Scars

Once, in his naïve days, he'd read about scars in an old medical book he found in a second hand bookstore. A futile attempt at trying to explain to himself why everyone was so fascinated by his own, famous scar; a search for an answer that would perhaps restore his life to some kind of normality. It took him four hours with a dictionary to read the single, fragile page.

He found no answers.

Mitosis, epithelialisation, fibroplasia.

***

He had a scar on his arm from Third Year. Paper thin, white; a hairline crack in a pane of glass; barely discernible against his pale skin. Years before it had yielded blood, a drop or two.

Insignificant, compared to--

He had better scars now. There had been no blood when he took the Mark, only searing pain--white hot pain--he'd thrown up all over his robes and his father looked so apologetic, yes, he'd always been like this, yes, low threshold for pain, though he thought it was only the Malfoy women who suffered from it; he could have died then and it would have felt better.

Neovascularization, phagocytosis, synthesis-lysis.

***

They were part of him now; it would be odd if he didn't have any scars. He figured he would be a tiger without spots. Yes, imagine that--a werewolf without scars. That would most certainly be a faux pas amongst the lycanthrope social circles. Say, did you see that Lupin fellow? No scars. Unblemished! Imagine that. Must be new to the business. If there were lycanthrope social circles, that is.

Stigma tended to make humans reclusive, even if they were "sub-human".

Some of his scars weren't self inflicted. The ones in the unreachable regions of his back, the ones indistinguishable from the rest to an untrained eye. It was with some guilty pleasure that he examined these ones; he made a point of it. He examined these scars like an old athlete polished his trophies: he dreamt of better days.

Vasodilation, prostaglandins, proteoglycans.

***

That was history, though; naïveté had long ago deserted him, leaving him only with cynicism, his bitter mistress. They had said to him that time heals all wounds--heals them, he thinks, only to leave scars. Scars that keep him awake at night, and when he does sleep, scars that torment him in dreams of death. Scars that grip him by the throat, the cold grip of fear; scars that leave him aching for the past.

They had said to him that it was a coward's way out--the first time he did it. A twisted, ropy lump of flesh that takes the very path his penknife had taken. A scar, one the public doesn't want to know about; he is, after all, The Boy Who Lived, not The Boy Who Lived Only To Kill Himself Later On.

And yet, how can he be a coward if he is a Gryffindor?

Myofibroblast, hypertrophic, intussusceptive.

***

He enjoys looking in on his, his--he doesn't know what to call him. He enjoys looking in on Harry every now and then, have a cup of tea, discuss The Good Old Days, anything at all. Monday is a fine day, the air brittle with frost and a cloudless sky promising fine weather. He leans on his cane; this last full moon was particularly bad, and the gangrene had had a nice go at his leg. Another scar to worry about, later.

No one answers the doorbell, or the knocking and he thinks to himself, that boy really needs to work on his sleeping habits. He keeps his keys on a chain; it takes him a while to find the right one and when he does he has a hard time opening the lock--his knuckles get arthritic in the winter. The room is pleasantly warm, and no one answers his calls from the alcove, but he has no reason to be worried.

He finds his, his, his Harry in the bathtub. Part of his brain wonders why the boy is sleeping with his glasses on, but Remus's body is already hunched over the toilet, retching over and over again until there is nothing left. The bath is a pool of crimson, and the boy--

Remus doesn't like to think it's an expression of peace on his face.

Tropocollagen, exocytosed, fibrinolysin.

***

The weather on the day of the funeral is typically Potter. Torrents of rain, thunderstorms, sleet. It would be so very like him to go out with a big bang, even if it had been a humble ending for a not-so-humble boy. Wailing masses hoard around the cemetery, trying to get a glimpse of the mourners, or even better, the coffin.

He slips past them, the Invisibility Cloak clinging to his sides; sees the lycanthrope sense his approach and narrow his eyes. It hadn't been the way things were planned, he thinks, standing beside the tombstone, water seeping into his shoes. But it didn't hurt the grand scheme of things in the long run. It hurt other things, but that was something different entirely.

Requiescat in pace, he thinks as the coffin is lowered. His own scar begins to burn; he resists and his arm begins to convulse, the pain becoming blinding--his father always underestimated him. And then he realises that Potter has fulfilled his own dream.

To create a wound, just one that would never scar.

***