REMUS JOHN LUPIN

extremely selective. written by bee.

• about
• rules

YOU ARE FIVE YEARS OLD AND THERE IS A BLEEDING-RED BITE MARK ON YOUR SIDE. DO YOU:

• THE REAL FOLLY IS THINKING YOU GET TO CHOOSE.

when you ask dad why you cannot go play anymore, it is a question you already know the answer to. you’ve known since the first time, the first night, the first moment you felt like something other than yourself. he tells you this is how things are now. he tells you they’re looking for a way to help, that real soon you will be able to go play with your mates again. HE’S LYING. you can tell. grownups always grimace when they lie, and even though you do not know that is what you pick up on, you still sense it. he’s afraid of/for you. they’re the same thing, now. mum doesn’t know the right words for it like dad does, and she only shakes her head and presses a hand to her mouth to hide how she grinds her teeth when you ask to go out to play. she hands you a book instead. read this, remus. you’re such a good reader already! it’s a diversion you let yourself accept.

• KEEP PLAYING.

YOU ARE ELEVEN YEARS OLD AND ON A TRAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YOUR LIFE. THE CHILDREN AROUND YOU ARE BRIMMING WITH JOY THAT YOU CANNOT REMEMBER FEELING - DREAD SUNK INTO YOUR BONES YOUNG. DO YOU:

• STOP TRYING, REMUS LUPIN. YOU’RE ELEVEN YEARS OLD AND ALREADY A TERROR.

hogwarts is a foolish endeavor. you said that to your parents when the letter arrived, though in not so many words. THIS IS A BAD IDEA. who will watch you? who will make sure you do not hurt someone? who will lock you in on the full moons and make sure the windows are latched and that the only person that will run afoul your claws and teeth is yourself? it is a bad idea. it is a bad idea. it is a bad idea. no matter how many times you say it it is ignored and reassured and you fear you will wear the world away with your repetition of a truth no one wants to hear.

they know what you are and they still want to send you away. THEY WANT TO SEND YOU AWAY BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU ARE. it is the insidious sound of your own voice hissing it in your head and you cannot ignore it no matter how you try.

when they sort you, when they place you, when you are let to live in a dorm with other boys, it is foolish and a mistake and you tell the headmaster you think so. he smiles at you and you feel all the smaller for it. NO NEED TO WORRY, MR LUPIN! so you try not to; you try to be like them, like your friends with their smiles and their laughter. you try to shine like them and hope their lustre might rub off, just a little, on your scarred visage. maybe it does. maybe that’s wishful thinking. STILL - you have friends, three at least, and you try and let yourself forget you are a predator and they are prey.

you tell them you are sick, or your mother is sick, or your father is sick, or your grandmother is sick. it is the only excuse you can think of and no one offers you a better one. you come back every month with a new wound and try to explain it away; you are not clumsy but claim you fell, you dropped something, you ran afoul an ANIMAL THAT ATTACKED YOU. maybe it will work. maybe they cannot see the way you are grimacing.

• KEEP PLAYING.

YOU ARE TWELVE YEARS OLD AND A TERRIBLE LIAR. ONLY A YEAR IN AND THEY HAVE FIGURED YOU OUT, REMUS LUPIN. THEY KNOW YOU’RE A MONSTER THAT HAS BEEN LYING TO THEM TO THEIR FACES FOR A YEAR. DO YOU:

• THEY’RE BETTER FRIENDS THAN YOU. BETTER PEOPLE, TOO.

it would be fair for them to stop being your friend, you know. they ought to hate you. any sane person would; they double down on friendship instead and you bite your tongue till you taste iron to keep yourself from telling them to RUN. you are a monster and you will hurt them some day and yet they smile and they learn new things and they come with you this month, and the month after, and the month after. they are helping you and yet you live in more fear for it.

you will hurt them some day. you know this as well as you know your own bones and the way they ache more than any twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen year old you know. sometimes you can pretend you have forgotten this irrefutable fact; some days you grin and laugh with the best of them, you pull pranks and smile innocently when asked about them, you trail behind and try not to think about what will happen if you’re caught, what you would do to get away with it all. you have them tricked and you never meant to deceive, but it’s too late. MONSTERS ARE LIARS EVEN THEN THEY TRY NOT TO BE. you get through school. you drag yourself through years. you make a map and put a codename on it and wonder how much longer your friends will pretend you are not something rotting beneath the floorboards.

things will change someday. things will change soon. can you convince yourself you aren’t hurtling towards disaster? they all speak about the future and you cannot picture yourself in that shining place of AFTER with them. they are all future and you are a void, a black hole, something hungry that will devour them if they keep standing so close. you should be doing more to make them understand that. instead you let yourself feed off of their glow and wonder and wonder and wonder and wonder and

• KEEP PLAYING.

YOU ARE SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD. YOU ARE LEAVING SCHOOL. THERE IS A WORLD OUT THERE AND IT IS NOT FOR YOU TO TOUCH. THERE IS A WAR BREWING AND YOU CAN TASTE IT LIKE BURNT COFFEE. DO YOU:

TOO BAD. THERE IS NO FIN SCREEN. THERE IS NO ESCAPE BUTTON. YOU PUT YOUR QUARTER IN THE SLOT AND YOU MUST KEEP PLAYING, EVEN PAST THE GAME OVER SCREEN.

• START OVER?