I hope you enjoyed the last chapter. This isn't quite 5k words but it's almost there. There earlier years will not be as drawn out, as I plan to have no more than four chapters or so for the first two/three years but that might change.

Enjoy!

Part One
I

The Howler During Breakfast incident was not forgotten by the majority of Hogwarts; though some were merciless with their teasing (Slytherins of course) whilst others looked at Sirius Black with pity.

Remus Lupin was one of them. The words haunted him at night when he slept, wrapped in his cocoon of the blankets handmade by his Muggle mother, and with the curtains drawn so the dreadful light of the moon was blocked out.

He was just surprised that a mother could treat her own son so abhorrently, in front of an audience of maybe six or seven hundred. That being said, he was a child who had grown to accustomed to lavishes of love and adoration. His mother still gave him breakfast in bed and his father still massaged his feet when he lay down beside him before the television.

But then again, people were spoiled in their own ways. James Potter had the appearance of being a well taken care of boy, without the rippling scars on his arms and face like Remus. In the two weeks spent together, already he had recounted several stories to the group as they sat on their beds at night, of all the fun things he had done at home in Surrey.

As for Peter, he too told them about his mother's job in Honeydukes (the largest in the country) that resided near their home in Birmingham. Perhaps this was why Peter packed a little extra weight around his tummy ... and both his chins. But he was a lovely boy, Remus thought with a nod of his head. He was polite, relatively quiet, and laughed at all of Remus's jokes.

Sirius Black however was an enigma. He had yet to share an intimate story, though he loved listening to those of the others. He was also a guarded person, very careful with what he shared and the information he did share was riddled with camouflaged, much darker themes and of course, the standard fake smile. He was also always the last one up and would often go to lessons with wet hair and pallid skin, as if he hadn't slept at all really.

But he was friends with Remus and Peter, a huge surprise considering that his mother had howled 'AND IF I FIND OUT THAT YOU ARE FRATERNISING WITH THOSE OF LESSER BLOOD STATUSES YOUNG MAN, THEN YOU WILL BE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE!'

But Sirius didn't seem to care much that Remus had a Muggle for a mother, or that both of Peter's parents were half-blood.

James elbowed Remus and ripped him out of his reverie, a large grin on his spectacle-framed face. 'Alright, Remus?'

'Yeah. Just thinking.'

'About what?' Peter asked as he piled more sausages on his plate of bacon, beans, egg and toast.

'About ... the assignment Flitwick set on the Levitation Charm.'

A scoff came from Sirius's direction as he sipped his flask of pumpkin juice and finished swallowing his last bite of delightful croissant. 'It was hardly an assignment. Five inches on the uses of Wingardium Leviosa and the nature of the charm. It look five minutes last night.'

'When were you working on it? You could have invited me. I had to scribble mine this morning.' James laughed.

'Oh,' Sirius said slowly, drinking his pumpkin juice and shrugging nonchalantly. 'Sometime during the night.'

The bell sounded and the group of boys crammed the last bits of their food into their mouths before throwing their satchels on and standing up in preparation for their Charms lesson.

'Hey Black,' Serena Yaxley called from the other side of the crowd. Sirius grinned and went over to her to greet her with a hug and some small conversation.

'Who's she?' Remus asked softly, not quite sure why he cared. Perhaps he cared because he was a naturally curious person who had to know everything.

It was James who answered, and rightfully so as he was the only pureblood in the group of three. 'She's his betrothed.'

Remus started laughing. 'Seriously? His betrothed?'

The messy-haired boy laughed with him, bright hazel eyes glimmering with amusement. 'You need to remember he's from one of those upperty, ridiculously rich and pretentious pureblood families. She's probably been his betrothed since birth.'

Remus turned to appraise her: blonde hair, light blue eyes, pink cheeks and a short, slender build. They looked good together, he decided. The Yaxley girl caught him looking at her carefully, and her once pretty face contorted into one of disgust. Cheek reddening, Remus flicked hair of gold out of his eyes and focused them instead of the great walls and pillars of the school.

