Transitions
Pairing: Eventual (slight) Remus/Sirius and James/Lily.
Summary: Remus had never expected to make friends. He'd been so sure they'd flee the minute they realised he wasn't who he said he was. He'd been certain.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Nothing's mine, unfortunately. All hail Queen Rowling.
A/N: This fic will span Remus's life from his first year at Hogwarts to the year the Marauders fall apart. I'm incredibly nervous posting this, so hopefully someone likes it and I won't feel like I've wasted a week of my life writing it instead of essays. The majority of this chapter is pre-Hogwarts set-up, so please bare with me.
Reviews are greatly appreciated and more than welcome!
Remus's mother combed his hair out of his eyes and kissed him on the forehead. Remus kept his eyes open and stared at her throat, at the thin gold chain she wore around her neck. If he wanted to, if he really focused, he could see the jolt of her pulse in her jugular vein. He could hear it if he tried.
When she pulled back she was smiling. She grazed a finger against his cheek before she straightened herself and went back to combing her own hair. Remus sat on the edge of the bathtub, letting the cold stone dig into his behind. He watched her and wondered why she did it, why she combed her hair and ironed her dresses and painted on lipstick, or even bothered getting out of bed, if all she did was hover from room to room through the house like a ghost confined to haunting one place for eternity.
"Have you done your times tables?" she asked him as she leaned towards the bathroom mirror and inspected her neat eyebrows. She glanced at him in the mirror.
"Yes," he said dutifully.
She smiled and it was that soft smile, the one that he often saw when it was just the two of them. "Seven times seven?" she prompted, and Remus sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Forty-nine," he answered her, seeing it in his head just how she'd told him to. Seven groups of seven, could be anything, could be apples or kittens or dogs. Seven groups of seven things. Easy.
"You're my little genius," she told him, bursting with pride.
He felt his own pride growing, expanding, taking up all the room in his chest, and he thought that maybe if he learned all of his times tables, maybe if he really made her proud, maybe then she'd let him go to school with the other children.
His mother had been a teacher once, and Remus knew without being told that 'once' meant 'before you were sick', because that was how the word was always used, and that was what it always meant.
"Don't you remember? We went there once."
"That's your Grandmother Josie. You met her once."
"I taught at a school once."
He tried to imagine his mother teaching a classroom full of children, a whole group of them, more than just Remus all alone. He sat in the dining room at the large wooden table and he wrote down his tables and he looked up at his mother, whose hair was the same soft brown as his own, and he tried to think of what it must be like to give up thirty children, just for one.
His father came home late and ruffled his hair with calloused fingers, asked him how he'd been, asked him if he knew how to spell 'exhausted'.
Remus did, so he told him. When he finished he met his father's eyes with a smile. His father, a stern-faced man, retuned the gesture – if a little hesitantly.
Remus's mother was in the doorway watching them, smelling sweetly of her perfume. Remus turned and grinned at her, hoping she'd offer him praise.
"Don't know why we're letting him waste away in here," his father said, his voice gruff and dismayed, and Remus felt himself shrinking between them. His smile wilted and he turned his eyes down to his feet, to the worn grey fabric of his socks.
"Don't," his mother murmured the word like a warning, like a plea. She sounded teary. Remus found that despite his best efforts he couldn't look at her. Couldn't watch her cry. "Please," she whispered, her voice thick and wet.
Remus's father shrugged out of his thick Muggle coat and threw it over a chair. The coat carried the stink of cigarettes and whiskey and it gusted over Remus and left his nose itching.
"He's so smart," his father growled, sounding as though it pained him to say it, like it hurt to know it, "he should be in school where he can learn!"
His mother left the doorway and came to stand behind Remus. She clamped her hands on his shoulders and pulled him so he was leaning against her. "He's too sick for that," she said, though Remus was rarely ill. "You know he is, the Healer-"
"The Healer's a superstitious fool," his father snapped, glowering angrily at her.
