Remus
Remus Lupin was a careful boy. He kept his threadbare room(s) clean, orderly. Everything had its place. He was neat, fastidious, to the point of compulsion. In primary school, his teachers would always report on his precise penmanship, his attentive expression, his diligent absorption of new material. They were impressed with careful Remus Lupin, impressed that he caught up so quickly; this was always such a welcome surprise, for a boy so new to the school. They were impressed with him, and they remained so, for about a month. Sometimes two. Occasionally three.
But then, these teachers, they would become concerned with the inconsistencies of Remus’ work, concerned about his sudden illness. They were concerned about the bruises on his thin forearms; they were, in fact, concerned about those forearms, which suddenly - when tinted a sickly sort of yellowing purple - seemed too-thin. And it wasn’t always teachers who became concerned, sometimes it was neighbors, or the parents of playmates (in the days when Remus had playmates who weren’t printed in well-thumbed pages).
You have to be careful, Remus.
Sometimes, Remus wasn’t careful enough with the hems of his shirts - a bruise bursts through - or the scabs on his back - blood speckling the cotton - or the lies on his tongue - that month’s illness forgotten, a distant funeral’s location misplaced.
Remus got better at being careful as he got older.
Remus got better at a lot of things as he got older: better at packing up the contents of his (current) threadbare room in a cardboard box that lived under his (current) mattress, better at fading into the background of a new schoolyard, better at forgetting the people he left behind. Better at pretending he couldn’t hear his mother’s relentles, sleepless footsteps rattling across the floorboards, better at pretending he couldn’t hear the clink of bottle-on-bottle as his father took out the garbage. Better at pretending he wasn’t unhappy, better at pretending he was a character from one of his books, better at pretending he could hide behind their spines.
You have to be careful, Remus.
And he was. He had to be.
You have to be. Careful. Careful not to get too close. Careful not to let anything slip. Careful on the days when the moon hangs swollen; careful on the days when the moon is just a wisp between the stars. Careful about what you say, where you go, who you let in. Careful not to let anyone in, for that matter. Careful to shut the door, lock the door, double-check it, triple-check it, careful. Careful with your heart. Careful with your scars.
Careful. Whispered, plaintively, by his mother, as she stroked his forehead gently, fearfully, the morning after. Begged by his father, sometimes shouted, sometimes spit through tears, sometimes announced as simple, inescapable fact. Silently, treacherously hissed by his own mind, on a loop that he couldn’t block out. It was the refrain he heard every day, ever since it happened.
You have to be careful, Remus.
One day, about a year after it happened, when Remus was six years old, he asked Why me? Tears slid down his mother’s face, carving wrinkles where the skin should have been smooth as polished stone. The tension of taut wire settled into his father’s spine as he twisted away from Remus’ Why?, and on that day, Remus learned that you have to be careful about the questions you ask, because sometimes, it’s better to not know the answers.
Time passed differently for the Lupins. Remus grew older not in the giant leaps of passing years like the other little boys, but in horrific, tentative lurches of month to month. The family history had a fault line down its middle, the divide between before and after. The memories from before were faded, like sepia-toned photographs, nostalgic; the realities of after were raw, bloody, too-bright.
Milestones came differently for the Lupins, too. There was the day that monster came and the day your mother left us, and Lyall Lupin spent anniversaries of those days drowning himself. Success had a different hue, a different taste, for the Lupins; success was staying in one place for longer than two months, finding a job with flexible hours, neighbors who didn’t ask questions, and even better, little cottages with solid basements out in the middle of nowhere.
It wasn’t all so bad. Birthdays, you see, were always miracles, when no one was sure if you’d live to see the next, when even you were surprised to make it this far.
Remus learned that he had to be careful about a lot of things. His father taught him to be careful about other people - they can never, ever be trusted to hold your secrets - and to be careful about himself - you must never, ever forget that you are you, you are not the thing that lurks in your bloodstream. Some things, Remus learned on his own: you have to be careful to hide the bottles of amber liquid around the full moon, because that’s when he gets the worst. You have to listen - do his words twist slowly, slipping over one another? - and you have to watch - do his feet fumble, scrape, give out at the ankle? You have to be careful, you have to take care, of yourself, of your people.
