The Call of the Moon

by Elven Heart993

Sometimes it's the quiet ones who have the most to say and sometimes it's the most unsuspecting person who hides the darkest secret. Remus Lupin was five years old when he knew something was wrong with him. This is his story.

14. Chapter 14

The Call of the Moon

Chapter Fourteen

The handsome tawny owl hooted and pecked on the window of the cottage at the muggle woman inside, waiting impatiently for someone to open it and allow it to deliver its cargo to the household.
Hope, who had been laying out milk, mugs for tea and glasses for orange juice at the table for breakfast looked over and sighed. She had over sixteen years to get used to the wizarding mail system but couldn't say she much cared for the feathers the birds dropped. Although, it seemed a great deal faster than her post.
Brushing her hands off on a fraying apron she yet needed to mend, Hope opened the latch and swung the window outwards to admit the bird which hooted again loudly.
"Your post is here, Lyall!" She called over her shoulder, thin fingers trembling as she untied the letter from the bird's leg with fingers that were quite practiced at this. Lyall, upon telling her he was a wizard had frequently communicated with her this way, or would send word from the Ministry when he had to work late.

The owl fluttered away as soon as it's charge had been delivered, soaring back out into the sky towards its roost and sender. Turning over the letter to read the name upon it Hope looked up as Lyall entered the kitchen with his hand out for the post.
"Sorry, love. It's for Remus not for you."

"For me? Probably the booklists." Her fifteen year-old son asked curiously, appearing just behind his father with eyes still bleary with sleep.
Remus was growing fast as any teenage boy did and was already very nearly his father's height and towered over Hope as it was. Tall and lanky, he was thin and his skin pale as ever. The scars on his face made Hope swallow with sadness and worry every time she looked at him. He would always be her beautiful boy. Her boy who suffered so frequently and who, as parents, they could do nothing to ease.

Handing him the letter and sitting down to pour herself a cup of tea as Lyall rushed around the kitchen, flicking his wand at the bread knife to butter himself a piece of toast as he pulled his cloak on.

Remus turned over the letter, sealed with the crimson Hogwarts crest and addressed in emerald green ink and opened the envelope that felt heavier than it usually did. Tugging out the letter, it was indeed his Fifth year supplies list. All books he already had for his classes with the addition of two others, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5, and Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts.
The Standard Book of Spells every year had all come from his father, who had used the same textbooks when he was in school, and Remus had vague notion that he'd seen the other buried somewhere amongst the stack of books as well.

But what caught his eye was the second sheet of parchment alongside the supply list. He opened it and then glanced up as he felt his father standing over his shoulder.
"I can read it myself, Dad." He sighed but looked back down and his eyes widened in surprise at the content.

Dr Mr Lupin,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to serve as Prefect for Gryffindor House. Your school record shows that you have exhibited great resourcefulness, the ability to be an outstanding example to others and the bravery that Gryffindors have long been lauded for.

We are certain that you will continue to be a model for your peers and will take your responsibilities seriously. Enclosed please find your Prefect's Badge, which should be worn on your school robes at all times. Congratulations!

Sincerely
Minerva McGonagall

Head of Gryffindor House.

Quickly picking up the envelope again, he tilted it and, sure enough, out tumbled a crimson badge edged with gold and emblazoned with a large, silver letter P. Him? A prefect?

"Bloody hell…" He murmured to himself, ignoring the disapproving look his mother gave him at the language and a smile crept onto his face as though he still couldn't entirely believe it.

Behind him his father let out a laugh and clapped his shoulders, beaming at his son and pride shining from his face.

"Prefect! Well done, son, just like your old man was!"

"You were a prefect?"

"Are you surprised?" Lyall feigned offense but couldn't maintain it for very long before his pride with his son came shining back through.

"Mum, look!" Remus got up and went over to his mother at the stove to show her the badge which she took and turned over in her thin fingers, light and happiness finally showing from her face when she dropped the spatula and pulled Remus into a hug.

"I always knew you would do well, my boy, my darling boy…"

Remus squirmed a little, as much as he loved his parents, he was fifteen after all and didn't need to be coddled and sheltered whatever they thought.
"Relax Mum, it isn't Head Boy or anything."

