You break second.
Of the six of you who have had your lives so inexplicably and inextricably entwined, you break second.
You always thought you broke first. You don't realize it until much later. The year when you're teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts to James' son. He looks so much like James. Merlin, his eyes are just Lily's. Especially when he cares about something. But, when he casts a Patronus, well, then it's all James. His eyes even seem to go brown the very first moment you see him gently coax that telling silver mist from his wand.
You realize the very first time Snape makes you the Wolfsbane Potion. You didn't notice it when you were young. You did your best to ignore how James and Sirius teased him. You tried to play both sides of the fence, in a way. Not that it mattered. To Snape, everyone is guilty by association. Regardless, you realize the first time he walks into the Defense Against the Dark Arts office, hands you the potion and his eyes dart around in the quietest way, that everything about him is the mark of a man who broke very early and vowed never to break again.
The first time you break, you are eleven years old.
It is, surprisingly, not the time when you are bitten. There was something, of course, soul-crushing about that day. Everything about your entire life changed in a moment. In your youth you reflected about how little the circumstances of that moment had anything to do with you. You were only chosen because you were your father's son. Some would be bitter about that, but you aren't. Your father was a great man.
It is hard to make you angry. Snape's stubborn, violent curiosity about your condition that almost led to his death did not make you angry. Fenrir Greyback's bite itself did not make you angry. James and Sirius almost forcing you to spill your secret did not make you angry (In point of fact it made you relieved). It takes a lot to make you angry because it is your way of measuring some control over the beast inside you.
The first time you break is the first time you transform at Hogwart's.
You try to compartmentalize your emotions. You put them in small, manageable places. In a way the Marauder's Map was more a map of yourself than it was a map of Hogwart's. Each feeling had its own little place. You could bury your rage in the dungeons or the Slytherin Common Room, explore your joy in the Astronomy Tower as young couples snogged. You could sweep aside your pain into an empty classroom or burrow your lust in a secret passageway. There were the parts you could use and, of course, the parts you couldn't avoid. That passage from Hogwart's, under the Whomping Willow, and into the Shrieking Shack always stuck out awkwardly. An ugly, twisting, disconnected path that wound off the page. You wished you could erase it, but you never would. It was as much a part of Hogwart's (A part of you) as anything else.
The first time you break you are eleven years old and you are transforming for the first time at Hogwart's.
You're alone. You're cold. And, somehow, the pain is always the most surprising thing about the entire ordeal. You wish you could prepare yourself. You wish you could steel your nerves, but the pain comes out of nowhere and hits you so violently that you have no choice but to scream. Your muscles expand and contract, stretch and pull. Your bones rearrange. You see body parts you should never see of yourself jut off in odd directions and you would cry if werewolves had tear ducts, so all you can do is howl and, yes, shriek.
And then, all you have is your base instincts.
You're alone. You're cold. You're hungry. Hungry hungry hungry cold alone hungry alone alone alone alone cold cold cold hungry. Smell. Sniff. Blood is in the air. Someone is bleeding. Bloodlust. Bloodthirsty. Hungry hungry hungry. Door in the way. Door why is the door in the way blood alone cold hungry cold. Sickening cracks as you slam into the door the walls out out out hungry out cold blood blood blood blood and your ears are perked and you can hear them out hungry alone out cold out blood blood out out your nostrils are big they can smell a little girl's perfume you salivate you drool hungry hungry alone and someone is bleeding because you can smell the blood but no one is bleeding because its the beast and crack crack crack against the why is there a blood alone cold hungry door?
The very first time you ever transformed, you were shackled and chained in your own basement. But it was okay. You knew you were protected. No. You knew they were protected. You knew everyone was safe. There was a part of you, so infinitesimal and small, that felt how much they loved you. They still loved you. They wanted to see you (them) safe. Just that small amount of love saved you. Kept you from breaking completely. Maybe you cried that first time (You did). But it wasn't because you were broken. It was because you were so infinitely happy that you didn't break. You were proud of yourself. You were a little kid.
The first time you break you are eleven years old and now the beast is awake and your nostrils and ears are blood blood hungry bigger and you are alone blood cold alone and no one loves you and you cold hungry blood didn't want friends and there are these two kids hungry hungry hungry who are trying to be your cold friends alone blood and you mumbled your mom was sick blood alone cold crack and neither of them blood neither of them alone neither of them cold crack crack cold blood believed you.
Out out out out blood blood hungry cold alone blood and they don't care they won't blood care and alone they'd leave cold you cold out blood if they knew crack crack crack.
Years later, they are in the shack with you. They don't cringe when you shriek. Well, Wormtail does. They don't run when you transform. Occasionally when you got too blood hungry hungry close to Hogsmeade saliva lips blood blood and your nostrils would catch a little kid's blood perfume (why was it hungry hungry always blood hungry blood little kids?) but then you'd be crack crack sent flying by a pair of antlers. The hunger would still be there. But it would be manageable. Some nights manageable was all you could ask for.