You have to be careful, Remus.
Every month was a lifetime, every full moon a death, every morning after a rebirth. And mostly, Remus was grateful that his eyes opened to see the dawn on those mornings, but sometimes, he wished they wouldn’t. He wished it would be over.
But it never was, and it was always the same, it was always the same, until one day - the day Albus Dumbledore came to their front door - and it wasn’t.
But before that hot summer’s day, before Albus Dumbledore came to call on the Lupins that were left, the letters came.
The first letter, emblazoned with green ink on heavy parchment, came the usual way, by the usual sort of owl. Remus didn’t see that owl, didn’t see that letter, and Lyall Lupin burnt it with his lighter - he allowed himself a cigarette a day, he allowed himself this vice, this vice he could control - and he didn’t mention the letter to Remus.
The second letter came like the first, and Lyall burnt it in the same way.
The third, fourth, and fifth letters came all at once, and Remus noticed the flurry of owls’ wings, and he asked his father about it. Lyall lied - because sometimes, in order to be careful, you have to lie, and one of the first lessons Lyall taught his son was that sometimes, it is more important to be careful than to be honest - and he told Remus to pack. It’s time to move.
They were going to move that summer, anyways, and so Remus doesn’t mind going too much. He was already ready, already resigned.
They moved to a small cottage in a coastal town in Wales, and the letters followed them. Owls’ wings cast shadows from on high, bearing tightly furled scrolls of parchment that Remus is not allowed to see. Lyall kept burning the letters, burning them to ash, and he locked the windows tightly on their first night at the cottage.
But as they woke up, the first morning in a new home, the letters were wriggling through the gaps in the cottage walls, and spiraling down the dusty chimney, and Lyall spun around and around with his open lighter, trying to burn the letters before Remus sees, and Remus was laughing, really properly laughing for the first time in months, because there’s just something funny about it all. And then Remus snatched a letter from the toaster, and ripped it open before Lyall can burn it, and it’s not so funny anymore.
Dear Mr. Lupin,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…
The parchment clenched in his small fist read like a recrimination, like a cruel joke. Remus wasn’t supposed to go to Hogwarts. He knew all about the magic school, the place where is father had gone when he was a boy, like Remus. Except he hadn’t been a boy like Remus, because there were no boys like Remus.
Shooting streams of purple bubbles into the air from his cradle, Remus had shown his magic at a very young age, and his parents had been delighted. His father had grown up with magic, had gone to Hogwarts and been a studious Ravenclaw. And while Hope had grown up a very ordinary girl in a very ordinary town, she had fallen in love with Lyall’s soft brown eyes and his magic tricks and his tales of a world that rumbled alongside her own, just out of sight unless you knew where to look. Hope fell in love with knowing where to look.
For five years, Hope and Lyall Lupin spun the kind of charms that have nothing to do with magic, and everything to do with being happy. With being a perfect-fit sort of a family, where the pieces go together just right.
But when Remus was five years old, a monster thrashed into his window, crashed into their world, and bit his little boy flesh. And ever since, their perfect-fit sort of family had gone a little jagged at the edges, tilting off-kilter.
The story of why the monster came for Remus on a sticky night in July wasn’t the kind of story you told little boys, but Remus wasn’t a little boy anymore and so his father explained why everything would have to change, why it wasn’t Remus’ fault, why it wasn’t anybody’s fault but the monster, why everything would be okay, why they would move heaven and earth to find a way out of the nightmare, why some nights he would feel as if he was breaking apart at the seams, why some mornings he would wake up alone, and why his mother and his father would always be there to take care of him. Lyall held his son close.
Some of what Lyall Lupin told his son was a lie. (Everything wouldn’t be okay.) Some of what Lyall Lupin told his son was truer than he could know on that first morning. (Everything would change, and then it would change again, and it would change in ways they never dreamt, and it would almost never be for the better.) Some of what Lyall Lupin told his son was wishful thinking. (There would be no cure.) Some of what Lyall Lupin told his son, some of it he said aloud because he needed to hear it. (Because it was his fault, he brought the monster upon his son, he did it, he did. He knew he was to blame, the sins of the father visited upon the son, a tiny boy with great, big eyes.)
