The next few weeks followed much the same pattern. Sirius and James were continuing to spend most of their time joking and larking around, and Remus slipped in and out of the conversation, slowly becoming more and more relaxed within the group, although his inner tensions were building up with the full moon looming just another week ahead. As usual Peter lurked on the outside, never really part of the rest of them, more of a pet to be laughed at than anything else, although there was no bad blood between them at all, except of course when they drove Remus to insanity asking for help with homework assignments.
"Just let me look at it Rem." James whined.
Sirius looked outraged. "I'm getting it first! McGonagall loves you!"
"I'll still get detention for a week; she's as grumpy as my aunt's old cat." Sheepishly, James looked at his hands which were absent minded plucking his quill to shreds and shaking ink all over his pyjama trousers. "Not any more though, my uncle slipped her a love potion and she ran off with the neighbours' tabby."
Remus shot him a glance but didn't laugh, too preoccupied on trying to finish the essay without it getting torn out of his clutches to get distracted. "Maybe if you stopped plotting about poisoning your pets you'd know how to answer the questions. They're really not that hard."
His jaw dropping Sirius gaped at Remus. "Not hard? It's a whole bloody foot!" He grabbed his parchment from the table and thrust it in Remus' face, no more than three inches of scruffy writing covering the page. "Look at that! I'll never be done."
Realising his friend's desperation Remus handed his parchment over to Sirius. "Just please remember to change the words will you?"
All three of the boys subconsciously looked over to Peter, who was sitting in the dark corner, his face scrunched up near to the pages of his textbook as he tried to fill the foot requirement of parchment with large childish writing. Only the week before, both Peter and Remus had been given a severe warning by Proffessor Sprout when they handed in almost identical essays on the properties of Devil's Snare. Since then Remus had been loath to show his assignments to anyone, particularly Peter. Though somehow, and he never really worked out how, the wily pair of dark haired boys always seemed to get their own way, and their hands on the parchment.
Suddenly Remus noticed the clock on the common room wall and leapt to his feet with a yelp. "Merlin! I was supposed to be somewhere five minutes ago." Panicked he started shoving his inkwell and parchment back into his bag, managing to spoil the parchment in the process.
"Where are you off to?" James asked quizzically.
"Dumbledore." Remus answered without thinking and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm going to be so dead."
Shooting a quick look at Sirius he waved his hands at the panicking boy. "Go! Go! We'll sort things out here."
Sighing with gratitude the werewolf nodded his thanks to the boy, who had now started uncrumbling the parchment Remus had balled up to fit into his bag. As Remus dived through the portrait of the Fat Lady, cloak flapping behind him, James turned to Sirius. "What is the matter with that boy?"
Sirius shrugged, too engrossed in copying down Remus' work to care about where he'd gone. His face scrunched up as he tried to think how to reword 'the harder a person struggles against Devil's Snare, the faster and more tightly it binds them; if they relax, it will not kill them as quickly' in a way that didn't reveal its origin to be Lupin's goose quill. "James, how on earth am I going to write this essay?"
"Forget the essay! Something's seriously up with our mate. He's the only one of us who hasn't yet managed to get a detention but he's always getting called off to Dumbledore." James ruffled his messy black hair with his hand, but it was impossible to make it any untidier than it was before.
A small voice from the corner piped up. "Isn't it about those cuts?"
"Yes but... well he's never seemed that upset."
"You never know though do you, he's always a bit odd." Sirius added. "You don't know what's happened in his life before, think about how messed up my family is."
James shifted uncomfortably in his seat. After the experience in the Great Hall from Sirius' cousin Narcissa they had realised how bad things were for Sirius. Since he'd been spotted by Narcissa each morning he had been greeted by a letter from his parent's threatening to drag him back home if he didn't denounce his Gryffindor friends, or that they would blast him off the family tree if Narcissa relayed that he was showing any interest with fraternising with muggleborns. Fortunately for the young boy his older cousin was too busy throwing her weight around to get her own way in her own year to care much about her eleven year old rebellious cousin, who had developed an amusing habit of being able to slip behind a suit of armour or into a dark corner at almost any point in the castle in under 5 seconds.
