Thanks for the reviews! Sorry the last chapter was a bit depressing. Hopefully this one is (slightly) less so.

Chapter Twenty

The Years in Between

The years that followed passed as a painful, slow motion blur, the monotony of my daily life broken only by the horrors that my condition brought about each full moon. Every month, I would apparate to my parents' deserted house for my transformations, which were now lonelier and more terrible than ever before. But the house was already in such a state of disrepair that there was little I could do to make it worse, and it was the best place to ensure I didn't endanger anyone else. Its isolated location, on the outskirts of a very quiet little village, with the added protection of muggle repelling charms, was the reason that my parents and I had moved there in the first place.

I went from job to job, at first managing to secure the odd spot of work in the magical world. But, with my regular disappearances and frequent injuries, not to mention the fact that many people now knew about my affliction anyway, it proved almost impossible to keep a job for longer than a few months. With each new position my employers would, sooner or later, dismiss me without further explanation, or else start treating me so coldly and rudely that I resigned of my own accord. After a couple of years of this treatment, I started taking on muggle jobs instead, which were easier to come by and generally provided me with a more agreeable working environment. I also adopted muggle attire, and began to use muggle currency, finding that at least in a place where people had never heard of Voldemort or Harry Potter, I could eclipse the horrible events of the past few years. At least, in a world where werewolves were only stuff of legends and fairy tales, I was not shunned by everyone who met me.

Was I happy? No. But I was alive, sane and moderately healthy, and given that that was more than could be said for any of my old friends, I felt I had to be grateful for small mercies.

oOo

About six years after that fateful Halloween night, I was working in a newsagents in a small town in Southeast England, living in the dingy little studio flat above the shop. It was the worst job I had had so far, and left me almost no money to spare, so my one and only purchase other than essentials was the Daily Prophet, which I ordered once a week in an attempt to keep up with the magical world. Even then, I was becoming increasingly indifferent to its contents, because they only served as a painful reminder that I had almost no association with the magical world any more, and I never read it cover to cover, merely skimming it for mildly interesting headlines.

I was flicking idly through it one Sunday afternoon and, reaching the international section, suddenly paused at a headline and its adjoining photo. America's Chief Auror To Marry British witch, read the headline, but it was the picture that had caught my eye, that of a good-looking wizard and a young witch, a witch with dark hair, dark eyes and a kindly smile as both she and her future husband beamed at the camera. A smile that had, several years before, been directed at me as we shared sweets in the grounds of Hogwarts. It was Mary.

I felt my stomach clench. In truth, I had barely thought of her in the last few years. The pain of losing my four best friends in one blow had blotted out all emotion for anyone else, including, as ashamed as I was to admit it, my own parents. But now, as I stared into the smiling, finely-chiseled features of the person she was going to marry, the sort of powerful, handsome man that I knew I could never and would never be, I felt all the feelings from so many years before return, and a burn of jealousy rise up inside my chest.

Reason battled envy as I tried (but failed) to talk myself into a more rational state of mind. After all, very few couples from our seventh year had prolonged their relationship after leaving school. Lily and James had been among the rare few, and Mary and I had certainly not been the great love affair of the century. Even if I had been a normal teenage boy, it was likely we still would have broken up, and she probably would have still moved to America and would still be engaged to someone else. But the thought, in my lonely state of despair, brought me very little comfort. Mary was the only relationship - because it had been a relationship, albeit a fleeting teenage one – that I had ever had. I had pushed her determinedly away, refused to let her in until, in despair, she had quietly accepted defeat and retreated, and I had not been able to help but wonder, just occasionally, what might have happened if I had acted differently.

I felt lower than I'd felt in a long time as I threw the paper aside and, wanting to get some fresh air, made my way to the local supermarket. I was meandering through the aisles, trying to find something for dinner but not even really seeing the tins and jars in front of me, when I heard a persistent whining from two aisles along.

"But muuuuum, I WANT sweets!"

I sighed, thinking how spoilt some children could be. I was already fed up with the kids who often came into the newsagents, badgering their mothers to buy them toys or chocolate or fizzy drinks, knocking things onto the floor and laughing loudly while their parents looked on in oblivious devotion. I didn't know if magical children were any better behaved, having never had the chance to be around them. They probably had the potential to create a lot more havoc, I reasoned, as at least muggle children didn't have unexpected periods of accidental magic, but I doubted they could be much worse than whoever was letting out the high pitched screams from the next aisle.

"But Dudley my darling, you already have the chocolate and cakes and crisps," I heard a simpering voice say sweetly.

"I don't care, I want SWEETS!" the child roared in outrage, but I didn't register the mother's reply, the name Dudley having rung a vague bell in the back of my mind. Almost automatically, I remembered Lily's laughing voice from almost seven years before.

"...they've called him Dudley. Of all the names to pick.. poor kid doesn't stand a chance..."

I also vaguely remembered Lily saying that her sister's husband was originally from Sutton, which not too far from where I was living. My heart started pounding as I tried to tell myself that I was being ridiculous. It was unlikely that they still lived in the area, and in any case, as unkind as it seemed for a parent to name their child Dudley, there were undoubtedly plenty of them in the world.

Nevertheless, I found my feet carrying me towards the whining voice, and reaching the end of the confectionery aisle, I perceived a harassed-looking woman with dark hair and a thin face, desperately trying to console a chubby blond boy who was holding four different packets of sweets in each of his fat fists, tears spurting down his round pink cheeks. But as I looked past him, right to the opposite end of the aisle, I saw another child, looking hungrily at the large bars of chocolate without saying a word. A young, skinny boy with a mess of black hair and - I knew although I couldn't actually see them - startling green eyes behind his lopsided glasses.