He didn’t tell Remus about the day he met the monster called Fenrir Greyback. He didn’t tell Remus that he was certain that he was the reason that everything changed. Not that first morning, not then. That part of the story could wait.
He told Hope, though, and she struck him across the cheek, hard enough to stain his skin with bruises in the shape of her fingerprints. She didn’t say anything to her husband for two days; she didn’t sleep next to him for three months. But Remus didn’t know about any of this, not then.
Some of what Lyall Lupin said to Remus was just true at the time. (Always is a tricky thing .)
Hope, the perfectly ordinary girl from a perfectly ordinary town, who had grown up to be extraordinary only in the perfect fit of her heart around another’s, who had fallen in love with knowing where to look, couldn’t look away and for the first time, she wanted to. As it turns out, the magic that had brought so much to her life, this new world she had found, it could take away more than she ever thought she’d have. For two years, as her son’s bones broke with every full moon, as his screams echoed in her bloodstream, as her husband twisted further and further inwards, as the search for a cure, for any sort of help, faltered, as they moved from town to town, as they sunk deeper into hiding, Hope tried desperately to look at Remus, to look in the right way, to know where to look, to see a future. To see what her own name, given to her by her perfectly ordinary parents, had promised.
Hope couldn’t look away, but she didn’t know where to look. And one morning, a morning after the full moon, when Remus was seven years old, Lyall held his son close and told him another story that wasn’t the kind of story you told little boys. But Remus hadn’t been a little boy for a long time now.
“She’s gone, Remus - she had to go, and she said she was sorry, but she had to go away.”
“But where’d she go?”
“Back home,” Lyall whispered.
“We’re already home,” Remus said. “Will she come back?”
“I hope so.”
Years passed, and homes came and went, and Remus’ mother didn’t come back. A father and his son moved when they had to, cobbling together a life in the shadow of the full moon, under the threat of discovery. Remus learned that sometimes, it was preferable to pretend to be a character in a book, and he built himself a library of lives untouched by the monster. Lyall learned that sometimes, it was preferable to look at the world through the bottom of the glass.
When Remus turned ten years old, he asked Lyall if he would be going to Hogwarts soon, in a voice that stuttered with the kind of hope he was usually too careful to allow himself. Lyall shook his head, and tried to hold his son close, but Remus twisted free and ran to his room, ran to his books. He ran away in the only way he could, into his own mind.
It wasn’t just that it would be dangerous. It wasn’t just that boys like Remus couldn’t go to Hogwarts. It wasn’t just that Lyall Lupin was afraid for his son, afraid that their life would be torn open yet again. Remus, who as a baby had levitated his stuffed animals and laughed, who as a toddler had made his dinner plate race around the room, Remus hadn’t shown even the faintest sign of magic for years. And if he did, if Remus’ magic was still there, part of Lyall feared what that would mean, what the beast inside his son might become.
In fact, Remus’ magic had flared only once since the day he was bitten, on the first full moon after Hope had gone. Lyall had taken his son to the basement of their cottage on a hill, kissed him goodbye, and locked the door in the usual way. Magical wards, heavy iron chains. Dark fell and the moon rose and Remus’ body broke apart. And when day came, the moon was gone and Remus was himself again, bloodied and bruised and sore, so sore. His throat ached from a night spent howling, and he shivered, waiting for his father to let him out.
Before Hope had left, on the full moon nights, both of Remus’ parents would stay up ’til dawn, resting their backs against the chained basement door. Lyall would take Hope’s hand. They would listen to their son’s howls, his brutal thrashing, the angry chorus of his destruction, and they would wait. As soon as the moon faded away, they would rush to their son and hold him; Lyall would heal the wounds as best he could and Hope would tilt a glass of water to Remus’ lips. They would carry their exhausted son up to his bedroom, and he would sleep, and they would take turns watching his chest rise and fall.
But on this morning after, Lyall rested his back against the chained basement door, and he wrapped his fingers around the neck of a bottle and drank until his son’s howls had faded, until everything had faded, until the world went black. Slumped before the basement door, Lyall Lupin collapsed into a thick, blinding sleep. The sun rose in the sky, burning off the morning dew, and Lyall kept sleeping, while his son waited, shivering.
