Chapter Text
The 31st never seemed to be merciful to Remus Lupin.
August 31st, 1993 had been a full moon. Remus hadn't anticipated his monthly mutation to suddenly feel leisurely, and it undoubtedly wasn't—not since his days in school, anyway.
After every transformation—the ones he had given up on tallying—the same, agonising aches plagued his every movement. His own howls echoed in his mind's eye as a constant stream, a constant reminder of his inhumanity once every month. Not that he felt very human himself, most of the time.
Twelve years.
That's what he'd been counting instead.
Twelve years since he had been left utterly alone, deprived of any form of unprejudiced social interaction a lycanthrope could've achieved.
It wasn't as if he’d gone about Yorkshire yelling, regarding his wolfishness with pride—hell, even he refused to acknowledge it at times—it was the unfiltered repulsion on a shopkeeper's face as he reached for his rarely frequented money pouch to purchase supplies for a simple Healing Potion, the way his handful of neighbours blatantly stared at the raw wounds on his body after a particularly nasty night in the woods near his crumbling cottage.
He felt that same repulsion when Dumbledore had sought him out to offer him a job.
The same repulsion when he'd caught wind of Sirius escaping.
That shopkeeper really did have an impact on how he viewed things.
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Remus found himself on the Hogwarts Express for the first time since those horribly exhilarating days of his youth. Though he'd hand-picked the compartment furthest from where he'd spent those exact periods of time, he could still taste the familiar nausea the trolley’s sweets had brought him back then as his dilapidated briefcase hit the metal bars of the luggage rack.
The smarting twinges in his spine, the tenderness in his hamstrings—the platter of pains in his body had rendered him functionally useless, what more with the notion of beginning yet another job he would unequivocally get sacked from?
Alongside those thoughts, he also didn't know when he fell asleep.
Neither the jerky, rutted motions of the steam engine starting its journey nor the clamor of several students entering his space had stirred him. His slumber had always been light—his canine nature was to thank for that—but he'd learnt to tune anything unnecessary out.
Except it didn't come across as unnecessary when the life, warmth, and any sense of glee was siphoned out of the compartment.
A long, rattling breath beside him had compelled his better instincts to leap to his feet, fingers clenched around his wand as dazzling silver shot out the end of it, driving the hooded figure astray.
He circumvented casting a corporeal Patronus any chance he got.
He didn't need another reason to remember what was wrong with him.
He'd already been reaching into his tattered cloak for a bar of chocolate to split between the poor children when he caught sight of the boy to his right—
James.
No.
James was dead, he had to remind himself. It’d taken a good few seconds for him to get a grip on himself; it wasn't James, it was Harry.
Harry James Potter.
And he'd be lying to himself if he didn't feel it was the next best thing. He couldn't help but let his heart drop at the uncanny resemblance, even if Harry was on the ground and, well.. unconscious.
He sank back into his seat—his joints had somewhat rejuvenated during the brief nap—and quickly took in the young faces with a wry smile so as not to scare them off further.
Auburn hair, barely visible in the slowly reigniting lanterns, had caught his attention. The girl seemed to have fainted too, but her eyes had fluttered back open.
Lily.
It wasn't nearly as uncanny, but equally as unnerving.
Merlin, was it just a trick of the light, or was his past finding ways to pull his leg the one time he’d plucked up the courage to come back to it?
Remus was so caught up in his own reflections, he hadn’t noticed the resounding slaps in the small space.
Harry rustled, and he instinctually leant down, gently grasping his nape and tugging him into a sitting position before wiping the cold sweat off on his robes. A bushy-haired girl and a boy with those same fiery auburn locks—both of whom had been kneeling at Harry’s side and, presumably, smacking him—cast wary looks his way as they helped in hoisting their friend back onto the seat.
Harry's eyes flitted open fully, and Remus was met with a painstakingly electric green.
Shit.
“Wh—what happened? Where’d that.. thing go? Who was screaming?”
An anxious demeanour exuded from the round-faced boy opposite him. He reminded Remus awfully of Peter. “Screaming? No one was screaming.. y—you heard screaming?”
Harry looked quite humiliated. “..Yeah.”
“No one was screaming, Harry,” the red-haired boy spoke, a little more firmly.
He turned to Remus, a deflated look on his face. “What was that thing?”
The wry smile had made its way back onto his expression—though more sincere now—as he at last retrieved the chocolate from his cloak. “A Dementor. Guards of Azkaban. I expect they’re searching the train for Sirius Black.”
He had to refrain from flinching as he said the name.
He had started breaking the chocolate into large pieces, handing them out to all the pale faces—a particularly big one had gone to Harry. “Eat. It’ll help.”
They all just gawped at him, making no move at all to eat the confection as he crumpled the wrapper and stuffed it back into his pocket.
“Eat. It helps,” he repeated, more insistently. “I need to speak to the driver, excuse me..” Remus strolled past the group and into the corridor, sliding the door shut.
There was no driver. He’d gone a little ways down the freshly relit space, gazing out the windows as he attempted to recollect his sense of reality. Had he really just seen James, Lily, and Peter in the first interaction he had, with the students he was going to teach, no less?
He was about 70% sure he would go completely insane the moment he stepped into Hogwarts.
This job overall really didn’t seem like it was going to end very peacefully.
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Remus eventually walked back to the compartment, mentally bracing himself. He smiled softly at Harry as he sank back down into his previous seat. They seemed to have reserved it for him. Or avoided it altogether. He didn't want to ask.
His eyebrow quirked; they still hadn't eaten the chocolate—it was starting to meld into their fingertips at this point. “I haven't poisoned it, you know.. You can eat it.”
They all precariously brought it to their mouths as if it would implode on the spot. Each of them let out a small sigh of relief as it took effect, tension visibly leaving their bodies.
“We'll be at Hogwarts in 10 minutes.” Remus’ eyes lingered on the dark-haired, bespectacled boy. “How are you feeling, Harry?”
Remus was glad he didn't ask how he knew his name.
“Fine,” Harry muttered, apparently still embarrassed.
None of them spoke much in the time they had left.