Remus stood between them – a living shield, a breathing barricade – and wished things were different.
The first time he escaped during the full moon he was eight and he nearly killed his parents before they managed to lock themselves in the attic where he couldn't reach them.
He woke up the next morning in someone's backyard, his clothes gone and his skin painfully torn in places. Blood was dried in thin cracks all over his body, the lines running through the dusty red blood as though etching out a roadmap. He couldn't tell if it was his own or someone else's.
The woman who owned the house found him and ushered him inside, wrapped him in a warm yellow blanket, asked him if he was okay, asked who'd hurt him.
He looked at her and thought with startling clarity: I could have killed you.
When the police took him home his parents greeted them frantically in the driveway, tears dancing in their eyes and relief clear on their faces. His mother took him painfully in her arms and rushed him back into the house as though the police were the dangerous ones and not him.
He resigned himself to being homeschooled and spending a night a month in the cellar, an ankle always shackled and chained to the pipes, everything charmed so that nothing would break (except for his bones, because they always did, he never failed to wake up in broken agony). His father always locked the door after him and his mother always cried. When his body began to ripple, when his bones shifted beneath his skin like accelerated tectonic plates, he tried his hardest to stay quiet, knowing his parents were just upstairs listening.
He read more and he tried to tell himself that there wasn't much of a difference between experiencing something firsthand and reading about it. But then there were the books about werewolves and the matter-of-fact way they talked about the transformations, the way 'agony' looked so tame in print, so simple, just five little letters in dark ink. He looked at the word and he thought that maybe he hadn't learned anything from books – maybe none of it was true enough.
An owl arrived with a letter from Hogwarts, just like Remus had always known it would. He'd always known he'd get the letter, but his parents – his mother, he thought a little spitefully – wouldn't let him go. He'd long since come to terms with it, but it still left him breathless and hopeful when he held the letter in his hands and looked up at the two of them, asking them, pleading with them.
What do I do?
"Dumbledore mustn't know," his mother said after she'd read it, and Remus's stomach tightened unpleasantly as it so often did when his affliction was brought up. "He mustn't know you're sick." She handed the letter to her husband and gave Remus a sympathetic smile. "He wouldn't send it otherwise, I'm sure."
"People say he's a bit daft," said his father offhandedly as he quickly scanned through the letter, "they think he's a bit of a danger. You heard about the McBurns boy, didn't you? Lost both ears to some kind of creature in the lake."
"I doubt Dumbledore pushed him in there," Remus grumbled, stabbing his breakfast and ignoring their probing eyes.
His mother sighed with heavy disapproval and said, just as he'd known she would, "Regardless, I don't think it's a good idea."
"I'll write back," his father told them, already summoning a pen and parchment. He rolled his sleeves up and pushed his breakfast out of the way, clearing a space to write.
"Dear Dumbledore, thanks but no thanks?" Remus guessed irritably.
"You're a smart one."
Remus nodded like a good boy, but bit down hard on his tongue until he was sure he was about to break through the flesh.
Dumbledore arrived unannounced the next day and Remus hid in the living room while his parents greeted the man at the door. Remus's heart was pounding, beating out an uneven rhythm against his ribcage, and he strained his ears to listen to their conversation. He couldn't hear what was being said, not until Dumbledore cleared his throat and said, loud enough that it made Remus wonder if he knew he was listening, "May I please speak with Remus?"
They sat in the living room, just the two of them. Dumbledore was in his father's leather recliner, a serene smile playing at his lips. It was odd to see such a powerful man in such a small place; it looked wrong, almost like an exotic bird kept locked in a cramped cage.
"I hear you're an exceptionally bright boy," Dumbledore said. He sounded sincere and comfortable and friendly, and it unnerved Remus. Dumbledore spoke to him as though they were equals, as though Remus wasn't eleven and a werewolf. He kept waiting for the punchline – kept waiting for the nasty surprise. "Your father seems to think you're a genius, in fact."
