Disclaimer: Crimson Solitaire does not own Harry Potter or his friends, and does not intend to make any money from this work of fiction.

A Quick Note: This has been inspired by many questions that were running through my head, most important of which being the question of whether Remus really had a happy childhood and adolescence. The MWPP era is hardly portrayed with ups and downs, and it was my intention to portray the bad with the good, the heartache with the happiness. This is a story of Remus growing up and learning to live life through relationships, hardships, and his lycanthropic illness.

Life River

By Crimson Solitaire

Prologue

At five years old, most children are starting school, making friends left and right, playing with toys and using their imaginations, just waiting for their lives to start. I, however, was waiting and wishing for my life to end.

My mother was eccentric, an artist. She burned her bras and wore her hair in waves, often having a ring of flowers crowning her head. If she ever knew who my father was, she never let on the fact to me. She had raised me herself, and always told me that she never needed a man around, because I was the only man she would ever love. Before I got the whole "Birds and Bees" chat, I thought she had created me herself.

She had a lot of men around, though, throughout my younger years. They clung to her like bees to honey. She never gave them the time of day, and that made them all the more attracted to her. They'd hang around our flat, watching our telly (Mum was a Muggle-born witch and always liked those Muggle contraptions), and playing with the other electronics. Sometimes they'd make dinner or wash the dishes, or do other chores around the house, but Mum was never impressed. What always caught her attention was when they did something for me. That was their one-way ticket to my mother's bed.

It was an American man we were with when my life changed drastically. I don't recall if he was a wizard or a Muggle, but Mum and I know he was a coward. He had saved me from a modern piece of art called "Woman", which was a statue of a woman in rotund form. I had wandered off while my mother attempted to sell some of her paintings at the exhibit, and I was playing Police Chase, something I had seen on a program on television. I ran into the statue of "Woman", and it resulted in it almost crashing on top of my head. But, the American man caught "Woman" around the waist and saved me from a nasty bump on my head and my mother from a doctor's bill.

"Whoa there, kiddo," the man said. "You need to be more careful." He hoisted "Woman" back onto her stand and smiled at me. He had a bushy mustache and friendly lines on his face.

"What's your name, son?"

"Remus," I answered. "Th - thank you."

"Don't thank me. Where are your parents?"

"My mum is over there." I pointed to where my mother was standing, arguing with an art dealer. Apparently she hadn't seen the whole ordeal.

"I'm Steve," the man said. "It's nice to meet you Remus. Let's go talk to your mom."

I nodded and he took my hand and led me to my mother.

"'Scuse me, ma'am. This your son?"

Mum bent down and kissed my forehead, then lifted me onto her hip.

"Yes sir," she said. She wasn't about to apologize if I had been misbehaving. She believed that children would be children, and that if you punished them you'd break their spirit and it would cause them to have an early adulthood. She had already had me at seventeen years of age and seemed to know a lot about early adulthood; that was not what she wanted for me.

"He's an active kid," Steve said. Mum raised an eyebrow at his accent. She didn't think much of Americans. She didn't think much, really, of anything. Only me. Perchance it was her suffocating me that, in later years, encouraged me to be rebellious.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's got a great imagination. He was in his own world and didn't see that statue over there."

"It almost fell on me," I told her quietly. "He caught it."

"What did?"

"That statue over there."

"You're not hurt, are you?" she asked me. I shook my head. She turned to Steve. "You're not hurt?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well then," Mum said briskly. "Let me make it up to you."

It was a demand, not a question. No one ever turned my mother down.

"Sure," he said, smiling. "I'm Steve."

"Kathryn," she replied, holding out her free hand. "Not Kate, not Kat, not Kathy."

"Well, Kathryn, it's nice to meet you."

"Excuse me, Miss Lupin, but we're not done here," the art dealer said.

"I believe we are, Mr. Smith." This was what Mum called Cat-And-Mouse. She wasn't finished with him, just toying. I think there might have been a little magic behind these games, but I've never gotten her to give up her secret.