Hogwarts was like nothing he had ever imagined or expected. The ceilings of every room he had thus come across were so tall, Remus was sure that a giant would be able to stand comfortably in the school.

The gargoyles were interestingly horrible, he decided. Remus had had the pleasure of coming across one during his hunt for the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom when he had gotten lost and had asked a gargoyle for directions. The evil, miserable thing had sent him in the wrong direction and as a result, Remus ended up missing most of the lesson when he did finally find the class.

As for the portraits, some were hilarious and kind whereas others were insulting and rude. He was so disorientated by all the magic in the school that he still pinched himself each morning to make sure that life was real. Magic was etched in every single stone pillar, stair, wall and candle holder of the school and it was brilliant.

Flitwick, his toothbrush moustache and three foot tall stature rushed pass the mangled line of children and screeched in a voice at least a dozen decibels higher than Remus's: 'Enter the classroom please and take out your assignments.'

'It's barely an assignment,' Remus heard one of the Slytherins laugh as he walked past to get to his chair.

So far, Remus didn't know what to think of the Slytherins. Some were quiet and stayed to themselves whereas others were very confrontational and took an anti-non-pureblood stance on everything: be it a half-blood passing them a fresh ink pot to use or a Muggleborns smiling at them. It was very barbaric and therefore completely justified it when James Potter threw a dungbomb into the cauldron of one Mr Severus Snape.

Remus had an odd feeling about that specific Slytherin. He felt like the other boy had deduced all there was to deduce about him (namely his slight wolffish dilemma). And though Remus knew it was irrational, he was scared. Tonight would be the first full moon of the school year and he was trembling with fear.

It would also be the first full moon without his mother sitting outside the cellar door, singing to him and telling him she loved him. But Remus was almost a big boy now. He needed to grow up. He also needed to stop being a burden on his lovely, beautiful mother.

His eyes met those of Sirius Black's and they exchanged an awkward smile. Each boy could tell the other had a huge secret and suffered from something terrible. Whereas for Sirius, it was the psychological abuse for not being like his younger brother and elder cousins, for Remus it was mostly on a physical and emotional level.

Flitwick took the neat roll of parchment from Remus and smiled at him upon noticing the extra two paragraphs. 'Ten points to Gryffindor, Remus. You've gone above and beyond what I've asked. Excellent!'

The blond boy blushed brightly and nodded with a small shake of his nose. 'Thank you.' He said.

'Thank you,' mocked Snape from the back of the class. Some of the Slytherins chuckled and suddenly, Remus's face wasn't pink any more so much as the colour of scarlet blood.

'Shut up Snivellus,' growled James from the left of Remus. 'You're just upset that you had to spend the whole of last night wiping off the traces of snot from your essay.'

Snape whipped out his wand and James took out his. 'Go on,' he laughed. 'I dare you.'

'Silence!' Flitwick cried impatiently. 'And put your wands away. Ten points from Gryffindor and Slytherin. There will be no silly wand waving in this class.'

'It's not silly if one of us knows how to use our damn wand,' James muttered darkly.

'A further five points from Gryffindor, and it'll be a detention next if you open that insolent mouth once more Mr Potter.'

'Yes sir.' He replied quietly, eyes boring holes into the side of Snape's head.

'Now,' Flitwick said with a wave of his miniature hands. 'Now that we can all cast the Levitation Charm correctly on features and books, I want to play a fun activity with you for the next hour. You will all choose a partner and attempt to cast the Levitation Charm on them. I have some pillows set out at the back of the classroom and have cast a Cushioning Charm on the classroom floor so no one gets hurt. When one can cast the Levitation Charm successfully on a human being, then one has successfully learnt the spell to its full capacity. It is harder to levitate a person than a whole classroom or building in most cases. Now, pair up - there should be an even number of us - and attempt to levitate your friend.'

