Remus lay on his stomach on the uncomfortable bed that had been his home for the past 5 years.  The mattress was lumpy and old enough that his great-grandfather could have owned it, not that Remus had ever met the man in person.  He had seen the man in family portraits; generations of Allensons adorned the halls of the manor that Remus had been born in.

            The bedroom that had belonged to Remus was a palace compared to the orphanage that he lived in now.  He was lucky though; at least he had his own room, unlike the other 60 or so children in St. Jerome's home for Wizarding Orphans.  It stood on the corner of Knockturn Alley, and the road that led to Diagon Alley.  But Remus Allenson was so very unlike the other children.  On a sunny day like today, all of the other children seemed to be outside, playing in their carefully guarded cliques… and Remus Janus Allenson was reading twentieth-century post-World-War-II literature, a favorite from his Muggle classes. 

            The readings tended to depress so many, but the poets and writers were right.  Looking around the room, he sighed at the sight of the many empty walls and thought 'sometimes the abyss is all you have left.'  Silently, he pushed shoulder-length shaggy brown hair over his right ear and flipped the page, careful not to tear the yellowing parchment.

            A knock came on the doorway.

            "What?" Remus asked, sighing.

            "I… just wanted to see who was in here."

            Remus propped himself up on his elbow and surveyed the newcomer.  "You new here?" he asked with an accented cockney.

            "No.  I'm…" the black-haired child replied from the doorway.

            "You're here with your mum and dad, come to look for a new brother, eh?" Remus asked unfeelingly.

            "Yeah.  How'd you know?"

            "Only newcomers or visitors ever bother to knock.  Anyways, lucky you.  I've got over 60 brothers here.  Take them, please," he responded dryly.  "Like him for example.  What's the matter… run out of 5 year olds to pick on?"

            The visitor turned to see a tall, nearly 15-year-old boy in the doorway.  "Hey kid, you really shouldn't talk to him.  He's not worth your time."

            Remus' hazel eyes flashed at the other orphan.  "Oh, sod off, McKinnon.  As if you're any more worth his time than I am, you piece of dragon crap."

            "You're nothing but trouble, Remus.  What do you think they gave him his own room?  Because he's a good, sweet boy?  No.  It's because he's a lifer and he knows it."

            "Lifer?" asked the visiting boy quietly.

            "No less than you, McKinnon, but at least I know enough to admit it.  Now leave, or I'll find you in about say, 2 weeks, and we'll see who'll get whom," Remus growled.

            "You filthy animal.  See you at dinner, Remus."

            Remus was hard-pressed to keep his anger in check as McKinnon left.  "Buggering bastard."

            "Lifer?" the dark-haired 10-year-old echoed.  "What's that mean?"

            "Everyone who lives here hates this place… because it represents basically the same thing.  It means you're not wanted enough by anyone to be anywhere else.  If you don't die, run away or get adopted, you're a lifer.  It means you're here until you're 18, or 17, if you get to go to school.  Hogwarts, that is.  Some of the kids here go; some get adopted before then.  A lifer is here for the only time they can ever be a child, and they're alone for the rest of their lives.  Like McKinnon.  He's from a rich, proud magical family, but he was disowned.  For being a Squib."

            "I thought I recognized the name.  What about you?"

            Remus laughed.  "Not a Squib, not even close.  I'm a lifer though… no doubt about that."  He shut the book and pushed himself off the bed.  "He's absolutely right though.  You really shouldn't be wasting your time with me.  Not when I have no hope of being adopted.  Your folks are probably looking for someone younger, cuter and more… manageable."

            The darker child giggled.  "I'm no angel myself.  My name's Sirius.  Yours was Remus, right?"

            "Right."  Remus said, turning from the desk, holding a new tome… of magical history.  He pushed back the hair from the left side of his face, and revealing the line of painful bruises that went from eye to jaw.  "And I doubt they'd want to try and manage me."

