Disclaimer: All J.K and Saban. I just kinda play with the wonders of their imagination…

A/N: This plot has eaten my brain alive. I mean, ever noticed how alike Remus and Billy are? Com'n, I have! Lol. Well, this is gonna be slash ( my first ever) but I can't decide between a Jason/Billy or a Remus/Billy. Leave reviews to answer! It's slightly AU. Post-war, HP. For story purposes, let's assume Billy left Earth in 1995, as an eighteen-yr-old. (hence the AU) Now he's twenty-three and bitter b/c of events that will be explained in later chapters. Same with Remus. His attitude is strange now, but it'll be explained.

Rating: PG-13

Brother Wolf  by biggerstaffbunch

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The pub on E.Linder Boulevard was small and smoky, a brick building with a flashing neon sign out front and smog smothering the condensation-dripping windows. Peeling stickers advertised "Free Beer!" or "Free Raffle!" The dollar sign on the jackpot marker was earmarked and falling down, and the place looked as dilapidated and old as the owner, Mugs, was. Everything about the place was faded, ancient, dark, and gloomy. The pub, Merre Olde Manny's, was where one would go in the wizarding community in an attempt not to be seen. This pub was where the outcasts of Lindersville went.

Inside the pub sat two weary, lone strangers. They were new in Lindersville.

Lindersville, a town of small magical notoriety, was basically one long cobbled street lined with old-century wizarding buildings mingled with failed attempts at Muggle modernity (convenience stores, technology markets, food stores). It was not so well-known to draw large crowds, but it was talked of enough in small circles within the wizarding community to know that if you were in trouble, Lindersville would do. Named after Manny Linder, one of the most notorious wizards of the '30's, Merre Olde Manny's began its reputation as a half-way house for those in trouble or just plain persecuted in the early days of WWII.

Supernatural creatures just weren't accepted back then, and so they would discreetly be directed to Manny's, where the owner- a vampire, himself- would shack them up in his upstairs apartment. All kinds of creatures; witches, wizards, boggarts, trolls, hags, veelas. After the war ended and Muggles retreated back into their own consciousnesses, the creatures found themselves finding homes near Manny's, soon enough setting up a whole community named Lindersville. The current mayor was a wizard named Ellie, whom the E.Linder Bvd was named for. He welcomed creatures of the night, he boasted. Even the Dark Lord's former slaves- werewolves.

This leads us again to the two strangers sitting in Manny's in the year 2000, sitting together yet apart.

On one side was a middle-aged, shabbily dressed man of perhaps forty-five. He sat nursing a beer, his gray eyes ringed with experience and warm smile weary. He had day-old gray and brown stubble, dots of rough hair that traveled down his chin to meet his dirt-smudged white collar shirt. The man was a professor of sorts, apparently, with a briefcase at his feet and dirt-stained khaki pants paired with a gray tweed coat. A tie lay loose on his chest. The patrons of the pub stayed away, belying the man's seeming peacefulness. They weren't daft, and they didn't want a fight; the man simply radiated power. Rubbing a hand through his thick brown hair, he looked at his companion with interest.

Conversely, sitting across from the bookish-forty-five-year-old, a youth of twenty-three stared into his water. Water was all he could keep down at the moment; the conversation was giving him indigestion. He was untouched by Nature, his skin smooth and tan, his eyes bright and piercing blue. There was an air of defeat and contrasting adventure in his gaze, telling stories of hardship and love lost behind the cool-water colored orbs. He wore a pair of rumpled jeans and a faded blue flannel shirt. The manner of dress held a different air of age than the gentleman's. Instead of holding suggestions of wear and tear, these clothes were simply out of date.  It was as if he had grabbed something from his teenage life and thrown it on in the year 2000. Which, essentially, he had.

The boy looked up, blue eyes meeting gray, and the question unspoken in the older gentleman's eyes was answered.

"I need a break," the younger man conceded wearily, dragging his fingers across the rim of his glass. A long one. From everything.

The older gentleman nodded thoughtfully, taking a sip of his foul-smelling draft. "I suppose you would. How long has it been since you've had a moment from them?" His steel-colored eyes watched the youth carefully. Meaning: tell me more.

The young man looked down, his cheeks reddening. "Five years." Most definitely not a moment. Or even several moments. His eyes had an air of shame, and he ducked his head, shrugging. "It's still impossible for me to even fathom going back. They all have their own lives now; I wouldn't fit in. Besides, they abandoned me." He took a swig of his water as if it were the Elixir of Life.