As expected, James and Sirius paired up together, though the latter bestowed a questioning look to Remus before standing beside James. Peter grinned shyly and went over to Remus with a silent question, answered with an affirmative nod and a welcoming grin.

'Be gentle Peter,' Remus felt like he had to warn. His body ached and he wasn't in the mood to be thrown around. The pre-transformation aches and tenderness had set in yesterday. His jaw hurt a bit and the muscles in his body, as if preparing for the endeavours they would have to face later, ached terribly.

Peter but his lip and then said in a quiet, shy voice, 'I don't think you should be with me then. I haven't got the spell down quite perfect. I can do it on feathers but not on books or scrolls of parchment. Maybe you should be with Sirius? He can cast it perfectly.'

Remus clasped Peter's shoulder and said softly, 'Don't worry. It's a hard spell to get the hang of.' Then he moved over to the pair of already-very-close friends and said with a laugh, 'I think we should swap James. I'm not feeling so well and I want to pair up with someone who I know won't drop me.'

All three of them turned to face a pink-cheeked Peter and then nodded together at the same time. 'Yes, right. See ya then Sirius.'

The two boys watched as James dragged Peter over to a cushion to show him how to correctly do the spell and though he was alright at it, it proved a lot harder to levitate a whole person.

'Don't worry,' Sirius said softly. 'I won't drop you.'

The lighter haired boy smiled and tried to relax his body. Then, he was overwhelmed by the feeling of weightlessness and freedom. It was a splendid feeling to experience, almost too abstract to define and most certainly careless. Remus looked around and appeared to be the only one floating whilst all the kids around him struggled to achieve what he and his dark-haired partner were achieving.

Then Remus's body shook and with a bewildered look down at Sirius, he could see the arrogant pureblood chuckling softly to himself, all the while his wand still pointed at Remus and maintaining the charm. When their eyes met again, nothing but curiosity and timidity passing between them, Sirius reiterated the idea that: 'I won't drop you.'

The lighter haired boy threw his arms out and laughed at the powerful emotion running through his body before saying quietly with a twinkle in his eyes, 'You don't seem like the type who will.'

Remus was gently lowered back onto the pillow and the grinning, handsome face of Sirius's peeped into view. They laughed together as Flitwick hurried over to award them twenty points. It was glorious.

xo

Changing in the bathroom was completely justifiable and respectful of Remus even, to not force the other three boys to watch his ugly, scarred naked body as he changed into clothes to go down to the special place Dumbledore arranged for him to transform in.

He looked at his reflection in the foggy mirror and paused. His hair was darker with dampness, eyes a raw red and skin a pale, clammy white. Remus did not like the way he looked, whether his mother called him beautiful each night when he was at home or not, he felt ugly. The burden of being a wolf made him uglier even. And his much-too-big eyes did not help, nor the lips a little too full for the face of an eleven year old boy. His nose was a tad too long, chin a little pointed, hair too many shades of blond and brown and his smile...

His smile was too broken and unintentionally revealed just how much trauma and pain his body had suffered from. How much he had suffered.

Broken boy.

There was a knock on the bathroom door just as he heaved his large grey jumper over his head.

'Almost done there Remus?' a polite Peter asked most patiently and precisely. His Brummie accent was rather unnoticeable in that moment, though it could have been because Peter's voice was a barely comprehensible muffle, leaving no room for the acknowledgement of northern accents.

'I'll only be a minute more.' Was the calm reply.

'But I need to pee, Remus!' It was James now, his voice lathered in desperation and eagerness.

'Er ... just a sec ... I'm done,' the blond boy said softly, looking once more in the wretched truth-revealer before unlocking and swinging open the bathroom door.

