Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns all of Harry Potter's world and its wonderful characters. I own nothing but the plot I made up and a few OCs.
"Life without a friend is death without a witness."
(Spanish Proverb)
REMUS:
Remus was physically shaking as he lay in bed that night behind his closed curtains. He listened to the others coming in and getting ready for bed. They bickered and tousled and Black and Potter had an impromptu pillow fight, but they seemed to be keeping their voices as quiet as hyped-up eleven-year-old boys are able to. He wondered if this was because they thought he was asleep. Was this their attempt at 'being polite'?
Remus's mind drifted again to the conversation he'd overheard between the boys earlier that evening. There may have been a lot of other noise in the common room, but his sensitive werewolf hearing had picked up every word.
He wasn't sure what he felt. It had started out as hurt and bitterness as the boys had discussed his inability to make friends. He'd wanted to run away or shut them up, while at the same time being desperate to hear more about what he was doing wrong when it came to getting people to like him. Frank had said he was a 'nice lad' but that he didn't want to be his best friend. Why was that? What could he have done to make Frank want to be his friend and not just someone who was fun to chat to in Charms?
Then Sirius had told them about his scars and he had gone from feeling humiliated, hurt and confused to utterly bowel-clenchingly terrified. He'd been paralysed in his seat as he felt their eyes rake over him.
Remus wished he knew what they thought about his scars. Did they have any suspicions as to how he got them? Did they think it was because he was a werewolf? No, not that. Scared as he was, he knew they had no reason to suspect that. There hadn't even been a full moon yet. At this thought, his heart seemed to slow a little and his shaking gradually subsided.
So what did they think? Did they suspect it was his father? They wouldn't be far off the mark. Many of the scars were his father's doing, not the wolf's. Or did they think he did it to himself? Was that what Sirius meant when he said he thought Remus was 'completely mental'? Was that why they were laying off him? Because they were afraid they would drive him all the way to the edge so he would finish it and die?
No matter how miserable Remus had been in his life, he had never contemplated killing himself. He didn't know if it was the wolf's natural instinct for survival, or whether it was something inside his human self. Was it the Inner Marauder that, through all his hurts and pains, remained in the back of his mind snickering at life's little absurdities and thinking up new plans for mischief?
The lights flickered out and the others whispered to one another for a while before settling down. His acute hearing picked up the sounds of their steady breaths clearly. He didn't feel tired at all. He shifted and rolled onto his stomach, hoping that would be more comfortable.
"…There were scars. A round shiny one like a burn, and then some others like slashes."
He rolled onto his side and stared out into the darkness.
"…You've gotta admit there's something off about him at least..."
He kicked off his blankets, feeling hot, then pulled them back again in case one of the others looked in at him for some reason. If his pyjamas were tugged up in his sleep, who knew what else they would see?
"We won't be mean to him anymore. We'll be polite. But I'm not being friends with him."
It was only into the early hours of the morning that Remus finally managed to drift off into restless sleep.
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Over the next week, Remus began to fall into a routine of sorts. Potter's gang kept to their word. They mostly ignored him, but if they did need to talk to him they were polite and distant. Sometimes, Remus's senses would kick in and he would stiffen, knowing that one of them was staring at him, and he would silently beg them to look away. Sharing a room with the boys, he began to recognise their scents as well, and he knew that, though Potter and Pettigrew did their fair share of staring, it was mainly Black. He felt those clear grey eyes burning into the back of his neck and wished fervently that mind-reading was part of the werewolf package.
Remus kept away from them as much as he could. In lessons he tried to sit next to Frank as often as he could, and Frank didn't seem to mind, though he never made overtures of closer friendship. He and Michael Douglas had become good mates and seemed to prefer going off on their own. Sometimes, Remus wondered if it was only to get back at Potter's gang for their interrogation that Frank allowed him to sit beside him in most lessons.
Potter, Black and Pettigrew still called him 'Loopy', but it wasn't said in the same sneering tones as before. It was almost like calling a red-head 'Ginger'. A nickname for an obvious characteristic. Remus tried not to mind. He knew he seemed odd, especially when he muttered aloud to the wolf as it stirred in him, but it was the only way he'd found to calm it.
