#incorrecthpjo

“Yeah, Moony, it’s me. You okay?” James’s voice was concerned, and Remus felt butterflies as the hands slid down, off of his face, settling at his waist. It was James, and Remus was safe in his bed at the Potter family home. Remus was 15, not 5, and his parents couldn’t get him here.

“M’I okay?”

“You were crying. I could hear it from the other room.” James crawled over to his other side, laying down next to him. Two tugs on his shirt, and Remus laid back down as well.

“Just a nightmare,” Remus said dismissively, resting his head on James’s chest and his friend’s arm slid under his neck and rested on his shoulder.

It was James.

Remus closed his eyes.

“The basement one again?” James traced gentle circles on Remus’s shoulder.

“Mmm.” Remus didn’t want to talk about it.

His curls shifted as James planted a kiss on the top of his head, making Remus’s stomach all fluttery. Or maybe that was anxiety from the dream. He wrapped his arm around James’s chest, snuggling closer.

“It’s okay,” James murmured into his hair, “I’m here.”

Remus knew that people couldn’t just Get Over trauma, but he still found it stupid that, even though he hadn’t been with his parents since he was 12, the nightmares still hadn’t ceased.

Not that life here was all rainbows (that was one thing Fleamont and Euphemia didn’t want in their house. Rainbows, that is. They wouldn’t be happy if they caught Remus in bed with their only son.) (Not that that was stopping them.) (Nor had it in the past.) (Shh.)

“You know you can talk to me?” James said.

“What’s there to talk about? You know it all.”

“Talking can help,” James paused, waiting for a response, and when he didn’t get one, he said, “I’ll go first. When i was younger, I had this recurring nightmare where these demons would break into my house-”

Remus opened his eyes.

“And they’d say that Father Christmas sent them to collect the bad kids-”

“Mate, what?”

“Shh, i’m not done-” he said, “and then, they’d fly me to a volcano and put me in line with some other children that they were shoving into the lava-”

“Are you, like, okay?”

“But when they pushed me off, i landed on a rock and jumped over to a shelf, and there’d be a bunch of… ah, what’s the word?” Remus felt James turn his head to look at him, “They’re not carousels, they… uh, shit, when you’re little, you climb on and rock on them like a horse?”

“Rocking horses?” Remus frowned slightly, imagining a rock shelf full of creepy rocking horses in the middle of a volcano.

“Nah, mate, they’re at playgrounds. All springy-like.”

“Oh,” Remus felt James’s foot slip between his legs, “uh, spring riders? I think?”

“Alright, those- the shelf was full of those, and i’d be trying to escape, but the demons threw fireballs at me, and besides, I couldn't run far because I'd lost my bracelet.”

Remus slowly blinked, looking up at James in the dark. And then, because he was invested now, “And then what?”

“Oh, no idea. Maybe that wasn’t the best one to lead with. Hm.”

“Hm.”

“Wanna hear the one where a giant cannibalized me and the scooby gang?”

Remus laughed, “What?”

“Made us into deserts and everything, it was crazy,” He smiled. A moment passed. “Come on, Moony, it’s your turn.”

Remus heaved a sigh into James’s chest, the fear from the dream having been long replaced with unease as James’s story brought Remus’s heart rate back down to resting. “Alright, fine. M’in the basement. It’s after the full moon and I’m hurt.”

James wrapped his other arm around Remus, holding him gently.

“I call for my mum, but she doesn’t come, and I can’t really move properly, and it sounds like they’re having a dinner party or something? I’m bleeding out and they don’t care. And also I’m, like, seven.”

James nodded.

“Room starts shaking,” Remus felt watched from the corners of the room, so he pulled the heavy blanket right up to his chin, “Mum starts storming towards the door, because my yelling has ruined the party- I- I wake up before she gets to me, but.” He sighed.

“But.” James said, not a question but more of an agreement with the fucked-up-ed-ness of the nightmare.

Remus closed his eyes again as James started caressing circles on his cheek.

“You’re safe now, you know that?” James said softly.

“‘Course.” Remus yawned.

A moment of silence.

“I love you, you know that?”

Remus smiled, looking up to where James’s face would be if he could see him, “Love you, too.”