It started off as a secret mission, a pact between him and his parents as strong as an Unbreakable Vow, a secret he shared with the teachers of the school that made him special. The mission was this; don't get close enough to anybody for them to find out.
He had always been an introverted kid. He liked to keep to himself, so the no-friends part wouldn't be an issue. But when he told his mother about this handy skill he possessed, she frowned and looked away as though he had said something very uncomfortable.
But his dad smiled at the revelation as though he had already completed 7 years at Hogwarts without sharing the sacred information. "That's great, Remus, you're going to do so well at school! But we didn't say no friends - have a few pals if you want. But no best mates and no nosey friends who are going to ask about where you go, okay?"
"Okay," Remus nodded, but he was already thinking about exactly how many books he could read during a year at Hogwarts in solitude.
As he thought, he was sure he caught his mother whisper to his father angrily. "Lyall, a boy like ours can't have a few casual friends and you know it. He needs love."
He ignored the remark because he had heard thousands of similar ones, ever since the day they had decided he would have go to Hogwarts anyway, and continued his thought. Three or four books a week, and then only one book a week when he was studying for exams. That would be about...
"Dad!" he gasped with the sort of sincerity only 11-year-old Remus could muster, "How am I going to bring 120 books with me to Hogwarts?"
His mum returned to the conversation now, her face lighter. She could never be upset when Remus was in peril as he was now. "We already told you about Hogwarts' library, Remus! You'll love it. And we'll send you any books you ask for to school by owl. Anything you want, we'll send it, alright?" She reached out to cup his face in a motherly way that rather scared Remus. His mother only performed loving gestures like that when she was concerned about him, and he didn't know what there was to be concerned about.
He stepped away and began a string of sweets and books he would require in his first week that had them in peels of laughter. He smiled a quiet smile at them as they giggled. He would miss his parents; they were his best friends.
He had friends in primary school, but only because they were muggle and wouldn't believe his secret even if they did find out. It was different in a magical school.
It was only when they arrived at King's Cross that he began worrying. He hadn't realised quite how many children there would be. Whilst the other first years gawked at the station and bid their parents farewell, Remus assessed their numbers. Turning back to his parents, he asked uneasily, "Did you know there would be this many children?"
His mother frowned and turned away again. She looked like she might cry, which honestly wasn't helping the situation. "Come on, now, Hope," his father murmured to her before bending down to talk to Remus. "There's going to be lots of children, Remus. But don't worry, if you need to get away, there's a ton of places to go. Do you have the list I gave you? And remember, you can speak to your proffessors about anything."
His son smiled, but that wasn't the issue that Remus had discovered. All of the children seemed to be making friends already. They had gathered into great large packs of kids, and as they walked, they formed a stream of laughter and shouts. Remus felt more excluded than he had ever felt in his life.
The next half hour was a whirlwind of kisses and hugs and hurried advice and a checklist for luggage, and when it was over, Remus found himself sitting in a train carriage alone. Shellshocked, he stared into space for what seemed like hours when he heard a scuffle outside the door of the carriage.
In a flurried panic, he remembered the advice his parents had burned into his brain and lunged into his bag for a book. He opened it and managed to slap an interested expression on his face seconds before the door flew open.
Boys flooded through, one after the other, falling over eachother and laughing hysterically as they scrambled up from the floor. Already, he had heard more curse words than he had ever heard in his entire life. His book forgotten, he watched with wide eyes as the flurry organised itself into three boys.
"Hey," the middle one, taller than any boy in his primary school and with messy hair piled high on his head, spoke up, "mind if we sit in here? We got chased out of our carriage." The boys exchanged looks at this. Remus could tell that his own presence was the only thing keeping them from bursting into laughter again.
Swallowing hard, Remus nodded and stared hard at his book as the boys settled themselves down. He had never stared so hard at anything in his life. After a few moments, he turned the page quickly, as though fully absorbed by the book he had stuffed into his bag without glancing at it.
A break from the boys' conversation was obvious enough to force Remus to glance up for a moment. Opposite him, a boy with jaw-length black hair and dark eyes was smirking at him. The second he opened his lips, Remus knew he would utter something irritating. That happens with some people. You dislike them in an instant, the same way you clicked with others.