In between lessons, Remus would retreat to the library to do his work. He found that he was happiest there among the books, learning all the wonderful things that his father had told him he would never be available to an animal like him. He would sometimes see a blurry image of his mother in his mind's eye, sprawled out on the floor in the cottage's living room, completely engrossed in a potions book, her tawny eyebrows knitted together and her long hair pooled around her on the floor.
He didn't know where the image came from, or even if it was real, but he found that if he sat on the floor and read a book that intrigued him, he felt closer to his mother than he had in years. It was a wonderful feeling, this closeness, mixed in with defiance for his father.
The other students looked at him oddly when he sat on the floor. There were tables and chairs all round the library and they obviously couldn't understand why he didn't use them. Sometimes, the librarian, Madame Pince – a young woman with a face that screwed up as though she were sucking a lemon every time a student dared to enter her domain – would try to shoe him to a table, but after a few days, gave up and seemed accept his presence as long as he stayed clear of the aisles.
The full moon was approaching rapidly, and Remus felt sick with a mixture of worry and the effects of his curse. On the night of the full moon, he sat at the end of the Gryffindor table, his heightened senses seeming to pick us the burning presence of the silver platters even from a distance and his stomach rolling at the thought of food.
After a while, he stood up and retreated back to the Gryffindor Tower where he dug around in his chest to pull out his outdoor cloak and shrugged it on. He was just turning to head towards the infirmary when he saw Black standing in the doorway of the dorm, looking at him.
"Where are you going? It's almost curfew."
Remus looked down, twisting his hands. "I'm going to see my mother for a few days. She's not well."
"You look ill."
"I'm worried." Not a lie.
Black looked uncertain, frowning and chewing his lower lip as though he wanted to say something but didn't know how. Eventually he cleared his throat and said, "I er… hope she gets better."
"She won't."
"Oh."
The silence became unbearable and Remus slipped past Black and out of the door. He hurried downstairs and out of the portrait hole.
Madame Pomfrey gave him a worried look when he arrived at the hospital wing. "You don't look very well, dear."
"I always look like this before the transformation," Remus told her. He could see that she was anxious about taking care of him and felt a guilty twinge in his chest. "It's okay, you know. I usually take care of myself unless it's really bad and I can't reach."
"Of course you won't have to do that," she admonished gently. "I'll take care of you. I'll come and get you in the morning."
They set off out of the castle, heading towards the Whomping Willow and Madame Pomfrey picked up a long stick on the way.
"You just press this knot in the trunk here and the branches freeze for a few moments," she said, demonstrating.
Remus followed her down a very long, black tunnel, the bobbing light of her wand-tip the only source of illumination. Eventually, they came to a door which opened into a very scruffy, boarded-up house that creaked and groaned in the wind.
"The Shrieking Shack," Madame Pomfrey informed him. "It's been here for years and is said to be haunted. That means no one will come and investigate if they hear you…er… making a noise."
"Howling," Remus put in.
"Er…yes."
"My dad just put silencing charms on my room."
"He leaves you in your room? What if you broke out?" She looked rather shocked.
"My room is in the basement. The walls are thick and there are no windows. I wouldn't break out." For some reason Remus couldn't fathom, she didn't look reassured by the news. In fact, she looked more disturbed than ever.
The old wooden staircase led up to a dusty bedroom sparsely decorated with battered furniture and a moth-eaten bed. There were new covers on the bed, though, and Madame Pomfrey indicated that he could lie on it. Remus felt a creaking in his bones as the full moon came closer. He shifted uncomfortably.
"I think you should go now," he said, embarrassed.
"Oh yes, of course!" Looking flustered, Madame Pomfrey hurried out of the room and down the stairs.
I wonder if it really is haunted in here, Remus thought as he removed his clothes to prevent them from getting torn. Climbing painfully onto a rickety chair, he stowed them on top of the wardrobe. The house was shadowy and filled with bumps and creaks as the wind blew outside. Well, even if it is, I guess nothing could be more scary than what I'm going to be in a few minutes.
