Chapter 1

Remus Lupin lay in a deep sleep on a dark summer evening. Although the house was thick with the summer air, the windows remained closed. Lyall pushed the door open slightly to peer in upon his young son, his pride and joy. The door creaked slightly, but Remus didn't stir. His leg hung out of the side of the bed from under the sheets and a few beads of sweat ran from his forehead on his pillow.

Lyall quietly stepped into the room and pulled the comforter back from his son's bed so that he wouldn't overheat. He raised his wand toward the ceiling fan which responded by increasing in speed and creating a low hum along with a slight breeze in the bedroom.

This was not the first night this week that Lyall had arrived home significantly past his son's bedtime. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had recently become understaffed; some members had moved into other departments and some had become injured while working and were recovering at St. Mungos. As a result, Lyall had become overextended at work and was finding himself spending more and more time away from home.

He missed his wife, he missed his son; but his job was too important to ignore. Fenrir Greyback was continuing to terrorize both the wizarding and muggle communities. Lyall felt that he was getting closer by the day to locating him and bringing him into their custody. If only a few months ago his colleagues had listened to him; so many lives could have been saved.

However, Fenrir was released. A monster, let loose upon the world and allowed to wreak havoc by Lyall's own department. Souless, evil, deserving nothing but death. Those words had replayed in his head daily since he was asked to leave the meeting with his colleagues. Lyall remembered the door shutting behind him, knowing they would all come to regret the decision to allow Fenrir Greyback to go free. Since that moment, the opinion of Greyback had changed and it became a priority to find and detain him.

Lyall gave his young son a tender kiss on the forehead and quietly shuffled his way toward the doorway. He carefully shut the door behind him and made his way toward his bedroom to get some well-deserved sleep. The house fell quiet again, only the hum of ceiling fans and the occasional sound of a mouse could be heard in the small cottage. Everything was peaceful.

Remus rolled his small body over onto his side and murmured in his sleep. He remained peacefully asleep, even as the window to his room swung open and the full moon shone upon his floor. The small boy didn't notice as a dark figure pulled itself in the window and set foot in his room. He didn't hear the creak in the floor as the large grey-skinned beast crept from the window toward his bed.

Lyall Lupin shot straight up in bed upon hearing a blood-curdling scream from down the hall. Adrenaline pumped rapidly through his veins as he blindly grabbed for his wand at the nightstand next to his bed.

"Stay here." He turned to his wife who was about to open the door to her room and dash down the hallway. Lyall edged his way in front of her and closed the door behind him. He ran as quickly as he could down the hall, hearing another scream come from his son's room.

His heart felt as though it could jump right out of his chest. Panic set in. Lyall pushed the door to Remus' bedroom open and saw Fenrir Greyback standing over his son. Remus' body mangled on the ground next to his bed. Blood covered the floor of the childhood bedroom, bloody handprints on the comforter that Lyall had just pulled back from the bed not that long ago.

Lyall raised his wand and pointed it at a smiling Fenrir Greyback, who now knew that he had an audience. A red light flashed through the bedroom toward Fenrir who jumped out of the way. Lyall threw curse after curse at him, working through what felt like every spell he had ever been taught. Fenrir easily dodged them. Lyall threw one last curse toward Fenrir who slipped out of the window and into the dark night.

Lyall and Hope sat in the waiting room at St. Mungos. No words passed between the couple. They sat in silence, grasping each other's hand in an desperate attempt to comfort each other. No healers had spoken with them since the moment they dashed into the building with their bleeding and unconscious son in their arms. The staff had immediately taken the necessary information and pulled Remus from their grasp and moved him into their care.

Hours had passed, but to the Lupin's it had felt as though years had gone by. Lyall looked around the waiting area. Some witches and wizards looked sick themselves, some had puss-fillled boils on their hands, others had skin that changed colors as the time crept by. Others looked to be in their position, healthy but waiting in grim anticipation for news.

The door to the waiting area swung open and Hope and Lyall both squeezed each other's hands harder. "Lupin?" Said a matronly looking witch who was wearing the St. Mungos uniform. Taking a deep breath, they stood and walked over to the healer who escorted them toward a room. The healer opened a door and Lyall got to look at his son for the first time in hours.

Remus looked so tiny underneath the blanket of the large bed. His four-year-old body didn't belong in a bed large enough to fit a fully grown adult. His light-brown hair still had some flecks of blood in it, but the blood that had been on his body appeared to be cleaned from his skin. His fair skin had scars, some the length of his whole body and others shorter but deeper.