"You should be very proud of yourself, Remus. Each house only has six at any one time."

"I know, Dad. I'm very thankful." Remus smiled, which crinkled the scars where they cut over his mouth and sat back down at the table to finish his breakfast.

"I'm off, Hope, I might miss supper tonight, there's a terribly large mountain of paperwork in my office, not to mention that of other wizards who no longer file things correctly." Lyall tutted, with an edge of bitterness that made Remus look up.

"Why do they make you do all their work, dad? You told me you used to be out in the field, why aren't you anymore?"

Lyall hesitated and a lump leapt into his throat, he cleared it quickly and looked away from his son, not about to tell him the truth that he'd been made a laughing stock for the last decade and preferred immensely to keep to himself especially in the Ministry.
"Oh you know these things, Remus. That's just how it goes sometimes when you're too decent folk."

Just as Lyall swept out the door Remus remembered something and bolted up to follow him, catching his father's sleeve before he could Disapparate.

"What is it?"

"I meant to ask, James has invited us, that is Sirius, Peter and I, to stay for a day or two these holidays. I thought…you might let me go?"

Lyall's already thin face paled and his lips flattened into a thin line.
"Absolutely not. You know what's coming up."

"The full moon is in two weeks, he wants us to go this weekend." Remus tried but he had known it was a futile effort from the moment he asked.

"No, Remus. Under no circumstances are you to go. You'll be looking like death by then, you never know when something will go wrong."

"Dad, I know exactly when something will go wrong, it's kind of a big part of being a bloody werewolf. They know what I am, do you think they'll care if I'm a little peaky?"

Lyall shook his head. The moment he had found out that had Remus shared his secret with three other students, he was more guarded than ever about his son's safety. At any time one of these friends could betray him and out him as an unregistered werewolf.
"And I will always think that's incredibly irresponsible for you to have let happen-"

"They're my friends! They're good people, they've kept it secret for years!"

"You are not to go, Remus. Owl your friend and tell him you will not be seeing them before next school term. That's plenty time enough for you to be out of home."

Without waiting for his son to argue with another word, Lyall turned on his heel and Disapparated on the spot.

xxxXxxx

Unbelievable. He had been at Hogwarts for four years and his friends had kept his secretly securely for three of those. Hadn't they proven time and again to Remus that they were his friends? Yes, he had to admit, he was petrified of the day they came to their senses and remembered that he was actually a dangerous monster after all, but they had kept his secret. They wouldn't tell. He knew that of them.

And still, despite the fact Remus was a student and away from home most of the year, his parents wouldn't let him leave the house without one of them during the holidays.

It was humiliating and disappointing and he was hurt that his father couldn't trust him to know his own best friends. The teenage werewolf let out a frustrated growl that was a little more animal than human and dropped down onto his bed in the sparsely furnished bedroom. There were only a few years left until he came of age, and he could Apparate where he wanted to.
Remus didn't like to complain. He never so much as mentioned the measly living the family had to survive off, he didn't want to be pitied. He struggled to even accept birthday or Christmas gifts from his friends because he didn't have the money to return the favour with much more than chocolate or sweets. He was lucky he could go to school at all being what he was. He was lucky Dumbledore had so much faith in him, and even luckier still that he'd been chosen as a Prefect.
But he was fifteen. He wasn't five anymore, he had friends that he trusted and his father should trust him. But Merlin forbid he spend longer than a few minutes in Diagon Alley out of his house when he wasn't in school.

Passing by his open trunk, Remus, frustrated though he was, took the time to place his brand new Prefect badge in pride of place on his bedside table. That cheered him up a little, though it did little to lessen his annoyance as he sat down at the mostly bare, save for some textbooks, desk with parchment and a quill. Picking up the stray letter that sat open on top of his Astronomy book he scanned the content once again. It was the letter from James inviting him for a few days with the others.
Dipping his quill in the ink bottle, Remus pulled his parchment toward himself and began to write.

James,

Afraid I won't be allowed to join you these holidays. I wish I could say I was surprised.
It's not even the week of the full moon and they still won't let me leave the house unsupervised because of my 'hairy little problem'.
It's alright really. What's another two years? Then I can make my own decisions.

