#i think about that line all the fucking time

Holding the closed envelope in his hand, Remus felt as though he’d carved his heart out from his chest and painted his entire sleeve red. Gods it wasn’t like him, he thought, to write a letter like this. He’d been so recklessly, almost cruelly honest. He had to end it in a hurry as well, before all the certainty slipped from his mind. The air was heating up rapidly after the morning passed, sweat started to gather on his forehead. He shoved the letter into the post, lest the jittering in his chest made him pull back and tear it up. 

—

Sirius,

I hope you’re doing well. James sent me a letter earlier this This is not a letter to offer you forgiveness. Though that’s a complicated business, as I’m sure you understand. Yet, part of me feels I still could tell you about a few things on my mind. 

James sent me a letter earlier this week. A tiny note, not much else beyond the haphazard announcement that you’ve run away from home. He told me I didn’t need to reply right away, that I should feel free to take as much time as I needed. But since I’ve been having all the time in the world at home, I have been obsessing my way through these thoughts. Here’s to share some of them, until I visit.

Before anything else, Sirius, I know you. Thus, I feel as though I could see exactly which string pulled in your head, and which string didn’t jump to react, that led to you doing what you did. This goes for both your running away and what you did before the end of school. I don’t know if I should be the one to pronounce judgements but— what happened and what you did to me was beyond rash and stupid (it goes without saying), but does not make you an evil person.

I could see how sorry you’ve been, despite not having approached me at all (which I appreciate, so thank you). I could tell how you’ve been beating yourself up, how you’ve locked yourself in your head this month at Grimmauld— ready to react, to lash out, to prove. 

So now tell me, if I’m so wrong in assuming, whatever happened that led to your running away, was at least in part because of me?

I know the Potters must be trying their best to take care of you. And I’m sorry thatI.regret that don’t want to add to your agitation, so I thought it’s best that I wait before going to see you. Because Padfoot, I feel I shouldn’t forgive you so easily. Nor should I, out of respect for myself, offer forgiveness because I know how bad you’re feeling, or for I know what you did because of me. In the close possible world of having actually made a murderer out of me, I would surely never forgive you nor myself. 

Though I have a confession to make. This is something which, for once, I doubt that you know. 

It is perhaps a lie to say that I could have killed Severus that night. It would not have happened as you imagined, if James hadn’t arrived in time. Because you see, James didn’t arrive in time. There were a couple of seconds when Snape, screaming, got a good look at me, long enough for any other wolf to have taken a lunge at him. But even as I snarled and bared my teeth, I was in my own mind. I found myself able to hold my head in the wolf’s, in the presence of another— hostile— human being, even without any of you around.

It is this realisation that has accompanied every other dreadful feeling passing through my head since. It occurred to me that in the wake of the whole business with Snape, perhaps I should be feeling more ashamed of what I am than ever. But I was not. Am not. Does this surprise you? It was you who taught me this. Since you— all of you— started running with me. You made me see this horrible thing could have its glimpse of something beautiful, of happiness.

As I am writing, I draw up the vivid memory of a full moon, in my own eyes, albeit through the wolf. The three of you would be close behind me, and all the grounds would be sizzling with moonlight and magic.

Anyway. 

I think about facing Snape again, and I feel a strange kind of honesty. To myself. I feel defiant— rather than ashamed— about looking Snape in the eyes again. Why wouldn’t I? I’ve been hiding but, I only hope that someday I’ll have nothing more to hide. Let the moon shine on all the broken pieces.

And that leads me to the second thing I wanted to say to you. Sirius, all our lives we’ve been made to feel in pain, having been broken, irrevocably lost something that makes one whole, normal. That we’re missing something crucial in our perspective that means we’ll never see ourselves and the world in the same way as them. But Sirius, love, we’ve come through. And standing on the other side, we can see better. 

It’s a gift, that we should see the world differently from them, that we are able to. Magic is a gift. Loving you is a gift. And I can see it now, the wolf is a gift.

There’s pain. But that means it’s real— it’s because of the pain that it’s real. I think of the others, drifting through life without a glitch, without an ounce of wonder at what’s in the grey underside of fluffy white clouds. Think of Peter. His shelters. Those are all that he has. For his whole life all he’s known are shelters, and he’d grow up only anxious to find more shelters. But we stand beyond it, don’t we? We can run free and wild, if only we could pry off the shackles in our head. And beyond anything else, this is the one thought I’ve been having since everything. Do you see what I mean?

Ma is calling me to breakfast, I’m afraid I’ll have to end the letter here. I hope I’ll see you soon, I want to know what you have to say to me. And I hope you see now forgiveness is a strange thing I don’t yet know what to do with. I hope we figure it out.

Yours,

Remus