            "Sweet Merlin!  Where'd you get that shiner?"

            Remus smirked.  "Where else?  McKinnon and his crew," he said, laying back down on his bed.  "Well… if you're not going to leave, at least have a seat in the chair.  You're making me nervous."

            "What?"
            "You're looming.  He looms too.  Him and the Wraiths don't like me.  Not that the Angels are much better.  I'm always getting into fights with one or the other of the two groups.  Mostly in self defense, sometimes in defense of one of the outcasts who hasn't committed to a group yet.  If you ever go looking for Hell on earth, Sirius, this is where you'll find mine."  He opened the book and flipped to the section on Merlin and Queen Mab. 

            "Wraiths?  Angels?  What are you talking about?"

            "Wraiths are kids whose families sided with Grindewald, or that new guy everyone's been talking about.  Mostly purebloods, but the outcasts… Squibs and those of little power.  Angels are those who sided with Dumbledore… and are mostly true orphans.  Wraiths wear black, the angels wear lighter colors."

            "And you?"

            Remus looked down at his green t-shirt and lifted an eyebrow.  "I'm in the group of Remus."

            "No… who were your parents?" Sirius asked, chuckling.
            "They sided with Dumbledore… though that doesn't make them decent human beings.  They abandoned me… they didn't need me.  Not when they had my perfect brother."  He turned a page roughly, eyes slightly tinged with amber.  "Nobody needs me, nobody wants me and I don't need anyone else.  I don't want to be adopted."

            "But if it gets you out…"

            "Sirius… what is worse?  To be alone, or to be hurt?" Remus asked quietly, as two new and one familiar scent appeared at the doorway.  "Hello, Miss Price."

            "You behaving yourself, Remus?" she asked sternly.

            "Just reading, Miss Price."

            "Not bothering this guest?"
            "If anything, ma'am, I'm annoying him," Sirius said, quietly.

            "Miss Price, if I may suggest something?"

            "What Remus?"

            "Show them John.  Nursery 3.  He'd be a good fit," he bowed his head submissively, returning to his reading. 

            "An excellent idea, Remus.  Right this way, Mr. and Mrs. Black."

            Sirius hung back.  "Why him?"

            "Young enough not to have been changed by the hate that fills everyone in this place, and innocent enough for you to have a little brother that you can mold in your own image.  Good luck Sirius."

            "Sirius, come along!" his mother called.

            "Coming mum.  You going to Hogwarts next fall too?"

            Remus laughed once, quietly, and then forced a smile.  "I doubt it.  Bye."

Remus lay on his side on the cold stone floor of the cell where the Ministry had him transform every month.  It felt good against his feverish cheek and temple.  Completely amber eyes sat in place of his normal hazel, a result of the moon's influence.  But what most people would have noticed were the claw marks and bite marks that riddled the 10-year-old's body. 

            His vision was doubled and fuzzy and he lay limply with his back towards the door.  Every sound was muffled as though underwater.  The only thing that Remus was more than vaguely aware of was the pain; the breathtaking, excruciating, gutwrenching pain.  His shoulders and one hip had failed to make it back into the appropriate socket.  Just three more reminders that once again, the supposedly impossible had occurred.

            "Remus?" 

            The voice was warm, gentle and familiar.  But Remus couldn't respond.  Too much effort was involved.

            A sharp intake of breath came from one of the men who accompanied the doctor.  They smelled different, new.  But the doctor…

            "Remus, can you hear me?" asked the doctor, now a large blur in front of his eyes.

            "Yes, Doctor Galen," he breathed, words slurring slightly.

            "Good… good…"

            A bright light shined in his eyes and he felt the doctor cast the spells to check for head injuries.  "You have a concussion, three dislocated joints and a fever.  Can you stomach a pain potion?"

            "N-no."

            "Okay.  Numbing spell?" he asked, picking up his wand again.  "I need to debride these wounds before I try to heal them, and I'd like to have you more or less in one piece before we take you back."

