Chapter Text
Remus Lupin. A new Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. So close to Harry. Such a wonderful teacher. Such a wonderful man. So lovable. Too lovable. Too perfect . There must be something wrong about him. There definitely is.
Is he the infamous Sirius Black in Polyuice Potion? Or is he his accomplice?
Or is Snape trying to poison him? And if so, why?
Finally, the mystery is uncovered: the poor fellow is a werewolf, a creature that the whole Wizard society feared, hated and despised. He couldn't even find a paid job just because he was... him. The prejudice around werewolves was huge and appalling.
Poor Lupin. So good, so sweet, so talented, so wise... but she also couldn't forget how scary he felt when he was about to kill his old friend Peter Pettigrew, who had betrayed all of his group of friends, turning one of them and his wife over to the terrible Voldemort (which resulted in their death) and framing their other friend for his own fake death and for the deaths of several people who Peter himself had murdered.
Lupin had been so shocked and consumed by pain and hatred that he even forgot to take the potion that made him a harmless wolf, and acted too cold and threatening for such a usually lovely person.
She was absolutely fascinated by him back then.
And later, when he became a member of the Order of the Phoenix, she knew she was lost.
Such a sweet, sad and kind man, but also stern when he really had to. People in the Order actually obeyed him. They respected him. They loved him. They relied on him. And his sense of humour (so often dry and self-deprecating) warmed her heart so much.
When he comforted Molly Weasley after making her Boggart disappear, she knew she would love him forever. He would always be her biggest fictional crush.
"Fictional"?! Oh yes, did I forget to mention it? Silly me. He was a character from the "Harry Potter" books, while she was a Portuguese woman, a former actress and singer who now worked as a tutor and kept acting and singing in amateur theater groups.
She suffered from AuDHD and lived with her elderly parents and her cat in her own universe: a non-magical world, where wizards and werewolves were nothing but myths.
She had written her first piece of "Harry Potter" fanfiction in 2004, inventing a self-insert OC, and she had dreamed about Lupin himself. Not David Thewlis. The same Lupin she had seen in her head before his casting, while reading the books. So real, so vivid. He was saving her from some guys who wanted to kill her, she didn't even know why.
She had mourned him like a real-life crush when he died in the last book and hated "Harry Potter" for long years.
Now she was back. Most of her friends were Potterheads, so she decided to give it a chance. And there she was, in love with the same freaking fictional character again.
"I'm too old for this", she used to repeat to herself, but then she would always find herself swooning for Lupin again.
So, she decided to get back to her days as a fanfiction author. And to redeem her OC, Mary Hallow, now with a new name: Mary Scamander.
She had just finished her latest one, "Bring Me To Life", about Remus surviving the war and remembering his whole life. It was as faithful to canon as it can be, seeing that he survived and had to learn to deal with his terrible memories, the loss of Tonks and raising Teddy.
The fanfic drained her so much emotionally that she decided she would write a silly romantic comedy as soon as she could bring herself to write again.
***
Maria Duarte. People called her Mary as a nickname.
James, Sirius and Peter used to mock him about preferring to dream about a fictional awkward Portuguese Muggle then about real-life girls.
Mary was a character from a book series which had a very long and very weird title: "AuDHD: The Life And Dreams of a Muggle Who Felt Out of Place".
It followed her life story from her childhood all through to her adult years.
Remus had always known how it was to feel out of place. That's why those books always felt too close to home, even if they talked about a fantasy world where magic and werewolves simply didn't exist.
He had never finished reading the series though. What happened? Graduation happened.
He was denied paid jobs because of his condition. James had helped him financially, but he couldn't ask him to buy him a book, could he?
Then James died and not only he lost all his friends in one night, but he also started living hand to mouth. No money for extras. Not even to allow him to take his beloved collection with him. He sold most of it to an old book store. He kept only one. His favourite. The one he kept coming back to whenever he felt like he needed some comfort.
Remus couldn't love. Or he shouldn't. He'd always felt like werewolves weren't allowed to. It would be too dangerous and too much of a burden for anyone who would choose to live with such a creature.
But he had so much love in his lonely and melancholy heart that he had to place it anywhere. So he placed it into a fictional character.
Maria. Mary. She couldn't abandon him. He couldn't hurt her. It felt like the perfect arrangement. But it wasn't. Because although his feelings were real... she wasn't.
