Part VII

"Remus darling, don't go too far please and do be back before sun down." Hope Lupin poked her head out of the kitchen where she was cooking.

"I will, Mum." Ten-years old Remus replied from the entrance where he finished tying up his shoes. He spotted a unicorn herd yesterday and want to go and see them again in the forest behind their house.

Remus jogged off into the forest and found some shrubs to hide in and waited, he occupied his time with sketching the unicorn in his book when he heard a low groan. He perked up and looked over the shrubs but unfortunately did not see unicorns or any creatures anywhere though the groans still softly heard through the forest.

Remus carefully and cautiously get out of the shrubs looking for the source when he found a person huddled under one of the trees in the clearing not far from him, as he looked closely the person is a young man with silver grey hair in his late twenties barefoot and Remus could see his side bleeding through his torn clothes.

Worried of the man dying, Remus without caution approached kneeling next to the man, "Are you alright, mister?" He gasped when the man turned and surprised to see a pair of gold eyes looking back at him.

Remus remembered what he has read and heard from his father. "You're a werewolf!"

The man scoffed followed quickly with another groan of pain, holding tight his bleeding wounds. "Great, a little wizard. Better stay away from me if you don't want to get hurt."

"But you're bleeding! I cannot leave you to die here! Beside you're too hurt to hurt me." Remus huffed.

"Don't you worry your little head. I'm a werewolf, I'll be fine in a jiffy. Just let me rest and go away." The man waved his hands to shoo the boy.

Remus still felt wrong if he has to leave the hurt man alone. Then he remembered and grabbed the chocolate in his pocket which he plans to give to unicorn earlier.

"Here a chocolate for you, my mum said chocolate can make any pain go away."

The man looked at Remus as if he had grown two heads before taking the chocolate offered gingerly, unwrapping it and took a bite. Remus beamed at him, "Better?"

"Um yeah it's good..."

"Great! It was my favourite one! I was planning to give to the unicorns today but sadly they didn't come today."

"Oh, I'm afraid I'm being here scared them away. I'm a bad man you see."

"Why? Did you do something bad?"

"I'm a werewolf, in any wizard's eyes I'm bad."

"That is ridiculous. Being a werewolf is not bad, you are just being different. Different is not bad."

The man again looked at him with another unreadable look before chuckling, "Thanks kid. You're not bad at all"

"My name Remus, I'm going to Hogwarts next year!"

"Fenrir, my name is Fenrir-"

"GREYBACK!"

Remus jumped at the shouts at the distance and looked around, but the man, Fenrir grabbed his shoulder gaining his attention. "Remus, you must run. You're not safe here. Run!"

"No! Why? Are they trying to hurt you again? Are they the bad ones?"

Fenrir shook his head and ushered Remus to go. "Go, go back to your home, I'll be fine."

Remus looked at him with concern but nodded anyway, understood Fenrir does not want him to get hurt too. Remus ran leaving Fenrir alone but what Fenrir did not know is as soon as he knows he was out of sight Remus immediately found a bush to hide into.

"GREYBACK!" The voices were nearer and seconds later three men in purple uniforms emerged into the clearing and Remus recognized one of them as his father, Lyall Lupin.

"Fenrir did not move from his place but tentatively stood up, the bleeding stopped. "Guess, you found me huh? Took you long enough"

"Come with us quietly or you will not be spouting any remarks again." One of the men warned the werewolf.

"Why wait? Just kill me now, you already kill most of my pack!" With a flash of his gold eyes, Fenrir transformed to the beast that Remus only saw from what he read in the books. He grew a foot taller, his whole body covered with silvery gray hair, his claws looked menacingly sharp and dark.

In a second, two of the wizards dropped dead slashed open by their throats before they can even draw their wand, before Fenrir could strike again, he was knocked back into a tree hitting on his wounded side making him howled in pain. Fenrir turned to Lyall who trained his wand onto the werewolf. "You'll be dead, Greyback!" A ball of red light formed at the end of his wand cutting curse on the tip of his tongue.

"NO!"

"R—remus…" Lyall rushed to the small body collapsed between Fenrir and him. "Remus, my son!" He cradled the small body bleeding profusely from his right abdomen near his throat where the cutting curse has landed, Remus was lucky the curse did not cut his whole arm or head off.

"Fath...er..its hurts," Remus sobbed overwhelmed with the pain.

Fenrir crawled close in shock of the boy who came to his rescue from death now laying in near death. Lyall noticed this and draw his wand on him tears ran down his cheeks. Anger clearly shown on his eyes. "Greyback! You paid for this!" But a smaller hand grabbed his weakly, "Fath...er….no…please…"

Lyall looked at his son perplexedly, lowering his hand. "Remus…?"

"Say... sorry to mum, I can't … make it back home." Remus coughed up more blood.

"No, no, Remus!" Lyall muttered a healing spell to heal the cut, but Remus already bleed too much.

"I... feel sleepy..."

"No! Son, stay awake please. You'll be alright, I promise."

"I can save him, he lost too much blood already." Fenrir said receding back to his human form.

"Don't come near him, you bastard!"

"Please I beg you, I can save him!"

"And turn him into a creature like you?!"

"Would you rather have a dead son or alive?" Fenrir barked staring hard at the older man. Lyall looked down to his son looking paler by the minute. "Remus…"

Remus gasped aloud, the chocolate wrapper still in his hands. He touched his cheek, surprised that he did not notice he was crying.

He jumped when there was a knock on the bedroom door, Fenrir's voice penetrated through the door. "Remus, are you still awake?"

Remus wiped his tears away and hide the wrapper back under the pillow but did not make any move to open the door.

Behind the door, Fenrir stood in front of the door, he could smell Remus's distress making him worry.

"I... I will not stop you from leaving… but if you have a place to go, I will help you to get there safely, you might not know if there are another rogue werewolf out there you know..."

Silence.

Fenrir sighed. "Good night" and went back to the couch dejectedly.

Inside the bedroom, Remus took out the wrapper again. He finally remembered. Fenrir bit him to save his life. What should he do now?

TBC…..