Chapter 2
Truth hurts at times
Ages: seven, eleven, fifteen and late twenties.
(Remus: late twenty's)
I finished the story. I heard someone sniff behind me; I turned and saw that the healer was crying. She shook her head and waved her hand – telling me silently to carry on
"Sky?" I asked quietly – worried that she might flinch at a loud voice saying her name
"It was my fault" she barely whispered
"It was most certainly not" I retorted
"Mr Lupin, could I have a word" the Healer said
***
(Remus: eleven) (The Sorting)(Sky's Point of View)
I sat down next to the group of my friends but at the end, furthest away from the door and closest to the stage. I knew Remus must be feeling so scared. I made jokes about the sorting and I think he took them seriously
"Hey Sky, were you even listening?" Tom asked
"No sorry Tom, I was thinking"
"Not about that silly kid that's going to be starting this year?" Cherry asked
"He is not silly. He's smarter than you Cherry and he hasn't even started yet" I snapped
"Whoa look at Sky getting all protective over a first year" Dylan said
"Shut up" I growled, trying to pay no attention to my ignorant friends. Before they could say anything else the doors opened and Professor McGonagall followed by the first years – waiting to be sorted into their new houses.
***
(Remus: seven)
My mother was crying, I wanted to reach out to her and wipe the tears away and ask her what was wrong. I already guessed it had something to do with me and why they were leaving me in a cellar. Sky walked up to me and wrapped her arms around me, she whispered quietly, so only I could hear "I'll stay with you"
"Thanks" I whispered back. My father cleared his throat,
"Everything is ready, we'll be back in the morning" he said gruffly. I sat there, naked, and could do nothing but watch as my parents climbed the ladder out of the cellar and shut the trapdoor. Sky rubbed my arm gently as she looked out the window. The moon was going to be a full moon, her favourite time of the month she had said once. The moon snaked out from behind the clouds. That was when the pain started.
***
(Remus: eleven)
I saw Sky sitting in amongst all her friends from the seventh year. They started laughing as I approached them slowly. Someone nudged her and she looked up. She jumped off the boy's lap she was on but he grabbed her waist and pulled her back down. Laughing, she made him let go. She looked up again with a huge grin on her face but it suddenly disappeared. She ran out the circle and over to me. She hugged me and pulled me away from her seventh year friends because the boys had started wolf whistling. She dragged me to the portrait and out of the common room
"Who was that?" I asked as we walked down a corridor
"Which one?" she asked back
"The one who you were sitting on"
"Oh Tom. He's my boyfriend" she said simply. I felt the pain of some unknown emotion. Sure I cared about her and when she said boyfriend I felt hollow – like she didn't care about me "now, what's wrong?"
"It's the others"
"What's happened?" She sounded worried
"They came up to me today, after history of magic and well they accused me of being a werewolf-"
"Remus" she paused "What did you do?"
"I ran. It was the first thing I thought of"
"Oh Remy" she pulled me into a hug "that will only confirm their thoughts" she had pulled me into a hug at the right moment because I started to cry. I wrapped my arms around her waist and she pulled us down to sit on the ledge. She pulled me onto her lap "Is there anything else you want to tell me while we're here?" she whispered into my ear
"I like this girl in my year, I want to protect her" I paused for a sob "I want to protect her from monsters like Malfoy" I paused again "and me"
***
(Remus: late twenties)
The Healer led me out the private room and into the corridor. She had a worried expression painted on her face. I shoved my hands in my coat pocket, looking at the ground before I looked up at the Healer
"How bad is it?" I asked
"It's not as bad as it should have been; she is a very lucky girl. How old is she?"
"She's seventeen" I automatically lied knowing that on her record it should say she was born in nineteen fifty-four. The Healer merely nodded. I could tell something was wrong, I could sense it. There was bad news; I just didn't know how bad the news was going to be.
***
(Remus: fifteen)
I wasn't exactly one to charm the ladies like Sirius and James. I had a sneaky suspicion Sirius had lost his virginity and made a lot of the girls in the school lose theirs as well. James wasn't as bad for he had his heart set on Lily. But that didn't stop him flirting with a lot of the girls. Sky had graduated four years ago, at the end of my first year but she had stayed, to do a "teaching assistant course". Of course Dumbledore knew that she was my guardian angel. We both went to see him every Wednesday, mainly due to my condition, but also to make sure no-one other than myself and a few of the teaching staff knew about her actual purpose for staying.
One problem with being friends with Sirius and James was that they were extremely perceptive. They worked out in the first year that I was a werewolf (and were currently (illegally) working on the animagi potion) and they had guessed that something was going on between myself and Sky when she came back in the second year. They thought nothing of it and believed the lie she created about the teacher training. But now that I'm fifteen and nearly sixteen – only a few months to go – they have started talking in hushed tones and stop when I walk into the room or look at them. The last time they had done this is when they were discussing whether or not I was a werewolf in the first year so naturally I got a bit nervous about it. I walked down to Hagrid's, guessing that would be a good place to find Sky – even though the teacher training was a lie, she made it convincing by actually turning up to some lessons and helping the teachers. I had made a good guess and found her with a unicorn foal and its mother. When she saw me she burst into a radiant grin that made her face as bright as the adult unicorn's fur.
