Even on a day like this when you're crawling on the floor
Reach for the phone to ring anyone who knows you anymore
It's all right to make mistakes, you're only human
Inside everybody's hiding something

* * * *
Remus Lupin stared at the calendar on the wall. His gray eyes, already full of the familiar exhaustion brought on by the coming full moon, looked even more wearied as he considered that two days more would once again plunge him into the darkness of despair. But it had not always been that way.

There had been a time, in a not so distant past, when his transformations were simply part of a game, when his friends gathered around him and he regained some semblance of control over the wolf's mind. It was so easy to forget that those years had not been a dream, a dream he refused to wake up from. But this dream, if dream it was, had not lasted; he'd known, with the certainty of a man who is merely waiting for the inevitable, that it could not.

His friends were gone; reality was crashing down on him, locking him into a cage far more inescapable than any steel bars could have been. And indeed, he would have preferred the bars; at least then he would not be responsible for the atrocities that had taken his friends from him. Though he had not willingly betrayed them _ at least not the way Sirius had. He had betrayed them simply because of what he was, what he became every full moon.

But Sirius was the real traitor; his mind hung on to those six little words, hung on to what sanity might remain after the sights of the last few days. A sanity that would soon be gone, washed away in the flood of much stronger instincts that governed the wolf's predatory mind. He needed help, he was still sane enough to realize that. But there were few he trusted, even in the days when his friends stood beside him, and now, completely alone, he could not summon the strength to bother.

Those seven years at Hogwarts had softened him, he admitted that. In years long past, he could have held on by himself, locking himself away from the rest of humanity without a second thought or backward glance.

But now such a thing was impossible; years with Lily and the Marauders had thoroughly robbed him of his usual air of cool aloofness. And now he was totally dependent on the companionship they had offered him. He was such a weakling.
It made him sick.

* * * *
Staring at the same four walls, have you tried to help yourself
The rings around your eyes they don't hide, that you need to get some rest
It's all right to make mistakes, you're only human
Inside everybody's hiding something
Take time to catch your breath and chose your moment

* * * *

Staring at the same four walls was driving him crazy, and it was not simply a figure of speech. Once, he and James and Sirius had laughed at the absurdity of the thought of someone driving themselves mad, and had spent the rest of the day wondering exactly how you would go about it. He was not laughing now.

He needed to rest, but he feared his dreams - dreams of Voldemort often woke him up. But far more disturbing were the dreams when the Marauders roamed across the Hogwarts grounds together, and it was these that drove him repeatedly from his bed.

He could not believe Padfoot had sold them out. It was totally inconceivable; if he had not seen Sirius for himself, seen the blank look of horror in his eyes, then Remus would still doubt Sirius' guilt. But the horror he saw in those eyes had made the situation all too real, for he would not have believed that Sirius could do such a thing and not feel remorse. But the guilt on Sirius' face had finally driven home the realization that yes, the Potters were dead, and it had been James' best friend that had been the cause of it.

Dumbledore had told him of the Potters' deaths, and Peter's, and had escorted Remus to Auror Headquarters in London, where Sirius was being held prior to trial. They needed to be sure that this was really Sirius, and that he was acting of his own free will. And Remus was the greatest expert on Sirius' normal behavior. He wished he hadn't been.

"Remus?" Sirius had murmured as he shoved the door open. "What're you doing here?"

Lupin had not spoken; his gray eyes were searching Sirius', wanting, needing, to see something in them that would reveal that this was not really Sirius. But all he saw in those dark eyes was confusion, and anger. And the regret that made things real for him, for the first time.

"It's him," Remus said softly, without looking away from his former friend, though his words were directed to Albus Dumbledore, who had entered the room behind him.

"Remus, I know this is hard for you," Albus soothed, reaching forward to touch his arm. Lupin was trembling, but from simple fury and no other reason. If he'd brought his wand, Remus was certain he would've killed the double-crossing traitor on the spot. Maybe gone to Azkaban for it, too, but what difference did it really make?

"Hard?" Lupin's voice was very cold. "You have no idea."

"I understand that. You can go now, if you like. I think that would be best, actually," Dumbledore suggested.

"Yes, I agree. After I do this." Before Albus could make a move to stop him, Remus stepped forward and nailed Sirius with a punch that sent him reeling. A second punch had the dirty traitor on his knees on the floor, for, fighting veteran though Sirius was, Remus had always been one of the few that could whip him in a fair fight. Though, Lupin thought rather sheepishly, there was nothing fair about what he was doing.

Maybe there were advantages to being a werewolf, Remus thought wryly, and not all of them in the pure power that the wolf form accorded him even in his human shape. For it was the wolf's cool disdain that lent him the strength not to cry as he regarded Sirius' puzzled, almost frightened expression with something very like hatred.

"Remus!" Albus snapped, but he needn't have worried _ Lupin was already halfway out the door, his duty accomplished, his honor, as it was, satisfied.

He hadn't seen anyone else for almost a week; he'd finally dragged himself out of bed in time to testify at the inquiry. It was pretty much an open and shut case, and because there seemed to be no question of Sirius' guilt, Crouch, who was handling the case, merely asked to talk with a few of Sirius' former friends before sentencing, to get a better idea of a fitting penalty.

