When the Moon Howls

by dRone

A Sixyearold Remus Lupin is taken late in the winter of 1965, he spends the night with the wolves.

Title:When the Moon Howls

Series: Harry Potter

Spoilers: Mild for 'Prisoner of Azkaban'

Rating:PG-13

Disclaimer: Remus Lupin and the Potter-verse belong to J.K Rowling. I

just borrowed him for a brief stroll in the country.

Summary: A Six-year-old Remus Lupin is taken late in the winter of 1965, he spends the night with the wolves.

The wind whistled black around the stars and the moon howled. In the dark a child shifted in his bed, sweat beading his forehead and fingers grasping for the cool protection of his sheets. It was a night of broken dreams and nightmares.

Down the halls, where the light traced the floorboards, deepening the shadows in the hollows of the house, there stood a figure. Her hunched back lurched as she shuffled towards the child's room, one step, two step a shuffle and a creak, the boards or her bones it didn't matter. Remus' breath hitched thick in the back of his throat as he heard her through the mahogany. The door blew open and she stood, framed by the splintering wood, her cloak billowing as the night whipped around her. "Tonight, boy. Tonight he comes."

Remus screamed, loud and long. His parents arrived outside his door in time to hear her footsteps echoing off the walls.

Evelyn Lupin soothed her son with hot chocolate and a quiet lullaby as she ran her hands through his clammy hair. Jonathan Lupin worked tirelessly warding the house; he was only a novice in the wizarding world, he was a wizard born from a muggle and raised without the lessons of Hogwarts. He had been home schooled and stolen from the wizarding world entirely by his wife. The unused magic burned in his skin as he drew protection spells into the fabric of his home. The walls, awoken by magic, whispered omens. It started off a dull wisp of breath that slowly tangled through the rooms until it became a roaring thrum. "Blood," the walls howled, "the night hungers."

Jonathan brandished his wand like a sword, "silencio," he shouted until even the crickets outside stopped chirping. In the deathly quiet he stumbled upstairs, footsteps hammering a panicked foxtrot in the dust, he slowed himself outside his son's bedroom and tried to calm his ragged breathing. Stepping into the room he willed a crooked smile. Evelyn stood in an invitation for him to speak. "We should leave, something's wrong, something…"

The pause hovered in the air, noticed and tangible like the quiver in Jonathan's voice. It took only a moment for Evelyn to scoop Remus up into her arms and follow her husband out to the garage.

He opened the car with a swift "alohomora", no time for keys, no time for fear. Jonathan turned on the engine to a sickly putter, before the car spluttered entirely into silence. Jonathan pounded the steering wheel and Evelyn held Remus closer. The young boy looked up, sandy hair and sad, wide eyes, "it's the dream."

Evelyn replied sternly, "No it's not." She believed it, small boys didn't dream of futures. Still something niggled at the back of her mind, the memory of every month for five years, of Remus wandering into her room, blanket clutched against his chest, tears tracking down his pale cheeks, "they killed me again," he'd say, his voice small and broken. Evelyn looked to Jonathan, her eyes searching, "it can't be?"

Jonathan tried the car again, as though sheer will could uncurl the heavy country fog from the engine. He knew deep in his heart that the world was unfair and that need alone couldn't make the world turn right, but he was damned if tonight he was going to believe that.

The dark moved, edging into the garage like grasping hands. The shadows pooled around the car tyres and then drew back again suddenly. The night shivered, the cold icing the darkness into a solid, a shape. Legs, body, arms, head blurring together against the fog.

"Too late." The old woman cackled and it sounded like glass breaking. Jonathan went to move and found himself struggling against his own limbs, trapped by his bones in an immobilous hex. "No," he shouted, throwing his body from side to side, momentum, movement, but not enough. "No," he growled, louder, more desperate as she approached. The hag threw open the doors and uncurled Evelyn's fingers from her son. Evelyn tried to grip, tried to hold on but she was powerless and her son was stolen from her hands. Remus listened to the cries of his parents follow him faintly into the night, hovering like a ghost on the wind before dying completely.

Remus woke again to a fierce howling, the ground was hard and cold beneath his body and he threw his hands over his ears, scrunched his eyes closed and willed himself away. The noise stopped and there was only the echoing of the young boys heart beating hard against his chest. He uncurled his wiry body and slowly opened his eyes.

