65’ - 71’
February 19th 1965
"Remus, my love, do you understand what all of this means?"
Outside, through the water droplets clinging to the fogged-up window, Remus could make out his father knelt on the damp pavement. He was both backlit by harsh blue pulses of light and spotlit by the old-fashioned lamp-post he was being forced against by a big burly man in a black custodian helmet and police uniform. Remus understood that his dad was being arrested but he couldn't figure out why. Beside the officer's pale blue panda car was a much larger vehicle, a cream van inside of which his bloodied mother lay, another man, this time dressed head to toe in blue, stood beside her, his hands pushing up and down on her chest, fruitlessly forcing her heart to beat again. Remus couldn't quite understand what was happening to his mother, he knew she was hurt but not what had happened to her heart, perhaps his father had gone and broken it again.
"I know you're still very small, and this is a lot to take in, but do you know what it is I'm telling you pet?"
Something terrible had happened, Remus knew that much, he had been bitten by something big and scary, and then his mother had been bitten too, only she seemed far worse off than him with her leg missing and torso littered with claw marks.
"Remus?"
The copper fastened his dad's wrists together with handcuffs and pulled him up off the ground. His knees were bleeding and he was crying. Remus had never seen his dad cry before. They didn't let him inside the van with Hope, despite his pleas, instead, they pushed him into the backseat of the panda car and drove away.
"Remus babe?"
Someone in a blue uniform picked his small frame up and lay him flat on some sort of wheeled ironing board, he begged for his parents, but he was unable to see either now as he was being steered away, and through the thunderstorm and all the commotion he could not hear the ambulance attendants pronouncing his mother dead.
"Remus!"
His teary eyes shot open and suddenly he was back in the police station's interview room with resident welfare officer Susan Moss. Remus could tell Susan was new. She didn't have an office of her own yet, hence why they were forced to wait in the interview room, and the bobbies wouldn't let her into the kitchen so all she had for Remus was a half-melted Milky Way from her handbag.
"Your daddy isn't very well Remus, he can't look after you anymore so we're gonna have you stay with your uncle Robert for a while," In the extremely short amount of time Remus had known Susan Moss he had already made up his mind about her. Despite her soft motherly tone and wide variety of pet names for him, he just did not like the woman. She was blunt, and she was delivering him the worst news of his life, and with each new thing she said Remus could feel his insides twist and he wanted to be sick, "Okay?"
No, absolutely nothing about any of it was okay, and Remus wanted to say, no shout, hell, he wanted to scream just that. Nothing was okay, and it wouldn't be ever again. But he was so young, and so small, and so incredibly scared, "What about my mummy?"
For three days he had been living in the station, and he had yet to hear a word on his mother. He knew she was hurt, but no one around him seemed able to put into words quite how badly.
Susan shook her head, whipping her mahogany curls from side to side, placing a cold hand on his back, "Your mummy didn't make it Remus," Didn't make it? At four years old Remus had never experienced loss before. He could not grasp what it meant for someone to be gone, permanently gone. So hearing this about his mother did not instil grief, just confusion. Remus blinked at Susan, "You'll understand when you're older,"
"Anyway, it doesn't matter now. We've found you a new place to live, and I'm sure it'll be better than-" Susan continued to speak at him, but he had zoned out.
A great hairy beast smashed through the backdoor spraying sharp shards of glass all over the dining room. The creature looked very far removed from any animals he'd seen at the zoo or in documentaries on the television, if anything it looked more human than it did animal, but it was distinctly animal, no person on earth had claws like a large cat, fur covering their entire body, fangs, or eyes the colour of amber. His dad spotted it first and immediately began to yell. He pushed Remus behind him but the creature was seeking him out purposely, as if it had come with Remus in mind. The next part all happened very fast: its beady eyes glowed yellow as they locked in on the small boy, the animal pulled back and lowered its head, tilting it side to side as if trying to lure Remus closer, and it almost worked, he could feel his fascination with it growing by the second, there was something almost hypnotic about the way it moved, magical even, and he had never seen anything like it before, so Remus peaked around his dad's leg, his dad screamed, the animal pounced, but his mother moved faster.