From the other side of the common room Lily Evans looked over at the group of boys and made a mental note to talk to Remus when she got the chance. She hadn't been under the impression that he would enjoy people speculating about his home life behind his back, although he'd obviously trusted his friends enough to fill them in on the nature of his injuries.
-oOo-
Remus tore through the castle, aware that it was imperative that he made this meeting with Professor Dumbledore. Without it he didn't know what he would do, he had no idea how he would protect his fellow students – and himself. If he harmed anyone he would be hunted to the ground and surely put to death. Even if anyone found out what he was his life would be turned upside down, and he was finally starting to enjoy falling into the rhythm of classes, good food and friendship. He might have renounced the possibility of going to live in a werewolf colony, but that didn't take away that fact that the wolf in him brought out the need to be a pack animal. Involuntarily, Remus cringed at his own thoughts, he wasn't an animal; he was just as human as anyone else.
When he was seven years old Remus had been taken to London with his family. Not knowing why the young boy was a mixture of nervous and ecstatic, unable to determine whether his parents were being secretive because they wanted to treat him to something nice, or because they were worried about the reason they were taking him there, but he hoped it was the former. He wondered whether they were going to make up for whatever had gone wrong recently, since his father had had the argument with his grandmother and letters started arriving through the door with a different surname to that which they had done before. Bringing the topic up with his mother she simply told him that they had become their own family now that Remus was seven and deserved a name of their own. It would be years until Remus discovered that that had just been one of many lies caused by his illness.
Entering the giant hospital which was St Mungos Remus was in awe of the grandeur of the building, having spent the most part of his life in their little pokey cottage in Dartmoor. It was homely enough, but just wasn't quite as impressive as this building was. Hurriedly he was ushered down the cream corridors with curved walls which met at the apex in a point – he'd never seen walls built like that before, it was like one giant, stretched doorway – and was greeted by a pair of blue double doors. On the doors there were three words, one unfamiliar and on a plaque reading "Lycanthropy", which he recognised to have been also on the signs they had been following, and the other more familiar, but more worrying, "fucking animals". That particular word was graffiti-ed on in thick red.
Too frightened to ask, little Remus gulped and hid behind his mother's legs as much as he could as his parents made a quiet exchange of whispers and pushed through the door. He was greeted by more graffiti, all written in different hands, but mostly containing the words "animal" or "freak".
Since then he'd been plagued by those words. That and the screams which had echoed from down the corridor, but at least they only came back as nightmares.
So wrapped up in his memories, Remus nearly ran past the Eagle, and came to an abrupt halt, panting the password to it as he caught his breath. He rode up to the headmaster's office praying that he would still be there, and not so angry that points were taken off Gryffindor. As a collective group the four boys had already lost more points than the rest of their peers had, although Remus had fortunately managed to undo some of that through his determination to make his time at Hogwarts worthwhile after the struggle to get him there. As the Eagle finished rotating Remus was alarmed to be greeted by Dumbledore standing outside the oak door, contemplating his pocket watch.
"Professor, I'm so sorry, I came as quickly as I could..."
The Professor waved his hand dismissively. "What is time but a socially constructed concept...?"
Thankful that the headmaster didn't seem to be concerned by his lack of timekeeping ability Remus relaxed somewhat, but the words intrigued him somewhat. What could he mean that time was a socially constructed concept? Time was just there, it hadn't been invented. If we weren't around time would still keep going on. But then, he realised, there wouldn't be hours and minutes, just days, and months. Time was everything to someone like him, maybe it mattered less to humans, but he couldn't forget about time, if he did then the results could be catastrophic.
Nervously Remus voiced his revelation. "Umm... Professor Dumbledore, I don't mean to be rude but... time is everywhere."
"Oh, and how's that?" He arched a thin grey eyebrow, interested.
"Well... it keeps going, with or without humans... people." He blushed as he corrected himself, never able to call himself really human. "There would still be months and days and all of that. For someone... like me... time is everything." As if looking for reassurance Remus craned his neck up, looking for something in his headmaster's face.
The old man's face was hard to read, and Remus wasn't sure what he was thinking, even when he spoke. It almost seemed like there was a hint of pity, but there might have also been pride. He couldn't work out why the man would be feeling piteous though, his condition was nothing new. It was awful, yes, he would never be normal, yes, but anger and disgust were better emotions than pity for someone like him. And why pride? It made no sense, Remus was a slave to the moon, not someone who should be thought of with pride.