Werewolves, he was surrounded by six wolves chained to the wall in a circle around him. Each bound by a silver leash that burned their necks as they lunged forward. The room smelt like singed fur and blood, and Remus fought to swallow the bile rising in his throat. He stumbled backwards and whimpered as one of the wolves leapt for him, fangs bared and flesh on its breath. Remus dove back into the centre of the room in time to hear the harsh hiss of werewolf on silver.

The woman stepped forward into the dull light and stroked her hand over the wolf's head, "ah, Remus. I knew that you and my beautiful son would get on." The wolf pulled back its lips and growled, "see, he wonders how you'll taste. I told him…" She moved forwards and ducked to Remus' height gathering him in her arms. She rested her chin atop his head so her breath blew at his hair as she spoke, "…young, scrawny and full of magic." She drew back and held him at arms length. "You see my boys?"

She gestured to her collection of wolves, holding Remus' small chin between her thumb and forefinger, "they're old, weak and breaking."

Remus nodded mutely, his words choking on the fear wedged deep in his throat, "why? What's wrong with them?"

The woman chuckled to herself, "I make them stay like this, in wolf form."

"But," shuddered Remus, "what about when the moon goes? Aren't werewolves people too?"

"Not my boys, no." She stroked one of their heads, rubbed her bony fingers over their pricked ears. "Mine are all wolf, though the permanent transformation wears their bones. I look after them though, feed them. I have a knack for animals, I make them love me."

Remus looked at the werewolves, took in their mattered fur and wild eyes, the tremble in their powerful legs and scars around their necks. "I think they're sad," he murmured.

"Yes." She cried throwing her arms up, "they're sad because they'll leave me here all alone, but you'll make it better. Such a young wizard, you'll grow into such a strong werewolf."

The old woman moved across the room and pushed open the battered stable door, "be a good boy and run along now, my babies like to hunt."

Remus stumbled out into the country, the wind whipping at his pyjama-clad body and digging into his bones. This part he knew, this part he had seen a hundred times as he slept.

He moved quickly into the night heading for the woods silhouetted against the moon. The trees in the distance separated, driving apart as though sliced by the wind. Remus ran onwards, the dream replaying in the back of his young mind, left, left, leap over the shadows that sting at your heels and… he paused. Remus blinked back the darkness from his eyes and spun around, taking in the gnarled tree, the clawed tree, and the soft dirt that sucks you down whole. Death was everywhere, a hundred outcomes from a hundred nights.

A growl splintered the bleak night, shards of fear glowing like the stars. With a quick breath Remus began to run. He stumbled through the woods, his need to get away quicker than his speed.

He fell.

Curled up on the floor, bloodied knees and small tears, Remus took a deep breath, in, out, in. 'It's just a dream' he told himself pulling his shivering limbs in tighter. The air shifted and was suddenly warm over Remus' face. The boy scrunched his eyes closed, 'just a dream'. The smell assaulted his nose, damp fur, and, Remus thought that if broken bones had a smell they would smell like wolf.

He cracked open his eyes and they met with the werewolf's, amber like molten fire and clouded with insanity. Remus was pinned down by one powerful paw, trapped and frozen but his mind was travelling light years ahead of him. He knew this place, this blessed danger ridden place.

Remus struggled and the weight came down harder, claws flexing into his pale skin. He was developing a theory. The very first in all his young years. His father was magic, he'd heard the hushed conversations, seen the room clean itself and watched as Jonathan had floated objects into his hands with a sly wink at Remus. Magic was in his blood and Remus figured it just needed to be let out.

He struggled harder and the wolf bore down on him, lowering his face to snap against Remus' as he pushed it back. The claws drove into his skin spattering his pyjamas with a thin spray of red. Remus let out a cry filled with relief and strained with pain, and waited… nothing happened.

The wolf bit down on Remus' shoulder hard and he screamed out into the night, to anybody, to a saviour. The moon stared on indifferently.