"You know your book's upside down." The boy watched carefully for Remus's reaction. Remus did not know, but he turned the book - Objects Which Should Not Be Used As Portkeys - over cooly and responded with, "Oh."
He was proud of himself in that moment as he continued his book - staring. The boy interrupted him again with a sneer that had the other two boys falling over themselves laughing. "Do you usually read books like that, then?"
Remus glanced up and back in the way his father had advised him to - as if he didn't really care. His heart was thumping hard against his chest. "I was practising."
"Practising being able to read upside down?" The boy grinned around the carraige at his friends, who had already called him several rude things and were falling over each other laughing at them.
"Yes." Remus said, quietly. "Are your friends practising how to laugh obnoxiously?" He returned to his book, feeling for a moment as if he had won, when they launched into louder fits of laughter.
"Ooh, brilliant comeback," the chubby boy choked out as he laughed at Remus. But they were laughing too hard to get in any proper digs about his stupid reply, and when the laughter died down, they began discussing quidditch.
Remus was still flushed, but he had been reading - properly reading - for about two chapters when the boy with the longer hair began talking again. "Well, we're almost to Hogwarts now. Stop being so rude, maybe?" He sounded almost offended. "I'm Sirius, and that git there's James." The chubby boy did not get an introduction, but he gave Remus a tight smile and offered, "Peter."
"I'm Remus." he had not looked up from his book this time, and found himself watching the word painful with the eyes of a hawk. His parents had allowed him to have aquaintances, but he would not desert his mission so soon. And, when he did, it would not be for mindless baboons who had not the manners to introduce all of their friends. No, he would wait as long as it took to find considerate and intelligent aquaintances, as his parents had suggested.
"What house do you think you'll be in, Remus? I'll be in Gryffindor," James commented. He glanced around nonchantly as he spoke but Remus could see the flush of excitement in his face. He had been dreaming of Hogwarts. Perhaps he had been dreaming of friends and quidditch whereas Remus dreamt of quiet places and complex magic, but that was the only thing Remus and James had in common then.
"Dunno," came Remus's reply. He couldn't help cringing at how awfully rude he was being, but he heard his father's words over and over. Children delight in secrets, Remus. They don't see the consequences of sharing those secrets, so you mustn't give them the chance to.
He felt Sirius glaring at him over his book. "Come on, guys. We'll find a carriage with people who can actually talk."
As they left, tension Remus hadn't known was there left his shoulders. He breathed deep and threw his book down. The moment they stepped out of the carriage, the boys began laughing again, as if they had been holding their breath. Did laughter really come that naturally to them?
"I've never wanted to choke someone more than I did there now," James wheezed as they slammed the door closed.
Sirius' voice could be heard from 4 carriages away saying, "Remus Lupin, he's called. He must just naturally look constipated like that, staring all the time. Did you ever see him blink, James?"
"I didn't!" chirped Peter, but his voice was lost beneath their talking and the train's horn. They had arrived at Hogwarts.
The castle met Remus' expectations exactly. His parents had described the great hall, the sorting hat, the moving stairs, even Dumbledore perfectly, but Remus now got the sense that his parents had left some parts of their stories out. To Remus, the experience seemed rather empty because he had no one to share it with. Because of course Lyall and Hope Lupin had had friends! They had met in Hogwarts and whenever any of his parents' friends came over, they always discussed their days at school. Remus felt absurd for believing that all those happy memories his mother had told him about had happened without friends.
But his mother hadn't been a werewolf. That was where the difference lay, and that was why his time at school would never be the same as hers, and why he could never talk to friends about 'the good old days at Hogwarts'.
Dreams filled Remus' head as he stood at the back of the line alone, waiting to be sorted. James had been the first to step up to the stool, and was placed into Gryffindor before the hat touched his head, really. He bounded down from the stage with an arrogant smile pasted on his face and slid into the Gryffindor table as though he had been doing so for years. Sirius followed after him and repeated the process, but he looked uneasy. His eyes were on the Slytherin table.
