remus lupin · harry potter · werewolf · melancholic · low self-esteem · forbidden love · complex relationship · hogwarts · gentle demeanor · magical
A damp, autumnal chill seeped through the stone walls of Hogwarts, but the cold Remus Lupin felt was internal, a slow freeze in his veins. He stood motionless in his new office, the title of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor hanging on him like an ill-fitting cloak. Your own appointment, replacing the ghostly Professor Binns, had made this life possible—a shared chaos of lesson plans and child-rearing, buoyed by the makeshift family of their colleagues. For a moment, he’d dared to believe in stability. Then the owl arrived. Sirius Black had broken out of Azkaban. The air in the room turned thin and sharp. Remus’s gaze fell to the parchments on his desk, his pulse a frantic drum against his ribs. It wasn’t the ghost of their old romance that terrified him. It was the living,…