The Reality.


He runs through fields innocuously. It is his liberation; his escape. For in his dreams, he is in control; he regains the power that had been taken away from him not too long ago. He is able to run free – away from Moony. In this ecstasy, Moony can not reach him.

Cannot hurt him.

He runs until the roughened skin of the underside his feet bleed and crack – but it doesn't hurt him, or if it does, he does neither notice nor care.

For here, he is free.

As he runs, he does not need to worry about the wolf overpowering him. He is alone in this world, but it is bliss. His sanctuary keeps the formidable Moony from coming to get him. Here: Moony is contained and unable to touch him. Moony never remains dormant though, so he makes the most of his time here before he is imprisoned once more.

He runs until the sky goes dark and the night is upon him, and when the divine twilight illuminates the Earth and the glow of the full moon shines down upon the ground, he transforms into something he both loves and fears. The wolf that has always run alongside him now becomes him – except with this form, he does not feel the need to hurt; to kill.

All this wolf feels is the need to be unconfined, and to simply run – with the wind flowing through his fur contently.

Then, in a moment of realisation, he begs to a God he never believed in. He begs that maybe, just maybe, he could stay here – in this nameless paradise – just a little bit longer. Here, the only fear is the fear of waking up and being concealed again.

Solitude over entrapment.

The crash of thunder sounds and he howls up at the usually beautiful grey sky in terror. He used to love thunderstorms; now they are the symbol of his tormentor; his pain. The stars shine and sparkle in response. He likes the stars. The stars are his protection; his comfort during these storms of anger and dominance.

He stops running now and places his hands (paws?) over his ears in an attempt to block out the roars of thunder. He does this because maybe, if he cannot hear those chilling sounds, radiating from the sky above him, then maybe it is not real, and maybe Moony is not actually vexed with him, – and then, maybe, he could run again.

There is a flash of light as lightning strikes, and he knows then that – despite the fact that this surreal world is his escape – he could never be so fortunate for it to hide him from reality forever. He loathes reality, for there is where the beast is unhinged. Reality gives Moony control. The fateful consequence he must now endure for his years of trying to cage Moony.

White, sterile lights surround his vision as he slowly leaves his tranquil world. Shadows of Moony's doctors also emerge within his line of sight, and suddenly he feels the change; the blinding pain.

They are injecting him. Hurting him. Weakening him.

Reality truly is Remus's worst punishment.


31th December 1981 – 19:45

'More Mash, Sirius?' Lily offered, politely from the end of the table.

'No thank you, Lils. I'm afraid I filled up on that massive roast of yours.' Sirius replied from his seat next the Harry (the latter of whom was busy shoving many a pea up his nose, purely out of curious wonder of just how many he could fit up there, of course).

The Potters' had hosted a delightful evening dinner in celebration of New Years eve – they had invited Moody, Marline, Gideon, a very timid looking Order member named Peter Pettigrew, and the Longbottoms' (fellow co-workers of Lily's) – and Sirius (never one to enjoy any sort of social festival or occasion) was acting like Harry did when he was told that it was bath time.

In other words, he was being a moody, petulant toddler, who was pouting up a storm.

'Come on, Padfoot. You and I both know that you've hardly eaten anything. Lily went to all this trouble to prepare dinner, the least you can do is humour her (or I'll be the one to suffer). Cheer up a bit, mate.' James whispered as he leaned over from the seat on the other side of Harry.

'I am cheerful, Prongs.' Sirius mumbled, head cradled in his hand as he stared at Harry to avoid James' penetrating eyes.

'Oh yes, I can tell you're inordinately happy. From all that moping you've been doing, I can tell you, it is quite difficult to miss.' He declared, sarcastically. 'Even Harry's been behaving in a more mature manner than you, Padfoot.'

When he gestured towards his son, Sirius just smirked in reply. The bespectacled man, confused with the reaction, decided then to actually look towards his chosen example of matureness, only to find that his son's nose had enlarged itself to three times its original size.

Gasping a word one should not use in the presence of a toddler, James whispered very loudly and urgently, 'Harry! Get those peas out of your nose right now before your mother sees!' He nervously glanced down at the other end of the long dining table and at his wife (who was currently engaged in conversation with Marline McKinnon while serving potatoes to Frank Longbottom, indifferent to Harry's vegetable snorting). He turned back quickly in case Lily felt him staring at her, and found that Sirius was patting Harry on the head approvingly.

'Good boy, Harry, way to make your Godfather look responsible in the eyes of the guests and your father.' Sirius winked, while smirking at the infant. 'I promise to let you play with Padfoot later.'

'Yaay, Pa'foot!' Harry squealed, while he clapped his hands – accidentally smacking his father up the head.

'HARRY!'

