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Remus Lupin doesn’t smile. Not fully, anyways. It wasn’t that he was trying to be some edgy kid or something, he just didn’t. Remus Lupin had a fairly large secret, one you’re probably already aware of if you’re reading this. He was a werewolf, and unfortunately, the effects of his lycanthropy were not limited to just the full moons. He ate more than all three of his friends combined and still managed to be possibly the skinniest kid in their year (not to mention he was very tall for his age, meaning his clothes never quite fit him right.) His formerly dark brown eyes had shifted to an odd amber color over the years. Scars, both thin and thick, littered the boy’s skin, only a small percent of them visible at a passing glance. His senses, hearing and scent especially, were greatly heightened, which caused him to be overwhelmed by many of the rooms in Hogwarts (most notably the potions classroom and the great hall.) None of those were why he never fully smiled, though. In fact, his reason was sort of silly. Remus Lupin had sharp canine teeth. Fangs, basically. That was it. Whether it was because he was afraid someone would put the pieces together if they saw his “fangs” or because he was self conscious about them, even Remus wasn’t completely sure, but they still managed to be the whole reason he hadn’t smiled since he arrived at Hogwarts. Remus was in his second year now, and despite his initial reluctance in their first year, he’d been befriended by three other boys; James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black. They were all wonderful, and James and Sirius especially loved to try making Remus laugh, so it was a miracle he’d yet to show his canines. In all honesty it was a miracle they hadn’t figured out he was a werewolf yet either, but as it seemed, Remus had been blessed with completely oblivious friends. Other than them and the occasional stares as he passed through the hallway, nobody paid attention to him.
Currently, Lupin sat cross-legged on his bed, eyes scanning the pages of the book resting in front of him. Classes had ended about an hour ago, and his friends were down in the Gryffindor common room, while he had opted to get some peace and quiet in their dorm room. Chatting was great, but sometimes the young werewolf just needed space to let himself relax. That was pretty reasonable. Every now and then, his ears would pick up voices coming from outside the door, most likely other boys going to their dorm, or he’d hear a bird outside, and it was those small noises that drove his attention away from his book and caused him to stare blankly at the window or door momentarily. Despite the minor distractions, Remus managed to get in around an hour or so of reading before three boys came bounding loudly into the room, significantly startling the fourth. The round, nervous boy named Peter, waved sheepishly at Remus. The bespectacled one, James, flopped onto his own bed with a dreamy sigh, and the one with jet black, well kept hair, Sirius, plopped himself next to Remus.
“You made the right choice staying up here, all James did was annoy Lily. Pete had to choke on a pretzel to get him to stop flirting with her,” Sirius said, playfully rolling his eyes as James made a noise of protest from where he laid.
“Oh yeah?” Remus replied, raising an eyebrow. That earned a speedy but loud “No!” from James.
“Don’t listen to him, he’s delusional,” Peter giggled at Sirius’ comment from across the room, while Remus chuckled quietly and shook his head. James, however, didn’t seem to think it was so funny, and a pillow was quickly launched at Sirius’ head, hitting him square in the face. This, to no surprise, led to a full blown pillow war, with Peter hiding as best he could under his bed and Remus holding James in a headlock as Sirius beat him with a pillow, only to betray Remus and smack him right across the head. Peter, having decided he’d hid for long enough, grabbed his own pillow and hit James with it as hard as he could. Alliances were no more, it became every boy for himself, and the fight continued for nearly an hour and a half, ending with Sirius full on tackling Remus off of his bed.
“Merlin, Sirius! Don’t kill him!” the shortest of the four squeaked as he and James perched on the bed to peek over at their friends in concern. Physically, they were fine. A bit sore, but nothing to worry about. The two boys were on the floor, one piled on top of the other. The taller of the two stared up at his friend in silent surprise for a few moments before bursting into laughter. He’d laughed before, of course, but it had always been stifled and hidden. To see Remus actually laugh openly had Sirius completely mesmerized. In fact, he decided in that moment he was going to try even harder than he already did to make the other laugh. His small grins and shy chuckles were sweet, but this was so much nicer. Honestly, Sirius had no idea why Remus was so secretive, he was absolutely adorable. In a platonic way, of course. Probably. Not really. Whatever. In any case, the long haired boy watched Remus in wonder, taking in every little feature of his face in just the short minute or so that he was laughing. The way his big, dumb nose scrunched up when he smiled. The jagged scar on the left side of his jaw (which he couldn’t help but wonder where that had come from.) The light freckles that dotted his rosy cheeks. Long, dark eyelashes. One dimple that went perfectly with his lopsided smile. His fangs- fangs? Huh. Well, he supposed it wasn’t so uncommon for people to have sharp canine teeth. Maybe not that sharp, that was a bit odd, but he didn’t think too much of it. Truthfully, Sirius thought it was charming, as strange as that may be.