"Remus?" Susan stood in the open doorway now, his two deflated duffel bags in hand, "Are you coming?"
He would've refused to go with her because he didn't like any of this, he wanted his things, his house, he wanted his mummy, and quite frankly he hated Susan, but that would mean staying in that place for even longer. The police station permanently stunk of egg and cress sandwiches, and the bobbies were all grumpy old men who clearly didn't like him being there any more than he did. He jumped up promptly and followed her out into the hall and to Robert's parked-up crappy green car.
Inside the car, Remus was hit with the distinct scent of cigarette smoke. Weirdly, this acted as a reminder of his mum. Hope was a 'social smoker' or so she called herself, his dad would argue 'social' implied she only smoked in the case of company, like at the pub on a Friday night, or at weddings and parties, but Hope claimed being a 'social' smoker only meant she smoked recreationally and it wasn't a bad habit, just a fun little hobby, something to keep her occupied. She smoked so often that her fingers and mouth obtained a yellow tinge. Either she was incredibly bored, or she was addicted. Based on his dad's practise of hiding depressants from her Remus had to assume it was the latter.
Robert was fine. He worked as a doctor and lived in a decent-sized flat in Poplar, which was extremely exciting for Remus who had never been to London before. In the two weeks the pair lived together they spoke only once, and that had been on the drive down from the station, it was a painful four hours. It was clear, even to young Remus, that Robert did not want the responsibility of a child, even if it was his sisters'. Robert was a very serious man who cared deeply about his career and little else, he spent all his time in the hospital, and on the odd occasion he was home he would just sleep. Remus' condition had only given Uncle Robert the excuse he so desperately hoped for, so he could drive Remus right back to the station and drop him on the doorstep like an unwanted dog.
Uncle Robert had only been the first of many, many to come.
At the beginning of each month, Susan would throw him in with some distant relative on his mum's side or a desperate unsuspecting couple who wanted a child so he could play happy families for a few weeks until eventually they saw the real him and handed him back so the cycle could repeat. Something within Remus had been broken that devastating night, his father had been taken to the 'loony bin' as Susan called it, his mother had disappeared, and he'd become something he could never revert from. Deep down within him, something was extremely wrong and soon enough everyone around him saw it too and abandoned him like the animal he was.
This went on for a few long years, until one day, Susan gave up on him too.
"Remus, I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Susan told him exasperatedly, in the past five years she had aged dramatically, her hair had greyed entirely, and the wrinkles on her forehead became much more pronounced, she couldn't be more than thirty-six but she appeared to be pushing fifty, it was probably stress, which was more than likely Remus' fault; the thought of this added to the already enormous mountain of guilt he carried within himself, especially as over the years he had grown quite fond of Susan. She was the closest thing he had to a mother, and he was smarter at nine than he was at four, the first mother he had was not coming back. He thought of Hope often, her broken singing in the bath, her soft smile and wide eyes, her terrible dance moves in the kitchen, the way she whispered his name in her sleep, but he did not think about her as often now as he did when he was young.
"I'm sorry that I can't find anyone to love you," She said this to him very earnestly, with no softness or adoration in her voice. She did that sometimes, dropped the sweet nicknames and gentle tone, like a switch had been flicked within her and she became completely emotionless.
I'm sorry that I can't find anyone to love you, He didn't blame her, it was difficult work.
"I don't need love, just somewhere to sleep," Deep down he knew this was a lie, there was nothing Remus needed more than someone to love him, but he refused to be let down so this sentiment became his motto.
"I have one option pet, but it's very much worst case scenario," She sighed, back to her affectionate self "Though I do fear we've reached that point,"
"Anywhere," He assured her.
