DISCLAIMER: The ideas are mine, the characters, sadly are not.

" ... It's hard to understand. All I know is you've got to run. Run without knowing why through the fields and woods. And the winning post is no end. Even though barmy crowds might be cheering themselves daft. That's what the loneliness of the long distance feels like."

Colin Smith, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Keep on Running

He remembered running.

He remembered the freedom of it. Of feeling the wind cold and fast against his body, of moving so fast he might have been weightless, of dodging trees and stones and never letting anything slow him down. Of allowing his feet to take him wherever they wanted to go, never having to stop to think about it. He's going home, maybe because he knows the way so well. Or maybe it's the scent of blood that's drawing him there.

The several hundred pound wolf jumped over the man who stood alone in the forest grasping a wand. The animal knocked him down. It stood over the wizard, its jaws open, dripping drool and blood all over its victim's face. And then it blacked out, all of its weight pressing against the victim's ribcage.

Except the pressure was now much lighter. It was the weight of a motionless, eight-year old Remus Lupin. He was breathing, but just barely. He was undressed, and although his injuries were severe, he looked like he was sleeping deeply. Nothing, not even the severity of his wounds could have caused him to wake up.

The sun had risen over the horizon.

Remus's father stood, picked him up in his arms, and carried him back to his mother's care.

"There was blood all over his mouth!"

"That could have been anything!"

"Don't! Don't do this! Don't act like I'm trying to blame him. Do you think I want it to be him? Well I don't!"

The door of Remus's bedroom was closed, but it still wasn't enough to deaden the sound of his parents arguing.

He sat on top of his bed by the window, the tray of food with his breakfast on it untouched on the nightstand and a muggle newspaper in his hands. He'd found it crumpled up in his father's study and picked it up. Remus thought muggle papers were funny. The people in the pictures remained still, no matter how much he poked them with his fingers. People in magic photographs were a lot less resilient.

April 15th, read the top of the page. Fall then; or was it spring? They'd moved too many times to remember. That would have explained the fallen leaves on the floor of the forest he could see from his window .

April 15th, this was yesterday's paper. There was a big article occupying the entire cover, something about a girl being murdered. "Deadly Beast in Town," read the title. Remus was entranced by the paper. A copy of the latest issue of a comic book lay on the floor forgotten. The amazing adventures of an under-age wizard, or something like that.

"We have to move!" His father's voice sounded urgent.

"Again? It took us weeks to find a town this close to a forest!"

"We'll find another!"

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know, but we will find it!"

"But we've barely settled down here! The china is still in boxes! It's been-"

"Three months! We have been here for three months, and this is the third time it's happened! We have to find some place else to live."

"And then what? How long do you think it'll be till this happens again?"

There was an audible pause. They had been screaming. Somebody had slapped a newspaper against the tabletop, perhaps a copy of the same newspaper Remus had in his hands now. He tried to concentrate on the newspaper, desperate not to listen to yet another argument between his parents.

"Alice L., 6 years old was found dead this morning, on the edge of the so-called Whispering Forest, by L.T., a local truck driver. Her body had been horribly mutilated, torn apart in several pieces and exsanguinated-" Remus read determinedly, but his parents' voices invaded the room.

"How long?" His mother insisted, from the kitchen.

"I don't know. But if it happens again-"

"It will happen again."

"If it does, we'll move again. We'll keep finding new places until we can control this."

Remus couldn't see his mother crossing her arms and looking away from her husband when he said that, biting her lower lip in disbelief. Nor was Remus trying to picture this in his mind. He was trying to do exactly the opposite, focusing on the lines of the newspaper in front of him instead of the sounds from the kitchen.

"Z.P., a professor of zoology at the University shares his personal analysis of the case: 'Based on the size of the bite marks and the footprints, I'd have to say it's a wolf. Not an adult wolf, for sure, but an incredibly strong adolescent.' The criminal investigator also believes the beast responsible for the latest animal attack is a wolf: 'It's not an ordinary wolf, though. The trails left around the victim indicate it has a tufted tail, but there's no species of wolf in the vicinity who has such a characteristic...'"