Knowing at once that my wild suspicions had been correct, fascination kept my feet treading one in front of the other as I moved closer to where the boy was standing, stopping a few feet away and pretending to be absorbed in the large boxes of sweets that were advertised at half price. I thought desperately of something to say. But what could I possibly say? Hi, I'm Remus, I was friends with your parents. We went to wizarding school together? It was hardly the kind of revelation you could make to a six-year-old in the confectionery aisle of a run-down supermarket.

I also remembered Dumbledore's absolute insistence that Harry should not have contact with wizards until he was ready, and considered leaving without saying anything. On the other hand, I was dressed in muggle attire, and I was not planning on telling him about his parents or the wizarding world. I was just interested to talk to the boy who, the last time I'd seen him, had been less than a year old and fast asleep in his mothers' arms. At the very least, I had to hear his voice.

The screams from the other end of the aisle became even shriller, and the boy grimaced, before looking around nervously to see who else was in the vicinity. He noticed me looking back at him, as I hadn't been quick enough to avert my eyes, and gave me a look that was both comical and apologetic.

"He always does that," he said, eyeing me a little nervously. "You get used to it after a while."

I smiled back, amused at his would-be grown up tone of voice but rather at a loss at what to say, and gestured to the sweets. "Are you getting something too?" I asked kindly.

"No," he looked at me, now somewhat incredulously. "I'm not allowed chocolate."

"Oh," I was unsure how to respond, indignant but not altogether surprised to learn this, given what Lily had told me of Petunia. What shocked me more was his resigned expression and matter of fact tone of voice. He had clearly accepted this injustice as a part of life.

"This one's the best though," he went on, with enthusiasm, jabbing his finger at one the luxury bars in front of him. "I stole a bit of Dudley's once."

He seemed perfectly at ease, and evidently had not been warned against speaking to strangers. It registered that as Petunia did not like her nephew enough to buy him a chocolate bar once in a while, she was unlikely to spend her time lecturing him about his personal safety. She probably hoped someone unsavoury character would indeed come and take him off her hands. The thought filled me with a new wave of dislike for her and for about the thousandth time since Lily and James' death I wondered how Dumbledore could have possibly thought this the best option for their beloved son.

Harry was looking up at me curiously. "Are you ok? You look upset?" he questioned bluntly.

I forced a smile back on my face. "No, no, not at all," I said, "but it's a pity you're not allowed any chocolate at all. They seem to have a lot of it in the trolley."

The boy shrugged. "That's all for Dudley," he said. "I kind of hoped I might get some for my birthday, but I think they've forgotten again."

I froze, recalling the date on the Daily Prophet that I'd been reading just half an hour before. It was the 30th July, which meant that the very next day would be Harry's birthday. His seventh birthday. His sixth one since the loss of his parents, and probably the sixth one without any presents, cards or even a kindly word. I choked back another angry feeling from showing on my face, as I considered hexing Petunia there and then in the shop. About a dozen other thoughts crossed my mind, but I realised that there was very little I could do without getting Harry into trouble or risk exposing him to the magic that Dumbledore had not wanted him to experience at this young age, not to mention breaching the statute of secrecy.

Instead, I settled for reaching into my jacket, twitching my wand under the pretence of digging in my pocket, before pulling out a chocolate bar, slightly smaller than than the one on the shelf, but otherwise identical.

"Here," I said with a smile, "it would be a shame not to have chocolate on your birthday."

His face lit up immediately as he stretched out his hand for the chocolate, and I thought ruefully of how wrong the situation was: a small child – none other than the hero of the wizarding world and the downfall of Lord Voldemort - eagerly accepting sweets from a complete stranger, with no loving parent there to watch out for him, no kindly guardian to rush up and give me a scandalised look before whisking Harry away. His smile was enough to quell this unhappy thought, however, and I felt a great wave of fondness for him as he inspected every inch of the wrapper, all my bitterness and resentment over Mary evaporating in an instant.

"Enjoy,"I said quietly, and then, sensing that the tantrum behind me had reached an end, Dudley having persuaded Petunia to fill the trolley with sweets, I made a swift getaway, and if Harry looked up to thank me after hastily stuffing the chocolate bar into his pocket, I never knew. It was a further seven years until we came face to face again, and by then I, clean shaven but with longer, more greying hair and dressed in wizard robes, was probably unrecognisable from the stranger who had presented him with a birthday chocolate bar all those years before. In any case he never showed any sign of having already met me.

I also did not tell him of the encounter, mainly, I think, out of fear that he would resent me for not making more of an effort to check that he was alright. I decided against making further attempts to track him down or finding out where the Dursleys lived, not because I did not want to, quite the contrary, but because I knew I had to put my trust in Dumbledore. If Dumbledore had wanted me to make contact with Harry or watch out for him, he would have said so, and although I returned regularly to the supermarket in the weeks that followed, I never saw Harry or his aunt and cousin there again. A couple of months later I found a slightly better job up in Manchester, and over the years I continued to move further and further north. With every move I retreated further into my shell, cutting out the wizarding world a little bit more with every new muggle job, and I had been settled in the Yorkshire dales for just over a year when, finally, at long last, my life took a turn for the better.

a/n

Ok, I wasn't sure about chapter, it seems a bit contrived, but I did like the idea of Remus meeting Harry as a child so decided to put it in anyway. Please review x