Remus Lupin was dreading that night. It was November 11th, 1981, and it was the night of the first full moon since James and Peter had died, and since Sirius had betrayed them and subsequently been arrested. It would be the first time he had to face the wolf alone in nearly a decade, and worse, he knew it would be a very long time, if ever, that someone would join him on his romp through the woods.
He rolled the flask in his hands. The sun was setting soon, meaning that the change was imminent. He wondered if he should even take his wolfsbane potion tonight; without Lily brewing it for him, there was no way he would be able to afford more anyway, so why not just go ahead and surrender to the monster now?
The solid thuds on his cabin's door awoke him from his moody haze. That had sounded like how Hagrid knocked, but why would he be here right now? Remus stood, leaving the potion flask behind on his desk. He crept towards his door, urged into a defensive stance with his wand drawn by his war-born paranoia.
"I hope that you don't mind that I let myself in."
Unlike Sirius, Moony would at least admit that he screamed. He whirled around and pointed his wand at the figure sitting on his couch. Then he blinked, realizing that it was only a young boy. He wasn't familiar with the boy, though, and the boy had broken in, so Remus kept his wand at the ready.
"I like that you're cautious, Remus, but I'm a friend." The boy stood and started walking lazily towards the werewolf.
"Who are you? No, never mind. Get out right now!"
The green-eyed, black haired boy merely smiled. "Relax, Remus. I know about your furry little problem, and I can promise you that you can't hurt me. As for who I am... Let just say that people see me as someone important to them, even if they don't know it yet. It's probably a good idea to memorize my face."
"Look, just go away, please?" Remus said. The aches were getting stronger now, telling him that it was almost time. "Any other time, really. Just go away right now. Please. I'm about to change and I haven't had my potion."
"STOP." Silence filled the air. The boy's word had been spoken with such power, even the world itself obeyed. On the mantle, Moony's clock no longer ticked, and in his heart, the wolf no longer stirred. "Now you have all the time you need, so LISTEN."
A wave of power crashed down upon Remus, pinning him in place and making him feel like his soul was about to implode. Even You-Know-Who didn't make him feel this way.
"Right now, you're realizing that I am no ordinary human. You are correct in that regard. I am a god, and I am naming you my champion. Do as I command, and you will be handsomely rewarded. Fail me, and you get nothing. Punishing you defeats the purpose — you must choose this willingly. Further, I will never order you to take a life; you certainly may if it aids in your task, but I will never order it. Do you understand."
Remus did. He couldn't not; the power was shoving the words into his brain and forcing him to understand them and believe them. "Yes," he said.
"Good. Now, normally, I would let you choose your payment for any task, but tonight, the task I offer you is different. The payment is set, and will be given upfront. Then I will give you the task, at which point you can accept or reject the task. If you reject the task, you will not lose this gift; it is yours to keep. However, you will lose all chances for future rewards." The godly child walked up to Remus and put his hand on the werewolf's chest. "Do you understand?"
"Yes," Remus found himself saying.
"Good. Remus, this will be uncomfortable." Moony didn't have time to process that before a pulse of raw magic slammed into his stomach. His vision faded to black.
Remus awoke in a grassy field, at night, completely naked. Normally, waking up like that would have happened after sunrise, not before. He also should have been sore, but he wasn't. Well, most of him wasn't sore; he had an erection, and it was painfully hard.
He covered his groin with his hands, although there was literally nobody around to see him. Then he awkwardly stood, focused on his home, and then twisted in place. Nothing else happened. "Bloody hell, anti-apparition wards?"
There was a growl behind him. Remus turned his head just enough to see the massive wolf growling at him from only a few feet away.
Remus panicked. He ran.
Behind him, the wolf leaped.
Its claws sank into his back. Its teeth dug into his neck. Agony exploded in his mind. Remus fell to the ground, the wolf still atop him.
There was a flash of silver. Suddenly, the pain was gone, but the taste of blood filled Remus's mouth. He swallowed reflexively, causing the heat from the liquid to spread to his entire body. A haze slowly descended upon his mind, but not before he realized where he was: he was now atop the wolf, fingers clawing into its back and teeth biting into its neck.
He swallowed more blood, causing the hazy heat to intensify. The smell of the wolf filled Remus's nostrils. His groin rubbed against the wolf's fur, causing him to thrust reflexively. A wave of pleasure filled him, causing him to thrust again. The wolf below him twisted, causing Remus to suddenly find himself inside the wolf, though this drove his hazy mind into a lustful frenzy.
