DragonLady Writing Exercise #32
Title: How You Remind Me
Author: DragonLady
Rating: PG
Summary: Lupin looks back.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or his world, J.K. Rowling
does. The lyrics are the property of Nickleback.
Never made it as a wise man
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing
Tired of living like a blind man
I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling

I've been a werewolf since I was just a boy. I thought that I would never be a wizard, that no school would accept me. And worse, I feared the wolf would consume me, that I would be nothing but an animal. Dumbledore cured the first fear, and my friends cured the other. If I'd had no friends, if Sirius, James, and Peter hadn't adopted me… I might be very much like Snape right now. He's no werewolf, but he hasn't many friends, either. I don't know of any beside Dumbledore.

He's nasty, vengeful… he's fiercely loyal to his friend, and fierce to his enemies. He never forgets a slight or a boon, though he'll rarely forgive the latter. He bares his teeth, he snarls… his eyes glitter predatorily. He's more a werewolf than I, the wolf rules him though he's never been bitten. And during the full moon, I'm the same way. The rest of the time that attitude is waiting inside me, ready to bloom into savagery. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, it makes me forget I'm even human.

And this is how you remind me
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
And then, my friends, I remember you. Even you, Sirius. You most especially. James was a good friend, the leader of our little band, but you understood most what being the wolf was like. You even made a joke of it, seeing to it I was cast as the Big Bad Wolf in the Gryffindor production of Little Red Ridinghood that year. I protested and sulked, but I gave in. And thought I loathed to admit it, it was fun. Creepy, for the wolf always whispered encouragement of the pretend actions I took, begging to be allowed to perpetrated them in real life, but fun.

You reminded me most that I was human, despite the fact I wore fangs once a month. As a dog animagus, you understood best. Or perhaps it was just your nature. Like Severus, you wore an animal's heart in your human body - a dog's loyalty and stubborn pursuit of your enemy.

It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
For handing you a heart worth breaking
I've been wrong, I've been down,
To the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head
Scream "are we having fun yet?"
Only one thing about you was not doglike, and I didn't know about that part of you until it was too late. Treachery. Dogs don't betray their brothers, Sirius, they don't sell them out to Dark Lords and reveal their secrets. They don't kill those friends who try to bring them to their senses, as Peter did.

Of all things, I never expected treachery from you. Nor do I expect an apology. Even as a boy, you'd rather die than apologize.

yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no
yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no
It's not like I didn't know that
I said I love you and I swear I still do
And it must have been so bad
Cause living with me must have damn near killed you
And it's not like I knew any different. I should have expected it. I knew the deceit you were capable of. How many times did we pore over the Maurader's map, planning our next escapade? We hid the map from the teachers, even Dumbledore. We hid our tracks and covered our sins. No one ever suspected that it was us that burned the Slytherin common room that Halloween. We hadn't killed anyone, nor even harmed anyone, but all the same, you planned everything so we were never caught.

Even your capacity for murder was demonstrated while we were in school. You were the one who sent Snape down the tunnel to me, a full werewolf in full shift. You would have killed him. There was no way he could have escaped, had James not saved him. It was all there, deceit and sangfroid. We just refused to see it.

I have only one question. Why? What did we do to drive you to the Dark Lord? Was it the taste of power our tricks gave you, or the rush of hurting someone weaker that could have come from our bullying of Snape? Or was it all a lie, were you always planning something like this? Somehow, I imagine it was the former. If you had been born evil, which no one is, then you wouldn't have protected Peter from Goyle that first time we met.

And this is how, you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how, you remind me
Of what I really am
And even by your betrayal of James and Lily, who trusted you above all others, you remind me that I am human. Wolves may hate, they may kill, but they do so openly. Only humans have the capacity for betrayal.

It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
For handing you a heart worth breaking
I've been wrong, I've been down,
To the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head
Scream "are we having fun yet?"
And only humans have the capacity to comprehend betrayal, to fully grieve over it. I was wrong to trust you, to help you in bullying pranks. I must admit, they were fun. Our last trick before passing our seventh year, dumping a glass of veratiserum on Snape and asking him all sorts of personal questions right there in the library - and of course everyone else thought it was water we'd poured - was wonderfully funny. I laughed myself sick at the thought for weeks. I trusted you with my darkest secret, I trusted you to ensure that your pranks never went too far. I trusted your judgment, I trusted your integrity. I loved you like a brother, and you broke my heart.

Only humans can have broken hearts. Wolves seek revenge, they do not nurse their pains.

Never made it as a wise man
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing
And this is how you remind me
I was never wise, never rich. But I never betrayed anyone. And do you know what the sad thing is? I'm not sure if it is the wolf or the human that bars me from treachery.

I do know it is the wolf's loyalty that keeps me from marching up there and telling the dementors how you're getting in. It's the only thing keeping me from telling the Ministry that you're an unregistered animagus.

This is how you remind me
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how you remind me
Of what I really am
Like a foolish human, Sirius, I'm giving you a second chance. Instead of tearing your throat out for killing a man I loved like a brother, I'm giving you a chance to turn yourself in. To leave off this mad scheme to kill Harry Potter and to serve your time as a decent man.

It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
For handing you a heart worth breaking
I've been wrong, I've been down,
To the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head
Scream "are we having fun yet?"
I don't expect you to take it. I expect you to break my heart again. But the chance must be offered if I am to be a man.

~*~

Okay, so they're a little out of order. I couldn't figure out how to work in the third picture and keep them sequential. Grrr. This is as close as I could come.