I'm sure Sirius and Peter will more than make up for my missing it.

I'll see you all at the start of term.

Remus

Signing his name with a little flourish that he had inherited from the way his mother wrote, Remus sealed up the letter, addressing it to James Potter. Now he'd have to wait until his father came home to take it to the nearest Wizarding postal office in Diagon Alley to mail it. Unless James so happened to send a follow up letter before then.
He knew exactly what his friend would tell him to do. That it wasn't fair on Remus and Remus should just come along anyway, even if it meant hailing the Knight Bus.

But running away was certainly not something he wanted to have to do. It wasn't really his parents' fault that he had to be housebound.

That didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

xxxXxxx

It was only Hope and Remus home for dinner that night, like every night that Lyall had to stay late at the Ministry. It bothered Remus sometimes, as if there was something his father was keeping from them, or at least from him. Something about why Lyall Lupin, who he knew very well had been a very prominent member in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and an expert in Non-Human Spirituous Apparitions, had been mostly behind a desk since Remus could remember.

"Remus, would you have something to eat?"

He poked at his potatoes and looked up at his mother, hardly noticing that he hadn't even eaten anything on his plate yet. "I'm not very hungry."

"Remus…you know why he said no."

"I don't care about that." He did, but it wasn't as important as what was really bothering him about it. "I care that he doesn't trust me to know my own friends. Maybe if you met them-"

Hope sighed, and the clink of cutlery against plate sounded as she put down her fork, her own supper barely touched either as she immediately tried to change the subject. "Why don't you tell me about what the prefects do at Hogwarts?"

Just at that moment the front door opened and a breeze swept in with Lyall, tangling his cloak around his shoulders. He burst into the kitchen with his greying hair windswept and a flushed, newly Apparated look on his face.
"I found another."

Remus didn't have to ask to know what his father meant. He knew even before the vial of silver liquid was pulled from a pocket what was about to happen. Again. His eyes dimmed, the very opposite of the excited expression on his father's, and different again to his mother's, looking exhausted and downright disappointed.
"I thought you said you were working late…"

"Working on getting a hold of this, yes. It's bound to work. It's made with an infusion of wolfsbane."

"Lyall…not another one. It's been ten years and nothing has worked, you can't keep doing this to him."

"Hope, I'm trying to help him-"

"Him is right here…" Remus mumbled, but reluctantly held out his hand for the vial. It was easier to go along with it than it was to argue anymore. Even if he knew, and he was sure that his father knew deep down, that it would never do any good. He just hoped that this would be the last time before his father realised it was a fruitless attempt.

Under the hopeful eyes of his father and the sad, resigned ones of his mother, Remus sniffed the vial and immediately recoiled at the scent of wolfsbane, overpowering anything else. It was more likely to make him more ill than it was to cure him. But a boy of fifteen, werewolf or not, couldn't understand the frantic desperation of a father who just wanted to cure his son.

Blocking his nose, the young werewolf swallowed it in one mouthful and just looked at his father with a resigned expression as if to say, 'Is this the last time?'.

"It'll work this time." Lyall's smile seemed forced, that of one who really had given up inside but didn't want to seem like he had no hope for his son.

Remus just looked at the ground, his mouth burning with a foul aftertaste and already feeling as if he wanted to throw it all right back up again.
"Can't you just accept that this is what I am?" He muttered, some earlier resentment still resonating within him and leading to a nauseous teenage werewolf shaking his head and going right up toward his room. He paused with a foot on the stairs and turned around, taking the letter addressed to James out of the pocket of his jeans and leaving it on the table.
"Can you post that please? You told me to write and say no."

xxxXxxx

"Lyall…this needs to stop. You can't keep spending all the money we have on hairbrained schemes to "fix" our son… that will never work! I thought it was your job to know about these things in your world?"

"I'm not trying to fix him. I'm trying to save him. Remus is all we have and I can't give up on him, Hope-"

"Accepting is not giving up on."

"I have to do something to fix my mistake don't I?" Lyall snapped, gripping at his greying hair and leaning against the doorframe. "It's my fault he's like this, Hope. It's my fault and I'll take that to my grave if I don't help him."

