Prologue: Part 4
Monday, 21st August 1967
Remus awoke and found that the pain in his body had been reduced to a dull ache. His left arm felt hot but otherwise normal. His right leg, on the other hand, felt very strange. In fact, he couldn't feel it all.
He opened his eyes. He was in the 'living room' of the Ministry research centre, lying on a low cot. The light coming through the dirty windows suggested it was almost midday. The Mediwitch he had met the day before was kneeling by his right leg, muttering incantations which caused bandages to flow around it, tying his leg to a splint.
His mother watched nervously from the doorway. Some Ministry officials stood behind her. On the other side of the room, Ylva twiddled with a limp lock of hair. Connor lounged on a cot behind her, looking bored. Lycurgus stood closest to Remus, a look of concern just visible beneath his warped features.
"What happened?" Dr Lupin asked.
"After the transformation the pack alpha male attacked your son," a Ministry official replied in a bored tone. "Just the sort of behaviour one might expect of a werewolf. They are nothing more than beasts who know no better than to attack a child."
Connor growled at the man and Ylva tittered but other than that they did not move.
Lycurgus sighed. "I'm sorry, Ms Lupin," he said. "I did not want this to happen but I know my wolf. He is quite capable of it and I apologise on his behalf."
He turned towards her. "The truth is, Ms Lupin, your son is too young. His wolf is barely more than a cub, unstable in character. He won't be able to keep up with a pack twice his age.
"If you want my advice, Ms Lupin, you'll find him somewhere else for him to transform. A nice Ministry-approved cell in your back garden shed, or your cellar. Somewhere away from other werewolves. Without the company of other wolves, and without prey, he's sure to scratch and bite himself, but that's nothing compared to the damage a wolf like mine could do to him. But he might be able to hold onto his humanity, fit better into society. The habits of the pack, in their human and wolf forms, will rub off on him if he stays. But if he's kept away from the rest of us maybe, just maybe, he'll get a better chance. Unless of course you don't care."
The werewolf's voice became bitter. "Unless you've already given up on your son, decided that he's now a wild animal, decided that your son has died. I wouldn't blame you, plenty of other parents have thought the same thing. Abandoned their child when he or she needed them most. But he's not an animal, not all of the time. He's still the same boy he used to be except, maybe, a little more scared. A little more nervous. A little more scarred."
Lycurgus stood straight and walked over to the door.
"Good day, Ms Lupin," he said before slipping out of the room and out of the house.
XXX
Tuesday, 22nd August, 1967
Remus was released from St Mungo's the next day, with a firm warning from the Ministry officials that they would visit him at home shortly, to inspect his parents' cottage and question his parents themselves, to judge their fitness as guardians of a young werewolf.
Before they arrived, however, there was one thing for the small family to do.
As the small coffin was lowered into the ground, Remus wept. His mother was being comforted by his Uncle Ezra and he wished he could go over there to be comforted. But his leg was still in a splint and he wobbled uncertainly on the lumpy grass. He looked at his father, who stared into the distance with cold, unseeing eyes. Then he turned to watch as the undertaker threw a handful of dust into the small grave.
The wake afterwards was a quiet affair. It consisted of a few of his mother's friends from the village, who looked at Remus with pity – they had simply been told that the two boys had been attacked by a wolf which had escaped from a zoo – and his father's peers from Hogwarts, who kept their distance from Remus and occasionally glanced at him with fear in their eyes.
When everyone, bar Uncle Ezra, had finally left, the four of them found themselves in the living room, staring out of the French windows at the gradually encroaching twilight. For a while they just sat, or stood, in silence.
"I lost my job," John Lupin said eventually. "They said I was too close. Too personally involved."
"Oh, John," Emily murmured, rubbing her husband's shoulders.
"There's no cure," he said, suddenly very loud. He moaned. "The shame…" he said. "The shame… to have a son as a werewolf…"
"He's still your son," Ezra pointed out.
"No," Mr Lupin growled his eyes dancing "My sons are dead. I buried them today. Both killed by a werewolf."
"John! Don't say that. Remus is still here. John, Remus needs you!"
Emily's eyes were pleading but her husband was no longer listening. He was pacing about the room.
"I won't live in the same house as a… a monster. We'll send him away… we'll…"
"I'm not sending him anywhere. John, he's my son!"
He looked at her, his eyes blazing fiercely now.
"Don't you understand, woman!" he hissed. The he laughed. It was an empty, mirthless laugh. "No, of course you don't. You're a muggle." He pointed at Remus, who cowered next to the sofa, staring wide eyed at his father, no longer the calm, kind man he had once known, but a raving madman.
"He's nothing anymore. Nothing. He has no future. He'll never get a job. Never go to Hogwarts. What fool would allow a monster to live amongst other children? He'll be shunned. No, it's better to think of him as dead, rather than watch all that and be dragged down with him."
Emily was shaking her head.
"John, John, John," she whispered hoarsely. "What are you saying?"
The wizard looked down at his wife.
"Either he leaves," he said menacingly. "Or I leave."
Ezra lifted himself off the sofa, displaying his full bulk.
"Out," he said, glaring at John Lupin, his best friend from school. "Get out," he repeated.
Mr Lupin blanched.
"Typical Hufflepuff," he muttered. "Always standing up for the wrong people. The wrong… creatures."
And, without another word, John Lupin, father of Remus Lupin, turned on his heel and left.