He crept over and climbed onto the bed, glad that the new blankets and pillows were in Gryffindor red. They made him feel braver. There was a tiny window near the top of the wall, and he watched through it as the moon began to rise.
Remus knew he should be used to the pain by now, but he could never keep from screaming in agony as his bones literally cracked apart and reformed, forcing his skeleton into a different shape. His skin seemed to boil and melt and reform, stretching over new limbs until he was sure it would snap with the pressure. His jaw burned and cracked as it lengthened and he tasted blood as sharp teeth cut through blackening gums.
He screamed all the while; screamed and screamed until the screams turned to howls, then whimpers. After this, the wolf took over, and the part of Remus that was repulsed and human retreated to the back of his mind, hidden as the monster raged within the confines of its new cage.
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He woke to find himself lying on a splintery wooden floor, his back against the wardrobe. He opened his eyes and tried to move. Every one of his limbs protested violently, and his arms felt warm and slippery against his sides, stinging with blood and sweat.
He pulled himself up into a half sitting position and looked down, his heart sinking. It had been a very bad night. His chest, arms and legs were gnawed and bloody. The wolf hadn't liked its new cage.
Looking around the room, Remus felt sick as as he observed the mess. The Gryffindor-red blanket was in tattered shreds on the floor. Every piece of furniture was bitten and scratched and the spindly chair he had stood on the night before was mere splinters on the floor. Everything was smeared in blood, and some of the walls were splattered with urine where the wolf, as unhappy as it was with its new surroundings, had marked its territory.
It was awful and embarrassing. He didn't want Madame Pomfrey to come up and see what he had done to the house they had given him. Struggling weakly to his knees, Remus tried to right the furniture a bit. He grabbed the shredded rags of the blanket and tried to wipe the worst of the blood away, but only succeeded in smearing it.
There was no way he could reach his clothes and he felt tears of frustration and humiliation fill his eyes and fall down his stinging cheeks as he heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
"Dear Merlin!" Madame Pomfrey seemed to be stuck speachless when she opened the door to the room. Remus saw her eyes move over the blood stains and battered furniture until they landed on him, among the rags of his blanket, crying and naked.
"Sorry, sorry!" he sobbed, "I didn't mean to do it..."
"Oh, Remus." Suddenly she was kneeling beside him, her hands moving over to gently touch the edges of his wounds. "Of course not, love. No one cares about the house. I'm just worried about you. I've never seen anything this bad on such a little lad."
Then her wand was there, touching the scratches and gouges, and the blood stopped a bit and the wounds began healing.
"I would ask if it's always like this, but I can see from your scars that I wouldn't like the answer."
"Not always," Remus said, sniffing and feeling full of pain and wonder that she dared to touch him and didn't flinch away from the sight of his ugly body and dripping wounds. "The w-wolf didn't like the house. But he'll get used to it. Sometimes it's worse." He felt embarrassed and exposed as her wand moved lower to the bleeding bites on his abdomen. "I c-couldn't reach my c-clothes." He pointed to the pile on top of the cupboard.
Madame Pomfrey smiled at him. "Sensible boy, putting them up there. Accio clothes."
She caught the summoned clothes and gently helped him to stand as she wrapped his outdoor cloak around him to shield his body.
"That will do for now, I think. No one will be up and about at this time. It's too early."
Together, they staggered down the tunnel, Remus leaning most of his weight on the nurse. They stumbled as quickly as they could over the stretch of grass to the school and through to the Hospital Wing. Then, in a whirl of comforting words, warm water, potions and muttered spells, Remus found himself tucked up in a bed away from the main ward, feeling warmer and safer than he ever had before. He wondered, dimly through the fuzziness of the pain potions, if it would have been a little like this if his mother had been alive during his transformations.
One of the potions must have been a sleeping drought because Remus felt his eyelids dragged down heavily and he sunk willingly back into unconsciousness.