As Remus forced himself on the captive beast, a change started occurring in both of them. Remus's head, hands, hips, and legs started sinking into the wolf, while in the wolf, those corresponding parts grew in size and strength. Meanwhile, the reverse was happening with the torso and forelegs/forearms, with the wolf's being absorbed into Remus's.
The two beings, now a single entity, howled as pleasure shook their combined body. Almost instantly, the haze started lifting, and with it came a radical change in their collective mind. Separate, a wolf can easily shred a human, but together in mind, the fusion's human portions crushed the wolf's mind into a fine paste and absorbed it.
Remus Lupin stood in his new body. Though he stood on two powerful legs, they were the legs of a wolf. The wolf's tail swished behind his back. His torso and forearms were still human, but with the wolf inside, his muscles bulged with raw power. His hands had warped into furry claws, yet they retained a human level of dexterity. And his head, though wolflike in shape, could do everything a wolf and a human could do, combined.
Remus awoke again. He was back in his cottage, fully clothed, and lying on the floor. The sun was streaming through his window. It took a second for Remus to understand the implications, but came to realize that he hadn't transformed, despite the full moon.
"You're awake, good."
Remus picked himself off the floor to face the child god. "What happened...?"
"Remember."
The memories of the night before and the strange dream came crashing back to him, clearer than he had ever remembered recalling something before. "What was that?"
"That was your inner world, plus your mind's interpretation of what I was actually doing to your soul. That was the spirit of the wolf that tried month after month, year after year, to maul your friends to death. That flash was me, permanently strengthening your soul and giving you the opportunity to dominate instead. And that was you that absorbed the wolf's power and destroyed its mind.
"So here's what happened: I forced you to fight your wolf. I gave your soul the ability to grow, potentially indefinitely, and then gave it a small boost in power. I then reversed your situation to get rid of the wolf spirit. Now, had you simply killed the wolf, you would have become a normal, if strong, human.
"Instead, you absorbed it and destroyed its mind. Its power is yours and yours alone. No longer will you be a slave to the moon or to the bloodthirsty wolf. Your bite will no longer transfer the werewolf curse, though now it will transfer what you've become instead. Your body has changed, and it will keep changing for some time yet. Investigate what you have made yourself into. Do you understand?"
Once more, Remus found himself saying yes, though not wholly against his will.
"Good," the god said once more. "Your payment is power and the freedom to act without your shackles. Your task is to act in the way you feel is best based on a specific piece of information. Do you accept?"
For the last time, Remus found himself agreeing. This time, however, it wasn't forced, even if it was somewhat reluctant. "Yes."
The god smiled. "Good, very good. Here is your information: The Potter family's last will and testament contains the truth, a clue as to what actually happened the night of their death. What you know now is false by virtue of being incomplete." Then, without warning or sound, the deity vanished, as if he'd never been there. The god left a horribly confused Remus Lupin behind.
A somewhat nauseous Remus stepped off the Knight Bus and onto a street in muggle London. Given the early hour, the normally quiet street was absolutely devoid of people, which was all the better for Remus. He walked up to the window of a seemingly abandoned warehouse and addressed the manikin inside, "I need a checkup for my magical core. It feels strange."
The manikin's head turned towards Remus. "Welcome to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Please proceed directly to the west end of floor two, to the door marked 'Core Specialists.' Thank you, and get well soon."
Remus stepped through the glass like one might with the bricks between platforms nine and ten at King's Cross. Immediately, he wound up in the lobby of the UK's finest magical hospital. Following the instructions, he soon ended in front of the receptionist. He opened his mouth to speak.
"Before you say anything," the receptionist said, "are you in any pain, especially around your heart or the roof of your mouth?"
"No, but both areas feel very strange."
The receptionist tapped a rune on her desk, which glowed yellow for a moment. "I went ahead and called the healer; we can handle the paperwork afterward. Issues with your core, especially if it causes a physical sensation, are very serious."
The healer jogged in a second later, already drawing her wand. The receptionist pointed at Remus, and a second later, he was struck by a barrage of detection spells.
The healer's hands then dropped to her side. "Well, you're stable, at least. We have time. My name is Healer Fern Brooks. What seems to be the issue, Mr. ...?"
"Remus Lupin. I had a dream last night. I shouldn't have. I am a werewolf, and last night was the full moon. Something interrupted my normal transformation, and since then, my core has been feeling really weird and my spells have been coming out wildly. I had to take the Knight Bus here since I highly doubt that I could have apparated in this state."
"Mr. Lupin, I'm going to be honest with you, I've never heard of something like that happening. The rest of your symptoms plus what my spells told me would make me think you just jarred your core and formed an astral contusion — a bruise on you magic. But missing a werewolf transformation? I'm going to have to run a lot of tests on you, and probably call in the werewolf specialist for this one," the healer said.