Remus flushed. "I'm not," he murmured. He wondered what his father had written in his letter.
"How would you like to come to Hogwarts, Remus?" Dumbledore asked, as simple as that, like there was nothing insane about the idea. Remus thought of his father and of the rumour that Dumbledore, despite all his genius, was quite mad.
"I can't," Remus hesitantly reminded him. "I'm sick." He felt his face burn, felt the hot prickle of shame crawling up the back of his neck and across his cheekbones. His hands were sweaty as his fingers knotted together and his stomach clenched and swirled sickly.
Dumbledore fixed him with a gaze that made Remus feel solid, real, important, noticeable, and then said, "Sick? My dear boy, you're not sick. You're an unfortunate victim of circumstance."
"I'm a werewolf," he said, plain and simple, because he was, and Dumbledore needed to understand, needed to stop it before Remus got his hopes up. "I've escaped before," he told him hurriedly, and although his face burned hot, he felt icy inside. "I've hurt people – my dad – my mum. I woke up in someone's yard once. She – she thought I'd been attacked, she called the police for me – for me, like I was the victim, like she didn't realise how close she'd come to being mauled by a werewolf." He shook his head exasperatedly and took a deep breath as he tried to steady himself. He could feel himself trembling. "So – so obviously I can't go to Hogwarts because – I – I can't stay in a dormitory – I can't be with that many people."
Dumbledore looked sad and old as he said, "Don't think I'm overlooking these things, Remus. I would never endanger the lives of my students. But I would never exclude one because of something beyond their control, either."
"With all due respect, sir," Remus said in a quietly hysterical voice, "until the day comes that there's a cure for this disease, I don't think I'm all that safe to be around. Especially not at a school."
"You don't think it's unfair that you'll miss out on an education because of something that happened to you when you were a child? Something that was entirely out of your hands?" Dumbledore asked him curiously.
His shoulders heavy and his pulse thumping in his ears, Remus said morosely, "Not many things in life are fair, sir."
"A cynical answer, but a wise one," Dumbledore replied with a sad little sigh. He smoothed his robes over his knee with his palm as he said, "I can assure you that you'll pose no danger at Hogwarts, Remus. I can promise you an education, and I can promise that the other children will remain safe."
"You can't promise that," Remus told him, because he couldn't – there was no way he could know that. He'd read enough about Dumbledore to know that the man was no Seer.
"You are an intelligent boy," Dumbledore began confidently, "and if I do say so, I possess some intelligence myself. I see no reason why the two of us cannot think of a way to keep everyone happy and safe." His eyes twinkled as he added, "And educated."
Remus licked his lips and felt his chest lighten. He scrambled for words. "My mother's a good teacher. I wouldn't be missing out on an education," he said, but it sounded like an excuse.
"That she is, but the teachers at Hogwarts are, forgive me, far more experienced in their areas of expertise. You'll receive a better education at Hogwarts than you would anywhere else. Remus, you seem as though you're the kind of man who places a high value on a good education." He eyed the books that were stacked beside Remus's spot on the sofa.
Remus thought of Hogwarts and tried to imagine himself there – a student, a boy, just like all the rest. He caught himself before he could smile.
"And if I hurt someone?" he breathed. He heard the defeat in his voice, but it sounded like hope. "If I escape, despite your best efforts? What then?"
"Then we would be forced to discipline you like we would any other student who caused harm towards another."
He worried he might be doing the wrong thing, that he might regret it once Dumbledore left, might change his mind once his mother looked at him with her sad eyes, but he swallowed his concerns and nodded. He'd worry about it later.
"Yes, okay, yes. I'll – I'll do it, I'll come."
His mother folded one of his sweaters until it was as small as it would go and then she placed it neatly into his new school trunk. She reached for another garment from his wardrobe and folded it also. She'd been quiet for a long time.
"Now," she said, in the way she often began a lesson, "what are you not going to do?"
Remus took a deep, tiresome breath. "I'm not going to tell anyone I'm a werewolf, obviously."