Albus had done his best to ensure that Remus would not be there, but Lupin would not be denied, and when Bartimus Crouch asked to speak with a Mr. Remus Lupin, Dumbledore was perhaps the least surprised man present.

Remus had been all for a life sentence in Azkaban; his eyes were alight with hatred and malice as he spoke. Crouch seemed very pleased with his answers; Remus' testimony was sufficient to gain Sirius a life sentence, without parole, in Azkaban, effective immediately.

* * * *
Even at a time like this when the morning seems so far
Think that pain belongs to you but it's happened to us all
It's all right to make mistakes, you're only human
Inside everybody's hiding something

* * * *

Remus leaned back in his chair, his thoughts wandering back to the day of Sirius' sentencing. Padfoot had been indignant, screaming denials of his guilt. And Remus had stood in the back of the room, smiling with cruel maliciousness as Sirius was dragged out of the courtroom.

He remembered little else of that day; it was all a blur in his mind. Perhaps part of it was that he simply didn't want to remember; the other part, he supposed, had something to do with the pub Hagrid had dragged him out of.

He smiled sadly as he briefly wondered what Lily would have said. Probably given him a scolding, with her husband grinning and mimicking her the entire time, though he'd known James well enough to understand that his friend would not condone that sort of behavior either.

But it didn't matter. He'd spent the last few weeks in a kind of daze, everything gradually growing worse as it neared the full moon. And now he was finally facing the grim reality that he had no where else to turn.

Dumbledore would help him if he asked, but Remus' pride would not allow that. His gaze fell on the clock on the mantel, and he unconsciously began counting, slowly, to eight. There.

No one had told him, but when Lupin had searched the wreckage of the Potters' house, he'd found a clock, the time stopped exactly _ to the very second _ on 7:23 p.m. And he'd counted off the seconds Voldemort had needed to do the curses that had killed the Potters. It had become almost habit for him, and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he mused over his irrational hatred of the eight seconds that had taken his friends from him.

And Harry had lived; that fact had never ceased to amaze him. So James' last legacy lived, and his parents . . . He abruptly derailed that train of thought. He didn't want to consider that, not now, not ever.

It was as though if he finally became concerned about Harry's welfare _ about the child himself - it would be admitting that James and Lily were dead, totally, irreversibly dead, and the truth was, Remus did not want to acknowledge that simple fact. No, not simple; it would never be so easy to accept, particularly for those like himself, who had known the Potters well.

Even Snape had been at the burial; his dark eyes burning with a fury that Lupin, at least, understood quite well. Snape, being a spy for the Light Side, had his own reasons for blaming himself for the Potters' untimely demise.

But despite everything else, Remus Lupin had been the main focus of the press. In fact, he still had the newspaper issue that had covered the Potters' deaths; the center photo was of himself, on his knees before the graves, holding a white lily. Not that anyone had been unsympathetic; the newspapers had been surprisingly compassionate, and allowed him to veto certain portions of their story. They considered it his right to do so, with him being the last of the legendary Mauraders, of which James Potter had been a part, and very close to both Potters.

But it didn't ease Lupin's sense of loss to know that he was not the only one who still grieved for the valiant Potters; they didn't understand. He was something less than human, and he felt the loss not only in his human form, but also as the wolf. Not even on the full moon was he freed from this accursed prison of guilt, for the wolf that shared his soul mourned for the loss of his pack with an intensity that was shockingly human, surpassing even Remus' expectations.

And as the wolf the memories returned to him with an animal's clarity of thought, unchanged by a human tendency to view the past with regard to the future, unblemished by the decidedly human impulse to bias things in accordance with what he now knew to be the truth. The wolf felt only what was there, while the human part of his mind was seeing something sinister in Sirius' laughter, when at the time he had never considered such a thing.

* * * *
You brought this on yourself and it's high time you left it there
Lie here and rest your head and dream of something else instead

* * * *

He'd brought this on himself; no one else blamed him for the Potters' deaths. But part of him seemed to think that he deserved this. A lifetime in Azkaban was not retribution enough for Sirius' betrayal, and crazily, he half-wished he had brought his wand with him that morning. And perhaps, if he had, he would be in Azkaban, paying for whatever crimes his fury might have led him to - he felt sure the thought had crossed his mind that day as he stared into Sirius' eyes. But he was also sure that he didn't care; nothing in the world could be worse than this.

But he wasn't doing himself or anyone else a bit of good, he was sure of that, too. Perhaps it was time he let go of the past in favor of the future, however much more he preferred the past to the present. He was sliding further into despair by the moment, and it had to stop. No matter what he wanted, it had to stop - James and Lily would not want this. And he owed them this courtesy, at least.

He would do what he could to protect their son; he knew Harry would be coming to Hogwarts, and he also knew that whatever enemies James and Lily had made had not been satisfied with their deaths, would not be satisfied until they had wiped out the entire Potter line.

In a fit of fury, he threw the picture he was holding into the flames, and watched it burn dispassionately, cursing the twist of fate that had brought him to this. If destiny required such a thing of him, then why had it denied him the two people who could make the choice more bearable?

"I'll do it," he said after a moment. "As I must. But James, Lily, wherever you are, you better know how hard this is for me."

And he could almost hear James' laughter, and Lily's voice, soft as the faintest of whispers:

"We know."