The older gentleman raised an eyebrow. Poor boy. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer something a bit stronger?"

"No." The younger man hesitated. "Alcohol has never agreed with me." More like I've always been terrified of what would happen with some courage in my system.

"Ah."

The two sat in silence until the younger man broke it again desperately.

"I mean, it's not as if they ever attempted to contact me during my absence. If they really wanted to hear from me, don't you think they would attempt to get in touch with Aquitar? And I've been back on Earth for a year now. Why haven't any of them looked in on me? Because I'm the forgotten one." Another swig. "Out of sight, out of mind." A pause. The youth ducked his head again, his ears reddening. "I hope that you don't find me ungrateful or childish. I know I must sound very much like I'm whining." But I have a right.

The older gentleman laughed softly. "No. No, I find your bitterness…intriguing."

The young man's eyes widened. "Oh. Well. I…I've been talking about myself for a long time. Why-why don't you tell me about yourself?" He stammered this out, his hands clutching his glass. It wasn't good to be intriguing. Not here. Where I could spill much more than I've already stupidly said.

The gentleman gave a closed-off, lazy smile. "Not terribly interesting, myself," he said. "Decidedly mundane existence, if anyone could have a mundane existence here. But I suppose you already know all about that." He gave a significant look. Seeing as you were the one seeking me out.

"I know a little," the young man conceded. It was evident by the shifty way he averted his eyes that he was keeping something. Not enough to be a good liar. "For example," he rushed on at the older man's dubious look, "I know that you attended and taught briefly at Hogwarts." The boy pushed his glasses up self-consciously. "That, if I'm correct, is the largest and most widely known wizarding school in the world."

The older gentleman smiled. "Is that all you know about me?" There was a haunted look in his eyes, and he seemed to intentionally probe. Do you see in me what I see in you?

The younger man hesitated. "Yes?" It came out more like a question, and he flushed. I see something in you, but I could never say it out loud. It's too…far-fetched. "I know that the people my father spoke to spoke highly of you."

"William Sr., correct?" The older gentleman rested his chin on the steeple of his fingers. "He was very eager to know about life in the wizarding world." Why is that?

The younger man smiled. "That's because my mother was a part of it. Before she died of cancer, when I was two-" he shook off the consoling noises the gentleman made, "-she used to tell my father stories of it. It was around the time that the threat wizards too often speak of was still hanging on the wizarding world, and she wanted to keep me far away from anything abnormal." Though she didn't succeed. Sorry, Ma.

"How did you find out about this all?" The older gentleman was interested. Muggles never want to hear about magical things. Though, with your past, supernatural occurrences are normal.

"My father. When I left for Aquitar, I told him everything. He was understanding of course. He was also the one to ask around the wizarding contacts my mother left behind. You know, for a job. Or a niche. If  I ever came back." This last part was said self-deprecatingly, and the youth blushed again, fumbling with his glasses.

"Yes, well, about that. I've taken your history as an apt scientist into account, and I think I have the perfect job for you. There will be a meeting tomorrow, and of course accommodations will have to be made, but I think that you will quite enjoy the vocation, however temporary." All we have to do is teach you how to work a wand.

"Thank you." The youth looked almost grim as he checked his watch. "I should go. My father will expect me to call from my hotel. Thank you very much for speaking with me. I know you must have been a little bewildered as to why I was seeking you out." He gave a half-hearted shrug. "References."

The older man nodded again. "Oh, and Billy? How long will you be staying with us?"

Billy Cranston turned with an odd gleam in his eyes. "For as long as it takes me to forget," he said quietly. He looked down and looked back up again. "Remus? What happened to your friends?"

Remus Lupin smiled without humor. "We fought alongside each other for two years and then the ones who didn't die abandoned me. I suppose I was a lone wolf." Such irony.

Billy sensed a story bigger than the both of them behind the gaze Remus gave him. For another day, maybe.

To Remus, he said, "Not anymore."

"Oh?"

"We're two of a kind, Mr. Lupin. Two lone wolves, and if you have another just like you, you aren't really alone then, are you?"

Remus gave a hearty laugh. "No, I suppose not."

"G'nite."

"Goodnight."

Sleep well, brother wolf. Tomorrow promises to be a big day.

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Next chapter: We discover something new about Billy and Mr. Cranston comes face to face with Billy's past!