"Don't use that tone," she scolded him, "I'm not trying to be a pain, Remus, I just want you-"
"I know, I know," he sighed, because he did know, even if she thought he didn't. She was only trying to help him. She only wanted to keep him safe and happy. He knew that. Unfortunately that didn't make it any easier to accept.
They kept packing. She packed his clothes – it was odd to see summer things and winter things all bundled together, and then it struck him that he'd be gone for a long time, for a full school year, away from his parents and the safe familiarity of home – and he packed his belongings. His books, his quills, and the long rolls of parchment he'd bought specially for the year all went in the trunk. He worried there wouldn't be enough room for his cauldron. Maybe he'd just carry it.
"Remus," his mother said, and her voice carried warnings in it, ones that made his shoulders tense and his mouth go dry, "this might be hard to hear, but I need to tell you." She met his eyes. He nodded. It wasn't as though he could turn and run or cover his ears. "There's a chance... a great possibility... that if someone finds out about your illness..." She paused. She held the sweater she'd been folding and she stared at it as her thumb rubbed gently against the pale grey fabric. It was too small for him; he'd have to remember to take it out later.
"Mum?" he said softly, jolting her out of her trance.
"Sorry," she murmured, and she placed the sweater into the trunk with a jerky shake of her head. She then picked up where she'd left off. "I just don't want you being hurt, Remus. If someone finds out, they're not likely to take it well. Children can be so cruel."
Remus, who was only eleven, had already known that was likely to happen. He was prepared for the worst. He'd read the Muggle horror novels and he'd studied the texts about werewolves that his father brought home for him. He hadn't for an instant thought anyone would accept such a thing.
"I don't want you to avoid people," his mother continued in a strangled voice, "but if not having any friends means you'll be safe..." She trailed off, unable to say it.
"I understand, mum," he told her.
She smiled at him. "My bright boy," she said tearfully.
Remus continued packing, feeling sicker than he had in years.
"Seems smaller," his father said when they stood on Platform 9 ¾ on the 1st of September. A refreshing dampness clung to the air and each breath Remus took left his lungs wanting more.
His mother gripped tightly to her husband's arm, her face the colour of chalk and her eyes bulging with fear. She rarely left the house and doing so now caused her distress. His father had once confided in Remus that his mother was scared of being outdoors because of what had happened to him as a boy. She worried constantly about the dangers of being outside. Remus had felt guilty about it ever since.
"Excited, champ?" his father asked him, nudging Remus's shoulder and smiling at him.
He shrugged. Truth be told, he was having doubts. Life swarmed around them, parents and children and owls and cats and even a few toads. Remus was sure he was the only werewolf present, because who would have the spectacular lack of sense to bring a werewolf to a children's school? Dumbledore, apparently.
"Don't worry," his dad said, sensing his nerves, "you'll be fine."
Remus steeled himself. He'd be fine.
"We'll miss you terribly," his mother said sadly. She smiled tearfully at him, her eyes like watery jellies. Her usually perfectly combed hair was a wiry mess around her face, her locks hanging lank and sad like old curtains around a dusty, cobwebbed window. "Write us, won't you?" she whimpered. She seemed close to manic tears.
He nodded vehemently at her, trying to soothe her somewhat. He could feel a new energy building inside him – a bristling sense of excitement, of anticipation. Somewhere a whistle blew and a man called that it was time to board the train.
He hugged them quickly, let his mother kiss him until the embarrassment burned hot against his face, and then clambered aboard with his trunk. He found an empty carriage – a rarity, it seemed, since every other carriage seemed to be bursting with loud, eager people – and he sat down. He tried to spot his parents on the platform but couldn't. They were lost in the crowd.
It wasn't until the train was out of the station and the countryside was whirling past him that he realised he'd left, he was gone, his parents were back there and he was moving onwards, and he wouldn't see them for weeks.
He was quite sure he'd end up regretting saying yes to Dumbledore.
