Title: Normal
Author: Daria
Category: General
Sub-Category: Humor
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Eh, PoA.
Summary: Remus Lupin is a a ten-year-old. His hair's a bit scruffy and sometimes his eyes are ringed with gray. There's a bit more, but he's perfectly normal. Right?
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made from this, and no copyright infringements were intended.


Normal

No, he was definitely not normal. Besides his hair being too shaggy, and his hands a bit too feminine, there was something else. Was it his ears? The boy pushed back the light-brown fringe to peer at one. It was slightly pointed, but only just - nothing exceptionally strange. He ran a hand down his neck. That was rather long, and his Adam's apple (was that what it was called?) jutted out as a ten-year-old male's should. Oh, his chin! Lifting a long-fingered hand to his pointed chin, the boy ran his middle finger across the cleft there. It was barely noticeable, so that couldn't be it. His cheeks were rather thin, hollow before changes, and though he was ever so pale, the cheeks were normal. And the eyes...

Remus had been curled here for a quarter of an hour now. The boy wasn't vain in the least bit, rather.. self-conscious. He had woken earlier and passed the oval, full-length mirror in the corner of his room, just beside the door to his closet. He had never noticed before, but something was entirely amiss. Ten or not, the boy knew of his disease. This lycanthropy, they called it. He was, indeed, a werewolf - cursed to turn into a snarling monster on full moon nights. That was all good and well - what he was worried about was the outside aspects in his normal form. Well, human form, anyway. He would be going to Hogwarts - amazingly enough - very soon, and there was much to be done. Remus had to wonder if he looked enough like a normal kid to pass for one.

Standing, blanket positioned around his shoulders, the scrawny boy looked himself over. He was infuriatingly small, and though it had advantages, Remus felt more inadequate than usual. Would the other kids trample him? They could easily stick him into a trash bin. He had seen some older Muggle kids do that to a smaller one once. Letting the blanket drop, the child observed his pale body. His pajama pants covered his chicken legs, but the top to the set had been removed in his sleep the night before. The buttons were annoying, so usually he wore the pajamas around the house until bed-time and then wore the bottoms to sleep. Anyway, here he was - pathetic. His chest was muscled considerably for someone of his stature. Remus would give himself that much. Flexing and taking on the manly look of.. well, a man, the boy giggled.

"Remus, your breakfast is getting cold, darling! Do come down!"

Stella Lupin's voice, melodic with its French twang, echoed up the stairs and past his open door. Starting, the boy picked the ratty blue blanket from the floor and draped it about his shoulders again, sticking his tongue - a normal, pink one- out at his mirror image before skittering across the cold hardwood floor, laughing as he did. The smell of eggs and bacon met his nostrils as he descended the staircase, and the boy decided he would fit in enough at Hogwarts. Werewolf or not, he was normal. Yes, a normal werewolf.