhales into nothingness.
Why implode? Sirius asks.
Because Remus has spent enough of his life hurting others, but Remus has already spent too much of his life unnoticed, too. He wants to go up in flames. He wants to destroy himself as everybody watches.
But then again, he’ll write a hundred ways he could kill himself, and never do any of it.
I want to explode, Sirius tells him when he does not answer. I want an audience to watch me on a stage. I want them to know that they could have done better. I hope that they hurt.
Remus can understand that, too.
James might call it selfish, Peter might call it attention seeking, but Remus understands. Maybe because he’s all of those things.
Sometimes, collateral damage cannot be helped.
James and Sirius kiss in the bathrooms, behind turned backs in dormitories, in empty hallways. They have sex like they’re running out of time, and they flirt as if they’re not afraid of anything or anyone.
I’m not afraid either, Remus wants to tell them.
But he doesn’t, because he thinks it might be selfish and it might be attention seeking. So instead, he watches Sirius fall in love with James and the fire in his eyes, and watches James fall in love with Lily and the ember of her hair. He doesn’t say anything.
Remus often dreams of burning. The sun is the brightest star in the sky, but nobody really counts it to be anyway. Sirius is the second brightest star in the sky, but they say it is the brightest because nobody really counts the sun to be anyway. Remus is far closer to the sun than he is to Sirius. He supposes that means he’ll just burn.
We’ll burn out one day, Peter says, again and again.
The sky is blue and the sun is warm, filtering through the canopy of leaves above their heads. Rays of light shine upon Sirius in all the right places: the curve of his jaw, the angle of his brow line. This is only ephemeral, Remus has to remind himself.
Sometimes they laugh at Peter, sometimes they humour him, but Remus always knows that he’s right.
We won’t burn out, James says on this day. We’ll go up in flames.
You just want to be remembered, Peter says.
You’re afraid to be forgotten goes unsaid.
Remus agrees with Peter and he agrees with James and he agrees with the unspoken. They weren’t made to last but that doesn’t mean they were made to be forgotten.
Flames die out too, says Sirius.
The ember of Lily’s hair became duller as she aged, but James still liked her just as much. The fire in James’ eyes flickers on some days, but Sirius never stopped chasing him. Those tendrils of heat in Remus’ gut aren’t as strong as they used to be when he sees Sirius, but he never stopped longing.
Sometimes, it’s not just about the fire; it’s about the destruction it leaves in its wake. That’s what lasts.
They go down in history: James, Lily, Sirius, Peter. Not Remus, though.
Remus, who has spent too much of his life unnoticed. Remus, who is not made of glass. Remus, who can take it because he has handled so much worse.
It never had been Remus.
They go down in history; a ball of flame, a fiery explosion so bright that the world stood still to watch.
Remus was simply a moth drawn to its light. The heat singes his wings, but he cannot leave, cannot turn back, because that light is all he knows. He cannot leave, because the flames have still not died down, and as long as that fire burns, he will not leave.
It seems that, sometimes, collateral damage cannot be helped.
Remus often dreams of burning. He wants to run into the sun, grasp those tendrils of light with his fists, and pull his body into the fire. He wants to go up in flames, like James and Lily. He wants to implode, or perhaps explode, like Sirius. He wants everybody to watch, like they did for Peter. He wants them to know that he is not afraid, because he can take it and he has handled worse.
(Even if it’s a lie, he wants them to at least think so.)
When the full moon comes out, though, there is no sun the wolf can run to.