"Ten years, Lyall. It's been ten years, you need to-" the muggle woman started, her arms crossed and eyes wide and sad as she stared at her husband. They barely had the money to afford rent anywhere, and every time they thought this "cure" would be the last time, Lyall would go and spend all his savings on another one that inevitably failed. "You can help him by telling him the truth, and easing both your minds. You can help him by letting your son have as normal a life as he can."

Revealing the whole truth to people he cared about was not one of Lyall's strongest attributes. For fear that it would make her think less of him, he hadn't even told Hope for months into their courtship that the boggart he had saved her from the first time they met hadn't really been a life threatening danger. Telling his son the truth about why he was a werewolf at all? He couldn't bear to have his only child look at him and condemn him.

He shook his head and sunk into the armchair that had been magically repaired so many times it was nearly overstuffed.
"Tell him? Tell him that I thought werewolves were heartless monsters who deserved to die? He would never forg-"

"You what?"

Hope and Lyall both turned in unison and Lyall's heart seemed to stop for a moment. Remus stood in the doorway in his dressing gown, his gaunt, scarred face staring in nigh bewilderment at him. Of all parts of the conversation to walk in and overhear.

"Remus-"

"You thought werewolves deserved to die? You thought we were monsters too?"

"Remus, I don't now-" Lyall tried, although that would be little comfort, and poor justification, particularly to a werewolf.

"But you did once."
Lyall couldn't tell if it was betrayal or disbelief on his teenage son's face. But after a moment, he realised it was both when Remus clenched his jaw, turned on his heel and ran up the stairs.

xxxXxxx

What exactly he was going to do, he hadn't worked that part out yet. But Remus was pulling on his boots the moment he got back to his room. He felt betrayed, and disappointed and ashamed to hear that his own father, and a wizard who specialised in magical creatures, had once been such a prominent member of the prejudice that most of the wizarding world had against werewolves. After years of telling Remus that he wasn't a monster, even if he had to be treated as one on the full moon, his father had believed exactly the opposite once.

The house wasn't connected to the Flu Network, and he couldn't Apparate yet, so he couldn't just turn on the spot and show up at one of his friends' homes. But all the same, Remus grabbed his wand just as his father ran up to his room looking ashamed of himself and full of remorse for what he had just said.

"Remus John Lupin, just what are you doing?"

"I don't know. I could get the Knight Bus…" But even as he said it, Remus knew it sounded daft. He wasn't that kind of person to run away from home.

"Remus, you can't think that I still believe that werewolves are…beasts? I changed my perspective, I don't think any of that anymore…"

Remus rounded on his father with a nigh wolfish growl that he could see his father's jaw clench slightly at. "Yeah, because you got stuck with one yourself!" He snapped, and caught a glimpse of his reflection in a cracked mirror. He saw it all the time when he looked at himself. The eye went to the scars, and then the eyes that weren't always quite human. He saw the wolf all the time, he already thought of himself as a monster, but his own father?
"What if I was normal?" He asked a little quieter just as Lyall opened his mouth to speak and then tilted his head.

"What do you-"

"What if I was a normal wizard and I'd never been bitten?" Remus asked again and was nearly dreading the answer, "Would you still think that about werewolves?"

"That is not fair, Remus." Lyall said firmly, shaking his head. There was no way he could answer that. Maybe it was because he knew the answer would likely be 'yes'.

"Well neither is the idea that all werewolves deserve to die." Remus muttered, squarely off with his father like he never had before. Never had a real reason to. "They can't help what they are! I can't help what I am and what I do and they probably hate themselves for it just as much as I do!"

"That is enough, Remus. My views changed, and maybe it took you being a werewolf to change them, but they did change."

Remus closed his mouth, as much as he wanted to argue more, to some degree he knew his father was right that far. He had changed and he was a good man. But that didn't mean he couldn't be angry at what his father had believed.
"What aren't you telling me, dad? What haven't you told me?" He murmured, throwing his wand onto the bed and dropping down onto the foot of it. There were answers, and he felt he deserved to have them.

For the longest time, his father said nothing, just stood in the doorway looking older and more tired than Remus could remember ever seeing him.
"Alright…" He sighed and pulled out the chair from Remus' desk to sit down across from his son. "…it's my fault that you're the way you are…and that's the truth."