Hours passed. The sun rose to its highest point and began to fall again, and still Remus waited, and still Lyall slept. Remus called out in a tangled voice, but his father wasn’t there, he couldn’t hear, and Remus was alone. All alone.
Remus curled on his side, blood drying across his arms and a dull ache settling in his ribs, and he stared at the basement door. He wished, with all his strength, that the door would fly open, that his father and his mother would appear, that it would be just like it was before. Remus closed his eyes tightly, and he imagined the door flinging open, sunlight pouring in, his mother’s cool hands…
And then, with a loud crack, the door blew open, and Lyall tumbled backwards, knocking his head on the stairs. The sudden blow shocked him into consciousness; he twisted around, blinkingly assessing his surroundings, and then throwing himself down the stairs. His face curled into horror.
“Remus, Remus, I’m so, so sorry - I don’t know how - oh no, oh - I’m so sorry, Remus - Remus…” his father rattled, his stale breath hot and acrid on Remus’ cheek, pulling his broken son into his arms. “I won’t ever do that again, I didn’t mean to leave you…”
Worn through, Remus slipped into sleep without replying, and his father carried him up the stairs. And that was the last time that Remus had shown his magic, and it was the last time that his father let him wake up alone. It was not the last time that Lyall Lupin would spend his evening drinking to the bottom of a glass, though.
And now, Remus was eleven years old, and it was another hot July day. It had been six years since he was bitten, four years since his mother had left, five days since the full moon, four days since his father had taken a drink, three days since Remus had poured the firewhiskey down the drain.
A steady hand knocked seven times, precisely, heavily.
Lyall Lupin made for the door, hand reaching into a pocket for his wand, while Remus knelt at the top of the stairs, flattening himself against the railing, waiting. No one came to call on the Lupins.
“Who is it?” Lyall called through the flimsy door, his hand hovering over the doorknob.
“Albus Dumbledore,” a clear voice responded.
Remus had heard that name before, whispered by his parents during late night kitchen table conferences, and later, hissed by his father, part of the ongoing litany of people who had failed to help his son. Holding his breath, Remus watched from his shadowed perch. Curiosity kept Remus transfixed. Down below, Lyall’s hand hesitated, his fingers fluttering, and then he wrenched the door ajar. The man at the door - Albus Dumbledore, who was in charge of Hogwarts, that much Remus knew from the burnt-up letters - leaned forward into the light.
“Hello, Lyall,” he said pleasantly, extending a pale hand from cornflower blue robes. Lyall Lupin did not return the gesture, but he did step back into the house, allowing the visitor to enter the Lupins’ small cottage. Anger sprawled across his father’s face, and Remus held his breath. He had never seen another wizard. Lyall and Dumbledore stepped into the shabby living room, out of the pool of light welling at the foot of the stairs, and while Remus could no longer see the two wizards, he could hear them quite clearly.
“It’s you, isn’t it,” Lyall said acidly. “You’re to blame for all these damned letters. You weren’t any good when all of this started, said there was nothing to be done, and now, you’re just taunting us with these letters. Remus can’t - “
Dumbledore interrupted, his voice still calm. “I wish, more than almost anything on this earth, that I could have offered some help when Remus was hurt all those years ago. If there was a cure, if there was an answer, I would have given it to you both. I was able to exercise some influence on the Ministry, to keep Remus’ name out of the aftermath, but I know. It wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough. But I am in the position to do something now, and you know, I rather think that Remus ought to have a say in what he can and cannot do.”
Remus stiffened again; he had unconsciously shifted as he listened to Dumbledore’s interjection, leaning away from the wall and toward the voices. He heard the rustling of cloth, the soft groan of furniture and the whispering of robes against floor, and before he could draw back into the shadows, Albus Dumbledore was smiling up at him.
“Hello, Remus,” Dumbledore said pleasantly. “Would you like to join us?”
Remus stood shakily and headed towards the living room, where his father sat unmoving, silent. Lyall avoided his son’s eyes as Remus pulled himself cross-legged onto a stool.
