Howl at the Moon
By I heart Venomous Tentaculas
I don't own it. Check the pen name (that's right it's not my real name). If you recognize it it's JK Rowling. There's only five people though that are mine. And two of them are dead in this story. A bunch of people that star in this one are dead in JKR's version. Bummer.
Warning: Excessive use of different extremely minor characters.
Remus still wasn't quite sure what had happened that night. He remembered alarms, and jumping to his feet. He remembered Flooing to the Potter's house in Godric's Hallow, hoping he wasn't too late. He remembered yelling the Killing curse, not aimed in the least, just sent in the direction of the snake man. And then the end. And the quiet.
And he, Remus John Lupin, werewolf, Moony to the Marauders, Gryffindor Prefect for '76-'78, was the 'Vanquisher of You-Know-Who'. Him, who people would name their kids after, him, who would be whispered about on the streets, who would have books made about him, who would have reporters camping on his lawn. Him.
He was sure his parents would be proud of him (they had died a few months before it ended) and Sirius was, and James and Lily. And Harry James Potter, his almost godson. But not Peter (The Traitor). Pettigrew was rotting in Azkaban.
The Ministry of Magic changed their Werewolf regulations after that, and a few months later, when Harry was only two years old, Fenrir Greyback was caught. There was only one reason they had caught him, though, it was because an old pureblood's scion was bitten and Fenrir was then gorged by a stag. Sadly, Harry had been the one bitten.
Remus didn't understand what had happened after that, but one night, he, Sirius and Harry walked out of Godric's Hallow and didn't ever return.
He heard through the grapevine (Albus Dumbledore) that the Potter's had more children, twins Cecilia and Jacob, that year, and a girl, Jane, a year later, but he never met them. He had little Harry John Sirius Lupin to take care of.
By the time Harry was five, Harry was the soul heir of the Lupin and the Black estates and Remus had stopped getting pelted with owls every morning. He still had reporters camped on his lawn, and the lawn was starting to look a little bit over-run because he couldn't get around with a lawn mower.
By the time Harry was ten, they didn't have reporters camped on their lawn anymore, and Harry thought that it was very odd not to have someone wanting an interview every time they stepped out of the house. Remus didn't tell him that it was because of the new wards that they didn't have unwanted people on the property.
The next year Harry was supposed to go to Hogwarts, and sure enough, the letter came. Harry himself sent a letter back, and then talked to Albus (though he called him Uncle Albus) about why he had chosen not to go to Hogwarts.
Remus himself had been thrilled when he saw his son's acceptance letter, and had though everything was just fine and Harry was going to go to Hogwarts right until Albus mentioned something about finding a tutor. He loved that Harry had a lot of ideas that he put through but was puzzled by his son's choice (because it was all his son's).
"Dad, you and Uncle Sirius could be killed any day. I want to be able to be close to you guys should something happen. If you or Uncle Sirius happened to teach at Hogwarts one year, then I might think about it. But, even though you've tried not to let me know, I can see that you have a big problem. And as much as I wanted to use the Shack like you did, I think it'll be more fun when you're with me. And I don't ever want someone to judge me like they have at other schools. I'm happy here. There may be a time that I'm not, but for right now I am."
Harry's maturity about the entire matter, and the fact that he realized that his father, and the next closest thing, could be killed at any time was astounding. That he knew frightened Remus.
Their cellar was starting to look a little warn down after so many years of abuse put through by the two werewolves, twelve times a year, and so they decided to move. The Daily Prophet did issues about the Lupin's move, and Harry's choice not to go to Hogwarts that year.
They moved to a house a little out of Ottery St. Catchpole. There were a few wizarding families in the area (the Weasleys, the Lovegoods, and the Diggorys) and Harry made fast friends with the two young girls from the families.
The moons came and went and Harry continued on happily enough in his studies with Sirius. The ex-auror had quit after James Potter had received a promotion and threatened to give Sirius 'the boot'.
Then came Christmas, when the Lovegoods went traveling to the Alps to find a Gringel, and the Weasleys went to Romania to visit one of Ginny's many brothers. Cedric Diggory was finally introduced to the Lupins, and Harry was very intrigued with the older boy, and what it meant to go to Hogwarts, but when Remus asked if Harry wanted to go, Harry still replied that he didn't.