"I have come to the conclusion that your work would be extravagant in our main hall." He shook his head as if he was trying to figure out what he was saying. "After all, this is modern art, and -"

"Wonderful." She handed him a card and told him she'd be back in two days to do business - give him the paintings, and take his money.

Those were the last two paintings she sold for the next fifteen years.

* * *

Steve stayed on longer than any of the other men that bought me toys and ice cream. I guess my life earned him a longer ticket to my mother's company. He was a businessman, came over to the Isles for marketing purposes. He came from the northern part of a state called New Mexico, and told me stories about Cowboys and Indians for bedtime. I would fall asleep, listening to his deep, American accent, seeing the pictures of the deserts behind my closed eyelids. Many nights he wouldn't even return to my mother's bed, and I'd wake up in the early hours of the morning, feeling his hot breath in my hair, hearing the slight snore of his sleep-eased breathing.

Steve had a weakness for being outdoors. He often said that he missed going hiking and camping, and that he couldn't wait to return to his homeland so that he could climb atop those purple Rockies. Mum didn't like men with weaknesses, but he was her weakness, and in that weakness, she lost sight of herself, and sight of me - in both the literal and figurative sense.

Mum began spending time away from home, staying at Steve's flat, I believe. On those nights, she'd leave me in the care of Antonius, an Italian wizard who washed dishes at the local pub. During the day, I'd sit upon her knee as she half-heartedly stroked thick brushes over loose canvas, sighing every so often, waiting for the clock to turn to six - when Steve would get out of the office and back into her arms.

A couple months after my fifth birthday, Mum set up a surprise camping trip for Steve. Mum didn't think much of nature, and neither did I, but she insisted it would be a treat for us to spend time with Steve - "As a family," I believed she called it. If there was a flame of hope that Steve would be joining our family, it was extinguished our very first night on our trip.

"Look at that moon." Steve whistled. "I haven't seen a full moon as golden as that since I was hiking in Canada back in Fifty-five." I calculated that to be ten years ago. My mother smiled, pouring herself some tea. We were playing cards and eating ice cream.

We ate so much junk food that night that I got a bellyache. I shook Steve awake and asked him if he would walk with me outside the tent so I could throw up. He pulled on his shoes, helped me with mine, and took my hand. We walked outside in the damp, and I remember being fascinated that I could see my shadow because the moon was so bright. After that thought left my head, I vomited all over myself and on Steve's shoes. Steve rubbed my back, telling me I was going to be all right, telling me that I was a brave boy and that being sick was all right because everyone got sick sometimes. But he stopped talking when he heard a howl.

"Remus," he whispered, his voice shaking, "it's just a wolf. You've seen them on TV, right?" I nodded before doubling over to retch again. "They're not that scary." His sentence was punctuated by another howl, this one more distinct. It was eerie, haunted; there was an almost-human sound to it.

"Let's get back to the tent, shall we?"

I couldn't answer. My fright had taken over, and caused me to be even more ill. I was on my hands and knees, crying over an ever-growing puddle of vomit. A growl emitted from behind the tree to my left.

"Remus!" Steve hissed. "We've got to get out of here."

A nasty bark issued as the thing sprang from behind the tree. It pounced on its prey like wildcat on a rabbit, and I fell sideways and felt a sharp pain in my thigh. After that, everything's black.

A month later is when things aren't black anymore. I was in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries and had been in a coma. My mother was sleeping with her head on my little lap, and when I shifted to sit up, she roused from her slumber. She embraced me tightly, crying and kissing the top of my head. When she pulled away, she smiled at me so brightly that I wanted to take back every mean thought I ever had of her while she was with Steve.

"Where's Steve?" I asked. Mum wiped the tears from her eyes and set her jaw sternly.

