A/N: Ah, the angsty style of writing is still present, but things are slightly happier! Such is Deathly Hallows. Also, apparently they did use 'cool' in the seventies, though I did come close to having Padfoot and Prongs say 'Wowzers'. I hope you all will like this. Thank you to ladyofthelight101, and also to all readers and reviewers!
This fic was inspired by the line in Deathly Hallows which refers to the "shadow of the wolf" and a fanart of the same scene, where Remus was shown with glowing amber eyes.

Shadow of the Wolf

The 'shadow' had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. In early childhood it was something his parents were terrified of; the inexcusable sign that their little boy was not like other children. They kept it supressed as much as they could, though in the early days it would emerge even at the slightest of greivances. There was the time when he was six, sat on his grandmother's lap and leaning against her soft shawl listening to nursery rhymes on the wireless when his father strode in and twizzled it to Quidditch. Remus had given him what he thought was a look of childish crossness, but which had made Daddy shrink back and Nanny drop him from her lap, whispering to herself that there was "something of the night about that boy". From then on Remus was not exactly spoilt, but rather too quickly appeased, especially with chocolate. The shadow of the wolf became a rare entity.

To Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, in their typically unconventional fashion, it had been a great source of amusement. Well, maybe just to Padfoot and Prongs. The first time it appeared was when they were twelve, fortunately after they knew he was a werewolf, when the corner of a hardback book had struck him on the head (how, he didn't know) just as he was trying to go to bed. Peter squealed girlishly at his glare while James and Sirius stared at him in wonder.

"...Cool."

Best friends as they were, they brought out the worst in him. The shadow of the wolf was one of the most persuasive, most frightening techniques they could employ without using their wands. There were few finer moments in Sirius Black's memory than when Snape, having got one over on the Marauders one day in sixth year, sneered at them in the library. He met with a fierce (though mostly accidental) amber glower from the werewolf he was still afraid of, and so went staggering back into an already irritable Lily Evans, who shouted "For God's sake, Severus!" and walloped him with her Charms textbook. Remus was delighted to take full responsibility for getting his friends the nearest anyone could be to dying of laughter.

The opportunities for merriment grew less and less, while the times for anger increased. After James and Lily died he moved for a brief while back to his family home, but their relationships were strained by his constant misery, acutely so after the shadow showed itself in front of his little sister, who had burst into tears. Though their mother had explained to the frightened little girl that it wasn't Remus as such that she had seen, he was disturbed by his own behaviour and decided he was better off alone. And so his independence began after a year or so to have a calming effect on him, and the shadow of the wolf lay dormant for many years.

That was until yesterday, when he had felt a familiar surge of wildness with his anger while the shocked faces of the children...those three young adults...had told him exactly what just happened. It was a sign-apart from the raging argument that was rather impossible to ignore-that his real emotions lay with and literally inside Nymphadora Tonks. Even among the feral werewolves he had kept himself under control. What was it that had brought this side of him out at last? Or perhaps the better question, what had stopped it before?

After spending a miserable night awake there, he leaned against a wall in the alleyway and closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep. The words of others coursed unbidden through his mind;

"I don't like this...shadow thing, Remus. It's been coming out far too often for my liking. It cannot be good for you. Have those friends of yours been provoking you?"

Yes, he replied mentally to Madam Pomfrey. They've been provoking me again.

"You still have us, Remus. We're your family. We won't leave you, not ever."

You have left me, he responded to his sister's sweet voice. You live in Corsica now with our aunt and uncle. We write ocassionally but you are too frightened to meet up, there being a war on and all. But I have a new family...

There was a new weight on Remus Lupin's mind now. He was not afraid of his own painful transformation, but of its results. If his last Boggart was anything to go by, the thing he was frightened of most was the death of his wife at his own claws. And it didn't take anything but knowledge of his own mind to imagine that her 'body' would be now accompanied by that of a small baby. There really was nothing in his life that he needed more, that was closer to him, than her and her... their baby.

As he got up, he felt an energy in him that was not anger. More words came to his mind now, and though they were of the same theme they somehow seemed more positive;

"You are not a wolf today, Remmy. Look at me and say, I am not a wolf today, I am a boy."

The therapist his parents had employed for a month when he was seven was his only childhood friend. He remembered looking into kind blue eyes and pronouncing his human status with perfect tranquility. Things had not changed as much as it would seem. To the people he loved, people like Tonks who adored him and like Harry who had always respected him until now, he was not a wolf. And they, like everyone he had loved before them, deserved better than to have him act like one.