The rest of the year was quiet, with Albus coming every other week to try and convince Harry to go to Hogwarts, and to check and add wards.
The following year Harry still didn't want to go to Hogwarts, and Sirius moved into the area. Harry missed his friends, but remained adamant that staying home was what he wanted to do. He finished the second year curriculum the next month.
By what was supposed to be Harry's third year, Albus had stopped coming around so much and so did the Daily Prophet. After Lily Potter gave up trying to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts Dumbledore was getting desperate.
"Please Sirius, wouldn't you take the position. I need someone who knows what they're doing, and my next resort is Moody, and contrary to popular belief, I do care about the children's mental health."
Harry went to Hogwarts that year. So did Remus.
Officially, it was because Remus was doing a project that he needed the library for, unofficially, it was because Harry had asked him to.
He saw how Harry was treated in the school, half admiring, half fearing. He was sorted into Gryffindor, but Harry told him it was close between Remus' old house, and Hufflepuff. And, as Harry pointed out, while Cedric was nice, Hufflepuffs were rather close minded.
The Tri-Wizard Tournament happened that year. Remus was asked to judge and quickly elected to when Cedric was chosen as Hogwarts champion. The tournament went off without a hitch, until the final task, when the Durmstrang and the Beaubatons champions were killed and Cedric was so grievously injured trying to save them that he never recovered from the coma. That was when Harry first learned about death, first hand.
By the end of the month, you couldn't tell who was a Durmstrang, Beaubatons or Hogwarts student. So intermingled, and drawing support from each other the teachers surmised, was the group that no one said a word when the seventh year classes increased by roughly two dozen. The uniform black, so that even the girls wore black slacks, and all the students wore black shirts under the ties that told the staff that they were Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Durmstrang or Beaubatons filled the silent halls during the class changes. No one, not even Snape, mentioned the change in dress code. Never, Harry had told Remus, was he ever glad to be a sheep as that time.
Harry was the youngest student to have known Cedric on a first name basis, and had spent a lot of time with the other champions because of his tie to the Hogwarts champion, and -apparently- the champions all hadn't minded. So Harry was the youngest one to have known Jeanette Beauvoi, Gerald Geovani and Cedric Diggory personally, and the entire school helped him deal with it.
Some of Harry's other friends, like the world famous Viktor Krum, and the talented Fleur Delacour, and the esteemed Angelina Johnson, were what first tipped Remus off to a rebellion that was brewing below the surface of silence that the castle undertook. None of the foreign guests left on their scheduled day, staying until the end of the term and leaving with the Hogwarts students on the train. That day, no one could have told you who was who, there was no fighting on the train, and there was only the occasional whisper. It was, according to the candy lady and the conductor, the quietest ride back, ever.
Ginny, Luna, Ron, Fred, George, and, later, Hermione Granger were over at the house quite often that summer, and others dropped by, too. Neville Longbottom, Cecilia and Jacob Potter, with their little sister, Jane, Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zambini and Susan Bones were at the house when Sirius and Remus got back from a Wizengamot session. Others like Katie Bell, Seamus Finnigan, Ernie MacMillan, Terry Boot, and Fleur Delacour, with her little sister, Gabrielle were in the house often.
Voldemort was sighted in August, but little to no one paid it any attention, because there was no one to say whether he had come back or not. Sirius was begged to come back as the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement when Fudge died unexpectedly, and Amelia Bones became Minister.
Remus applied for the post of the Defense professor and gained it. Harry sent a note solidifying his spot for Hogwarts and they both became worried when, after a full moon, they were both torn up horribly. Snape agreed to make the wolfsbane potion for them both, as long as they both paid for the ingredients. Harry made a healthy addition to the fund after waking up one morning with only one rib uncracked, and that one was badly bruised.
The next year was a sort of wonder that will forever be remembered for years. Every person's grades increased highly, so that the teachers were unsure if there was cheating or not. Not a single after school club was used, although there was a thought that perhaps there was one running without staff inclusion. The first week found the first years floundering while trying to get around but after that week, the entire castle was empty except during meals and classes. Every person was in their common room exactly fifteen minutes before curfew and no one was ever wandering the halls that year. Or rather, no one was ever caught wandering the halls after curfew.
