Good Night

Good Night

By Margaret MacEaver

"Remus?"

"Mm?" Remus Lupin flipped his book shut, though kept a finger in to mark his place, and looked up to his mother standing in the doorway.

"Your sister would like you to say goodbye, before you go."

"Oh, right," Remus said, and shot a glance at the clock on his desk. It was past five already, he noted with surprise. Time flew when he was absorbed in his History of Magic text. He stuck a bookmark in it and followed his mother down the hall. She was already walking in that way of hers, the way she only walked around him. Slightly ahead, and not touching, every so often casting empty smiles over her shoulder, smiles which tried so hard to be casual and reassuring that their emptiness was made all the more painful. Remus wished he could remember when she'd walked with him the way she walked with everyone else.

Sabrina was sitting on the living room floor, intently braiding her doll's hair. Her own blond hair was tied back with a ribbon, which Remus tugged as he sat down behind her. She turned with a bright smile and threw her arms around him, and Remus hugged her back fiercely, feeling, as always, his heart throb with poignant gratefulness for her touch. The one person in this house who didn't edge away when he was near. When they told her, would that change?

"Don't go, Remus," Sabrina said into his chest. "You just came home. Why are you always leaving?"

"I'm just staying at Peter's a few days," Remus told her, smoothing her hair away from her brow. "I'll be back before you know it." He kissed Sabrina's forehead and got to his feet.

"Samantha too," Sabrina insisted, holding her doll aloft.

Remus bent to kiss its forehead, too, and said, "Goodbye, Samantha."

Sabrina, satisfied, turned away from her brother and began loosing the doll's braid. "Have fun, Remus," she added as an afterthought, and he flinched. That was not bloody likely, he thought.

"Are you ready, Remus?" said his father's voice, and Remus was suddenly aware that his parents had been watching the entire exchange. Not even trusted with his own sister.

"I'm ready," said Remus, knowing a plea for a few minutes to finish the chapter would not go over well. He could feel his parents' nervousness dominating the atmosphere of the room, and it made him want to hit things, hurt them. These thoughts made him rub his forehead worriedly. Were they normal? Or were they related to--his condition? (He hated to call it that, it was a clumsy, all-too-careful euphemism everyone used when it had to be brought up, which was as little as possible. But there were no words for what really happened to him, so he just called it his condition.)

Mr. Lupin cleared his throat, and Remus knew it was time. His father walked right behind--close but not touching--as they exited the house and went around to the back. The Lupins lived in an isolated part of the country, their nearest neighbors a mile down the road. All the same, the cellar door Remus and his father approached was hidden from any possible prying eyes by a thick wall of bushes and shrubs. It was an old-fashioned cellar door, set into the ground, but the numerous chains and locks on it gleamed with newness. Replaced every year. Better safe than sorry. Mr. Lupin had unlocked them earlier, and he now kicked them aside. Together Remus and his father each grasped an end of one of the heavy doors and pulled it open. Mr. Lupin pulled his wand out of his pocket and said, "Lumos," to light their descent down the dark steps. It was the first word either of them had spoken in this all-too-familiar ritual.

They continued in silence. Mr. Lupin fastened the shackles around his son's ankles and wrists, binding him to the wall. Remus felt his eyes begin to sting as Mr. Lupin touched his hand, pushing it against the cold stone to fasten the steel over his wrist. The irony was harsh: this was the only time he ever felt his father's touch. No, Remus told himself fiercely. I will not cry. Crying he saved for later, in the cold hours between the shackles and the transformation. The crying was the secret he guarded closest to him: not even his three closest friends at school would ever know about that, the most shameful part--to a fifteen year old boy--of the process. But he always did cry: it was as reliable as all the other steps. The chains, the tears, the change, the violence, the return, the wait. And then his father would come to get him, and his mother would seat him at the kitchen counter to clean his self-inflicted wounds. (That was the only time his mother touched him, and when he cried before the change, he cried for that as well.)

"Well," said Mr. Lupin, when every lock had been locked, every bolt bolted. "I'll be back for you tomorrow."

And as Remus watched his father walk back up the stairs, he thought: At least he knew better than to wish me good night.