The Sorting Hat wavered on Peter's head, but he was seated next to Sirius and James soon enough and what looked like the entire Gryffindor house came to clap them on the back.
As he waited, he imagined being put into Gryffindor and clapped on the back like James and Sirius. He would feel best at the Ravenclaw table, of course, but most of the laughter in the Great Hall seemed to be radiating from the Gryffindors. (So they were all obnoxious laughers, then.) The Hufflepuffs smiled at each individual first year as they tottered over, and he imagined he would find "casual pals" there. He didn't look at the Slytherin table, because he felt their eyes already on him. Why? Because he was next to be sorted.
In a panic he watched as the boy in front of him with the black hair and sallow skin crept towards the Slytherin table. He was next.
"Remus Lupin!" even as Dumbledore spoke, his eyes seemed to tell Remus, It's alright. He climbed onto the stool, grateful that he was the last in line and that most of the hall had stopped paying attention. Except those three Gryffindor boys. They were watching him with matching sneers on their faces.
He imagined being placed into his own house, Werewolf, where he couldn't endanger the other children. He would have his own tiny table in the great hall, where they would serve him raw meat every day and the other students would gawk at him like a zoo animal. Maybe they would try and kill him as he slept in his own secluded Werewolf tower.
"Gryffindor, then?" A voice called to him. Looking up in surprise, Remus realised the Sorting Hat had been placed onto his head, but it hadn't placed him in a house. It was considering options in his head.
"Er, I guess?" Remus murmured. Nobody in the hall but James, Sirius, Peter and Dumbledore was watching the encounter. The beady eyes of Slytherins had left him. He hoped the boys couldn't hear the conversation.
"Maybe not, maybe not," spoke the gruff voice of the hat. "Ravenclaw seems right, very right, but you've got more bravery than a lot of Gryffindors do. Would be a shame to ignore that."
Remus found the glaring eyes of Sirius in the crowd and was filled with fear. "No, Ravenclaw's fine, if that's alright."
The Sorting Hat laughed. "You certainly haven't used your bravery yet, that's for sure, but it's there. And to answer your question, it's not alright. I have a job to do, and I intend to do it correctly, if that's alright."
Remus drew in a deep breath and nodded. "Do it, then. What house am I supposed to be in?"
The Hat paused and for the first time since Remus had been up there, the conversation in the Hall lulled and eyes turned to look at him. Had they noticed how long Remus had been up there?
Then the voice rang out, as loud and sure as his parents had told him it would be when he was sorted; "Gryffindor!"
Cheering erupted from the table cloaked in red, along with a smattering of polite applause from the Hufflepuffs and a few shouts from students who were bored of waiting. Remus stumbled to the Gryffindor table and was subjected to hard claps on the back from a few older Gryffindors. He smiled at them.
Remus sat between a red-headed girl who introduced herself as Lily, and a tall boy called Frank. Frank raved about how lucky they were to be placed in the best house there was, while Lily congratulated him quietly. He smiled at them.
Across the table, James met his eyes demandingly. "So when I asked you your house and you said you didn't know," he said, "it wasn't because you were being rude - you actually didn't know!" He guffawed as if the idea were foreign to him. Sirius and Peter watched him expectantly, as if Remus were about to break into easy conversation.
He didn't do so, because he hadn't spoken to anyone in about four hours and he had set himself to silence now, but he did do something that he hoped would show them he wasn't as rude as they supposed. He smiled at them.
They both looked away in disgust. So a smile wouldn't be enough for them. Remus looked down at his plate. A smile was all he really had to offer. He couldn't talk because he felt the words I'm a werewolf bubbling on his lips. He couldn't let those words escape.
Remus was glad to find that Frank Longbottom would be sharing his room with him. They walked up the stairs to their room together, and Remus smiled the entire time. His easy grin disappeared the second James, Sirius and Peter appeared in the door to their room with the words, "This is our room, too."
The room filled with laughter (an impression of Dumbledore) and Bertie's Every Flavour Beans (a spillage) and feathers (a pillow fight) within minutes. Remus unpacked his things quietly in the corner, and when this was done, he disappeared behind the curtains of his bed.