Remus’ laughter came to a halt as he noticed Sirius staring intensely at him. It took a moment for him to pinpoint just what the other was looking at, but the second he did he felt his breath hitch and moved out from under Sirius, closing his mouth as quickly as he could. Apparently, that wasn’t super easy to do without accidentally hurting Sirius, so he struggled until James came around the bed and lugged their friend off of Remus. The werewolf knew it was such a small thing to be worried about, but he worried about so much so often. It’s always strange how quickly the atmosphere in a room can change. Without missing a beat, there was so much tension around them that you could cut through it with a knife. Not even a sharp knife. Like, a butter knife. Mostly coming from Remus, who was now holding his hand to his mouth while the other three looked at him in confusion.
“Remus? Are you alright?” One of them asked. Remus wasn’t quite able to make out who, he was a bit preoccupied with keeping his nerves under control.
‘Merlin, Lupin, he hasn’t even said anything about it, why are you getting yourself so worked up? None of them are gonna know, they can’t, they can’t know,’ His thoughts continued to spiral into completely unreasonable fears, and only came to a stop when James put his hand on the werewolf’s shoulder.
“What the hell happened?” He raised an eyebrow inquisitively at Remus, who was clearly avoiding any and all eye contact. “Why’re you covering your mouth? Mate, if you’re embarrassed about your laugh none of us care, Pete sounds like a damn goat anyways,”
“Hey!” Peter earned a light slap on the arm from Sirius to shut him up. Somehow, that stupid interaction actually managed to make Remus smile a bit from behind his hand.
“It’s not that,” The tallest mumbled, shifting uncomfortably where he was sitting on the floor. James and Sirius both kneeled in front of him, while Peter sort of piled on top of them. Remus felt a bit suffocated, but it was sweet that they seemed to care. If only he could be sure they’d care no matter what.
“Well what is it then?” Sirius replied, his voice sounding more demanding than he’d probably meant. He apologized as he took notice to the startled expression on Remus’ face and tried again. “What’s wrong, Rem?” his voice was gentler this time. “I’m really sorry if I was too much, didn’t mean anything by it,” Remus couldn’t quite pinpoint the emotion in Sirius’ eyes, but whatever it was, just the way his friend looked at him made him sure he was being genuine. “Oi, I won’t stare at you again if that was the problem, can’t promise I’ll be real happy about it though,”
Remus let out a small snort of laughter and slowly lowered his hand, all three of the other boys smiling as he did so. As small of a gesture as that was, it really did warm the lanky boy’s heart. He’d be continuously shocked by how welcome his friends made him feel. “D’you wanna talk about it?” Peter peeped up after a second or two of silence. Remus shrugged, looking down at his hands as he fussed with the sleeves of his jumper.
“Do I have to?”
“No, but y’know. It doesn’t hurt,” James, that would have been a great point if it was directed at literally anyone else. Shockingly though, it seemed to get through.
“I don’t like my teeth,” There were a few more seconds where none of them spoke before Sirius started giggling.
“Rem, they’re teeth, they’re literally just bones,”
“But-”
“But what? I just saw them, and there wasn’t even anything wrong, you’ve just got some pointy biters,”
“Pointy biters?” Peter questioned.
“Yeah, like, fangs sorta? They’re kind of neat,” James seemed to perk up at Sirius’ response.
“You’ve got fangs? That’s so cool!” He exclaimed, eyes lighting up behind his glasses.
“I mean, they’re not really fangs- they’re just canine teeth, you lot have ‘em too, mine are just sharper. I dunno, they’re dumb,” Frankly, Remus hated calling them fangs. He hated the term canine teeth too, but he didn’t know of any other things to call them.
“What? No! Can we see?” Remus was hesitant to oblique, but maybe there really was no harm in it, so after thinking it over quickly, he pulled back the right side of his upper lip with his finger, exposing one of said “fangs.” He was thoroughly shocked by how impressed Peter and James seemed to be. Sirius’ expression was practically unreadable, but if you’d known what was going through his head you’d probably want out. Well, whatever it was, at least it wasn’t necessarily a bad reaction.
“So you’ve got badass scars and fangs? Merlin, Remus, save some of the cool stuff for us!” James joked, nudging him playfully.
“You really don’t think they’re weird?”
“Rem, I already said, they’re just teeth. Besides, James ‘n Peter aren’t wrong, they are pretty cool,” Sirius smiled warmly at his friend, who began to wonder if maybe he’d been taking this secretive thing too far. Of course the werewolf bit was still off limits, but they seemed to genuinely care about him, maybe they really didn’t care about the little things that bugged Remus so much. Or they did care, but not in the way Remus did. Maybe Remus could loosen up a bit more. Maybe he could joke around more. Maybe he could stop only changing behind curtains. Maybe he could be less uptight about work habits. Maybe he’d just be a better friend in general.
And maybe, Remus Lupin would smile after all.