"Your granny called me, a couple years ago now, she said her son Robert had informed her of your 'condition' and claimed she had the perfect solution for you," Susan shuffled through some papers on her desk. The past couple of months had seen Susan leaving the police station and moving into her own office in the town hall. Her area was extremely underfunded by the government and most things were certainly not done by the books but Susan said it was much better than being treated like a skivvy at the station and it's very nice to have her own space, "So I went over to hers, found this metal cage in her basement" Susan handed him a picture of an old lady, presumably his grandma "I left before she could tell me her plans for it. I didn't like the woman the second she began speaking, but I never lost her telephone number,"
Susan had never asked why nobody wanted Remus. People tended to drop him off with her and mutter something about him being possessed or insane, or sick, and she would just nod as she brought him inside and waved them off. It seemed impossible to him how she could be around him after hearing these things, but maybe she saw him the same way he saw her, as family, as her son.
Susan had never had children of her own, at first Remus put this down to her not being married, or having a fella at all, but a couple of years ago Susan did get married to a man named Jim, though she did not take his surname, and still she had no kids. Remus didn't dare ask her why not, and considering the way she reacted when one of the women she worked with asked her that very question, he knew he was making the safest choice. Though he was always curious about it, she was so good with children, so kind and understood, it felt like a waste for her to not have kids of her own.
Remus thought about living with his grandma, and how that might go. He had never been locked inside a cage before, it might solve the problem but he doubted it would be a very nice experience. Hope had always referred to her mother as a 'mardy old cow' and she had never taken him to visit her so he couldn't imagine she was a very nice person, but he couldn't spend any more time in that depressed children's home and he thought it might appease Susan.
He was living with her by tea time, and when the full moon came he found himself locked inside a huge metal dog cage, inside a cold, damp basement, like some kind of criminal in a prison cell.
He, and all others, had been right about Norma Howell. She was a cruel woman, often keeping him inside the cage for days or weeks at a time, feeding him a spam sandwich and a glass of blackcurrant cordial once a day. She barred him from using the indoor bathroom and eating at the dining room table, limiting him to the toilet in the shed at the far end of the very well-kept garden and having his meals, which were usually either toad-in-the-hole or ham and salad, on the floor of his bedroom. The basement was grim, but her house was otherwise very nice. It was clearly an older woman's house with its beiges and creams, and dark wood throughout, but it had bright bursts of colour where things had been renovated and updated, like the teal kitchen cabinets and the red wallpaper in the living room. The look and location of her home made it clear Norma was well-off, she had worked as a seamstress in her teens and early twenties while her husband was off fighting in the First World War, between the end of the first and the start of the second the two had bought a factory building where they made and sold aeroplane parts, Norma said she'd been overwhelmingly lucky with the world breaking out into a second war, her husband was gone for good -killed in Italy right before the war had ended- and she made the decision to switch their business to fighter aircraft parts just before the war began, meaning she could sell them to the army. It was a smaller-scale production but she bought in enough to live beyond comfortably and retire at forty.
Remus had his own bedroom at the front of the house, overlooking the street, just like his childhood room, but within it, he had just a bed and a desk without a chair. He led a modest existence, owning just the same two duffel bags of clothing from when he was four, all of his clothes long outgrown, he had no money, no possessions, and nothing physical to remember his parents by, anything else he had Norma made it clear it belonged to really, like his school uniform and clothes that actually fit.
During a normal day at the Howell household Remus was expected to wake up at six to help Norma feed the chickens out in the garden and collect their eggs for breakfast, at half seven they'd sit on the sofa together for an hour, where she'd chain-smoke Dunhill's and gob on about how inconvenient his life was to her and how she deeply regretted letting that 'evil man' -Lyall- spoil her lovely daughter. On days when she felt her version of nice she'd offer him a cigarette too, and despite him turning her down the first dozen times, he eventually gave in and took the cig. At half eight he was off to school, arriving twenty or so minutes late each morning. School was okay. It was a comprehensive school built on a council estate half an hour from his grans, it was mixed sex unlike his last school in Warrington, which took some getting used to, but he liked girls, in fact, his only friend was a girl. Cherry Jones, the most incredible person Remus had, and certainly would, ever met.
