Welcome, everybody, and hello again to my older readers! I first wrote this story in 2009 during a difficult period in my life, and now I've returned to it in 2015 because I still feel very proud of this work but thought it could be even better. So I've spent quite a lot of effort to fix my typos, revisit sections I felt were weak, fill in the gaps I had originally left in the Marauders' 3rd and 7th years (this was where most of my time ended up going), and revise parts of the story so that it plays a little nicer with new information recently revealed about Remus on Pottermore. This might be a weird time to do a rewrite, because I'm sure Rowling isn't finished ruining my headcanons, but I'd better do this now before the whole story ends up completely at odds with canon and I'd feel like I need to start all over...!

Oh wait! One more note! I welcome everybody to please correct me on my use of British slang, to make sure it's accurate to the time period and everything. This is not my area of expertise.

Year One
I. Wanting

Remus J. Lupin was just a little too short, as far as he was concerned. He was also plain featured, brown haired and brown eyed, but none of this bothered him so much as being short. He was truly no greater in stature—and certainly no more remarkable—than a conveniently placed table, perfect for setting down a book or a cup of tea. Remus worried that his greatest obstacle at Hogwarts may soon have nothing to do with keeping secrets: what if no one took notice of him at all? What if never made a single friend, and was doomed to spend the rest of his school career trying not to be crushed by the footfalls of his more normal-sized classmates?

Remus might have faded into the crowd at Platform 9 and 3/4 completely, in fact, had not been for one very peculiar aspect of his appearance: two long scars that ran down his cheek, and a third that went over his nose. These scars were not half as ugly as they used to be, but they did nothing for his appearance—except maybe to suggest that he had once lost a spectacular battle against a garden gnome.

The more he dwelt on it, the more depressed Remus became. He had to admit that going unnoticed for the next seven years might actually be for the best—how on earth could he even begin to explain himself if someone ever asked about his face?

"Promise me you'll behave yourself," Mrs. Lupin said, hugging Remus with an unnecessarily hard squeeze. Her only son would soon be off to school and separated from her for the first time ever. "Remember how kind Professor Dumbledore has been to allow you to come, Remus. So let's not do anything that might make him regret it, okay?"

"I'll be as good as I can be, Mum," Remus insisted. "I promise."

"And remember to write to us when you can—"

"I will."

"—and tell us if you need anything—"

"I know."

"—and if it ever gets to be too much and you want to come back home, your father and I will completely understand. You don't even need to get on that train if you don't want to!"

"I want to go, Mum!"

"I know you do," said Mrs. Lupin softly, petting his hair. "But don't think I don't realize how scary this is for all of us, darling."

Scary or not, Remus had never wanted anything so badly: to board the Hogwarts Express and be like every other young wizard in Britain, off to Hogwarts to learn magic and meet other children his age. And yet there was another part of him, a frightened part, a part which secretly believed that Professor Dumbledore must have some very bad judgement to be allowing this. Perhaps this would be Remus' truest adversary—the part which nagged at him, which told him it was selfish to want to be normal, and that he ought to throw himself at his parents and demand to go back home right this instant.

"Be brave, Remus," said Mr. Lupin. He took the opportunity to clap his son on the shoulder just as Remus wiggled out from Mrs. Lupin's embrace. "I'm sure it won't always be easy, but you'll have help to keep suspicion off of you well enough. I have faith in you."

Mr. Lupin, of course, was referring to the one other difference between Remus and the other Hogwarts students: the part where he just so happened to be a werewolf.

Lycanthropy was a wizard disease without a cure. If was all over if you were bitten—bam, a werewolf, no going back, and that was that. A werewolf was a werewolf forever, and there was no point praying you weren't. Remus was already a somewhat unusual case, having received his bite at the age of four—most very young children did not survive the attack—but more unusual still, Remus was about to be the very first werewolf ever allowed to attend Hogwarts. And there was a very good reason why no other werewolf had ever been allowed, in Remus' opinion: because despite all the precautions the staff were willing to take, despite Professor Dumbledore's belief that a boy as clever as Remus deserved the best possible education, Remus still feared everything going terribly wrong. The possibility, the mere thought of hurting another human while transformed under the full moon, never failed to make Remus sick to his stomach.

"Thanks, Dad," said Remus, but his voice shook.

"There's a good boy," Mr. Lupin said encouragingly, and a whistle blew, warning that the train would leave shortly. Mr. and Mrs. Lupin helped their son pull his trunk onto the train while Remus' owl hooted gloomily from its swinging cage. There was a lot of kissing and hugging and crying from Mrs. Lupin, who offered at least ten more times to let Remus come back home.

The Hogwarts Express lurched forward at last, starting off on its journey, and Remus pressed his nose against a window to try to catch sight of his parents one more time. He waved to them, but went unnoticed, as his mother had her face in a handkerchief and his father was comforting her.

The train picked up speed. Remus wrenched himself away from the glass, sighing, and went off to try to find an empty compartment to sit in. It seemed that the older students had already found their friends and sat down, so it was mostly only first years who still wandered up the aisles with a hopeful eyes. Remus, however, kept his head down.

"Oi," someone said.

Another boy had come rolling his trunk down the corridor. His eyes were hazel beneath his glasses and he had black hair that went all over the place—he was a little awkward looking, as eleven-year-olds often were, but would certainly stand out in a crowd with more success than Remus.

"Hi," said the boy. "You're a first year too, right?"

Remus raised his eyebrows. When he tried to speak, however, no sound came out.

"I was just about to go into this compartment right here," the boy carried on, pointing. "There's a girl in there, but she looks alright. Seems a bit depressed though. I wonder if she's homesick already?"