Both James and Peter had the most comical expressions on their faces; James was bouncing up and down and Peter was biting his lip hard. He noticed, though barely, the image of Sirius Black strolling into the dormitory with a letter clutched tightly in his hands. He did not even greet them but it was fine because James and Peter were now bouncing on the balls of their feet eagerly.

'Oooh,' the messy-haired boy said, sniffing eagerly. 'That smells nice. What is that?'

'The house-elves have put in some new shampoo and conditioner. It's citrus scented, I think.' They collectively sniffed the air and nodded simultaneously. 'Definitely citrus.' They laughed.

'I think I might take a shower, now I think about it,' James said softly, tapping his chin. As if a slower, dimmer shadow, Peter nodded too and said in a muffled voice: 'Yeah, shower...'

'Well I'll probably see you guys tomorrow then. I'm off to see my mum. She's er … very sick, yeah, so McGonagall is letting me leave to home for a day or two to see her and make sure she's alright.'

The faces of both the boys opposite him dropped. Then Peter said in a croak, 'But who will help me with my homework?'

It was as if Remus had already built a reputation of being the fair and very helpful agent for those in need of homework help. Yes, he liked the sound of that. He would have to make sure to come up with a fitting name. The Fair and Very Helpful Agent for Those in Need of Homework Help did not have a nice and fluid ring to it, though it would have to do for now.

But yes, already in their house, he had somehow made himself known as the one to help people with their homework. Just last week, Lily Evans (a red-haired Muggleborn who hated James Potter) had exchanged extra Potions tips for Remus's help in her Defence Against the Dark Arts assignment. They had since become friends and he was glad to be making friends in Hogwarts. It was something he was not used to. The kids in his neighbourhood back home despised him for what he was and thought him to be odd, ugly and very dangerous.

Remus was a hindsight less dangerous than characters like Avery and Snape in his year, who had already been given a detention for throwing a gust of wind at a poor Muggleborn in Hufflepuff and blowing him off his seat in class.

'I'll have to help you with your homework,' James laughed, shaking his head and breaking Remus out of the train of thought he was trapped in. There was a soft shoulder-clasp from James, very polite of him even and he said in a gruff voice (gruff for an eleven year old at least): 'I guess we'll just have to see you when you get back. I hope your mum feels better soon.'

'Thanks. I hope she does too.'

James was a very friendly person. He was not a malevolent person at all, though perhaps that statement was not correct in regards to his attitude towards people such as Snape, Avery and Mulciber. He always had a carefree grin on his face, even when Sirius was in one of his moods (always aroused after post in the morning or midnight letters that he thought none of them noticed, but they all did). The air of a good upbringing and happy childhood, although embedded in almost everything he did, were not too overwhelming. Remus almost forgot sometimes that James was a portrayal of what he could never be: rich, happy and just a child.

The bathroom door closed with a soft click. Wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm, Remus bit his lip and looked at the gorgeous grandfather clock in the corner of the room. He had about five minutes until he needed to leave and meet McGonagall in the Entrance Hall.

Remus looked around the room to check whether he had left anything. His school books were in his satchel, as were spare changes of clothes, a toothbrush and some of the chocolate his parents had sent him. As his large, molten brown eyes scanned the room, they paused on the bed next to his own. The blinds were shut and he could hear sniffling from inside. There was tapping on the window and Remus turned to see that it was an owl, or rather a hawk maybe, with huge claws and a beak at least four or five inches long.

He bit his lip, debating whether or not to ask Sirius Black what was wrong but then he remembered that he hated when people interfered during a moment of distress, heartbreak, such earth-shattering pain that he could hardly breathe.

Pain he was going to be experiencing in twenty eight minutes and thirty two seconds.

Thirty one seconds.

Thirty.

Remus picked up his satchel and dug around inside for some of his chocolate, the best in the whole of the world, he was sure, and broke a large piece off (at least one third) before wrapping it in some spare parchment and writing very clearly on the front Sirius Black. He then placed it on the windowsill, beside the extravagant candle-holder and the notepad labelled with the signature loopy calligraphy that was a mark of the grand upbringing Sirius had had.