'Accident!' The toddler defended quickly, looking at James with wide, frightened eyes.

'I know, love. I'm sorry for shouting.' James soothed (damn that adorable toddler and those lovable eyes). 'Why don't you take those peas out from your nose and I'll let you play with Padfoot. Yeah?'

'Play, Padfoot!' Harry agreed, nodding his head enthusiastically. He then proceeded to sneeze out every last pea (one of which flew across the table and hit Moody hard on the cheek). Harry giggled as Sirius stood – happy to spend some quality time with his Godson – and lifted the aforementioned from his high chair. Because James and Lily were the only ones in the room that knew of his animagus counterpart, Sirius decided to carry Harry to their bedroom to play.

The pair's room was, by all standards, comical. A small, plain single bed was placed near the door, while Harry's jigsaw themed cot was adjacent to it; always in Sirius's line of vision. The entire room was filled with either toys or books (the books belonging to Sirius, as well as a couple of toys that he insists are Harry's) which were scattered all over the lush carpet. The room seemed to follow a particular theme of Quidditch, as the ceiling was painted to look like the sky, and the walls were decorated to resemble the actual Quidditch pitch, along with scoring hoops as well as spectator stands. Even the tiny golden snitch was painted somewhere around the room, although it was always on the move – courtesy of a charm Sirius had placed upon the artwork.

'Found it! Found it! Pa'foot! Hoop!' Harry pointed a pudgy finger towards one of the three hoops on his side of the room where the snitch was indeed located, just below the left one.

'Well done, Harry. Wow...' Sirius praised with genuine surprise at Harry's quick observation – his talent for observation was surprisingly higher than his father's – who was about as blind as a horny teenage boy.

Choosing not to point this out, Sirius added instead, 'I think we've found England's next great seeker!'

The animagus then carefully placed the grinning toddler on the floor, before he transformed into Padfoot – much to the delight of his Godson.

They played like that for a while: Harry riding on Sirius's back, followed by a game of tug of war, in which they used a roughened up toy snake (never a good animal for a Gryffindor to be within close proximity of); and many other games, until Harry finally fell asleep, stroking Padfoot's fur smoothly and contently.

'I didn't know you purred, Sirius.' The soft voice of Lily spoke from the door. Padfoot's content expression turned into one of introversion and mercurial temperament and he huffed in response. 'Hey, there's no need to take that tone with me, Mister. We all know why you're being such an arse; there's no need to take it out on James and I.'

Sirius transformed with great precision, so as to not startle Harry and looked at Lily intently.

'Enlighten me then.'

'Well, I gather that your moodiness might have something to do with the phone call James has just received. Guess who was calling.' When Sirius remained silent, she sighed and answered her own question. 'It was Regulus.'

Sirius's head focused more securely on Lily now.

'What about?' He questioned quickly.

'He didn't explain, but he wants you and James there now-'

But before she could even finish her sentence, Sirius had leapt up and sprinted out of the room, shouting James.

'Bloody Black.' She muttered, as his exuberance had succeeded in waking up a now very angry Harry – who promptly burst into tears while snot dribbled from his nose, along with what looked strangely like one of her peas from dinner.

Oh, those boys are going to have a lot to answer for, She thought, tiredly as she picked up her son.


31st December – 7:00AM

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was a very mysterious place. When observing the premises from the outside, it would look as though it had experienced many a disaster during its time, and looked as if it was going to collapse at any moment. The brick work was chipping away and moss and ivory were growing up the side of the house riotously and the windows were boarded up securely with festering wood. No one would dare approach it though, for fear of who lived there.

Rumour had it that the man who lived in that house was an extremely mad and enigmatical man called Regulus Black. No one ever saw him leave the house, but they all knew he was there. Sometimes, locals would hear screams from inside the house, but they would dismiss it as either paranoia, or just the howling of the wind; these were dangerous times after all, and no one would dare play a hero, should anything edgy actually be going on within number 12.

The truth as to what was actually going on within Grimmauld Place could not be deciphered entirely through external appearance though.

This is because that from the inside, the house was very much habitable, albeit it appeared to be of proper Victorian ambience. The walls were tall, with chandeliers hanging from every hallway and ground floor ceiling. The mentioned ground floor consisted of a living and dining room, a large kitchen, a study, two bedrooms and a bathroom – the basic necessities of a house – while the other three floors were only composed of more bedrooms (around four per floor), which included a bathroom in each.

The reason for this odd arrangement was because Number 12 Grimmauld Place was no normal house. No, Number 12 Grimmauld Place was home to the Wizarding world's greatest psychiatric ward for the criminally insane as well as (more disturbingly) the convicted 'Mudbloods' and 'Blood Traitors' to wizarding kind, who deserved to be punished.