But the first time you blood blood break you are out cold eleven and you are alone alone alone alone alone alone alone.
You are so blood cold hungry that everything hurts and if you out out crack had tear ducts you'd blood hungry blood blood cry your body is crack mangled out out blood and your strong alone alone cold paws can't even stand out out crack anymore and blood every blood hungry bone in your cold limbs is alone broken and instead of crying you whine and whimper like a blood hungry alone cold dog and you can see the blood moon out out outside the window hungry cold.
Everything is in that out moon crack and it breaks out out crack crack your heart and you are alone blood blood alone blood blood alone blood blood alone and the pains in your hungry blood stomach are the worst pain worse than crack crack the bones adjusting and worse than the out cold out cold cold muscles ripping into blood crack new positions and you gnaw on the wood hungry cold and you blood gnaw out crack on the curtains but it doesn't hungry hungry do out cold anything.
As you were walking down the steps of Hogwart's with Madam Pomfrey, she took your hand. She took the hand of her patients often, but this was different. You knew it even though you couldn't really know it. It was maternal. She looked at you with such pained eyes. Pity. Pity to hide a broom closet on the Marauder's Map. You could sense her reluctance to guide you through to the Whomping Willow's roots. You could sense her deeper reluctance not to guide you there.
It's that look, more than anything, more than the occasional close calls near blood hungry crack Hogmeade, that makes you reconsider every time you leave the Shack with cold your friends. She knew it would hurt. She knew it would keep you safe. She knew it would hurt everyone else to not keep you safe. You remember that look or reluctance and you're just glad you didn't get a smell of her because, if you recognized it when you were out with Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs you knew you wouldn't have been able to hide the guilt. Even with the blood crack blood hungry out beast.
The first time you out out out out out crack crack crack break you are blood hungry out cold nine alone alone alone years hungry blood old and you are cold cold hungry alone lying in broken crack heap on the floor of the out out out Shrieking out out out Shack crack and you are so hungry so hungry so hungry and everything you can blood blood smell blood you smell everything smell blood blood hungry smell everything and there is so much pain pain pain pain pain pain pain and the wood of the out out out Shack is not blood enough and you begin to hungry hungry pain eat yourself.
You begin yes yes blood yes blood hungry to gnaw on your saliva pain pain own yes yes yes no no no no no leg and with each bit of hungry crack crack flesh you blood blood strip from your out out out crack bones eat eat yes no yes the beast quiets yes no yes no yes no no no no and you want to crack out stop but you no yes no no yes yes yes can't because you can still smell the blood blood blood but you aren't so hungry blood hungry and it doesn't pain no no yes yes hurt as much even though it hurts it hurts it hurts because somewhere inside you're still human and you're eating yourself.
Your blood (blood.... blood.... the hungry all-encompassing desire is fading) is spread across the (out...? you can't even move much less escape) floor like the robe of Dementor. You're not (no no no no no no that thought is still there no no no no) sure if you could fight off its Kiss even if you wanted to (yes no yes no yes no yes no). The sky glows with (yes yes yes yes) pre-dawn light and it's only a few (out out out) hours left before you will change back (crack crack pain crack out) into a boy and when you were a werewolf spy for Dumbledore years years later you would find out that when a werewolf was the size you were, at the age you were, they would call it a cub and you couldn't think of a less appropriate term.
Your mind is beginning to become your own again when you see the sun first blissfully peak out from above the horizon. As soon as the light hits you your body slams with pain as your bones begin to retract and your muscles and tendons snap and crack as they readjust into an eleven-year old's body and you feel your entire bloody face suck in from a snout into a nose and later it would be funny when James and Sirius heard that slurping noise but right now laughter is the last thing you can think if.
The first time you break you are eleven years old and have just finished your first transformation at Hogwart's. Alone (Loneliness you would sweep haphazardly beneath the rugs in the Kitchens on the Marauder's Map). And you are staring at your right arm, your dominant arm, which is missing whole chunks of flesh and muscle and some parts are scraped straight to the bone and you are so full and you realize you've eaten almost your entire arm and you vomit and cry and scream all at the same time and you realize it's true.
You are a monster.
* * * * * * * *
A/N: Woah. That's all I got. Still stranded back home away from my latest chapter of A Reason, and I got hit with a surge of inspiration for this short story. I originally thought that I was going to do this in the same style as Snape's, but I realized that would be wholly inappropriate given the differences between all the characters to give them the same styles. So, for this one, I tried contrasting Remus' attempts to keep his human life under control with the overwhelming instincts of the beast as opposed to Snape, where I tried to tap into the maelstrom of thoughts swirling just below his surface that only barely showed themselves in those moments of his pleading in front of Lily and Voldemort. Hope you enjoyed it!