He was now in the library of Grimmauld Place, his old friend Sirius Black's family house, which had become the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, a secret war resistance group.
Voldemort, the monster that had killed his friend James and his wife Lily, Harry's parents, had returned and "the boy who lived" was now discredited and, what was much worse, in danger. Not just him, but the whole Wizarding World.
A month earlier, he had heard someone knocking on the door of his semi-derelict cottage in Yorkshire.
"Yes?", he called. But no one answered. All his wolfish instinct became alert.
"Hello?" He called again. Complete silence. He picked up his wand, ready to face whomever it was, and walked towards the door with his heart pounding.
Then, he heard a loud "pop" behind him. He jumped and looked towards the place where the sound came from... and saw a humongous black dog which looked suspiciously like he was about to start laughing.
Remus exhaled, lowered his wand and rolled his eyes.
"Padfoot", he said. "Of course. I should have known. How did you find me? And, above all, what in Merlin's name are you doing here?"
The dog started changing and soon gave place to a man. He was about the same age as Remus and as thin, pale, thin and scruffy-looking as him, but those were the only similarities. The man was much taller, had very long black hair and grey eyes that bore an expression that was both mischievous and arrogant.
"Good gracious, Moony! Is that the way to welcome your brother to this old shoe box you call home? And where's your sense of humour, mate?"
"Lost it in the woods on the last full moon." Remus answered dryly. "Welcome to my... shoebox, Sirius. You scared the hell out of me. But my questions remain unanswered. One: how did you find me? And two: what are you doing here?"
"Fine, fine. No fun then," sighed Sirius, shrugging his shoulders. "One: Dumbledore sent me. Two: Dumbledore sent me. He suspected he knew where you were hiding and he asked me to find you."
Remus observed his old friend for a moment and then pointed at a bumpy, tattered and holey old sofa.
"You may sit down."
Sirius hesitated, furrowing his brow in mock distrust:
"Is it... safe?"
Remus sighed impatiently:
"No. It's inhabited by garden gnomes who like to bite smarty-pants' buttocks."
"Oh, you're safe then." Sirius snorted, but he did sit down, while Remus filled a kettle with water and put it to boil with a flick of his wand.
"Tea?" He offered.
"Don't you have some firewhiskey?"
"I'm afraid I drank the whole lot before your surprise arrival", Remus answered with sarcasm.
"Now," he continued with a softer tone, "where have you been, mate?"
"Here and there." Sirius answered vaguely. "Enjoying my freedom... mostly as a dog, of course. But still."
Remus didn't press further. He knew how delicate that subject should be for his friend. He changed the subject instead:
"I've been reading the Daily Prophet. I suppose that's the reason why you're here."
The mischievous look in Sirius' eyes immediately disappeared. In its place, something way more serious (no pun intended):
"Yes. It is. Voldemort is back. Everything that rag is saying is a bunch of bollocks. Neither Harry is lying nor Dumbledore is mad."
"That much I deduced." Remus stopped as if bracing himself to ask something he didn't know whether or not he had the right to. "How's Harry doing?"
"How on earth am I supposed to know, considering he's stuck with those filthy Muggles and Dumbledore has banned everyone from contacting him?" Sirius enquired, bitterness in his voice.
Once more, Remus didn't press and changed the subject, giving Sirius a mug with tea and getting his own.
"If I were to venture a guess," he began gravely. "I would say that Dumbledore wants to gather a new Order of the Phoenix and he wants me to join again, am I right?"
Sirius let out a mock admiring whistle.
"There it is." He said. "Good old Moony's legilimency."
"Not that again." Whined Remus. "I am not a legilimens."
Sirius interrupted him:
"You're as good as one. You always seem to know what people are thinking."
"I am simply a good observer." Remus replied with both the awkwardness of someone who doesn't know how to deal with compliments and the impatience of someone who has explained the same old thing millions of times. "It comes with the territory of always having to lie low."
"Oh. Right. About that..." Sirius started.
"About me lying low?"
"No, no. Not you. Me. Dumbledore told me to lie low here."
Remus almost choked on his tea.
"What?! Here? What do you mean, here? There's barely room for a werewolf, let alone a werewolf and a mad dog!"