Although curiosity struck his soul, Remus shook his head of now much lighter - and dried - blond hair and slipped his shoes on. Without another word but one last frantic look at the shielded bed, he left the room and hurried along to meet the stern McGonagall.

She stood there, an odd expression on her face that was automatically erased when her eyes fell upon the slumped and very small figure of Remus. Her face softened and though she didn't touch him, she almost made to and that in itself meant something. She did not come across as a very empathetic woman; maybe intelligent enough to understand that there were things going on in people's lives that she herself would never dream of understanding, but could at least acknowledge the weight in which they held. Her objectivity was comforting though - it made her more reliable than most of the people in Remus's life. It also calmed the over-anxious and defensive side of him.

Little Remus, always trying to please the people he wanted to impress most.

'Good evening Mr Lupin,' McGonagall said in a voice much kinder than the one she used to address James Potter or Sirius Black. 'How are you?'

'Er,' he hesitated and then shrugged his shoulders. 'Fine I guess.'

'You're not … nervous?' She genuinely seemed curious for more information.

Remus was silent for a minute or two whilst she led them to the Hospital Wing, going through short cuts that he admitted to his memory and even taking them through a canvas that seemed to be covering a wall but was in actual fact merely an illusion that deposited them on the other side of the castle.

'Professor...'

'Yes Lupin?' she avoided looking at him.

'You do know how long I er … I've been a werewolf for?'

'Most of your life, I'm sure...'

He swallowed and resolutely stared ahead as the doors to the Hospital Wing got closer and closer down the long corridor.

'So long I can't remember a life before.'

She cleared her throat and knocked on the door, her eyes perhaps slightly glassier than when he first saw her. 'Right.'

Madam Pomfrey opened the doors to the Hospital Wing and grinned at the both of them. 'Thank you Minerva, I can take it from here.'

The young blond boy didn't really remember much of what happened after, just that he was given a Calming Draught which did not help much. They were forgetting that he knew everything there was to know about pain: he had grown up in a wonderland of the pain he was forced to feel on the full moon. A Calming Draught wouldn't help him when he was moments away from getting ripped apart by his darkest, inner demons.

'Your parents are coming in the morning to see you. They want to make sure your first transformation in a very different environment goes well.'

He shook his head to snap out of the imprisonment of his thoughts and then nodded. 'Right, thanks.'

Pomfrey looked at him and then reached out a hand to tuck some of his hair back behind one of his dainty ears. 'Your face is so much more handsome when I can see all of it, darling.'

That idea rung in his head, even when they were walking into what would soon become his own personal hell.

His hair looked nicer pushed back? He would have to remember that.

Remus stripped and placed his clothes on top of the wardrobe. Then he sat cross-legged on the floor, asked Pomfrey to leave quickly because: 'I don't want you to hear me.'

And when she was gone and he was all alone with his thoughts, memories, emotions and fears, and the wolf came out to play, he screamed as loud as he could, because to come out to play, it had to rip apart his body.

It was agony: his bones were broken and melded into one another. His skin was burning as it peeled into itself and new skin appeared, and with the new skin came the prickles of thousands of needles stabbing all over his body as hair grew. His jaw broke itself to grow accustomed to the new features of the wolf's jaw, and with that came the burning torment of teeth growing into the jaw.

He was too young to be going through all of this. But then the wolf took over and it was like a veil of darkness being thrown over him as the wolf pushed him back into the recesses of his own mind and dominated what it was meant to dominate: the night of the dreaded full moon of course.

The werewolf wreaked havoc on Remus's poor body and soul: not only for being enslaved for four weeks but for being taken to a place without its mark, without its familiarity and most importantly, without its awareness. It was apart of Remus just as Remus was apart of it.

The wolf would only wait until the stupid boy would realise that.

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