            Just nodding sent waves of pain over Remus, before ceasing with a numbing spell.

            "Gods, how can he stand it?"

            "Gentlemen, he is fully awake, and has a more acute sense of hearing than the majority of people you know.  Therefore, you will keep your comments to yourself, or I will see that it is more than just Remus who hears them.  Is that understood?" he said, acidly.  He rolled Remus over gently, and got ready to pop the bones back.  "Sorry about them, Remus.  They're new."

            A soft snort issued from the werewolf.

            "I know.  No excuse," he said, smiling as he moved on to the wounds.  "Looks like you got yourself pretty good this time."

            Remus barely felt the cool hydrogen peroxide as it cleaned his cuts.

            "Don't worry, kiddo, we'll have you home in no time."

            Yeah.  Right.  Home.

            Albus Dumbledore walked in the front door of St. Jerome's on the day of June 25th.  Smiling, he located the head of the Orphanage, Miss Emilie Price, and after a short discussion, he made his way to the cafeteria.

            His twinkling blue eyes scanned the room, finding many boys from age 5 to 18, then finally the 10 year old he was looking for in a dark corner.  "Remus?"

            The boy looked up from the bowl of rice he was eating from, hazel eyes staring blankly at the man in front of him, whose Chocolate Frog card he owned.  "Yes, Mr. Dumbledore?"

            "It is indeed good to not have to make introductions, although I would prefer to be called Professor.  Do you mind if I sit?" the venerable wizard asked.

            Remus ran his fingers through his hair, wincing.  "So the Ministry sent you to dispose of me?"

            "Of course not," Dumbledore said firmly.  "May I sit, Remus?"

            Remus shrugged.  "It's a free society… at least, that's what they keep telling us in school.  But then, they tell us a lot of things.  About the brotherhood of wizards, and the goodness of people.  They lie."

            "Remus…"

            "Why are you here?  Come to tell me that because I was bitten, I can't go to your school?"  Remus asked as he picked up his spoon and attacked his rice again.   "You could have saved yourself the trip.  I've known for years that I was a lifer.  I'm not leaving here until my 18th birthday, when they send me out into the world with three galleons to my name, and hope that I never come back."

            "Remus… I am here for quite the opposite reason.  You possess exceptional magical ability.  I can sense it from here.  And there is no reason that with certain… precautions that you should not attend Hogwarts this fall," Dumbledore replied.

            "You're joking, right?"

            "Remus, I am serious.  No one would know of your condition, with the exception of the staff and yourself.  You would be taken to a secure location every month and you would attend school as any other student," Dumbledore said, lifting his hand to silence the boy.  "That is, if you would care to join us at Hogwarts."

            "Let's just see if you realize what you're saying.  The Ministry knows exactly who… what I am.  Even if you could get it past the Ministry, the board of governors would know, just like every person who attends your school, but knows me here.  Even if you could put it past every single one of them, people would notice.  And even if, by some miracle like your defeat of Grindewald, you managed to keep me from public sight, I am an orphan… I have no money, Professor," Remus said, whispering.

            "And if I told you that I have already made the appropriate arrangements?  Remus, all I need to hear is a verbal confirmation of your acceptance in this matter."

            "Why?"  Remus was confused.  No one had ever cared this much about him before.  Why now?

            "Because every child deserves to be trained in the magical arts, and you are both exceptionally bright and exceptionally gifted.  I have no desire to see you live the rest of your life as a Muggle when you most certainly are not," Dumbledore said, withdrawing a letter.  "I have arranged for a family to take you shopping the last week of August.  They shall come here to pick you up, and you shall stay with them until the train to school." 

            Remus just stared at the letter in his hand as the other wizard left. 

            "Oh, and Remus…"

            He looked up, his hazel eyes blank with confusion and sadness. 

            "Happy Birthday."