Remus scrabbled at the wolf's face, clawing, pushing and tearing. In desperation he pressed all his strength into his fingertips and heaved. The wolf flew off the boy with a sickening crack. Remus stared in disbelief at his smoking hands. The werewolf stood again and huffed at the sparks flaring in its coat. It turned its head painfully slowly back towards Remus and bared its fangs in a cruel, calculated smile.

The wolf charged and Remus raised his hand again and trained his upturned palm towards the wolf that was quickly advancing. He felt the burn pulse once more through his veins.

Remus blasted the wolf backwards again and again. The fire shot through him and he pushed the wolf further back to the clawed tree, back to where he knew was the dirt that would swallow them whole. The werewolf's legs caved beneath it and it tumbled to the ground, its hind legs sinking further down into the soft dirt. The Earth beneath it rippled and the wolf was sucked in wholly. The soil bubbled in a great belch and then settled back into its calm camouflage.

Muddied and breathless Remus wavered slightly on his feet. One down, five still hunting. The young boy turned unsteadily on his heel and came face to face with number two. The wolf leapt and Remus ducked, plastering his thin body against the floor. The wolf flew over him and collided with a tree only to fall unluckily into the quick sinking marshland. The dirt folded over its second victim joyously, and Remus laughed, a little hysterically, into the quiet.

He pulled his bruised body back up and nodded his thanks to the marshland. All around him suddenly the woods echoed with howling, piercing calls from every direction. Remus ran quickly away from the endless noise, moving off the way he had came.

The lights to the stable house were still on, a dull flicker in the distance. Remus dragged his tired feet there, across the lengthy field. He made it undetected by the other wolves and pushed the door open. He had expected the door to creak; his mind was trapped in a surreal horror story he had told at school once over jam sandwiches and orange juice. It didn't, and the quiet echoed chillingly through his bones.

He moved through the house across the still hallway and came to a room where the old woman sat in her armchair, fire dancing across her features. She looked soft and withered, and Remus suddenly felt tired. The force from his wandless magic had drained all his strength, he was cold and battered and he knew what he had to do. That was the problem with Remus' dreams, somebody always died.

He moved into the room and stepped in front of her, she looked up and dipped her head again as though she had never even seen him. "Where are my boys?"

Remus stood his ground, "dead."

The woman raised herself out of the chair. "Did you kill them?"

Remus shrugged slightly, "one sort of did it to himself."

"Bartholomew was never very bright, Greyback, my son, dead too?"

Remus nodded. "Oh," said the woman absentmindedly as she moved to the fireplace. "What are you doing back here?"

"It's you." Remus said, "it's all your fault. You control the wolves, you froze my parents." He kept his eyes on her as she moved around the room, "and you gave me the dreams."

"The dreams were my good." She clenched her fists in the folds of her dress, she looked like a child in trouble. "I wanted to show you how to survive, I didn't want you to die, just…" She gestured to the bite in Remus' shoulder and smiled. It was crooked and toothy. "I wanted you to be one of my boys, and look at you. You are now."

She raised her hand opened her palm full of a silver powder and blew it at Remus. He recoiled sharply and gasped as a pain struck his shoulder. He whipped his head towards the pain and paled, there were thousands of tendrils of blue and silver wrapping around his bite, stitching back together the broken skin. As he watched the threads moved down his arms, through his veins, razor sharp and empowering.

The old woman laughed loudly and hollered something, guttural and thunderous and there was a roaring of paws as the other four wolves moved swiftly from the woods to the room to watch Remus writhe. As the tendrils of silver hit his fingers it began to stretch them out, his bones cracked as they twisted into claws. Hair pushed out through his skin and the threads moved still, contorting his organs, his bones until finally his nose pushed its way out from his skull, new teeth wrenched through his gums, and his heart stopped.

It was his short death as a human, so that he could be reborn into the wolf. His new wolf form sniffed the air and growled low in the back of his throat as he smelt the air, fire smoke, lavender and the unmistakable scent of human.

The woman worked quickly, the spell was already half formed on her tongue, her wand pulling the control from Remus, stealing it into a painting on the wall. It was a self-portrait which moved, darting around the frame to catch the rays of magic. The woman in the painting caught Remus' control in a small crystal ball, which swirled like the northern lights, cold and mesmerising.