No matter how much the boy tried, though, his ears were on the conversation in the kitchen.

"We will control this, eventually, darling. I've talked to Hector; he says he's working on a potion which might help cases like Remus's... "

"Of course you spoke to Dagworth-Granger!"

"He can help us! He has founded a society, ah- the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, I think, and he will have them working on something that might make things easier for Remus. Nobody has worked on it before because there weren't many wizards interested in helping-" he hesitated.

"You can't even say it, can you?"

"... people with his condition." he said finally.

"Condition? You think this is a disease?"

"We have to think this way."

"What if we're wrong?"

"We are not wrong!"

"What if we are? It's the third time this has happened here. What about the others? How many are there? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine already? How many children?"

Fourteen children, Remus thought. Fourteen scraps of newspapers just like this one. Of course, he hadn't been counting them before they moved for the third time. He didn't understand it then.

"Stop it, all right? I know it's not okay. It is what it is."

"He is a k-"

"Don't say it."

"Why not? Are you afraid? Is that why you don't want me to say it?"

"No. I don't want you to say it because it's not true. I've talked to him; he doesn't remember it. He can't control it. He can't think. He's not himself when it happens. It's not our little boy who's to blame for these people's deaths."

Am I not?

At this, Remus gave up entirely on reading and stared outside at the falling leaves dancing in circles in the air as they were taken away by the wind. His parents' voices had become so low that he couldn't hear them any more. He heard some steps, but that was all.

The steps he heard were the sound of his father walking towards his young wife. He placed his arms around her waist, pulling her close to him. He brushed some hair from her face with his right hand and smelled the sweet floral fragrance of her perfume.

"Look at me, please." He lifted her chin gently. "I'm sorry we have to move again. I know this is hard on you, and it's my fault. I know-"

"No. No, love, don't say it like that." she said softly

"But it is. If hadn't-"

"Shhhh." She shushed him and tenderly placed a finger over his lips. "Please, don't talk like that, darling. I don't blame you for what happened. You know that."

He looked down, feeling his wife's finger sliding away from his face. He blamed himself enough for the both of them.

"It's true, I don't." she insisted. "I just- I just worry about him. He's not going to grow up like a normal boy. He has no friends his own age, he spends all his time in his room, and he's starting to ask questions."

"I know. I know, but we can't answer him, darling. He's just eight years old; he's just our little boy! We have to protect whatever childhood he has left."

"How can I protect him when you don't let me go near him?"

"Darling, it's not for you to see. The transformation, it's so painful. He yells so much."

"I can stand it."

"Darling, please. I know you want to be there for him, but when there's a full moon, you can't. Do you understand me? Please, it's too dangerous. He- changes. I saw him- I saw him change this morning. He had no idea who I was. He jumped on me, knocked me down- he could hurt you."

"..."

"Maybe you should go to his room, see if he's eaten anything. I have to meet Hector-"

"Of course you have to meet Hector." The young woman huffed impatiently and turned her back on her husband, crossing her arms once

more.

"Hector is my best friend!"

"Oh yes, I remember the two of you at Hogwarts, of course, up and down the corridors, doing everything together. Even after we started dating I had to schedule my time with you-"

"It wasn't like that!"

"Of course it was! Will you be my partner for the transfiguration essay? I can't, I'll work with Hector! Let's go to Hogsmeade together? Huh- Maybe later, me and Hector have got to do something-"

"I knew you would bring that up again!"

"I don't know why you didn't invite Hector to the winter ball. Or married him, for that matter. You seem to like his company so much better than mine!"

"That's not true!"

"How could you not when he has all those exciting things going for him, and all I have is a sick child?"

"Stop! I don't prefer his company to yours; it's just different. He's my friend, my best friend, and I trust him!"

"You don't trust me."

"It's just different. I trust him to help me, I trust him to tell anything, anything in the world, things I can't tell you."

"You hide things from me."

"I can't tell you, how it goes whenever Remus transforms." He started. "I can't tell you I have to chain him down, otherwise he will pull his nails off scratching himself during the transformation like it happened before. I can't tell you the stupefying charms don't work on him and he's awake the whole time. I can't tell you how much he hurts because you don't have to hear it. But I have to talk to somebody."