The Sorting Hat said nothing to him. He learned later that it had whispered to some people – told them that they'd be foolish not to consider something different, and were they sure that Gryffindor was what they wanted? Sirius boasted that the Hat had recognised him ("Ah! Another Black! But wait... this one's different...") and James laughed and said it must have been Sirius's own vanity whispering to him – but the Hat didn't utter a word to him. It fell heavy upon his head, bringing with it the thick aroma of dust and old fabric, and then announced to the hall after a brief contemplation, "GRYFFINDOR!"
Remus felt his heart stutter as applause thundered through the improbably large room. He was so astonished he nearly tripped on his way to the Gryffindor table, which earned him a few laughs and nervous titters from the assembled students.
Sirius, who had been one of the first to be Sorted and whose name Remus had remembered due to its connection to the stars (he'd read a book on Astrology only the summer before, just as something to do), slid along the bench to allow room for Remus to sit beside him. Sirius had short black hair which made his skin look violently pale in comparison. His eyes were a light mix of greens and blues that resulted in a marbled grey, and when he smiled he gave off a confidence that Remus could never have managed even in his wildest dreams.
Remus had once heard his mother describe someone as having "aristocratic features". The phrase came to mind as he looked at Sirius.
"Sirius Black," he said, offering him a hand to shake. Remus took it gently, not quite sure what the proper procedure was for shaking hands, since he'd never done it before. "I think the Hat is broken," Sirius told him vivaciously when they dropped hands.
"Uh," Remus began, looking aimlessly about for someone to help him assure Sirius that it wasn't, "why?"
"There's never been a Black who wasn't in Slytherin," he replied promptly, his eyes gliding over to the Slytherin table as he spoke. "For example, right now I can count three Blacks on that table. Cousins of mine. I assume they're furious that I haven't joined them there. They're probably writing home as we speak, the snitches." He squinted distrustfully at the table.
"Maybe you're just more Gryffindor-y than the rest of your family," Remus suggested, feeling horribly inadequate. He wished he had something better to say. He'd only known Sirius for a minute and he was already embarrassing himself.
"Maybe I am," Sirius said, though he didn't sound convinced. "Or maybe the Hat's broken. It's very old, you know. Old things break easily. I have an Aunt who's old. Old and insane. Insanity and old age seem to go hand in hand, I've found." He was now staring at the Hat with narrowed eyes. "That's it. I've decided. The Hat is insane."
Remus found himself smiling faintly at the boy, caught in amused bewilderment. Did all people behave like Sirius did? Had Remus, due to his isolation, missed some vital stage in his development that was triggered by being around other children? A learned habit, perhaps? Was he weird for being so quiet? "Reserved," his mother had said once, "you're so reserved, Remus."
Sirius looked back at him, then suddenly gasped as though just remembering something.
"Buggery," he hissed, "I'm being rude. Sorry. What's your name?"
Remus blinked furiously, trying to remember. "Um – Remus Lupin?" he replied, sounding horribly uncertain of himself.
"You sure of that, Remus Lupin?" Sirius asked, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth and revealing bright white teeth that put Remus's modest smile to shame.
"Yes!" Remus croaked, nerves strangling him and squeezing all intelligence from his brain. He felt so incredibly out of his depth.
"Potter, James" was called to the Hat next, and Sirius made an enthusiastic whoop and sat up straighter, stretching to see over the heads in his way.
"I sat with him on the train," he told Remus casually, not taking his eyes from the boy. "He's a good sort. I hope he's put with us."
Us.
Remus had next to no time to contemplate what Sirius had just said – Sirius had just grouped them together, included him, included Remus – because at that moment the Hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"
Remus was quite sure Sirius's applause was the loudest in the hall.
James jogged energetically over to the table, grinning from ear to ear, and sat down opposite Sirius and Remus at the table. His glasses hung crookedly on his nose and his dark hair was a mess in all directions. He looked as frighteningly excitable as Sirius was.