The wolf, with the eyes of a boy, swayed against the pull and growled out. With his last ounce of strength Remus leaped for the painting, scraping his claws across the canvas. The painted lady shrieked and fled to a picture beside her, dropping the ball which shattered against the brass frame and bled paint onto the wall below.

The real old woman spun, glaring daggers at her portrait. The painted lady dusted down her dress and blinked away the hatred, "I was never willing to die for your madness. I'm you. You know we're too selfish."

The woman huffed as she turned. She had only a brief moment for fear to find her, before her four wolves attacked. Then there was only time to scream.

The boy-wolf left, he moved out into the country and felt the wind on his back blow through his coat like gentle hands. He raised his head up to the sky and howled.

Jonathan and Evelyn suddenly fell limp, the hex was broken at the old woman's death, and they stretched their arms out, cracking their joints into place. "Where?" asked Jonathan, his voice full of anger, as he picked up the shotgun from the back seat of the car. Evelyn thought for a minute, "if it is the dream, he always talked about the woods?"

Jonathan moved for the door and Evelyn placed her hand on his arm, "how do you know that it is the dream?"

He stopped and turned to his wife, "because I don't know where else to look."

Night, like the day cannot last forever and the sun rolled lazily over the hills. Remus screamed as his body moved back into human form, fur to flesh, wolf to boy, and he laid beneath the grey winter sky unable to move, hurting to breathe.

A man wandered towards him from the depths of the woods, awkward on his old feet, and Remus groaned and rolled to the side trying to pull himself up, from the other side of him four other men emerged. Remus stayed on his knees.

The burly man who walked from the woods arrived first. He reached down and plucked Remus up from the floor with one fluid motion. "You know me?"

Remus nodded quickly. "Greyback. You're dead."

"The traps in the woods are made of dark magic, just like us, one cannot kill the other." His voice was gruff and menacing, "the problem I have kid, is that you did kill Bart, smashed his head on the way down and you tried to kill me!"

Remus' hands grasped at Greyback's. "You tried to kill me first."

"No, I will kill you, you little runt." He shouted throwing Remus back onto the ground and baring his teeth.

"You're a man now," said Remus scooting backwards far enough to hit the approaching men's feet.

"No." said Greyback, pulling his hairy hands back into fists, "I'll always be more wolf."

A shot sounded through the early morning and the birds flew noisily from the trees. The man, whose feet Remus was sat at, fell gracelessly to the floor. Jonathan cocked his gun again. "Remus, are you alright?"

Remus crawled away from the man and towards his parents. Evelyn ran to him bending down, she stroked his hair and picked him up gently, carrying him back towards her husband. With his gun trained on Greyback, Jonathan spared a quick glance, he noted how dirty and bloody his son was and clenched his teeth, "what did you do?"

Greyback laughed, a roaring laugh, "I improved him." He threw his arms out to the side and smirked cruelly. "He's not your baby anymore, he's a dark creature, a werewolf."

Jonathan's hand faltered on the gun and Greyback nodded, "you're too late." Jonathan stood straight again, his finger tightening on the trigger. Greyback pointed at Remus, "I'll be back for you one day runt."

By the time Jonathan had fired, Greyback and his group had apparated far and away from the Lupins.

Remus healed quickly through the strength of the wolf, and he was up and drinking hot chocolate again in only a couple of days. Around him Evelyn and Jonathan packed up their little country home. Put their lives into labelled boxes and sent them away.

Remus padded downstairs one morning and looked at his bare house, "what's happening?"

Jonathan bent down to one knee and put his hands on Remus' shoulders, careful not to hit his tender half-moon scar. "We have to move, Remus. Things have changed for us, for you. You know what you are?"

Remus nodded sadly and Jonathan squeezed his shoulder a little, when Remus looked up his father was smiling at him. "We're moving to Wizarding London, where there are places that we can look after you. Where we can teach you magic and maybe one day, if we try really hard, you can go to Hogwarts. That's a school where you'll be protected better than anywhere in the world."

Remus looked up at his father with wide watery eyes and whispered, "Will I be okay?"

Jonathan looked back, and thought of the Wizarding world, the bias, the intolerance for dark creatures and the war brewing somewhere in the background. He thought of magic, and preservation and what is best for his son. Jonathan's own eyes began to glisten. "Yes. I really hope so."

End