“You have received some letters, now haven’t you, Remus?” Dumbledore asked, settling himself back into the armchair, turning to peer down at Remus.
“Yes,” Remus replied quietly. But he looked up to steadily meet Dumbledore’s gaze, which earned him a small twitch of a smile. “From Hogwarts. The magic school.”
“Precisely,” Dumbledore nodded. “I want you to come to Hogwarts, and to learn about magic with all the other children. We have a space for you, Remus. We have ever since you were born.”
Lyall shifted audibly in his seat, drawing his arms across his chest, all taut wire. But he remained silent. Again, Remus tried to catch his father’s eye, but Lyall was resolutely examining a crooked painting on the opposite wall.
Remus considered this. “Maybe, but some things change.”
Remus was only eleven years old, but he had grown up a long time ago, and he spoke like someone who had been alive for a very, very long time.
Dumbledore leaned forward, and Remus met his gaze, and he could not look away. “You are a werewolf, Remus. But you are also a wizard. And your life, it will be hard, for reasons that you cannot control, but the person you will become - that will be the sum of the choices you make. And I hope that you will choose to come to Hogwarts.”
With that, Dumbledore turned to Remus’ father. “We can keep him safe, Lyall. Only I and Madam Pomfrey, the school matron, will know. I have already made the arrangements for Remus to safely transform while he is at school. No one will know, unless he chooses to share that information.” Dumbledore inclined his head towards Remus at that last comment, who felt a slight shudder run through his body. The notion that he might voluntarily share his secret seem so implausible, so impossible. Lyall’s jaw tightened at Dumbledore’s words, and finally, he spoke.
“You can’t promise that he’ll be safe. You can’t promise that someone won’t find out, that his life won’t be ruined. And what good will learning magic do for him? What - what will it make him?”
Dumbledore’s eyes flickered at Lyall’s words, at the fear that broke his voice. “It won’t make him into anything. It will simply give him the tools to be who he wants to be. His magic, he was born with it. It won’t go away, and it cannot be ignored. The world cannot be ignored, Lyall.”
Lyall fell silent once again. Remus’ heart began to race. He wanted to go to Hogwarts - he always had. But it had never been an option, because he wasn’t like the other children who would grow to become witches and wizards. He had a secret to protect. He had never been able imagine a future beyond a few months, beyond a full moon. But to go to Hogwarts, to learn magic, to be with other people who knew about the magical world…surely, surely that would be worth the risk. He would just have to be careful. And he knew how to be careful.
“I want to go,” Remus said quietly, turning to face his father.
And with those four words, Lyall Lupin deflated. Dumbledore smiled gravely. It was settled.
Dumbledore stayed for a bit longer, explaining the arrangements to Lyall, who simply listened and nodded slightly. Remus barely heard Dumbledore’s description of the full moon provisions - something about a tree, and a house at the edge of a town, and the school matron. As Dumbledore swept out into the night, he produced an unburnt letter from the folds of his bright robes, and handed it to Remus.
“I will see you soon, Remus Lupin,” he said, just before he spun on the spot and disappeared with a sharp crack.
Remus’ father retreated into himself for the rest of the summer. He didn’t restore his supply of firewhiskey, which privately relieved Remus, but he barely spoke save for necessity. One day, he left Remus alone at the cottage and came back late in the afternoon, laden down with Remus’ school supplies. But Lyall didn’t speak of Hogwarts, of Remus’ impending departure, until the night before he was due to meet the Hogwarts Express.
“I understand why you want to go, Remus. And I’m proud of you, I really am. But I wish you would - I wish you would stay here, because if you go, I can’t protect you. I can’t keep you safe.”
Lyall paused, and inhaled heavily. Remus picked at the sleeves of his shirt, a nervous habit long ago acquired. Lyall continued.
“Dumbledore has ensured that you will have a place for the full moon, but that won’t be enough. You’ll have to lie to your classmates, Remus. They’ll wonder where you go, why you miss class, how you got your scars, your bruises. It will be hard. You’ll have to lie, because I can’t be there to keep you safe. So you’ll have to protect yourself. And the best way to do that is to be very, very careful, Remus. Keep everyone at a distance. Don’t get too close. Learn everything you can, but be careful. Please.”
