Chapter Text
Remus didn’t really have a place he called home. It was something he dreamed about often. He lived in a house, sure, with his mum and dad but they never stayed anywhere long enough for it to feel like home. They moved around a lot, and the older Remus got the more frequent the moves. Most of his childhood had been spent in the Welsh countryside, in adorable little cottages and villages. However, a couple of years ago his father moved them to the north of England, and in January after a particularly awful full moon, they had spilled over the border into rural Scotland. As the moves became more frequent, the family’s money dwindled and so the accommodation became a bit lacking. It was quiet here, though, and Remus supposed he quite liked it. He hadn’t been allowed friends as long as he could remember and that was a lot easier to swallow when there were no neighbours for miles and no children until even further away.
Remus was a werewolf, a fact which made him shiver whenever his mind liked to throw it at him. But it was this fact which made him an obedient and dutiful son because his parents had sacrificed everything for him and his condition. Just before he turned five, he was bitten and everything changed. His parents were the ones to pick up the pieces.
His parents were an odd couple, Remus reckoned, not just because his dad was a wizard and his mum was a Muggle, but because they were quite different people. Lyall Lupin was a man whose face was cast in a permanent shadow. His dark and pointed features were accentuated by the permanence of his frown and his serious words. He could often be seen reading books with titles such as Caring for the Obscenely Ill Child and Sometimes Hiding is For the Best which Remus thought was a little on the nose. Lyall had held a decent role in the Ministry of Magic before Remus got bitten, but after the full effects of the monthly transformations were felt, he had been forced to reduce his hours drastically to search for a cure or remedy. For the last six years, his efforts had been in vain. Nobody liked to bring that up, though.
On the other hand, his Muggle mother was lighter and cheerier. Remus liked to think he shared a little more of her than his father. Her eyes twinkled happily, and although she had aged quicker than naturally because of all the stress, her soft mousy hair was as vibrant as ever. She wasn’t magic, but she still tried to understand and her number one priority was searching for a cure. She spent her days pouring over great volumes of local healers and remedies but again, everything was about as helpful as an umbrella in a tornado. He got on best with mum, which deep down he thought was because he wished he wasn’t magic at all like her. Maybe that’s why he neglected his father’s magical education lessons and preferred instead to read books with mum or watch TV or listen to funny stories on the radio. Anything to throw away the thought that he had magic in him, because unlike his father who could delight and dazzle with his spells, Remus’ magic was cursed and dark. He knew this because his father often said it.
One evening when he was quite small, he awoke with a tummy ache and padded down the stairs with his big white blanket trailing behind him to ask for help. But he stopped when he heard his parents arguing in the other room. Rubbing his bleary eyes, he leaned his ear against the wall to listen. He had been quite good at keeping hidden after all the practice.
‘Merlin, Hope! You can’t forget he’s a monster . I’ve spent all my career dealing with these creatures and every one of them is as foul as the last. He is dangerous, probably full of dark magic! We can’t let our guard down at all,” Lyall had hissed. At first, Remus thought his dad was talking about one of the scary criminals from his work but then his mother squeaked,
‘And he’s our son first! Stop treating him like he is anything less. He is our baby . I love him.’ Her voice was strained and tearful and from behind the wall Remus winced as though he had been smacked in the face by his father. Perhaps that would have hurt less.
‘Don’t you dare, you know I love him too. But I want him healthy, I want him rid of this disgusting disease. He’s not the same and you know it,” Lyall began to cry and Remus heard enough. He crept back upstairs and ignored his tummy ache. Remus supposed that’s when the rift between him and his father really began.
Remus was ten, and on this Scottish spring day the rain was naturally pelting the window panes at a near enough ninety degree angle. They were staying in a cabin in Galloway, where their only company was the wind and the waves crashing against the cliffs. The decoration was limited, but Hope had put up a mixture of magic and muggle pictures, as well as some of Remus’ happier childhood drawings. A circular, frayed rug took up most of the floor but Remus thought it was a good thing because some of the nails in the floorboards were a little loose. They had three rooms between them, a shared living room and kitchen, a bathroom, and one bedroom. Remus slept on the couch, out of his own insistence. It was tiny, but it worked. The main reason they lived here is because it came with a particularly formidable attic, if you did the right spell, which worked perfectly along with security enchantments for securing dangerous things. Remus’ monthly cell for transformations, in other words. He couldn’t complain. The last place was nicer, but the wolf had torn it to shreds.
The fire was crackling beside him and the smell of bacon was filling their tiny cabin making his mouth water.
‘Smells amazing, mum,” he beamed.
