Chapter 1
PART 1 - The Waning Moon
“It’s time to let go”
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Remus POV
Remus woke up in the Shrinking Shack, grunting after another full moon in the beginning of his 6th year. As usual, he didn't remember much, only lapses of his wolf running through the Forbidden Forest and the wolf's unhappy feelings when his friends made him go back to the Shack. They had decided to explore more of the forest this year, always careful (too careful, according to Sirius) not to approach Hogsmead.
Stretching, he verified his body, registered the new (but mercifully small) cuts that would later join his scar collection.
— Here, your clothes — offered Peter while looking away. Differently from James and Sirius, Wormtail thought that the best way to deal with Remus's self-consciousness was to respect his space, which made him very grateful.
He murmured a "thanks" and quietly dressed up before realizing that everything was indeed too quiet. Spotting the other two marauders in a hidden corner, Remus asked, suspicious:
— What are they doing?
When Peter opened his mouth, then closed again, then fidgeted, and didn't answer his question, Remus approached them silently and looked over their shoulders.
— What the fuck did you do?! — he screamed, making James and Sirius jump.
The baby lying in the basket they were holding started to cry and Remus knew, from that moment, that they were all screwed.
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Remus paced back and forth in the dorm, while his friends were waiting for him to start the questions. He had just been discharged, earlier than expected, because he was annoying Madame Pomfrey with his anxiety.
— How did you get your hands on a baby? — he stopped and asked in a dangerously slow pace.
— We found them in the woods — said Sirius, eyes locked in his so that Remus would know he wasn't lying.
— Near the village?
— Closer than we were supposed to be, but more than a kilometer away.
— If we weren't supposed to be there, how did you find the kid?
The answer didn't came immediately. The three boys being interrogated looked to each other and James, who had been too distracted with the baby in his arms to say anything until then, said:
— Actually, we were following you. You found them, Moony.
Remus freezed as he felt his eyes widening and his face going white.
— Did I... — his voice was too low and he was too scared to finish the question that could make his worse nightmare come true.
— Of course not! — it was Sirius who broke his line of thoughts, making him able to breathe again.
— Moony do you really think that, even if your wolf could do such a thing, we would let it happen? — asked Wormtail, and Remus was already calm enough to see that none of them were hurt and that his friends would never let him bite anyone. At least not without a fight.
— So what happened?
— I think the wolf followed their scent — Sirius explained, as if it was nothing that the wolf could scence the smell of a child kilometers away. — He was curious, truly, we could see it. And when we arrived there, we saw why. The kid is a werewolf, Moony.
His heart stopped again. This time not because of fear or guilt. It stopped because it hurt to think that a that child, not even a year old probably, had suffered the same thing that he had. That another child was going to be torn appart every full moon, lose all their chances, lose half their life expectancy...
But unlike him, this kid was utterly alone. No father, even if it was to be a distant one. No mother, even if she would feel so guilty that couldn't even spend more than a few minutes in the same room as his. Well, perhaps it was better to be alone than to wake up to a destroyed family everyday.
— So someone abandoned a werewolf baby in the woods — he said, bitterly. — Great move.
— Perhaps, the kid fled — tryed Peter, but Sirius laughed sarcastically.
— Yeah, a child who can't even walk ran away from home to have a nice walk around the woods.
— I meant that they could have fled as a wolf, you idiot.
James stoped the fight before it even started with his own opinion.
— They were left in a basket. They were truly abandoned — Prongs was fascinated with the baby, as if he had never seen one before. His eyes were locked in the baby, watching as they played with his fingers. — Who could do something like that?
— Doesn't matter, it only means that we have to find someone else to give the cub to.
— What?! — the three of them asked, shocked.
— Moony you can't be serious — and James sounded so offended that Sirius didn't even make his joke. — We can't give them back!
— Well, we can't keep a cub!
— But nobody else will want them! They are going to die out there!
— Prongs, how do you expect to properly take care of a child, hide them not only from all authorities, but from everyone else in this school, while keeping our normal lives?
The room stayed in silence for a moment. James held the cub close to his body, as if Remus would try to take them away from him. Prongs was never angry, never sade, never enything but positive emotions, but now he looked extremely disappointed with Remus. Which was worse than if he would scream with him.
Sirius was quiet, for once in his life, but looked like he wanted to interfere in favour of James. Since "The Prank", Remus noticed that Padfoot was more careful when it came to fighting with him. Before, they would fight all of the time, about the most stupid things, but now Sirius was too scared that any little fight would make their progress disappear. Remus was afraid that they would never go back to what they were because of this fear.
Peter didn't look sad. Nor angry. Nor happy either. He looked thoughtful. It was dangerous when he looked that way because, despite what most of the people thought about him and even though Peter wasn't school-smart, he was a mastermind. He was the one who alway made their escape planes and who hid all of their tracks. If Wormtails was thinking, Remus shoud be prepared for a difficult argument.
— We're definitely not keep our normal lives if we keep this kid. But suppose that we tell about them to Dumbledore, Minnie or any Professor — Sirius and James starte to protest. — I said suppose, Merlin, listen to me. If we told them, we would have to lie about the reason why we were at the Forbidden Forrest, meaning that we would have to wait at least a few more days and even then we would end up in detention. While we're in detention, they would take the kid to their family, who would abandon them again, or to an orphanage, who would likely give the child to the Ministerium or at least treat them very badly for being a werewolf. Everyone will have prejudices against this baby, except for another werewolf and people who already live with said werewolf. So, unless anyone knows how to find another werewolf willing to take care of this baby, that would be us, Moony.
And, fucking Wormtail and his speeches, Remus faltered. They all saw it, as Remus bit his cheek from the inside. James started giving him puppy eyes, but it was Sirius who moved, took the cub from Prongs and told him:
— Just hold them a little.
As he moved his arms to accommodate the cub, Remus knew there was no way he could ever let another child live like that. Remus would never let this baby feel like they don't belong, the cub would grow up with their own pack of crazy, loving, problematic teenagers.
But this could go wrong. Very wrong. None of them know nothing about babies and there is no one they could ask. What if they screw everything up for the cub? What if the cub grew up to hate them? What were they going to do with the cub in the vacations?
— C'mon, Moony, it's going to be fun — Sirius smiled at him and, for a second he felt the same butterflies in the stomach from the beginning of fifth year.
Remus looked to the baby, soft brown eyes fixed on him. The cub laughed a little, the sweetest sound he has ever heard.
— I'm not going to change any diapers.