Chapter Text
1.
Remus didn't remember the first time he heard the words I love you, because he was just one minute old when Hope Lupin whispered them while craddling her newborn baby.
He knew, though, that his mother loved (had loved, his mind supplys) him, because if anything, she was (had been) a wonderful mother.
Whenever he though about love, the warm embrace of his mother would come through first, her spicy smell, her fingers stained with ink. Hope was full of love for life, and she had transmitted that love to her only son.
Remus was pretty sure that he had said those words back to her, at least before the bite. After it, the world felt too gritty, too dark, and anything that wasn't an apology felt heavy behind his lips. He hoped that his mother knew.
It wasn't like Remus doesn't know what love is. He knew. It pained him how much he knew it. The love he feelt for everyone around him choked him with his weight.
He just couldn't said it. Everytime he was about to say it, Lyall's eyes surged inside his mind, recoiling with disgust. He could accept his father's disgust.
The love he had once felt for him had died at five, and then at six, and had died every day after the bite took his future. He allowed Lyall to despise him, and learnt to despise his father in return.
Hope was never like that. Hope Lupin had cried herself to sleep outside Remus' cell every full moon, had craddled him into her chest while his wounds healed, had made sure that his son still felt human, even if he wasn't.
And Remus had felt that love and his heart had throbbed, feeling the need to verbalise his own feelings to her, only to end speechless. It was like a curse had took place inside his mouth.
So he just loved her, and made sure she knew with every caress, every letter, every meal. And his mom eyes said she knew, she knew how loved she was.
But he still left her alone every year. He still run back to the school at every possibility.
And now.
Now Hope was dead. Her coffin was small, too small, and too perfect. Remus' fingers caressed the cool material and a dam was breaking somewhere inside him, but no tears were coming out.
James was crying, near him. Even Sirius was. They had both know Hope, but they weren't her sons, and Remus couldn't stop the black hole growing inside him.
i love you.
I really love you, mom.
The words circled inside his throath, and the room was spinning, his knees buckling, the tie chocking the life out of him.
And suddenly he wasn't inside the church anymore. His lungs ached for a cigarette, even if he wasn't doing so well at breathing. James seemed to understand, because soon enough a hastily rolled one found his way between Remus' fingers.
Lupin snapped with his other hand once, twice, and soon enough the cig light up, the bitter taste of nicotine filling his mouth. He could hear James cursing, so far away, and slowly remembered that they were surrounded by muggles. Well. Fuck.
That was when he started crying. He had just lost his mother, and now he had done magic, underage magic outside of Hogwarts and Dumbledore was going to be so mad at him. He could already feel his mind spiralling, the cigarette doing next to nothing in calming this new wave of anxiety, when he felt it.
Warm. Warm encasing his hand, caressing his fingers. Tanned skin against his own pale hand. Trimmed nails, near his bitten ones. James had taken his hand and it was helping, grounding him. He felt his shoulders drop, small sobs scaping his mouth, but more controlled. Less of a broken dam now, more of a calm river.
"We got you, Moony. You are not alone, okay mate? We love you, Remus. I love you, okay? Everything is going to be okay." James' voice was rough and wet, his own tears still staining his cheeks, but maybe rough and wet what was Remus needed.
To feel like he could break around him, and James would break too, and it was okay, it was good, no one was going to laugh at him because James Potter had feelings too and no one laughed at James Potter.
He wanted to say it back. Reassure him. Make sure Prongs knew that he loved him back. Say it out loud.
But there weren't words for Hope, and neither were there for James. So he just nodded, and squeezed his best friend's hand, and kept crying and smoking.
James just nodded back, his head resting in the other shoulder. And Remus felt how he kept sinking lower, deeper.
Speechless.