Remus winced. More tests and specialist meant that it was going to cost more, and right now, he couldn't afford much. "I just want to make sure that I'm not going to die."
"Let's get you back into one of the examination rooms and I'll finish up the standard diagnostic spell battery on you." Remus followed. No less than a second after they'd entered the room, the healer's wand came back out. Spell after spell flew off her wand, while her eyes glowed as the spells revealed information to her that only she could see.
Finally, the last spell left her wand. "Well, I saw some interesting things, but I'll start with your core since that's my specialty. I'll spare you the technical jargon with this fairly good analogy: imagine your magical core as a bucket full of foam balls. You take out some balls every time you cast a spell, and your soul automatically refills it. An astral contusion basically happens when your magic is struck directly, forcing a large portion of your magic into a small portion of your core — in other words, someone squishes the balls.
"Normally, this is fine. The balls will slowly return to their original shape, and all is good. However, sometimes people with high magical regeneration rates start filling up their core with magic, only for the rest of their magic to uncompress and over-fill their core. In that case, they either leak the excess or strain their core. The latter is what happened to you. All you need to do is vent; cast a bright lumos and hold it until the discomfort fades, easy.
"Now, there were some other things of note. First, your core is ridiculously stretchy for your age. You normally don't see that sort of stretching in anyone above three. Elasticity is a sign of core growth, and a man is generally done growing by age twenty-seven."
"I'm twenty-one."
She frowned. "Well, maybe this is just a really good growth year for you, but this much of an extreme is highly unusual."
"Is this something I should be worried about?"
"Well, if it doesn't stop by age twenty-seven," the healer replied, "then it would be. But right now? It's something your friends should be jealous of. Between that and your high magical regeneration rate — a solid twenty percent per hour — you are going to be one hell of a powerhouse by the time your core finishes growing."
The mysterious god's words echoed in Remus's head. He'd supposedly been given the ability for his soul to grow indefinitely; was this what the god had meant? Possibly. "Anything else?" Remus asked.
"Well... To put it bluntly, you don't register as a werewolf to my spells. You are definitely something not quite human, but a werewolf? I don't think so. Of course, I'm no werewolf specialist, so I can't say for sure if I'm not misreading the results of the diagnostic spells. Let's get you transferred down to Healer Smethwyck on the first floor; he's our werewolf specialist," Healer Brooks said.
She personally escorted him down a floor and to the 'Dangerous' Dai Llewellyn Ward, named after a famous quidditch player that was eaten by a chimera. The ward was in charge of all animal attack related injuries, obviously including werewolf bites. There, Healer Brooks filled in Healer Smethwyck, with a little help from Remus. Smethwyck's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he heard that, and promptly dragged Remus into another room, dismissing Healer Brooks at the same time.
This room had a large cage in the middle of it, which looked as if it had held dangerous animals for a long time. The cage door was open. "Mr. Lupin, there are a pair of tests I would like to perform. However, they are delicate, and this close to the full moon, even though it has just passed, we run the risk of forcing you to transform out of phase. That will hurt, as you can imagine. However, we cannot use pain potions since they will interfere. However, it is highly unlikely that that will happen. But, just as a precaution..."
Remus stepped towards the cage. "I see. May I removed my clothes, just in case?"
"By all means. In fact, I insist."
Remus undressed and then stepped into the iron cage. The door shut behind him and the latch fell into place. "I'm ready."
The healer waved his wand, causing a bubble of golden light to form around the cage. Remus felt nothing as it passed. "Is that it?"
"No, that's just the observation spell. This is the test. Lumos: Lunaplena." Moonlight erupted from the tip of the healer's wand and illuminated Remus's body. Remus felt a tingle, but nothing else, and he didn't transform.
The golden bubble and the moonlight both faded away. "Sorry about that. The moonlight from the charm isn't as potent as the real thing; if you knew it was coming, you could have fought the change. I couldn't have that happening. Again, sorry."
Remus, now somewhat shaken, swallowed the lump in his throat. "I didn't change, though."
"Your core twitched, but that was about it. So, I think congratulations are in order: Mr. Lupin, I can say with complete honesty that you are not a werewolf."
Remus took a second to process that. Then he whooped with delight. "Yes! Haha! This is amazing! Thank you, thank you!" He suddenly looked the old healer directly in the eye. "Can I get that in writing?"
"Of course. Now, there was one other test I would like to do. Actually, there are a ton of tests I want to do on you to satisfy my curiosity, but there's only one right now that actually pertains to your health directly. You aren't a werewolf, but you are something not entirely human. Let's see what you are." A teal spell shot out of his wand, impacting Remus's head.
