swim || remus lupin

break the surface

"There's so much you don't know," Theo said.

I searched his blue eyes, begging for a sign of a lie. With Remus's hands still enveloping mine, I held my breath.

"Like what?"

Theo's mouth was pressed into a thin line, his eyes glanced over from Peter to Remus and back to me as if making sure I was okay discussing this in front of them. I inhaled shakily and broke from the bubble that Theo and I had made.

"Um, Peter?" I said, my voice cracking slightly. "I'm, um, I'm a-"

"A mermaid," he finished softly. "I know. It's okay," he gave me a small smile which I returned.

I looked up to Remus, his deep brown eyes filled to the brim with concern.

"You're okay," he whispered, the same words I had said the night of the full moon. I took another breath and then turned back to Theo, nodding to let him know he could continue.

"When I left last summer, I flew out here, to meet my dad," he began. "Only, I wasn't only living with him. A woman was with him as well. She looked," he paused. "Well, she looked like you."

My heart caught in my throat. There was no way.

"How," I cleared my throat, trying to push out the slight waver. "How is that possible?"

"That's what I said," continued Theo. "At first, I was so shocked that I forgot how much I was trained to hate her. I just wanted to know what really happened. Do you remember what Granddad told us?"

"He said Mom and Dad took the boat out and got in an accident," I recited. "But we always thought it had something to do with your father."

They had always been quite vague about the whole thing but I figured it was a touchy subject, discussing their son's death. Theo nodded slowly.

"Last summer I pushed them for more answers," he explained. "I wanted to know why they were hiding things. What my dad had to do with everything,

"They said that Mom wanted to find my Dad. That she was really in love with him, but she was already married to Louis and they had you. By the time I was born, it was easier to just keep us together and stay in California."

I furrowed my eyebrows at this news. I had always been told that my parents were the ones in love, that Theo's dad had known them in school and taken advantage of her. I wasn't sure which story to believe anymore, though if she really was living in England all this time I guess it would make sense...

"So then what happened?"

"Grandma said that they received a letter from Louis in early July, the first they had heard from him in years. She showed it to me to prove it."

"What did he say?"

Theo hesitated, a long frown spread across his face. It was almost as if his brotherly instinct had returned, almost as if he wanted to protect me from these words.