"Thank you." Said Sirius with a smug smile. "Dear old Dumbie doesn't want me to be by myself. He thinks I'm not... what were his words again? Ah, yes, 'mentally stable'. I rather prefer the term 'mad dog', if you ask me.
"I didn't ask", shot Remus, though the corners of his mouth were unable to conceal a smirk.
"He should have known you could never control me. You never could, even when he made you a prefect."
Remus furrowed his brow:
"Some of us might have changed a bit."
"Merlin's underpants!" Sirius exclaimed. "Are you trying to tell me you became even more boring than you were before?"
"Not boring. Responsible." Remus looked at him with a teasing smirk. "And I don't remember you finding me boring on full moons."
Then, he went back to his worried self:
"But how on earth are you going to hide here?"
"I'm not." Sirius answered simply.
"You bet you're not, because... Wait. What?" Remus stopped and blinked in utter confusion. "You're not? But Dumbledore..."
Sirius interrupted him:
"Dumbledore is using my parents' old house as the headquarters of the Order. That gloomy old place is mine now, so I offered it to him. And I decided to stay there."
Remus looked at him, his eyes narrowing:
"But... as far as I know, you always hated that house."
"Yeah, well, they're trying to make it habitable. And everyone's there, in and out. I don't feel as lonely. Plus," he added with a mischievous blink. "there's Emmeline Vance, remember her?"
Remus rolled his eyes. Of course. There should be a woman. There was always a woman. And Sirius has spent 12 years locked in Azkaban. He deserved to make up for the lost time. Still, he had to suppress a chuckle, imagining how tall Sirius would look beside Emmeline, who had the height of an average 12 year old.
Black proceeded:
"Better than Azkaban. And better than always being alone. Also, better than keeping living on the streets like the mad dog I am. Or here." He added, looking around. "How can you stand living here?"
Remus sighed and looked away to try to hide his embarrassment.
"It's been my home for a long time now. And I have no choice, do I? Always moving from one job to another. Mainly hand to mouth really."
Sirius clapped his hands and said with a triumphant tone in his voice:
"Of course you have a choice, Remus! You're a member of the Order of the Phoenix. You'll stay at the headquarters."
"What?!" Shrieked Remus, visibly alarmed. "In the headquarters? Are you mad? I'm a werewolf, remember? What if I hurt someone?"
Sirius rolled his eyes impatiently:
"Here comes Lupin, the drama queen. Some things never change, do they? Relax, Moony boy. It was Dumbledore's idea. He's got someone to brew you that potion. Everyone will be completely safe."
Sirius looked at Remus and, for once, he understood him. So, he said earnestly:
"Come on, Remus. I've failed you so much in the past. Let me make it up to you a bit by offering you a bedroom at that old place. I know it's dark and haunted, but it's better than this. And you'd have friends there. So, what do you say?"
Remus had thought for a while and he ended up accepting the offer.
Now, a month later, he was living in London, at number 12, Grimmauld Place, going on dangerous missions, taking part in important meetings and trying to contain Sirius, who was in a terrible mood. He felt trapped in that old house that kept reminding him of a family he had never felt as his, due to their Pure Blood ideology.
It wasn't the quiet life Remus was used to in Yorkshire, but at least he had a decent place to live, good meals, friends and an important role in the Order. And how he loved feeling helpful.
It had been a huge surprise when he had found out that Snape was the one brewing him the Wolfsbane Potion again and that he had also become part of the Order. But he fully trusted Dumbledore, so he never questioned it.
On his spare time, like this one, he liked to listen to old jazz records and to read.
With the little change he had, he bought the rest of the books from the "AuDHD" collection, the ones he had never read before.
It was one of those afternoons when everyone but Sirius was out and he was finishing one of the last books that he suddenly heard a "pop".
He looked up to see a very confused woman, about his age, dressed in something that looked like pink pyjamas with funny drawings.
She was a bit curvaceous, short, with almond-shaped brown eyes and a hair colour that was something between blonde and copper. He found her disturbingly beautiful. She reminded him of... No, she was exactly like... No. It couldn't be. And again, he remembered a dream he had about this same woman, except... different. Younger maybe? But... how?
"Who... are you?" He stuttered.
The woman blinked, visibly distressed.
"Do you speak English?" He asked slowly.
She studied him for a while and finally spoke, looking utterly flabbergasted:
"You're... You're Remus Lupin."