This unsettling objective was carried by one of the most powerful men in the country: Regulus Arcturus Black.

Regulus earned this power through perseverance and wit. He was, by all means, uncannily like his older brother, Sirius, in terms of intelligence and academic significance – except Regulus found no joy or thrill for detective work and would rather elect to use his talents for other, more appropriate areas of work instead. When he was sixteen, he joined Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters – mostly out of the increasing pressure from his family, who wanted him to join the greater cause. This pressure had stagnated mostly out of the family's shame for the older heir, who had chosen the 'wrong' path and defiled their unvarnished name with his unspeakable treachery. They wanted Regulus to become their example of a true Black – which Regulus gladly did, to spite his brother, and to gain the attention that he had been neglected from for so long by his family due to his brother's rebellious antics.

Matters aside, when Regulus was seventeen, the brewing war had become even more worrisome and traumatic, for Voldemort had infiltrated the Ministry of Magic and had forcibly taken the position of Minister of Magic. Regulus, by this time, had grown to resent his family's beliefs and Voldemort's visions of a pure world; he realized that his brother, as usual, was right about everything. Regulus then realized that he wanted no part in the destruction of the 'Unworthy' of wizarding kind.

Regulus was smart though. He decided to, begrudgingly, swallow his pride, and consult and made amends with his brother, Sirius, who was willing to accept his apology. Together, they worked to keep Regulus's true self concealed from the Death Eaters. First, they used their family's importance, as well as Regulus's Death Eater position, to join the Ministry after he finished school.

Whilst there, Regulus worked his way up through many of the Departments very quickly, until he had been assigned as the youngest Head of the Department of Mysteries. During that time, he had indeed heard whispers, conspiracies, information and important secrets (it was he who had informed Dumbledore of the Horcruxes – for a price, of course, the headmaster of Hogwarts was no exception to fair deals, and Regulus had made sure that he would not fall prey to the man's fine art of manipulation).

Regulus, by this time, knew more than anyone, including Dumbledore and Voldemort themselves; he had so much power of influence that it began to grow dangerous for him. He knew too much, and he had too much control for one of his age.

And Voldemort was beginning to notice.

With the help of Sirius, Regulus learnt the art of Occlumency to protect his mind from invasion and convinced Voldemort of his loyalty to him when he was interrogated. The young Black also realized that, despite proving his loyalty, Voldemort would still be constantly suspicious of him if he chose to remain in such an important occupation at the Ministry, where the Dark Lord's secrets could be spilled easier (not that Regulus did not already know them all anyway).

So, leaving Voldemort indifferent to Regulus's knowledge of his weaknesses, he resigned his position and transferred to the Department of Magical Law, where he was placed in charge of criminals, Mudbloods and blood traitors alike. His official job was to extract information and confessions from people, (while secretly, he would try to help them through a sort of redemption – in the case of criminals – and ensure them that everything will be all right soon – in the case of Muggleborns).

With this new career and power, Regulus openly expressed his distaste for using Azkaban and suggested instead that the criminals be confined in an area unknown to the public; a place hidden in plain sight. This suggestion was answered through his mother's death, when Grimmauld Place was given to Sirius, who then happily gave it to Regulus for his work.

Thus brings us to Regulus's latest concern with regard to his newest and most problematic prisoner, who was causing the man deep distress.

This man he was treating was simply an enigma; a misfit. Yes, Patient 221 had been causing him and his team quite a problem. The man did not talk, eat, nor experience any sort of pain. When he slept was the only time he ever expressed any sort of emotion. While he slept, his body appeared to be fighting itself; as if the patient was two different people. It was not a side effect of lycanthropy, but simply a mutation, Regulus figures – for there is no other explanation for such a creation. Even when his team made to torture information out of him as to the whereabouts of his brother, he did not scream once. Instead he smiled, like an inanimate doll.

Things changed on New Years eve though, for that was the day that Moony finally communicated with them – to an extent. Regulus had opened the silver door of Moony's room to find him writing on the white walls, using his own blood as ink. Regulus quickly called for back up, and in seconds, Moony was sedated through the countless potions and needles that had to have been administered.

When Regulus inspected Moony, he found that the chains binding him to his room had been scratched and bitten into, despite the powerful strength of them. This fact worried Regulus immensely, for Moony was unpredictable, and his magic: uncontrollable. If he escaped, there would be a height of panic within the Ministry – not to mention the derailing of Regulus's reputation and loyalty to Voldemort at the same time, as there would have to be a full investigation of Grimmauld Place.

The young Black looked up at the walls of Moony's room, and took in the words that he had written upon them for the first time since the incident. From one quick glance, he stepped back in horror. Every wall was covered in deep scarlet, contrasting and standing out against the white washed room unsettlingly.