He lay down on the bed, took many deep breaths, imagined his father's encouraging presence, plastered on a smile, and stepped back into the room. If he was being honest, he was hoping that the four boys would greet him politely, sit in a circle, and begin some icebreaker conversations.
No such luck. Sirius and James were engaged in a wrestling match in the middle of the room, and Frank and Peter were throwing pillows at them and screaming at the top of their lungs. Remus could already see the beginnings of an intense friendship between these boys, exactly the type he was not allowed to engage in.
"Alright, Remus!" spluttered Sirius from the ground, where he and James lay on their backs choking on laughter. He wondered if James and Sirius had been laughing since the day they'd met, and how long ago that was.
"Alright." Remus grinned down at them, and then, as if fearing he had said too much, walked briskly down the stairs to the common room. There sat ginger Lily and a few other girls, all giggling. Perhaps it was infectious in the Gryffindor tower.
Avoiding their eyes, Remus began the treacherous journey to the library. His father had written him instructions so that he could disappear there in a moments notice, but he had no idea where the trophy room was, never mind what was to the left of it, so he decided to follow the corridor until he found it.
Two hours later, he was sweating in a corridor he had never seen before (which was unusual because they mostly looked the same), his feet hurt and he might have misplaced his wand. His father's instructions held nothing on what to do when one didn't want to be alone, only how to avoid nosey people and good reading spots and what to do when somebody knows about the thing. He had only seen Filch, the caretaker and a few Hufflepuff students the entire time, and students had to go to sleep soon.
He plundered on, vaguely panicked about his wand, opening doors every now and then just to see if it held a library (he wasn't worried about being yelled at at this stage; finding a teacher would be helpful). It must have looked strange: a young scruffy Gryffindor journeying through the castle, flinging every door open and closed on his way. He was almost closing a door when a light flashed inside the empty room. It was getting dark now; he was certain he would get a detention for roaming the corridors after hours.
So he made his way hesitantly into the room to find a large map on a drawing board and a table full of equipment; a torch (which was on and pointing at the door as if meaning to catch his attention), a small handheld map, insoles, and three choclate frogs. And his wand! He stuffed it into his pocket, dazed by the array of things obviously meant for him.
After putting the insoles in (his shoes were used, too large, and scruffy), he compared the smaller map with the massive one. Both were maps of Hogwarts, filled with carefully drawn diagrams of each room, corridor, tower and staircase. He saw the words Dumbledore's Study and Great Hall, and there, Remus Lupin was labelled. His label wasn't in the room but in the corridor outside; so the room didn't show up on the map. Down the hall, up two flights of stairs and to the right, Gryffindor Tower was labelled. Remus grinned and tucked the smaller map into his pocket.
He scoffed two chocolate frogs then and there, and set off yielding the torch (which he really didn't need now that he had his wand, but he appreciated the effort, whoever it had come from.) When he heard the whispers of fellow rule-breakers in the corridors or the footsteps of a teacher, he turned the torch off and huddled in some dark corner or other.
With this method, he found the door to Gryffindor tower only half an hour after bed time. But as he blinked at the Fat Lady, (who was looking at him as if he had just killed a unicorn) he could not recall the password, and she was unwilling to budge. He could remember every species of dragon, but not the password to his room! Reluctantly, Remus settled himself against the door, trying to find some comfort in the fact that he wouldn't have to get dressed tomorrow morning.
He was barely asleep when a voice hissed at him, "Merlin's Beard, Lupin, what are you doing?" The Fat Lady had been woken up again by Sirius and she looked very upset about it.
Remus raised groggy eyes to look at the boy, whose eyes gleamed in the darkness, and mumbled, "Forgot the password."
Sirius hauled him away upstairs, and the only satisfaction Remus took from the ordeal was being able to wink at a flustered Fat Lady as he left. In their room, he found that the boys were all still awake and still engaged in the pillow fight. They turned expectantly as Sirius and Remus entered.