Remus swallowed. “I will be. I promise.”
Lyall Lupin nodded. “Then that’s all there is to say.”
The next morning, Lyall walked Remus to the train stop. He embraced his son tightly on the platform, fiercely. And as Remus stepped onto the train, and turned back to look at his father, he saw tears in his eyes.
“I love you, Remus,” Lyall said in a voice just steady enough to carry over the churning engine.
“I love you, too,” Remus replied. And with that, the train pulled away, and Lyall Lupin shrank in the distance.
For the most part, Remus watches. He watches his instructors attentively, partially because he is simply used to being the diligent student who stays out of trouble, but mostly because he is truly enthralled by his lessons. He watches the students from the other three houses during meals and in the corridors, wondering what separates him from them, why he was put in Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw, and if maybe that was a mistake after all. He watches the other three Gryffindor first year boys most carefully of all, because these are the three people who pose the biggest threat. Too close, too close to not see, to not wonder. So Remus is careful to keep each at a distance, and to study their faces, to understand these ticking time bombs who sleep mere meters from his four-poster bed.
James and Peter go as a pair, in Remus’ mind. They knew each other before Hogwarts, although they don’t seem to be from the same place - Peter’s accent lilts a little, thickening whenever he forgets to tighten his mouth into a neutral tone. James is bright, blindingly so; he speaks loudly and quickly, tossing words out through grinning teeth like he doesn’t have to worry about where they’ll land. He is always moving, his hands twisting and legs sprawling and hair fluttering. He takes up so much space that Peter seems to just barely slip through the cracks, and Peter typically speaks only to chime in with James. Something in Remus’ spine twinges at Peter’s presence, recognizing within that quiet boy a fellow observer, which is the kind of person to fear when you’ve got something to hide. But mostly, Peter seems to be turned inward, a nervous sort just barely clinging on to himself because he’s so concerned with clinging to a brighter star. Perhaps not a threat to Remus at all, then, as long as he stays pleasant and bland, as long as he doesn’t look like he has anything to offer. And Remus has known boys like James before, and he knows that he’ll be the easiest to hide from. The trick is simply to be dull, to laugh politely and keep out of sight, and then boys like James, they just forget about boys like Remus. Remus wonders why James hasn’t forgotten about Peter yet, but he imagines it’s only a matter of time.
And then there’s the third boy, Sirius. He speaks rarely, even less frequently than Remus himself, who keeps up pleasantries as a form of camouflage. But when Sirius does speak, it is in the clipped tones of someone who grew up knowing his place in the world and looking down from its high pedestal. But he stalks around the castle like the last man on earth, like the odd one out. Whispers dog him like a shadow; Remus has heard the older students mutter about the Sorting Hat’s big mistake. Apparently, Sirius was supposed to be in Slytherin; Remus overheard some older Slytherins discussing Sirius’ family on the way to Potions. Powerful, wealthy, pureblood, always Sorted to Slytherin. And then there’s Sirius, sent to Gryffindor, and seemingly miserable about it. Sirius spends most of his free time brooding at the window; a recent verbal sparring match with James apparently solidified Sirius’ status as an outsider in his own house. Remus almost felt bad for the boy, felt some kind of kinship to him, but Sirius snarls and lashes out like a spoiled child whenever he feels threatened, and it all seemed a bit childish to Remus. Remus can’t be sure about Sirius, though; he isn’t sure how careful he needs to be around the boy. He can’t quite read those cold eyes, but he knows that he has to keep watching.
The first few weeks went by uneventfully. Remus spent most of his spare time studying in the library, or wandering the castle, soaking up the newness of it all, the magic of this place. He avoided the dormitory as much as possible - too close, too close. The first full moon of his time at Hogwarts rose on a cloudy night, and Madam Pomfrey walked Remus to the secret passageway at the base of that angry willow tree, and he transformed in an abandoned house in the town near Hogwarts. When he woke up, he was alone, and that stung a little, but for the most part, he just tries to forget about the full moon.
Lyall writes Remus often, and Remus saves all of his father’s letters in the pages of his textbooks. Lyall never mentions the full moon, the transformations, not by name, but always ends his letters with the same words:
I love you, Remus. Be careful.