*Author: Jania Jitsu
*Disclaimer: Hey, wanna know a secret? All the characters in this story that I didn't make up don't belong to me! Whoa! They actually belong to J.K. Rowling and WB, et cetera. Although they may feel free to hand over the rights any time they want to.
*Feedback: jania_jitsu@yahoo.com
*Spoilers: It's possible. You are warned.
*Season/Sequel Info: Takes place before and during Prisoner of Azkaban. And I've decided that this'll go after, too, given the plot I'm busy setting up.
*Warnings/Notes: I've done my best, but I may have gotten something off a bit. Sorry if I have. You can choose to notify me and my future stories would be grateful, and I'll probably change it here, too. (I think I'm just gonna leave all that there as kind of a second disclaimer.)

Thanks again to the excellent Scarlet, my beta-reader! Hugs and ice cream to you for being fabulous.

Oh, yeah, and if the crying seems odd, I'll remind you: They're young. Young = innocent, especially before the nineties. : ) They're not used to bad things happening.

By the way, the opening scene, just before Remus starts his story up again: I had this really vivid mental picture- like a camera panning from character to character so you could see their reactions. We start off with Lily . . .




the rest of the story (letters and concerns)




Lily was in tears. They were running down her cheeks, leaving little trails of water that dripped off of her face and onto her Hogwarts school robes. She sniffled and wiped her nose on a hanky. James's arm was around her, patting her shoulder in a vain attempt to give comfort. He was close to tears as well, but was holding them back proudly. Peter was not as ashamed of his tears as Sirius, who was rubbing his eyes and sniffling conspicuously.

Remus stopped talking immediately. "I--I'm sorry," he said with concern. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, yeah," Lily sobbed with a wave of her hand. "We're all fine, aren't we, Jamey?"

"Just peachy," James said in a tiny, wavering voice. He smiled, but it looked more like a grimace of pain. Sirius tried to add something, but it came out as a strangled sob, which turned quickly into a cough.

"I should stop," Remus said. "I didn't mean to upset you this much."

"No," Lily said firmly. "You talk until you've said everything you need to. We'll be fine. This is your therapy. We aren't important."

Remus looked uncertainly at the other three, who all nodded mutely.

"All right then," he said, still hesitant. "I guess I'll go on then."

Remus didn't tell his friends about the funeral where his uncle, aunt, and three cousins spat at him. He did not tell them about his grandmother, who gave him a vice-like hug for five minutes and no one would tell her that he was screaming and crying because of her silver jewelry. He did not tell them about the transformations. He was calmer now, so he could edit his story to protect them. They didn't need to hear about all that pain.

"I led a sheltered life," Remus said. "I was home-schooled and I wasn't allowed to play with the other children, except for my little sister. Ami wasn't told why I always got sick, but she knew that she wasn't supposed to talk about it to anyone.

"My father dotes on her. The average person wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but I know. I can tell he loves her more. Then again, she didn't kill her mother."

"REMUS!" Lily nearly shouted with horror. "You did not kill your mother!"

Remus shook his head sadly.

"You didn't," Lily insisted, but Remus continued with his story and ignored her.




One summer, when Ami was five, the first owl came. The children thought nothing of it. Their father got owls all the time and he didn't treat this one like it was all that special, so they had no reason to believe that it was different. Remus's father sent a reply and continued with his breakfast.

Soon, though, they were getting a nearly constant stream of owls. Some were normal-looking letters, but some came in red envelopes that seemed to quiver with the anticipation of being opened. Remus's father grimaced and took these to the barn to read. He always came back looking tired or angry.

"Those are Howlers," Remus explained to Ami each time in a quiet, patient voice. "You open them up and the person who sent it to you screams like a banshee for a few minutes. They shout at you until they run out of air, and then they just take a deep breath and start all over again."

Ami raised her eyebrows and took a bite of cereal. It was some "tooth rotting sugar nonsense" as their father called it, but Ami loved the stuff so he bought it for her.

On this particular day, Remus's father got no less than eight Howlers, but he came back into the house with a grin on his face because of the one regular letter.

He was whistling a song- one that Remus's mother used to sing. Remus listened for a moment. The Beatles? It was . . . oh, he couldn't remember the name. Muggle music had been his mother's thing. She had tried to push it on Remus, who had responded enthusiastically. But that had stopped after five years when-

Anyway. What song was it? The one that went: "nothing you can do that can't be done / nothing you can sing that can't be sung / all you need is love / all you need is love, love, love . . . / love is all you need".