Cherry was unlike anyone Remus had ever met before, she had bright blonde hair which each day she styled like Pattie Boyds' because she said girls with short hair like Twiggy looked like boys. She wore her school skirt so high up that when she bent over you could see her kickers, but she said that was intentional, just like her top button always being open, her tie being slackened, and her blazer always mysteriously disappearing. She wore bright red nail varnish and blue and black eye makeup, which she woke up at six each day to apply. She decided at age five that she was far too good for the gross, salty seaside town of Blackpool, even though she had never known elsewhere. Her dad was a Derby racer at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and her mother, Gypsy Roxanne, worked as a fortune teller on the promenade. Instead, she believed she belonged in Hollywood with all the models and actresses, and Remus firmly agreed. She was sweet and loud, and funny and selfless. She was popular at school and the smartest in all her lessons. She was this great big supernova, a blinding burst of light, she had everything: friends, attention, and beauty, like no one he had ever seen before, and for whatever reason she chose Remus over all of it, and she knew Remus well, when they were together she never ceased speaking so Remus could adopt an absent role in most of their conversations and she never asked about his condition and he never offered the information out, so she was none the wiser. Cherry was something Remus wasn't used to, and he thought it was brilliant.
Often, Cherry would call him her boyfriend, which was fine by him so long as he never had to kiss or hug her, "One day when we're older Remus we're gonna get married and move to America, where I'll get big and famous for my prettiness and my songs, and you can live in my mansion for free. It's gonna be fab Remus, are you excited?" Remus was happy to do whatever Cherry wanted, so long as she was happy. She was magic, and the more time he spent with her, the more magical he felt too.
Most days Remus would spend the afternoon at Cherries house, they'd walk back from school together and watch television in the pillow fort which was permanently erected in her living room. First, they watched Blue Peter, then, it was whatever Cherry wanted to watch, until six when Remus was expected home, if he wasn't home by then the kitchen door was locked and he'd go without tea, not that he was missing out on much. The rest of his evening was spent locked in his bedroom with his ear to the wooden floor in an attempt to hear whatever his grandma was watching downstairs, fortunately, every day at half seven she'd put Top Of The Pops on and he'd get to listen to all the music, this was undoubtedly his favourite part of the day as it reminded him of his parent and the record player in their living room.
By nine he was expected to be bathed, his teeth and hair brushed and dressed in his pyjamas, ready for bed. Norma would come to check his lights were out, and then, from the outside of his room, she would lock the door until the next morning. Remus assumed she was scared of him, thought he might do something nefarious during the night, so, to prove her correct, he did, if he needed a wee during the night he would push the window open as far as it went and piss all over the flowers in her front yard, turning all the greenery beige and killing them off.
It was a relatively quiet and lonely life Remus led, the same thing day in and day out, forced to live by the rules and follow the path drawn by a woman who hated him. As soon as he turned sixteen he planned to leave, well Cherry planned it out, he just agreed to follow her. They would go to London first, Cherry would work on becoming an actress and Remus would be a businessman, and once they had enough money they would fly out to America and Cherry's fame would skyrocket. Remus had never expected anything to get in the way of these plans, because he had never expected things to change for him.
He had just woken up when the man arrived.
"Remus, someone's here to see you!" Norma called from downstairs, her voice raspy and weak, barely reaching his ears. He immediately thought it was strange as he never had guests. Cherry never came to his house, and Susan didn't visit anymore. So Remus went out into the hallway and peeked downstairs, he saw Norma waiting with a tray of tea and biscuits in hand so she knew he was expecting a guest, he thought it strange she didn't tell him. It was the summer of 71' and he'd be starting secondary school with Cherry in September so he could only assume it was someone from the school, the headmaster maybe?
He combed back his hair and descended the stairs. In the living room, on the brown suede sofa closest to the window sat an old man, he had long white hair, and a long white beard, and was dressed in the oddest black and purple robes, he smiled at Remus,
"Hello Mr Lupin, what a pleasure it is to make your acquaintance,"