***
(Remus: Eleven) (Around Christmas)
The one problem with Christmas at Hogwarts was the amount of Mistletoe that was places in random places around the castle. Girls would stand under them hoping that one of the hot boys would walk their way. I was carrying several heavy books back from the library when I saw Sky with a different boy from the one she had said was her boyfriend. For starters he was wearing Ravenclaw uniform instead of Gryffindor. He had had dirty blonde hair that he had let grow to his shoulders. He was standing on a stool and was holding Sky up, I then noticed she was searching the mistletoe. I walked cautiously up to them
"Ah is this, the Remus you were telling me about Sky?" the boy asked, Sky looked at me and smiled
"This is him. Remus this is Xenophilius Lovegood. Xeno this is Remus"
"Nice to meet you" I said, nodding at Xeno "I don't want to sound rude but what are you doing? I'm pretty sure the tradition is to kiss under the mistletoe not search it" Xeno laughed
"We're looking for nargles; they tend to live in mistletoe. Sometimes one bit of mistletoe can be infested with them"
"We don't want Hogwarts to be overrun with nargles so we are checking all the mistletoes." Sky said "None in this one, you can lower me down now"
Xeno lowered her down and stood down off the stool, knowing they were both standing under the mistletoe he took Sky's hand and raised it to his lips – kissing it gently. I felt slightly jealous but not as bad as I had been at the beginning of the term. But thankfully she had broken up with her boyfriend.
***
(Remus: Late twenties)
The Healer indicated to a chair "would you like to sit?" she asked, I shook my head, when a Healer asked 'would you like to sit down?' it usually meant very bad news. I pulled the chair by the wall closer to me so that I could sit down if I needed to. I looked at the Healer, looking into her green eyes, silently asking her to go ahead and say it, she cleared her throat before continuing "Do you know what the moon phase was two nights ago?" she asked, my eyes widened. Of course I knew; two nights ago had been a full moon. I gulped slightly
"It was a full moon" I said quietly, she nodded
"She came in with multiple attack marks, but Mr Lupin that's not all. When we searched her body for any other bite marks anywhere that was covered it became clear that she was raped. . ." I stopped hearing what was being said. Instead of sitting down in the chair, I allowed myself to sink to my knees. I could only think of one werewolf that would do this to her: Fenrir Greyback.
***
(Remus: Seven)
Tonight the moon shone bright and full in the sky. I was running through the trees leaving Sky behind. She had instructed me to run and so I did. I left her with a broken leg and a werewolf. Her screams filled the night. I heard a howl and the sound of paws coming in my direction. Suddenly I tripped on a tree root – I'm sure that wasn't there before – I got up quickly and tried to run again. I had a plan to make a circle and run back to Sky and help her. I felt paws on my back that knocked me to the ground and forced me to remain there. I quickly felt pain as the claws of the wolf easily ripped through my shirt and skin. I started to cry and it thought to shut me up it would sink its teeth into my leg. I cried out in pain.
I thrashed about and cried. I saw Sky stand over me and come closer as she sat on the bed and sat me up so she could hug and comfort me. I tried to push her away and started to scream. She started panicking and I could see that the distress of me was distressing her. I saw the tears fall from her eyes. My parents ran in at this point. My mum took me away from Sky and held me close. My father took Sky's arms and pulled her off my bed; he sat her down in the chair next to the opposite wall and knelt down in front of her. He started whispering to her. I could somehow just about hear what he was saying; he was trying to calm her down. I stopped screaming and started sniffing every so often – a sign to my mother that I was calming down. I could hear what my father was saying now
"Sky, you need to come to the ministry with me tomorrow, you need to make a statement" he whispered. He was older than her and bigger and stronger so even if she had said no he could make her. Of course my mother would disapprove of forcing her.
***
(Remus: fifteen)
Sky and I had found a secret passageway that if you opened the third door on the right it provided a very cosy looking room, with a sofa, a rug, a fire and a bookcase filled with a lot of books. We usually just sat and talked in this room – it was our room, no-one had found it because for some reason everyone (meaning Sirius and James – well and everyone else) couldn't open it. I guessed Sky had something to do with it
"I want it to be our room. It'll be special then" she said when I asked her about it. Tonight we entered the room as usual but I could tell that we both sensed something else was going to happen.
Sky turned around and not very suddenly - but quick enough for me not to turn my head away - she kissed me. I found myself kissing her back. She broke away from me and stared into my eyes, she said in a soft and hushed tone "You've wanted to do that since first year haven't you?" I nodded; she giggled "You do know I'm technically twenty-two according to your age system"
"I don't care. You look seventeen, and I'm only a couple months away from being sixteen anyway." I argued, she nodded and gently placed a hand on my face, I tilted my head into it, she gave me a small smile
"I've known you since you were three"
"I know"
"Won't you find it weird then?"
"No, I don't think I will"
"Are you ready?"
I nodded and she kissed me again.
Oh what is going to happen when he is fifteen? If you haven't already guessed then you should because it is a tad obvious. Please continue to Read, Rate and Review.