"I can't believe this is happening!" Sirius cried gleefully, his voice an octave higher than normal.
"I know!" James shrilled, bouncing in his seat and accidentally jostling the older student who was sitting beside him. "Merlin, we're in Gryffindor!" Then, with a charming smile that made Remus like the boy immediately simply because of how kind he looked, James said, "I knew you were a Gryffindor from the moment I saw you, Sirius. I just knew it."
Sirius's returning grin was so wide it looked painful.
James noticed Remus then, and promptly stuck a hand out over the table for Remus to shake.
"James Potter," he said, his face still flushed with excitement. "Pleased to meet you!"
"Remus Lupin," Remus replied, smiling at him, aiming for charming but probably looking very plain. "I'm glad I'm with you both," he said once his hand was free again. "I was worried I'd end up with someone horrible as a housemate." His eyes involuntarily crossed to the Slytherin table.
Sirius laughed and clapped him thoroughly on the back, bumping him a little forcefully into the table. "I know that feeling!" he said with a loud laugh. "I was sure I was going to be stuck with that greasy git from the train."
James shuddered theatrically, and Remus, who still felt slightly out of place with the two of them despite how friendly they seemed, didn't ask who they meant. He didn't want to push his luck with them.
The last person was Sorted into Hufflepuff and then the Dumbledore stood, raised a glass, and gave a short speech. He looked at home at the front of the hall – far more so than he had in Remus's tiny house. He welcomed them, told them to eat as much as they could, and then sat again. Immediately the tables sprung full with food.
Remus helped himself to a steak – it was as rare as he dared eat in public, and he wondered if perhaps the table had known what he'd wanted, or if there was just a wide variety of food available to suit everyone's tastes – and then settled back to eat, his entire body alive with the knowledge that he was at Hogwarts and he was in Gryffindor.
"I wonder when I'll receive the first Howler," Sirius pondered conversationally, pulling a cream cake towards him and then licking the sugar from his fingers. In a completely unaffected tone he continued, "I imagine my parents will disown me for this."
"Really?" James asked with his eyebrows raised. He was cutting into what appeared to be a kind of green meat, and with some apparent difficulty, too. "Just for being Sorted into Gryffindor?" At Sirius's nod he let out a long, low whistle and breathed, "Whoa. Uptight."
"I come from a family of escaped mental patients with incestuous tendencies," Sirius told them brightly, and he took a bite of the cream filled cake he'd chosen for his dinner. Sugar dusted his nose, and Remus couldn't help laughing when he effortlessly licked it off.
Remus had been at Hogwarts for not even a day – not even an hour – and he was already having more fun than he'd ever expected to have. Not only that, but he wasn't alone! He wasn't sitting by himself reading, like he'd always pictured himself when he tried to imagine his life at Hogwarts. He was with other children, and they were including him, and he wasn't alone.
"I'll bet mum has the house-elf pre-heating the oven right now, getting ready to cook me alive," Sirius sighed after he'd finished half the cake, and James choked on his food. "I'm not joking! They'll eat me! They'll gather everyone around the table and say, "To purity! To Slytherin!" and then dad'll get out the carving knife and he'll cut off my arse cheek and serve it to my mum."
Remus burst into laughter and sprayed the table with his mouthful of juice.
"Don't laugh! I've got a day to live, at the most! You should be treasuring this precious time with me!" Sirius insisted as he twisted to face Remus, who was covering his mouth with his hands as he laughed.
"You're a complete twat, Sirius Black," James said from across the table, eyes bright and happy behind his round glasses. "You're killing Remus; can't you see the boy can't breathe?"
"Remus? You're worrying about Remus? I'm the one who's going to be feasted upon! Worry about me! I thought this was supposed to be the honourable house! I demand a recount." He looked wildly about for some kind of official.
Remus looked at the two of them, the two charming boys who had for some reason decided to talk to him, who had seen something likeable in him, and he thanked Merlin for whatever he'd done to deserve them.
TBC