"He sustained a lot of injuries." The healer looked at Hope who had tears welling in her eyes, "We are lucky that you arrived here when you did, if you had arrived shortly after I'm not sure what we would have been able to do. A whole team of healers worked on stopping the bleeding."

"The scars-" Hope said weakly, "Will they… will they fade over time?"

"I'm afraid," The healer said gently, "due to the nature of the injury we don't feel that many of them will. Werewolf wounds are- well, the best we can hope for is that they fade some but we don't feel that they will ever completely heal."

"Was he infected?" Lyall hadn't made eye contact with the healer until this moment. He knew the answer before she even opened her mouth to respond. Her eyes conveyed such sympathy.

"He was."

"What can we do for him? Will he be able to lead a normal life?" Hope sat in the chair next to her son's bed and looked desperately at the healer.

"I think it may be best, for now, to focus on the healing that we can do here at ." The witch said quietly, "He has a lot of progress to make before we will feel confident sending him home. I will give you both some time with your son and find my supervisor to come and speak with you."

Lyall sat on the armrest of his wife's chair and placed his hand on her back while they both wept silently. Daylight began to creep into the room, illuminating the young boy who was also a werewolf. Lyall looked upon Remus and made a silent promise to himself to do as much as he was capable to give Remus a normal life.

"So the Lord speaks to us," The sun shone upon the face of a priest as he stood at the pulpit of a small church. "He asks us, begs us, to renounce evil and walk down his prosperous path."

A young girl with dark brown hair and deep blue eyes folded the church pamphlet into an origami swan while sitting in the front pew of the church. Her mother, a lithe woman with blonde hair and the same deep blue eyes, sat next to her with her feet crossed at the ankles and her hands neatly together on her lap. She looked proudly up at the priest.

"We are all called upon to be shining examples of our Lord's work." He continued, his congregation at full attention as they always were each Sunday. "It does not mean that it will be easy, but it will be worth it."

Claire's mother placed her hand on top of her paper swan to give her a silent warning to pay attention to the homily. Claire blushed and looked up toward her father standing at the pulpit. He smiled at her briefly and then continued.

"In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen." The congregation responded and began to pull out their hymnals. Claire stood and began to move her way out of the pew. She quickly made a fist to hide the tiny origami swan inside of her hand.

"Claire Anne- where are you going?" Her mother whispered at her.

"Restroom." Claire said quietly in response and headed toward the door that connected to the parish hall. As she closed the door she heard the congregation begin to sing their hymn. She let out deep breath and began to wander her way to the bathroom taking much more time than was needed. Once in the bathroom, she closed the door and slid the lock into place.

Claire sat on the cold tile floor, her powder blue dress spreading around her. This was not the way she wished to spend her 11th birthday. However, this year her birthday fell on a Sunday which meant there was a family responsibility to be at the church for the 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM service. There would be a coffee hour after each service, and generally her father would spend some time talking with members who needed guidance after that.

Her birthday would be celebrated later, God came first. She sighed.

Claire opened her fist and looked at the paper crane. She finished the last few folds so that it took the correct shape and smiled at it. I wish you could actually fly away from here and take me with you. She thought looking at her handy work.

It's not that she didn't care for her family or the congregation, it's just that she didn't want to spend all of her time at the church. Her father had committed himself to be a priest, that his calling. Claire didn't have a choice, she didn't have a calling. She wished she could spend her time going to the drive-in theater and reading books like others her age did. Instead, she spent her evenings folding pamphlets for the church and attending bible study.

Kids her age were able to read fantasy stories of princesses, dragons, even ghosts. Her father didn't allow those types of things in their household. It was a distraction from the stories they should be focusing on, the stories in the Bible. Claire was an only child, she desperately wanted to please both of her parents so she respected their wishes. However, not having those stories in the house never stopped her from wishing there were dragons, mermaids, and other mystical creatures.

She looked at the paper crane again, wondering what it would be like to be able to fly. Suddenly, she took a sharp breath. No, it couldn't be! She must be delirious from the heat of the church. Claire could have sworn she saw the wings of the paper crane move on it's own. She stared at it again, more intently this time.

The wings stood still for a moment and then fluttered again. This time they fluttered so much the small paper crane hovered above her hand for a few seconds. Claire sat there with her mouth open.