‘Oh, thanks, dear. Just a spot of lunch,’ Hope hummed amid the sizzling. In the other corner, Lyall was reading the Daily Prophet which Remus could tell because of the moving pictures on the front. Remus sat at the wonky wooden table and lay his head in his arms as he turned to face the radio. He closed his eyes and listened, getting lost in the wonderful Muggle stories playing out. They were much better than real magic, Remus reckoned. In these stories, he found friends. That was one of the many secrets Remus kept and certainly one of the most embarrassing. But still, he could get carried away to imagine himself as a Muggle boy, playing football and going to school. That’s when the thought came to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he spoke to a child, magic or otherwise. The thought made him sigh, which he was known to do sometimes. But he knew real friends were a dangerous thing, and the closest a boy with his disease could get was the imaginary Muggle voices that laughed with him from the radio. That was fine, he supposed. And if he wasn’t allowed to have much human company, then his father’s Puffskein was good at making up for it. The little ball of fur was like a palm sized pom-pom currently licking Remus’ fingers with his extraordinarily long tongue. Puffy might have had the most unoriginal name, but he was a good pet. Remus’ father used to keep all sorts of magical creatures. He could vaguely remember fairies in jars and a large kneazle used to roam the house. At one point, his father kept many poisonous frogs and warty toads. But then after he got bitten, his parents decided they were too vulnerable in the house. Puffy stayed, mostly because nobody else wanted him on account of his constant finger licking.
Bacon sandwiches never looked so good. Sometimes the Lupins skipped breakfast, and Remus couldn’t complain. His way of looking at things was that it just made lunch all the better. And he really didn’t want to bother his mum even more by saying he was hungry. So he ate slowly and savoured every mouthful with a contented grin.
‘You’ll be eleven next week,’ Lyall said with a sad smile. Remus wondered what was so miserable about his own birthday.
‘Yeah,’ he nodded through a mouthful of bacon.
‘It’s a great shame you won’t get into Hogwarts, son. But we will make do,’ and his father patted him on the shoulder and ate a bite of his own sandwich. Remus just shrugged,
‘I know.’
He had heard about Hogwarts in dribs and drabs. It sounded like an amazing place, but his father often trailed off whenever he realised who he was talking to. Remus had long accepted he wouldn’t go to a wizarding school because no matter how much he hated it, he was no ordinary wizard. He was dangerous and dark, something evil that no parent in their right mind would want prowling about with their normal, innocent children. Besides, the more months that passed, it was clear the more dangerous he was becoming. His arms and torso were thick with scratches and for the first time in his life he had been left with some permanent scars as a result of his transformation. They, along with the original bite mark, reminded him of what he really was. So Hogwarts, as extravagant and exciting as it sounded, remained to Remus as if it were one of those fantastical places in Muggle books or shows. Maybe the pain was worse for his dad, knowing what he was missing out on.
But it didn’t matter much. Remus was happy being as much like his mum as possible.
It was these wistful thoughts that lingered in Remus’ mind as he saw his father jump beside him.
‘Dad? What’s wrong?’
His father looked awfully pale, and beads of sweat were already forming at his brow. Remus glanced at his mum, who looked just as confused as he did.
‘No- nothing, no. I must have dreamt it, I swear I just saw someone passing the window,’ Lyall spoke in a shaky sort of voice with his fingers gripping the table and his head peering this way and that to get a better look. Remus and Hope turned to the window and just saw the rain hitting harder than ever.
‘Perhaps it was the wind, dear. Dragged something along,’ Hope offered and finished her sandwich.
‘Yes, perhaps. Perhaps,’ he muttered. Lyall left the remnants of his sandwich and stepped over to the window and immediately screamed in fright. The rest of the family followed suit and sprung into action. With thumping hearts and desperate shouts, they moved into position against the intruder. They had drills for this, but Remus had never actually been in this situation. His father immediately pulled out his wand and tapped the corner of a rather crumpled Brecon Beacons poster which made the entrance to the attic appear. In moments, Remus was scurrying up the ladder and locked inside. From below, he heard his mother scurrying about to lock doors and close curtains with the occasional shriek or yelp of surprise, and his father muttering incantation upon incantation and yelling things such as, ‘Not today, old man!’ and giving a forced, nervous laugh.
Remus cowered into a little ball in the corner of the dusty attic, scrunched up his eyes, and pressed his hands against his ears to block out the noise. He didn’t want to hear who it was coming for him. If someone was here to kill him, he would rather not know he was about to die. It was just a shame he had to die here, in his miserable little cell where claw marks littered the floors and walls. In his state of impending doom, a clear, calm voice cut across his mind and simply said,
‘Hullo, there.’
As if nothing had happened at all, in the blink of an eye, Remus found himself back in front of the fire downstairs. He looked up and saw his parents leaning against each other smiling and chatting as they looked down at Remus. He was not a little confused. Puffy was hopping about and squeaking excitedly and at first Remus wondered why but then he noticed he was holding a plate of jam covered crumpets. His face beamed, and he took one for himself, breaking off a bit for Puffy too. Setting the plate aside, he was still staring dazed at the floor where it looked like he had been playing a rather rowdy game of Gobstones. But surely that couldn’t be right, he must have gone mad. He blinked, and dared to look up in front of him, because he knew someone was there.