"I wouldn't know," Remus said. The inside of his mouth felt like a desert, or maybe cardboard—he was unused to strangers speaking to him so casually. He wasn't even on casual terms with most of his own family members, as most of his extended family preferred that he stayed in his bedroom while they visited.

"She looks lonely, if what I'm saying," the boy continued. "So do you wanna sit with me and maybe…?"

"I have somewhere else to sit," lied Remus.

"Oh," the boy said, his face falling a little. "Well, that's alright. My name's James Potter, by the way. Be seeing you around, then."

Remus nodded curtly as the boy ducked into the compartment and disappeared. Remus felt frustrated with himself already—it seemed the second Remus had been noticed, anxiety overwhelmed him and he'd wanted to get away as quickly as possible. But being noticed was dangerous, he rationalized this to himself, because as nice as it would be to have friends, isolating himself was the best way to keep his secret safe. Besides, James Potter treating him nicely was probably some kind of a fluke.

Yes, Remus convinced himself, it had to be a fluke. What he really needed was to find a compartment he could have to himself, and then he could start writing a letter to his parents, to let them know that he was still in good health and eating right since he had last seen them five minutes ago. Maybe if he could just avoid human contact altogether for the next seven years, Remus thought miserably, he would be better off.

Remus traveled further down the aisle, his trunk bumping along after him, and sorely wished for the thousandth time that day, like he did everyday, that he wasn't a werewolf. When he came at last to the train's final compartment, Remus was happy to find it apparently unoccupied. He slowly opened the door.

"Er," he began, hoping that no one was going to answer, "is anyone in here…?"

His voice faded immediately. There were two people inside, just far enough to the left that they couldn't have been seen through the window. They seemed to be having an argument that might turn into a shouting match at any moment, and neither of them was paying attention to the person who was standing at the compartment door.

One of them was a tall girl with light brown hair, probably a seventh year, and she was already wearing her black school robes. Remus noticed she was fumbling with a large, silver pin on her robes that meant that she was the Head Girl.

"Honestly," she said, so distracted she stabbed herself in the finger, "I don't care how stubborn you are about it, you can't just change that who you are on a whim. The entire family's been in Slytherin. We belong in Slytherin."

"It's your bloody thoughts the hat cares about it, not your family," said the boy who was arguing with her, and he looked very intimidating, which was saying something, as eleven-year-olds didn't often look intimidating. "Besides, I'm sure there's been other Blacks who haven't been in Slytherin—"

"Then name a few," the girl challenged.

The boy opened his mouth, but it seemed he had no response, so he settled for a glare. Remus guessed from the shape of the arguers' faces and their similar mannerisms that they were probably related.

"But I don't want to be in Slytherin, and that's got to count for something! I'd just be surrounded by all my snot-nosed cousins—"

"I would be one of those snot-nosed cousins," the girl snapped at him, throwing her hair over her shoulder. "And being a Slytherin isn't anything to be ashamed of—it's the house for those of us who are ambitious, for both good reasons and bad. And considering this lifelong dream of yours to just defy all logic and go to Gryffindor, that could probably qualify you as a Slytherin all on its own—"

"But Gryffindor sounds loads better than Slytherin! At least I won't be hearing about purebloods and how they're better than everyone else until I vomit—"

"You are literally unbelievable. I know it's hard with your parents always going on about that, and mine do too, but there's no doubt you're going to be—"

"I'm not talking to you anymore," the boy announced angrily, grabbing his trunk with a violent tug. Remus was reminded that he was still standing in the doorway and was probably about to be run over. "I'm going to go sit with the boy I met on the platform. I liked him, and he says his Dad was in Gryffindor. Maybe I ought to make friends with people who actually care that they're being lumped in with the same lot as Voldemort!"

"Fine, ignore what I say, I'm not stopping you," the girl said, and dismissed him with an irritated wave of her hand. The boy turned to leave the compartment in a huff, but then he looked up and noticed for the first time that Remus was standing there.

"Er," said Remus, "sorry, I'll just—"

He faltered at the the nasty look in the boy's eyes.

"You've got a great big chunk missing out of your nose, you know that?"

Remus' mouth opened by a fraction—but the boy shoved him out of the way and went storming down the corridor with his trunk wheeling behind.

"Sirius! Dammit, get back here!"

But he was long gone already, and the girl looked more agitated than ever as she came forward and helped Remus back up. She wasn't too terribly successful, however, as Remus's limbs refused to cooperate—all of his worst fears and nightmares were now running through his head like a film played at double speed, and now he was considering that he might go find somewhere dark where he could curl up and die quietly without causing anyone a hassle.

"I'm sorry he was rude to you," the girl apologized, when Remus finally got the feeling back in his legs and straightened up. "That was my little cousin. He's usually not that much of a brat, I'm sure he's didn't really mean—"

The girl's eyes swept over the scars on Remus' face and she apparently decided it was best to swallow what she was going to say.

"Anyway, I have Head Girl duties to attend to," she said, hastily. "Do you not have anywhere to sit? You can stay in this compartment if you'll watch my things. I'm Andromeda Black, by the way, so feel free to come after me if Sirius gives you any more trouble. You're a first year right? What's your name?"

"Remus Lupin," mumbled Remus.

"Not from a big wizarding family then, I guess? You seem like a Ravenclaw, if you ask me—people who like keeping to themselves usually feel right at home there." Andromeda smiled, giving Remus the impression that she already understood him much too well. "Have you put any thought into what house you want to be in?"

"Probably Ravenclaw," Remus answered, but it came out in a strange way, and was more or less chewing his own tongue as he said it. "That was my Dad's house. Gryffindor sounds alright, but I don't think I'm brave enough to be one myself."

Andromeda nodded thoughtfully.

"Well, at least you've got more of a chance than Sirius does," she said, and then she left the compartment.