wolfstsr:

james and sirius act like the “tough guys” but?? no sweetie. james was raised by elderly parents and was pretty sheltered off from other children. sirius had parents who didn’t let him step out of line and live to tell the tale. so james can act like the “tough jock” and sirius the “bad boy” all they want, but remus was the real badass of the group:

remus growing up in a poor, run-down town with parents who were always working.

the kids are far from friendly, and when they’re bored, the weird, home-schooled, scarred skinny kid down the street was always an easy target on sweltering summer days…right?

so remus has to learn how to stand up for himself in a fight pretty early on.

came home every day with split knuckles and bruised cheeks and then had to, once a month, have his body ripped up and his bones reshaped and his face contort into a monster that spent hours biting and scratching at itself because it didn’t have anything else to attack in the cage at st. mungo’s.

flash forward to hogwarts: even though he was taller than most of his year, he was still skinny and weak-looking and wary of the louder kids who he was sure would target him like they did back at home.

sirius and james, already best friends, decide to befriend remus when they see him punch lucius malfoy, who’s two years older and a good six inches taller but was sheltered too and backs away after only one hit.

they crowd him afterwards, rubbing his hair, throwing arms over his shoulders, exclaiming, “mate, that was mental!” “where’d you learn to punch like that?” “can you teach us?”

remus smiles shyly and replies, “i’ll help you if one of you can help me with transfiguration. i’ve seen both of you do it and i’m absolutely horrid at it.”

(because in his first few years, magic comes slowly to remus. he figures it out with a lot of studying and practice, but he relies on james’ and sirius’ help in the beginning.)

so, as the marauders get older and as james is revered as a quidditch star and sirius dons his first leather jacket with cigarettes in the pocket, they know who the real hardcore marauder is: the tired-looking, skinny, amber-eyed boy with unexplained scars and shabby jumpers.

and people are always surprised when they see usually-defiant james potter and sirius black cowering away from a furious remus lupin, the boy with secrets up his sleeves and twitchy, scabbed-up hands.