Chapter Text
The flowers were beautiful. Of course they were.
Remus knew what it was the moment the first petal escaped from his lips. He had read about the phenomenon before, in an old book found in the depths on the Hogwarts library.
The Hanahaki disease appeared in individuals who harboured a deep, searing unrequited love. Flowers would grow in the cursed lover's lungs, blossoming and blooming and choking until it spills out of their mouths, slowly suffocating them in doomed devotion.
What a lovely yet tragic way to die, Remus thought.
When he had coughed out the first, fateful petal, he set off to the library for research. He studied it clinically, barely holding back a humourless laugh when he found his flower in Meanings of Flora: Magic and Muggle. How fitting it was, for pink flowers of a dogwood tree to fester in his lungs, unsolicited and unasked for. Remus could never escape from the clutches of his beloved, however one-sided it seemed.
It was difficult to hide. The coughing fits waited for no schedule; they burst out with no warning in the middle of lessons, while having dinner in the Great Hall, interrupting his sleep. It soon became muscle memory to cough into his hand and immediately vanish the offending petal before anyone could see. His breaths came harder, now, and his sleep less easy, but Remus supposed it was what happened when you fell in love with someone who would never love you back.
You reap what you sow, and Remus had planted quite the stubborn dogwood tree.
The thing is, he didn't want it gone. He was certain he would never be cured. Remus, in all his 17 years of life, had never been worthy of a happy ending where the prince would fall in love with the princess and live happily ever after. He had never even wanted a princess to begin with—why would he, when he was right there?—and so Remus quietly succumbed to his slow, agonising death.
For Remus knew that the flowers would only disappear if their unrequited love returns their feelings, or if he had them magically vanished. He could have Pomfrey remove them in an instant, at the expense of erasing all feelings of romantic love for his muse.
That path was simply unthinkable. Remus would rather die than live a life without loving Sirius Black.
"Re, have you started on the Transfiguration essay?"
"What, the one on Advanced Animagi Theory or the other 4 foot monstrosity about sentient transfiguration?"
"The Animagi one."
"Yeah, all done. You want to see it?"
"Yes please, you're an angel."
Saturday found Remus in the library with Lily, tucked into a table in a corner next to a window overlooking the Black Lake. The sun's rays shone through the glass panes, light hitting the wooden table where his books lay. The sky outside was mild, dotted with occasional fluffy clouds. If Remus squinted, he might've seen a vague outline of a big dog among the blue, but he was never the best at Divination. That was more of Mary's strong suit.
He'd been managing his hanahaki pretty well, he claimed to himself. He was used to suffering alone and hiding secrets, so it wasn't difficult.
Or so he thought.
One moment, his quill was poised in his hand, poring over a long, laborious text, and the next he was coughing and hacking, studies momentarily forgotten. Lily immediately rushed to his side.
"Heavens, are you okay? Do you need some water?" she pulled out Remus' bottle from his backpack and ran her hands up and down his back, eyes full of concern.
Remus ducked under the table, finally coughing out a pink flower into his hand. The disease had progressed, much to his dismay. It had been one petal, then two, then three, and now a full flower sat—begrudgingly pretty, Remus allowed—in his palm.
He emerged, his other hand searching for his wand to vanish the offending flower. Before he could, though, Lily's eyes turned, sharp, to the hand concealing it. A sliver of pink peeked out from his closed fist, and her gaze had turned calculating.
"Remus, what's that in your hand?"
"Nothing, Lily, it's just..."
He tried to hide his hand behind his back, but Lily was faster. She grabbed his arm, and pried his fingers open. When she saw what was hidden, she gasped. Bright, green eyes met Remus' tired, brown ones, mouth slightly open, her face morphing from realisation to fear.
"No... tell me it's not true."
Remus dropped his head into his free hand, abandoning the search for his wand. "I wish I could, Lils."
Anguish hit him like a ton of bricks. He had kept himself from grieving, from feeling anything, but seeing a single tear fall from Lily's face relentlessly dropped him into crushing reality. Remus was dying, and his best friend in the world had to watch him die.
He had never wanted Lily to know. Lily didn't deserve this, Lily, with her beautiful smile and her sweet, kind personality. Lily, who accompanied Remus whenever his concentration started slipping; Lily who gently reminded him to go to bed whenever he lost track of time scribbling essays in the library.
Lily, who had found out why he kept disappearing every full moon one fateful night in third year, out of worry at watching him come back every month with fresh scars and broken ribs. When she figured it out, she had come crying to Remus, but fiercely reminded him that he would always be her best friend, human or werewolf.
"You don't hate me?" Remus had asked, his face turning pale.
Amidst tears, Lily managed to scoff. "Why would I ever hate you? Your lycantrophy isn't your fault, and never will be. I see you for who you are, Remus, and just because you were bitten doesn't mean you don't deserve to be loved."
Remus had pulled Lily into his arms, moved by her unwavering faith in him, and drowning in relief from not losing his best friend. "Thank you," he murmured to the top of her head. "Thank you."
When Lily looked up with a watery smile, he couldn't help but grin in return.
Now Lily sobbed again, the sight slapping Remus with a sense of déjà vu. Her fingers curled around the front of Remus' jumper, still clutching his arm, looking at the lone flower sitting in his palm. "Who?" she asked. "Who is it?"
He shook his head. "I can't," he managed to say. "I can't tell you."
He couldn't. Sirius' name was at the tip of his tongue, but admitting to it felt like an ultimatum. Confessing it out loud would seal his fate, make this final. He was sure Sirius would never love him back; he was most definitely straight, for Merlin's sake. Telling Lily would only solidify the absence of his chance to live. What could she do? Force Sirius into returning his feelings? Lily could brew the best Armotentia in his year, but nothing could synthesise true love.
Lily stood up, expression beseeching. "You're not in this alone, Remus. Let me help you. Please."
Remus looked away.
Her face fell. Gently, she closed his hand around the flower, hiding it once more, and pulled him into a hug.
"You'll always have me, Re. Don't forget that, okay?"
Remus could only nod his head, desperately trying to keep his tears at bay.
When they finally left the library and bid each other goodnight, he glimpsed a glimmer of steely determination in Lily's eyes. He knew Lily was up to something, but he was too tired to go against it. With nothing but a soft smile, he departed to the boy's dormitories before collapsing on his bed, quickly falling into a fitful, disturbed sleep.
He dreamt of a field full of colourful dogwood shrubs, a black, shaggy, dog, and playful barks echoing through his ears, eventually waking up to an aching pain in his chest that had simultaneously nothing and everything to do with the blooming garden in his lungs.