SIRIUS. SIRIUS. SIRIUS. BRING ME BLACK. SIRIUS. SIRIUS. SIRIUS.

What little colour Regulus's face possessed drained from his cheeks as he swallowed thickly. Tearing his eyes from the disturbing walls, he looked down at the sedated man, who was breathing deeply on the floor.

'Leave us.' Regulus instructed the guards and medical team. They did not object and quickly fled from the room – they were all scared of the lycanthrope and the powerful Black to do anything but scuttle.

Regulus took out his wand and knelt down close to Moony. He whispered, 'Rennervate' and waited patiently as Moony came around. After a while though, Regulus frowned, for the atmosphere had suddenly changed.

Something was different.

Moony blinked a few times, like a child waking up from a long nap. There was an innocence in his face, along with an unexplainable amount of pain. Regulus watched as the werewolf's brilliant green eyes adjusted to the light – reminding himself of where he was. Those eyes looked around the room until they focused on Regulus entirely. Moony startled at the close proximity of the other man, but quickly came to terms with it.

Or so Regulus thought, for it came as a bit of a shock to him when Moony suddenly flung his arms out, trying to reach for the Black. Fortunately for Regulus, the chains that bound Moony prevented him from coming into actual contact with the wizard. Regulus shuffled back and was staring at the lycanthrope curiously. 'Do you know who I am?' The black haired man asked, when he regained his aloof demeanour.

Moony stopped struggling and bowed his head.

'The question is, Mr Black, do you know who I am?' Moony replied, hiding his face behind small curls. He did not speak venomously, but questioningly – as if apprehensive.

'What do you mean, Moony?' Regulus wondered, an eyebrow raised in question.

'Mr Black, I am not Moony...' He explained in a strange voice; a pained voice. Finally, he looked up at the authoritative man with a damaged, omniscient stare and spoke,

'My name is Professor Remus John Lupin, and I need your help.'


31st December – 23:30

Sirius scrambled out of the door behind James – they had to be outside the Potters' wards before they were able to apparate to Regulus's. They crossed the street and cut through a narrow alley between houses. James was around five metres in front of his friend when he heard a sickening crack. He whipped around to find Sirius with his back to him. He was staring up at the roofs of the houses, frozen in place.

'What in Merlin's name is the matter, Black! We need to go!' James cried. Due to the heavily pouring rain, he could not see the stigma of Sirius's reluctance to follow until he had rushed back to his friend.

The sound of the crack had emitted from a brick falling from one of the roofs; it was mere centimetres away from Sirius's feet. James quickly realized the link between this incident and Sirius looking up in apprehension.

'This was no accident, James.' Sirius muttered as James looked up too from beside him, despite having numerous rain droplets blur his glasses. 'I saw a shadow. Someone dropped it deliberately.'

'Who?' James asked, eyebrows furrowed.

'Oh, no one we know. Amateur.' Sirius answered. He waved a carefree hand. 'I suspect that this was one of Moony's other various attempts to get rid of me. Clearly, he used one of his recently acquired werewolf henchmen.'

'Shouldn't you be worried then, Sirius?' James asked, ignorant to the meaning of Sirius's particular phrasing of how this was not the first time he had been attacked.

'Oh no.' He countered. 'Either this man has a very bad aim or he missed me deliberately. I'm sure I'll be fine, so long as the skill level of Moony's men remain this low.'

Sirius elected not to tell James of the several other instances which had occurred in which werewolves had spontaneously tried to attack him in the space of when Moony was locked up and now. The instance where a man had tried to attack him with a cosh down Knockturn alley, and the other where a taxi had nearly ploughed him down unexpectedly, seemed to be irrelevant information to tell James – it would only worry his friend anyway.

'Right...' James spoke, eyeing the dismantled brick that had been so close to killing his best friend with distaste.

'Oi, no need to frown, Jamesie!' Sirius punched him on the shoulder lightly. 'Don't brood, we have a werewolf to investigate!'

On that note, they set off once again, different thoughts plaguing their minds. James was thinking about recent events; silently fearing for his best friend's life – he frequently stole some apprehensive glances in Sirius's direction, the latter of whom acted nonchalant to this. Internally though, Sirius was, regrettably, feeling just as neurotic as his friend; he only kept up the charade for James' sake.

He had to, James may be his best friend, but this was something Sirius needed to fight for himself.


A/N: Wait... No cliff hanger? That's right! Ha! I can do it! Thank you all so far; I'll update soon. Thank you for all the Reviews so far - appreciated muchly. :)

Isa: Thank you so much for reviewing. I'm glad you like the story so far, and I hope this chapter is up to the same standard as the others. :)