‘Your turn,’ the man said. Remus opened his mouth in wild amazement. The man was old, dressed in deep purple robes with little golden suns on them. His tall hat was crooked and looked heavy to wear, but nothing about the man showed discomfort. His long, billowing beard was flecked white and grey but despite his age, his twinkling eyes seemed very youthful from beneath those half-moon glasses. What was most spectacular about this man was that he was completely bone dry despite the fact the storm was as ferocious as ever out there. Remus was intrigued, not only because of the visitor, but also because of the fact he was playing Gobstones, a game his dad had stopped playing with him years ago.
Remus flicked his Gobstone and pushed the man’s out, causing a stream of disgusting liquid to fly in the man’s face. In any other circumstance, Remus would have found this delightful and hilarious.
‘Sorry,’ he said quickly and looked up with a tomato red face. But the man chuckled and wiped his face with a handkerchief,
‘Not at all. It is quite a fun amusement, and once upon a time, I could make a shot like that.’
Remus looked up at that, smiling wide and toothy. He glanced back at his parents who were also grinning. How had the situation gone from terrifying to delightful in five minutes? Remus didn’t want to disturb the cosy air, so took a bite of his crumpet and let the adults do the talking.
‘I suppose you will know why I am here, Lyall and…’ he turned to his mum and bowed his head, ‘Hope, I believe?’ His mum nodded politely and Remus could tell she was a little nervous.
‘Surely not, Professor Dumbledore, sir?” Lyall said with a tremor in his voice, ‘I mean it’s a delight to see you, of course, but…well, Remus cannot attend Hogwarts, I’m afraid. He’s a…’ he paused and flicked his eyes around as if there was a spy in the room, ‘werewolf,’ he whispered like a hiss. Remus raised his eyebrows at that, it wasn’t often either of his parents said it how it was, instead preferring vague terms like ‘his special disease’ or his ‘moon problem,’ which Remus particularly hated. So, this man was from Hogwarts. It suddenly made it more painful that he couldn’t go, knowing the reality was tangible in front of him. Remus frowned as he looked from adult to adult.
‘Please, Lyall. It has been some time, you may call me Albus,’ Dumbledore said with a twinkle. Remus got the impression that this incredibly mild-mannered man secretly hid a wealth of power, after all he had managed to break through his dad’s defences, was from Hogwarts, and both his parents seemed a little frightened of him. Remus decided he liked Dumbledore.
‘Very well, Albus, sir. Remus- he can’t… he’s too dangerous. Other parents, they’ll freak out!’ Lyall said, still through hushed, strained whispers.
‘I’m sorry, Remus,’ his mum said as he noticed him staring at Dumbledore with wide, glittering eyes. It snapped him back to reality and he nodded along to his father’s warnings: dangerous, dark creature, violent, destructive, evil. In fairness to Remus, he only really felt like that on full moons or when his dad had eaten the last of his sweets.
‘I’m quite aware of Remus’ condition,’ Dumbledore said coolly, ‘and I dare say the fool who did it has been gloating about it for some time.’
Remus felt his face grow red again and he ducked his head down and tugged at his shirt sleeves to avert his father’s gaze because one look at him would send Remus spiralling into guilt. Lyall and Hope were seething at this news, Lyall in particular was looking a shade of green.
‘That- that vile creature ,’ he spat.
‘ My son ,’ Hope muttered repeatedly, appalled.
‘I’m afraid Greyback will never change his revolting ways,’ Dumbledore said and all three Lupins flinched at the name. It had not been spoken in this family for six years. Remus fiddled with the fraying threads on his shorts and kept his head down. Dumbledore took note of the cold atmosphere and continued, ‘However, that does not mean young Remus here should have to pay. He should, as all magical eleven year olds in this country, be given a good education.’
Remus shot his head up again at that. This was the first person in Remus’ life who believed that he should go to school. His parents, long ago, had wished and hoped for it but the dream had been left a mangled corpse over the last couple of years of transformations. Was it dangerous to hope when it was dangling right in front of him? Remus bit his cheek and crossed his fingers beneath his armpits as he looked even more eagerly at the adults.
‘How would he be kept safe?’ His mum asked, and rather flippantly his dad added,
‘And how will the other children be kept safe?’
Dumbledore looked at Remus as he spoke, ‘Well, Lyall, I presume you remember the wide and enchanted grounds of Hogwarts? There are many safe spaces we could use. But Minerva and Madam Pomfrey and I have devised a plan - no, don’t worry, these are the only people who know and I trust them with my life - involving a neat little building on the edge of the grounds. The entrance to which is protected by a Whomping Willow, freshly planted last week, and a number of defence spells. I assure you, he will be safer transforming there than here,’ he added with a more dangerous look in his eye.
His parents gave each other a knowing look, and crossing his arms and casting his eyes over towards his son, Lyall said,
‘Very well, then. Remus shall go to Hogwarts.’