Not a single person stayed at Hogwarts during Christmas, except Harry, which Remus thought was odd. According to the house-elves the 'Come-and-Go' room was in use a lot more that year and Dumbledore, who started up the Order of the Phoenix that summer, didn't know what was happening with the group of youngsters.
Remus later learned that the students started what they called ROTC, Remembering Our Tri-Wizard Champions. There were sections in Beaubatons and Durmstrang also. The group was committed to making a change in any way that they could. It involved making discoveries of sorts, trying to keep peace, and, most importantly, stopping any idea of another Tri-Wizard Tournament or a tournament like it.
There was a surprising amount of silence that happened in the school, nowadays. The governors of the school came to see the school one morning, and not a word was spoken unless there was a direct question asked, and if someone needed the salt, there were murmurs that stood out a mile. You knew when there was someone who wanted more potatoes.
ROTC, though the Order didn't know, ended up finding out that the massacre at the Third task was caused by Voldemort. Though the group had already caused the pureblood supremacists to rethink their ideals, this was the final straw, and mudblood was never uttered in the halls in Hogwarts again, except for some selected visitors. Killing two, almost three, people in front of more than one hundred and seventy people, some of them only eleven, was a quick way to set them against you.
There forth, the students worked on a way to destroy Voldemort, because Harry was sure he wasn't killed, and they discovered Horcruxes.
A few weeks later, at the third Hogsmeade weekend of the year, a three groups of seven students disappeared along with twenty-one students from Beaubatons and twenty-one students from Durmstrang. They reappeared, a little less worse for wear, and sent three students to the Room of Requirement, where the first and second years were waiting to heal them, and put the ring that they had found in a locked case high out of reach.
After Christmas, a diary, a cup and a locket joined the ring in the locked container.
By the end of March they had five pieces in the locked case.
Remus had rather enjoyed his year as a professor, but during the last week of school, after exams, the side he'd had his rooms in the castle was ravenged with fiendfyre. No one was hurt despite the screams that had emitted from the fire, and nothing serious was lost but the entire castle was shaken, and Remus wasn't sure if he wanted to come back to it.
One day later Remus and Harry were captured by Death Eaters.
Their cells were right across from each other, so Remus could see the torture they were putting his son through, but he could also see the younger ones look towards Harry for assistance. Remus saw the healing potions that were slipped into his food by Snape, and the healing potions slipped to him by young people like Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson and Gregory Goyle.
And finally, he saw them slip Harry a wand. When the two of them were taken before Voldemort Remus saw Harry aim his wand, and fire a spell directly into the empty cavity that should have held a heart.
He wondered where Harry had learned the Killing curse.
The next week found Harry and Remus in the tender care of Madam Pomphry. Around Remus was a bunch of cards from strangers, and it found Sirius and James Potter sitting on the chairs beside him.
"We can't go back to the way it was before, but we can be friends," Remus forgave James.
Around Harry found a bunch of cards from every single person enrolled in Hogwarts and a group of people surrounding him. Three second years and two first years including Jane Potter were fussing around him, and Harry laughed them when they redid Madam Pomphry's diagnostics spell twice.
It was then that Remus realized that there was something very wrong. No forth year, let alone a second year or a first year should have be able to do that spell and here where five examples. Just when he was about to get up and demand to know how they could do that spell Dumbledore walked in.
After Harry (and everyone around the bed) had assured Dumbledore that Voldemort was truly gone and couldn't come back any time, Dumbledore turned to Remus, James and Sirius. Remus was halfway out of the bed, James was acting more like a fish than a person and Sirius, well, Sirius was laughing at the other two.
"Perhaps your group would like to join us sometime," queried the Headmaster, turning away from the shocked adults to the more (but not by much) composed students.
"I think ROTC would be amiable," was what Harry was able to choke out before he succumbed to giggles. The rest of the group followed his lead, tears rolling out of their eyes at the sight of their ex-DADA teachers looking at them in such astonishment. The Headmaster continued down the ward to visit his ex-Professors.
Remus wasn't quite sure what the headmaster said after that. Finding out what ROTC was was his new mission.
A/N: So this is what the story turned out to be. I don't know why, but that's apparently where the story was going from the beginning. Not at all what I thought it was going to be, but whatever. Does anyone know how annoying it is to think, 'oh, I'll do a story about this' and then sit down to write it and end up completely off the original plot? Anyway, PLEASE review. They make the world go round.