There was a rapping on the door and the paper crane fell to the floor.

"Claire? Are you in there?" Her mother's voice said clearly from the other side of the door.

Claire stood, smoothed out her dress and then flushed the toilet before turning on the water and washing her hands. She would never tell her parents what had happened with the paper crane. They would never believe her.

After the service was over, Claire and her parents drove to their small home together. She sat quietly in the backseat looking out the window convincing herself that she had imagined what happened earlier. She tuned out her parents voices as they discussed the homily from the two services today, lost in her own thoughts. All three were preoccupied as they entered their driveway, that they never noticed a large tawny owl perched on the roof of their home. When parking their car, the owl spread its large wings and silently flew away.

"Sirius Black, you will sit down at the table and you will speak to your mother with the respect that she deserves." The commanding voice of Mr. Black came from the end of a long table in a relatively dark but large room.

"I won't sit here and listen to this-" Sirius barked back at him.

"Such disrespect!" Mrs. Black's harsh voice shot through the room while she sat at the opposite end of the table cutting through a piece of roast beef. "Your first-born son, who we do everything for, talks to me like this all day."

"I wonder where I learned that from." Sirius said sarcastically pushing his plate of food away from himself, "I only listen to both of you talk in a disrespecting tone about other witches, wizards, and muggles on a consistent basis."

"Don't you dare use that word in my home!" Mr. Black's voice boomed as he stood. Sirius swallowed and looked down at the table.

"We are pure-blood." Mrs. Black seethed, "We are wizards. We are superior to the non-magical."

"No." Sirius said through gritted teeth.

"Do you know what I found in your son's room today?" Mrs. Black said becoming more angry by the minute. "Muggle posters, on his wall. Pictures of muggle women!" The disgust she felt was clear through her tone of voice.

Sirius sat in silence. Only a few more days until he could head to his first year at Hogwarts. Only a few more days of having to be around his intolerable family. Time seemed to creep by as slowly as it possibly could as he waited for his opportunity for freedom.

"I burned them all." Mrs. Black said pointing at her son, "However, every day he keeps finding more. Bringing that filth into our home. Tarnishing the Black family name!"

"Let me just cut to the end of this conversation," Sirius looked at his mother, "I will continue to bring those posters into my room. I don't care about tarnishing the Black family name. Lastly, do you want to know why I have pictures of muggle women in my room?"

"Sirius, don't speak to your mother using that tone" His father said loudly trying to cut him off.

"It's because I think they're attractive!" He yelled over his father and stood up to face his mother who was shaking with anger.

"Get out of my dining room!" She yelled at him pointing toward the stairs.

"Gladly!" Sirius stomped out of the dark dining room and toward his room. He slammed the door behind him and threw himself on his bed. The fights with his family were continuing to get worse. This was not the first day this week that he would go to bed hungry. It was definitely not the first day this week that he had interrupted the Black family dinner with a screaming match with his parents.

He got off his bed and pulled opened a drawer in his room that had socks in it. He shifted the sock to the side to reveal pictures. The pictures were all different shapes and sizes. Some were from magazines, others had been torn out of books, and some were posters that he had bought while wandering around local shops. His mother would be horrified to see the collection of muggle images that he had brought into this house.

The Black family were proud of their heritage. Pure-blood, that's what they referred to themselves as. Sirius didn't see anything to be proud of when he looked at the Black family tree. Cousins marrying cousins, that's all he saw. When you are desperately trying to keep your blood pure, there aren't many options when it comes to continuing the family line. He wondered if it was inbreeding or just paranoia that had led his family to become this adamant in their hatred toward non-magical people.

The superiority that they felt toward the world around them was palpable from a young age. His parents were in control of who he socialized with, which meant he had only been able to spend time with other family members or other pure-blood families who shared similar deplorable values. At a young age, Sirius began to reject the values he had been taught. He realized that there was nothing righteous in feeling superior to others.

Since he had gotten his letter to Hogwarts, his parents had been spending more and more time 'educating' him on whom he should socialize with. They spent time telling him about the other children his age who have Slytherin heritage, because they were determined to see him placed in the same house they were as children.

Sirius pulled some muggle tape from inside of one of his socks and began to tape more pictures to the walls. He opened the door to his room and taped a large poster of a popular muggle celebrity in a bikini to the outside of his door, knowing he would do everything he could to never turn into his parents.