"The bastard left," she said. "Took our car, left me with you, and left us for dead, Remus. He didn't even try to save you, didn't even try to sacrifice himself. I judged him wrongly, Remus. I thought that maybe he'd be the one to settle in with us, and he'd be yours and mine. But I let go of the most important thing in my life. I let go of my son, the man of my life. I'm sorry, Remus. It's all my fault." She dissolved into tears again. "You have every right to hate me."

I was confused. Nothing could ever make me hate my mother. We did everything together; we were a pair, she and I. I hugged her and told her that I would never hate her, that I would always love her, and that we would always be together. And then she explained to me about my accident.

"Remus," she said, her voice high and soft. "You were attacked by a magical creature. A werewolf."

"A werewolf?" I had seen moving pictures about werewolves - they were scary mythical beasts. Or at least that's what Muggles thought, and since I practically spent my childhood as a Muggle, I believed it as well.

"Yes, Remus. A werewolf. He bit you. And do you know what happens when a werewolf bites you?" I knitted my eyebrows. "You become the same as him."

"You mean, I'm - I'm a werewolf?" My mother put her face in her hands. I had never seen her in tears before now, and here she was, telling me this almost impossible information, and acting like a leaky faucet.

"It's all my fault," she said. I patted her back awkwardly. We spent most of the day like that, me comforting her while I was the one hurt. I was perfectly fine. In fact, I had never felt better. I could move all my limbs as if nothing happened, and I could hear and see and smell like never before. I tried to explain this to her. She shook her head.

"Just wait. The full moon is tonight. The doctors say we can't stay here."

Then she was up and packing all our things from the room into a tattered bag. She took my hand, and helped me to dress. I noticed a large, shiny mark on my left thigh. It was in the shape of a bite mark, covering the whole front of my thigh. That was the first of many scars I would receive, physically and mentally.

That evening, my mother kissed me and hugged me so hard I thought she would squeeze the life out of me. "It's just for tonight," she whispered. "In the morning, we'll go get you anything you want." Her eyes were wet as she pushed me into the bathing room and locked the door behind me. The bathtub had a neat little nest of pillows and blankets, and on top of the sink was a tray of milk and cookies. I remember thinking that this was going to be one of the best nights of my life. I mean, what kid wouldn't love to sleep in the bathtub and be given sweets? How soon I had forgotten my pleasure, though; how soon I realized that my mother was right.

The sky outside our second-floor bathroom turned into maroon, then faded into indigo. I sat transfixed, watching the steady rise of the stars, instinctively waiting for something to happen: the rise of the moon. And then there it was, the silvery orb coming up over the tops of the buildings, brighter than any beacon light.

If you've ever been crazy, then you'd know how I felt when I first saw that moon, coming over the tall flats of London. For those of you who haven't seen a glimpse of insanity, I'll describe this the best way I know how: My mind raced without my controlling it, I saw pictures in my head of the attack on the night I was bitten, I could hear howls ringing in my ears. Everything I thought made sense, and nothing I thought was making sense at all. Confused? That's not compared to how I felt.

When I saw the moon in its entirety, there was a sharp pain in my left thigh, followed by a snap! I heaped to the floor, crying in pain as each of my bones, in turn, broke in two, sometimes three places. I was in such pain, that I dug my teeth into my forearm, only to have my tongue welcomed by bristly fur and the sharp metallic taste of blood. The fur itched, my bones resettling themselves ached, and all I could do to take my mind off the sting and pain was to bite and scratch at myself with my sharpened nails and teeth.

After a few hours, I believe I passed out. Or possibly I just don't remember the whole night, having spent it scratching and biting away at myself. I do know that my mother opened the door to the bathing room at sunrise, and found me - my clothes shredded, my skin broken and bruised - lying asleep in the blood-soaked nest she created for me.

This is only the beginning. Welcome to my life. Welcome to the hell that I have wished to stop living in for the last thirty years. But I must be strong. That's what Mum taught me; how I have survived this long. God rest her troubled soul. This is for her.

* * *