Or something like that, anyway.

Remus was curious as to why his father was so happy. This was the happiest Remus had seen him in five years. But his father wasn't responding. He was sitting at the table eating toast like nothing was unusual.

Remus was just beginning to suppose that maybe it was nothing to do with them when his father finally spoke.

"Remus should be getting a very important letter today," he said mildly.

Remus and Ami looked up at their father curiously, but there was no time for him to elaborate. An owl was scratching at the window. Remus opened the window and the owl flew in. It dropped a letter by Remus's place at the table and waited patiently while Ami fed it bits of her father's toast.

Remus picked up the letter to give it to his father, but his father smiled and shook his head. "Who is it addressed to, Remus?"

Remus frowned quizzically, but looked down at the address.

"Mr. R. J. Lupin," he read out loud. "The Room at the End of the Hall. Number 19, MacGregor Road. Scotland Countryside." Remus looked up in surprise. "It's for me."

"Go on," his father urged in his crisp British accent. "What does it say?"

"Who's it from?" Ami asked eagerly.

"I don't know, ask Remus."

Remus got the feeling that his father knew very well who the letter was from, and what it said, too, but for some reason he was pretending not to.

Remus broke the wax seal on the back and opened up the letter. His eyes grew wider and more excited with each word he read.



Dear Mr. Lupin, the letter said.

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins September first. We await you owl no later than July 31st.

Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress.



Remus looked up at his grinning father and gave a shout.

"I got in!
I got in! I'M GOING TO HOGWARTS!"

"No boy of mine would go anywhere else," Remus's father said proudly. "I went to Hogwarts for seven years. And your mother-" here his voice cracked a bit- "your mother went to Hogwarts as well."

This statement, said with such unadulterated pride, grounded Remus. He froze in an instant.

"Oh,
Father," he said, clutching the letter tightly in his hands. "What am I going to do?"

"
Go, of course."

"I mean . . . you know. I get . . . ill."

Ami looked from her father to her older brother, following the conversation carefully. Those were two Unspeakable subjects that had been broached- Ami's mother and Remus's mysterious illness.

"Don't worry," Father said with a smile. "Everything's been taken care of."





"Why didn't you tell your sister about . . ."

"My lycanthropy?" Remus filled in.

Peter nodded. "That's the word I was looking for."

"I don't really know. I suppose my father wants to protect her. She looks and acts exactly like my mother. He has a real soft spot where she's concerned."

Sirius looked up and spoke for the first time. "You said 'wants'. He 'wants to protect her'. Do you mean she still doesn't know?"

Remus shook his head. "I suppose my father has to tell her one day. But she's only seven." Remus smiled fondly. "She adores her big brother at Hogwarts. She owls me all the time."

"We noticed," James said in a weak attempt at a joke. Only Remus smiled.

"You think that's strange?" Remus asked. "Wait until you hear about my visitors."

"Visitors?"

"Werewolves. They came from everywhere to see the boy who got accepted to a magic school. None of them knew my name because it hadn't been released- I was just 'the magic boy'. We got a family of Yanks once. They came directly to the house with their werewolf son who wanted my autograph, of all the silly things. My father told them to try down the road.

"And then I came here and," he shrugged, "you know the rest of the story."

"Not quite," James said. "Where do you stay on full moons?"

"In the Shrieking Shack."

"That's not possible," Sirius said with a frown. "There's no way in. We checked, remember?"

"I probably shouldn't tell you this-" Remus winced thinking of all the things Sirius could think up to do, "but there's a secret passage under the Whomping Willow. You prod the knot with a long stick and it calms down. A door opens and a tunnel leads to the inside of the Shack."

The prankster took over Sirius and he nodded appreciatively. "That could really come in handy."

Lily glared at him, but Remus just rolled his eyes. Things seemed normal already. Even more normal, if that was possible. It felt nice.




to be continued . . .




The next part should be in present time. (i.e.: during PoA, not in a flashback.)

A special thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, because you can't know how happy it makes me and you deserve unlimited hugs and ice cream.

Also, thank you to everyone who reviewed "Morning Paper" and "A Miracle Happened There". I really didn't think "Morning Paper" would do that well! (There may or may not be a sequel in the works. I'm playing with an idea.)

But nobody ever reads poetry. (Jujit sulks and pouts.)