His Birthday
When Remus awakens on his eleventh birthday, he can already feel the change in his blood. His entire body feels five degrees warmer, and his senses are heightened more than the day before.
He’s gotten used to it. The lead up to the moon.
Nausea. Lack of sleep. Anxiety. Fear. Mostly the energy. Like something is trying to get out.
Which isn’t altogether inaccurate.
The full moon is in two days.
The wolf knows that. The monster. And it wants out.
When Fenrir Greyback broke into his bedroom seven years ago, Remus knew very little of monsters.
He had imagined slithering figures hiding in his closet, or underneath his bed. Terrors that never held shape because his mind wasn’t capable of imagining their true forms.
Now, all of his nightmares feature one monster.
The same monster that Remus is. A werewolf.
“Remus!” His mum calls from the kitchen.
He wants to stay in bed. It’s a Wednesday. Not that that means anything. He’s not allowed to go to school.
Mum tutors him. Which is fine, because she gives him more days off than would be allowed if he attended the local primary school.
“Remus,” she calls again.
So he climbs out of bed and ambles downstairs, hoping his father has already left for work.
“Morning Mum,” he says, wiping the exhaustion from his eyes.
“Good morning, my love,” Hope says from in front of the stove. She’s making pancakes.
His father is sitting at the table, drinking his tea silently.
Six. That’s Remus’s guess for how many words his Dad says to him today.
“Happy Birthday, love,” Mum sets a plate on the table. Remus smiles and sits down before she has some strange idea like hugging her only child on his birthday.
“Thanks, Mum,” he tucks in, cutting the stack of six pancakes into bite size pieces. He’s always starving this close to the moon. The downside is that the nausea comes so fast, he can’t always keep it all down.
Hope sits beside her son and he can tell without looking up she is staring at Lyall.
“Happy Birthday,” his father says in a monotone.
“Thank you,” he glances at his father. Instantly, he regrets it.
He doesn’t remember the way his father looked at him before the bite, but he hopes it wasn’t with so much contempt.
Remus doesn’t think it’s on purpose. Or that his father even realises it is so obvious.
That doesn’t make it sting any less.
“I thought today, we could go for a hike at Maravel Falls,” Mum smiles, eating her pancakes.
“Sure.”
“I’ve got to be going to work,” his Dad stands up. The words don’t count. They are more of an announcement than anything else.
And directed at Mum, not him.
“Surely you have time for presents?”
A long pause nearly has Remus risking another glance up.
Dad sits back down, much to Remus’s surprise.
Mum sets three presents down in front of him. One very small one he can hear ticking. A rather large one that smells like leather. And a third that is shaped like a book.
Remus pushes his plate to the side, picking up the big box first.
It’s wrapped very neatly, with a card signed by Mum from both of them.
“A new pair of hiking boots,” he says, offering a shy smile at both of his parents. Remus really hates hiking. He’s either too close to the moon and his senses get overwhelmed or he’s exhausted from attacking himself during the moon before. His father thought it helped him to commune with nature or something. Soothe the beast within.
“The Falls aren’t very far. Perhaps we could break them in today,” Mum says.
He nods non-committedly and reaches for the smallest package.
Just as he suspected, it's an old time piece. It’s nice, but the gears are loud, grating.
“It was my Dad’s.” Remus’s father speaks, tone gruff.
That takes the word count to six. Remus is surprised though, that he would share something so sentimental with him. It was the sort of gift that father’s passed down to sons and so on.
Remus hadn’t felt like Lyall’s son in years.
“Thanks, Dad. It’s great,” he puts it on, knowing he’ll wear it even if it does irritate him.
Remus would do anything to make his father love him again.
His father only nods.
So Remus reaches for the book and pulls the paper off, smiling genuinely for the first time that day.
It’s a new fiction novel. Muggle. Remus collects books like his body collects scars.
“Thanks, Mum.”
He knows the book is from her. She was always spending money they didn’t have on books for him.
“I’ll be home late.” His father stands. More words not addressed to him.
Seems like six it is. Remus is getting rather good at the game.
His father kisses his mother on the cheek and then gathers his jacket from the back of the door.
“Be careful,” his father says loudly, and when Remus looks up, their eyes meet.
He thinks maybe his dad will say something else. Something more.
But he doesn’t. He leaves Remus alone with words that don’t mean anything to him.
His entire existence is about being careful. Not touching anyone. Not leaving the house alone. Being chained up in an underground cellar with a magically warded door and no windows.
The wolf yearned for the moon. When his father shut him in, it was always pitch black. He theorised it would force the wolf to calm. It didn’t. It drove him mad. Remus woke up in the dark, happy not to be able to see what chunks the wolf took out of him that night.
“Darling, finish your breakfast. You’ll need your energy.”
Mum follows Dad down the hall to the front door.
Remus pulls his plate back in front of him but he can’t help listening in on their conversation.
“Did you see the letter? It arrived this morning,” his Mum whispers. They don’t realise quite how good Remus’s hearing is.
“I don’t understand how he intends to handle it,” his father replies, obviously upset.
Remus is curious to know what letter they are talking about.
“He promised it would be perfectly safe,” his mother sounds desperate.
He who?
“Safe for who? For Remus? He’s dangerous, Hope.”
“Lyle, this is something Remus needs. Something we were always going to have to do. He might even be better off there.”
Hope Lupin always acts as the voice of reason.
Remus always thought it was because she didn’t quite understand what a monster he was. She pulled the wool over her eyes.
Lyle understood how dangerous his son was. That’s why he’d bought chains for the cellar. Why he’d stayed awake each full moon like a sentry, just outside the door to Remus’s cage. Why he never patted him on the shoulder or embraced him.
“And what if he kills someone, Hope?”
Remus’s blood rushes to his ears, his heart thundering. He drops his fork and stands up, ignoring the end of his parent’s discussion.
Instead, he heads upstairs.
They are talking about sending him away.
He won’t go. If they no longer want him, he won’t just let them pawn him off on someone else.
Reason escapes him as he stalks around his room, shoving whatever he can into a duffel bag.
“Remus?” His mum calls from downstairs.
“Getting in a shower, Mum,” he lies.
“Alright, Pet,” she calls back.
Remus cringes. He hates when she calls him that.
Pants. Shirts. Shoes. His old hiking boots. The chains. A book. A second book. It’s when he grabs for a third that he realises it’s a mad plan.
Where is he going to go? How is he going to make sure he doesn’t infect anyone else? How will he survive?
It doesn’t matter. He won’t let them send him away to some new prison.
There is a window in the bathroom.
He leaves his childhood bedroom without so much as a glance behind him. Turning on the shower, he stares at himself in the mirror over the sink.
He would have to lift onto his toes to see his chest. Remus is small for an eleven-year-old. Even though he doesn’t see a lot of people, he knows the wolf has eaten away at him. He knows that other children have full rosy cheeks. He’d seen them on the telly.
The scars across his face are ugly. He hates them. The ones on his chest and stomach are easier to stand. Easier to avoid. Just cover them with a shirt and pretend they don’t exist.
He’s out the window in less than a moment.
Lyall Lupin is still looking for his son two days later as the full moon rises. He doesn’t find him. And upon morning, part of him gives up ever finding him. Because Lyall knows everything there is to know about werewolves. And his son is a killer now. So he isn’t his son at all.