There were tears in her eyes as they stared at one another. There was more of course, much more he couldn't tell her. He couldn't tell her he found a certain waitress smokin', especially not using the words he could use with Hector, because she would freak out. And he couldn't talk to her when he was feeling like giving up, like nothing was going to work, like nothing would ever be good enough. He simply couldn't.

"I trust Hector," he continued, "to be there for you, and for Remus, if I can't anymore. That could happen. The world is changing, you know that. You've heard the rumours of an impending war. You read muggle newspapers; you've learned about the death counts."

She said nothing.

"If there are fights, anything could happen. They might come after Remus, him being what he is, and I would never allow anything to happen to him. I'll fight, and if I have to have someone by my side, it'll be Hector. I trust him to watch my back, as he trusts me to do the same."

"..."

"I know I can count on him. I knew when I asked for his help in coming up with a potion he would give everything he had to this effort, and I knew he would do so without exposing Remus. I know that if I ever need to walk into a dark forest in the middle night to retrieve my son, he'll walk in with me, regardless of the dangers. That's how much I trust him."

"But not me. You wouldn't let me go out of the house during a full moon. You don't trust me." She sounded hurt.

"Of course I do. It's just a different kind of trust. I trust you to take care of our son when I bring him back home after the full moon, all covered in scratches and bruises, bleeding, weak and unconscious. I wouldn't trust anybody else with that task."

"I'm a healer."

"You're more than that. That time, that time when he broke his arm, remember? He was barely breathing when I brought him to you; he was bad. Any other healer would have said that that was it. I thought that that was it. But you didn't. You came up with a new combination of reanimation charms, you stayed with him all the time, and you brought him back."

"..."

"You didn't give up. That's how I trust you. I trust not to give up, even when I have." He breathed slowly now, almost as if he was tired. They were standing close to one another, but he didn't touch her. She didn't seem to want him to.

"I trust you to be my strength. Don't you see? Don't you see that that's the reason I try to protect you during the full moon? If you got hurt, do you have any idea what would happen to me?"

She looked into his eyes.

"I could not live without you." He said simply.

And after a few meaningful seconds, she held his face between her hands, stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him.

A while later, Mrs. Lupin knocked on her son's door, barely giving him time to hide the newspaper under his pillow.

"Remus?"

"Yes, mum?"

"How are you feeling today, honey?" She asked, walking towards him and invariably placing a hand on his forehead to feel his temperature.

"I'm okay. It doesn't hurt anymore."

"Mummy's pain killing spells are really good, aren't they?"

"Yes, mum." he said, laughing a bit.

She smiled. Then she leaned in to kiss his cheek and ran her fingers through his hair.

"I'd say you need a hair cut."

He shrugged.

"I'll leave your tray here, so you can eat something, okay, Remus? What's this?" She asked, picking up the abandoned comic book from the floor on her way out of the room. "Oh! I loved these stories when I was a little girl. But maybe you're too old for these already."

Remus had grown too old for a lot of things already.

"Mum?" He called again, almost as soon as she reached the door.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Where did you say I got these scratches again?"

She looked him in the eye for a fraction of a second, and looked away.

"You were running."

He remembered running.

Author's Note: It took me about an hour to write this. It started out as the first of a series of 500 word drabbles about the five times Remus Lupin has killed somebody. But once I was writing, the dialogue between his parents just got larger and larger, and soon it was over 2000 words long, and it became a one-shot on its own.

In my haste to post it (for no other reason than my eagerness to get some feedback; any feedback), I uploaded it for the first time with many spelling and grammar mistakes. Now however the story has been Beta-read byLemniscate35173. Thank you for that. The process of Beta-reading was interesting and I had some fun actually talking about the story.

I don't often write about married couples, but there's some value in stretching beyond one's comfort zone. Back when I wrote this we did not know the names of Remus' parents. I could have made them up, but I'm glad I didn't. I like their canon names. Anyway, that's the reason why Lyall and Hope's names aren't mentioned.

Hopefully you think this is an interesting story? If you do like it, please drop me a line or two on a review.

LLAP