Upside
It should be awful. It should be, Remus muses, graceful neck arching to crane toward the waxing gibbous in the onyx sky. He is alone; running, flying through the snow- covered Forbidden Forest, dodging inky silhouettes of silent trees and leaping over rocks with inhuman speed, his breath and footfalls the only sounds foreign to the night. It should be devastating.
The monster claims him once a month-- he has given up thinking of it as a transformation because the monster is forever there; inside him, always-- and on the days that he's able to control it, he hides it like the most terrible secret the world has ever known. Through a guarded mask he absorbs each frightened stare, every hissed "Halfbreed!" He is despised. Discriminated against. Feared-- even by himself, at times; the sick sound of his own bones shattering the last horrific thing he ever remembers before he is taken completely. And it should, he thinks, destroy him.
And then he inhales-- sharply, tasting the scents that nature failed to cover; eyes searching, spying the smallest stray leaf and the briefest shadow of a night- creature; sensitive ears picking out the faintest tremor of air; skin charged, alert, electric; bounding through the trees with a swift, unyielding elegance-- and he smiles.