"Well," James raised an eyebrow at Sirius, having already understood that he wouldn't get an in-depth answer from Remus, "Where was he?"
Sirius rolled his eyes as though Remus had caused him a major inconvenience. "The stupid git was asleep against the door because he forgot the password and The Fat Lady wouldn't let him in - it's blast-ended skrewt, by the way."
Remus nodded in thanks and emptied his gifts into his suitcase in an attempt to be ignored again, but they watched him curiously for an explanation. Sirius plucked the map from the pile and opened it; "You were out there drawing a map of the school for yourself?" he sneered disbelievingly. "Merlin, I didn't think you could get any geekier, but you've surpassed all my expectations."
"I didn't draw it, I found it in that there room!" Remus spoke more words than he had ever felt the need to speak to them in his defensiveness.
Sirius found Remus Lupin on the map and broke into more laughter. "He's drawn himself on it, guys. He sat in the corridor alone and drew all this time. And just when we thought you were out there partying."
The other boys leaned in to look at the parchment, their faces pinched as they readied themselves to laugh. They did just that, leaving Remus flushed and annoyed. Annoyance, it seemed, produced more words than necessary from Remus; "I didn't draw it - I found it in this secret room with me already on it like that." But of course, the room wasn't shown on the map and they began chanting the very original name "Loony Lupin!" even though it had already been used all through his primary school days and really was getting tiring.
"C'mon then," Remus dared, thrown by their same obnoxious laughter. "C'mon and I'll show you it - unless you're scared of detentions."
James and Sirius threw themselves at the door at the prospect of the challenge, followed by Peter. Remus and Frank, who stayed behind, exchanged calm smiles before Remus crept after the three boys, who were surprisingly good at keeping quiet when they wanted to.
Remus led them back to the Room of Requirement, feeling like a proffesor with his imature class on a school trip. When he arrived at the place where Remus Lupin was marked on the map, he looked around expectantly but to no avail. The door was gone.
"I - It was here!" Remus spluttered, horrified. "It's a magic castle, it must have a charm over it!"
"Sure, Loony." muttered Peter, and Remus was surprised to find that his eyes were sharper than the other's. But it disappeared and Peter melted into the background again, popping out only to repeat James' words and be pushed back by Sirius.
"You nutter!" Sirius laughed. He found insanity hilarious, apparently. "You absolute freak. You reckon he's a nutter, James? A proper one?"
"I'd say Dumbledore only let him into Hogwarts because they're both mad," commented James. Sirius and Peter supplied some approving laughter and together they mocked Loony Lupin. Remus ignored them and puzzled over the missing door.
"I'm glad your reason for being out of bed late is so amusing."
To this day, Remus remembers that as the scariest moment of his life. Not realising he was a lyncanthrope, not his first full moon, not the Battle of Hogwarts. His first detention from Minerva McGonogall.
A tall, severe-looking woman stepped into a puddle of moonlight and looked at them primly. Her emerald green bathrobe did nothing to soften her appearance. The disapproving lines in her face looked as if they had been carved there by a knife.
"First years, yes? What a shame. 10 points each from Gryffindor, and detention in my office, this time next week. Everyone to bed, now." Her eyes found Remus's and he froze as if he'd been turned to rock. "Mr Lupin, would you accompany me to my office, so I can be sure that you won't get lost on your way to detention?"
They all stammered out individual "Yes, Proffessor"s and went their separate ways. Remus felt the other boys watching him as he stumbled after the stern teacher.
She was already talking when he caught up with her. "Now, Mr Lupin, I know the full moon is two weeks from now, isn't that right? Dumbledore and I have taken the liberty of finding a place for you, I'm sure your parents have told you, during that period. We'll take a brisk walk to it now, so you can find it for yourself when the time comes."
"How will I find your office next week, then, Proffesor?"
McGonagall smiled a smile that told him a lot about her; she was kind and fair and she knew everything worth knowing. It was the kind of smile Remus had hoped to produce, to show people that he was nice, really. Just quiet. "I think you'll find, Mr Lupin, that Hogwarts has a way of showing itself to you."
They stalked into the night together.