Heat erupted throughout Remus's body. Then, with the sensation of having a stiff joint suddenly loosened by a masseuse, the ex-werewolf transformed into the fusion beast from his dream. He also slammed his head on the top of the cage, having shot up to nearly eight feet in height.
The healer whistled his amazement. "Dear Merlin... What do we have here?"
"I wish I knew," Remus said. "I turned into this during my dream last night."
Healer Smethwyck's smile widened by a hair's breadth. "Mr. Lupin, the amounts of magic in our bodies and minds at all times means that every thought we have is significant; unlike in muggles, dreams often can provide us with real, practical information. Tell me exactly what happened last night, and leave nothing out. I can tell you're holding something back."
Remus hesitated for a moment, unsure if he should mention his visitor from the night before.
"Might I remind you that I am oathbound to never reveal information about my patients to anyone they do not approve of. Might I also remind you that I am bound to help you, regardless of who you are or what you did. Please, Mr. Lupin, tell me what happened."
So Remus told him, and the healer listened. Occasionally, Smethwyck would ask a clarifying question or two but mostly listened in silence. When Remus mentioned the flash of light in the dream, the healer's face morphed into an expression of shock, and then understanding. The moment Remus finished, literally half an instant after the last syllable left his tongue, the healer turned, opened the door, and shouted, "Accio Treating Magical Curses, Vol. 7!"
The book shot in at a blistering speed, slamming into the healer and knocking him to the floor. He picked himself and the book up, then began flipping through it. He read a passage, his grin threatening to split his face in half. Then, with great jubilation, he shouted, "Eureka!" Then he blushed. "I've always wanted to say that. No, but thank you, Mr. Lupin. You've given me inspiration for a possible way to cure lycanthropy!"
The still transformed and still naked Remus blinked. "Did I really?"
"Yes! Well, we still have to iron out the details and test it, but this could work!" Healer Smethwyck exclaimed. "It might end up turning people into whatever you are — still need to figure that part out — but you're clearly in control of yourself and you aren't affected by moonlight at all! That's an improvement if I've ever seen one! Oh, Merlin, this is brilliant!"
"Healer? Um, could you change me back?"
"Hm? Oh! Actually, if I'm not mistaken, you might be able to shift your form by will alone. Some werewolves could do that whenever they wanted, excluding full moon nights. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do so either," the healer replied. "Give it a go."
Remus tapped into his magic the same way he would when preparing to apparate. However, instead of going somewhere, he focused on being human. With the sensation of a muscle pulling tight, his body began to shrink and revert to human. However, though he shrank back as much as he could, it still wasn't all the way back to where he should have been. His muscles were still bigger than they used to be, his chest and legs were still hairier than they had been, and he was about two inches taller.
"Excellent! Now, does that cause you pain? No? Good. I want you to practice that. Shift between forms until it feels comfortable and natural; that will help stabilize your magic a bit. I also want you to come back in a week, if possible. Mr. Lupin, if I'm right, you and I could save many, many lives."
"That is utterly fantastic!" Remus replied. "The best news I've received in a long, long time."
The healer was, in fact, correct. By the time Remus had come back, the healer had completed his procedure. It involved forcing a transformation, hitting the person with a confundus charm just before the transformation took hold, and then injecting their core with magic. They had already tried it on four witches and a young wizard, and all of them had been cured. The oldest witch had taken three tries, at four hours a try, while the younger ones had success more quickly; the boy and the youngest witch had taken barely a minute. In every case, they imagined themselves fighting the wolves; with the women, they had slain their wolves and subsequently returned to being fully human, while the boy had absorbed his wolf and become a creature like Remus.
Remus and Smethwyck eventually named the new form the lycomorph form, while wizards and witches who had it were called a lycomorphmagus. This was to match the terms metamorphmagus and animagus. Shortly after that, the Daily Prophet hailed ran the headline, "EX-WEREWOLF AND HEALER FIND CURE FOR LYCANTHROPY," which hailed Lupin and Smethwyck as heroes. The news also pushed articles about Harry Potter further back in the paper.
A pattern started emerging with those receiving the Lupin-Smethwyck treatment. Young werewolves, those fifteen and under, almost universally absorbed their wolves, becoming lycomorphmagi. Yet those older than fifteen almost universally ceased being werewolves altogether, which made Remus something of an outlier. Remus didn't know or care about any of that, though. After he'd been pronounced healthy and told the healers about his observations on his new form, Remus fell back to his gloom.
His friends were either dead or in jail and he was still alone. That was about to change, but he didn't know it yet.