"Then my dear boy, time is of the essence. Walk with me." Dumbledore strode onto the Eagle and clapped his hands, Remus scurrying beside him to be carried back down, wondering where they were heading, and fearful that they would be overheard while they were talking.
Forgetting that his entourage had considerably shorter legs than him Dumbledore forced Remus to scurry along meekly behind him as he strode through the corridors of Hogwarts without hesitation for their destination, or the path to get there. Although they had now been at the school for weeks Remus and his friends often still found themselves confused, and it didn't help that Sirius and James seemed wholly incapable of deciding on the best route to take. At times like that Remus was as stumped as Peter Pettigrew, having never had the experience of navigating through a large building unlike Sirius and James back in their large family homes. Fields and forests were Remus' forte, just like that of his less freakish wolf brethren.
Finally, they reached their destination, which was in front of a tree at the furthest end of the grounds, near the Forbidden Forest. When he realised they were walking no further Remus began to sweat, they were too close to the castle, he couldn't change here. All it would take was for the wind to blow the wrong way and everything would be over. His nose would pick up the scent and he would be tearing through the walls which were his home by day and his teeth would be... It would be a death sentence. It wasn't going to work out, he would have to go back home, forget ever coming here. How stupid they'd been to have even contemplated sending him here. It was suicidal. Remus was reluctant to tell the man this though; his eyes were glinting with the genius of his plan, and as they surveyed his pupil were obviously keen to see the excitement replicated there. Maybe he could leave for another reason, without ever letting him down.
"This," Professor Dumbledore said dramatically, spreading his arms wide, "Is a Whomping Willow. One of only five in the country, would you believe, and a rather fine example. Ogg our Gamekeeper collected it from the Forest of Dean especially this summer."
Not caring particularly about Herbology and still perplexed as to how this would keep his peers safe Remus interrupted. "Sir, I'm afraid I don't follow."
"Approach the tree Mr Lupin." Remus did as he was bid, and then jumped backwards as the tree emitted a noise which was a sort of leafy groan and swung its branches towards him. "The Whomping Willow will try to attack anyone who approaches it. Beneath its branches there is a secret tunnel to outside of the school grounds. You will be safe there."
Suddenly things made more sense to Remus, and part of him began to have hope for the future of his transformations. His whole life he had been locked in the cellar during those nights, and alone, and confined, he had caused considerable damage to himself, but now, if he was to be shepherded out of the grounds he could run wild and free, like the wolf he became. As long as there were no humans near him of course. Everything was about protecting the humans; no one really cared about the wellbeing of the werewolf. Except Dumbledore, he seemed to have thought things through thus far. He seemed to treat him like any other person. There were just a few questions which needed to be answered however.
Seeing the puzzlement form on Remus' face Dumbledore answered the first question. "The tree is enchanted to stop moving once a certain knot is pressed on its trunk." He waved his wand and an orb of light hovered from its tip and drifted towards the trunk, landing on a knot near its base. "The charm only lasts for two minutes to give you time to enter, but to ensure no one else will follow. You and I are the only people who know of this knot."
Remus nodded his understanding, and memorised the location of the knot as best he could. It would be disastrous for him to forget it in the panic of the full moon, especially as he knew his tensions would be running high without the added worry of getting out of the grounds.
"And I believe you have another question you would wish to ask."
"Will everyone be safe the other end?"
Dumbledore smiled warmly. "You will be safe." He emphasised the first word of the sentence. "Once you get the other end there will be nothing to restrain you. And there is no one who will disturb you; they believe that the house is haunted by malevolent spirits, a rumour which was set up by yours truly. Now, run along back to your classmates, I'm sure you should be getting back to whatever you were doing which kept you earlier."
The boy smiled, not wanting to reveal he had been kept by his friends trying to pilfer his homework, and was sure by now that they had copied all of their assignments that were to be in in the next fortnight.
"Thank you Professor."
As Remus Lupin headed in, heart pounding as he remembered he would be back to the Whomping Willow in very different circumstances the next night, Dumbledore remained motionless, his mind drifting off and contemplating the nature of time, and humanity.