Author's Note: Um, I was looking for some mainly Lupin stories a while ago
and found it very difficult to find any that weren't strictly SB/RL slash
(Not to say this might not eventually have a bit of slash in it). So when I
read "Fantastic Beasts" by "Newt Scamander" (aka the ever-ingenious JK
Rowling), and saw the title "Hairy Snout, Human Heart", I got this idea.
So anyhow, the characters and the title aren't mine and I've got nothing worth suing for. Snidget Hill, Jasper Cragg and Rom & Rhea are mine, but I stole the parents' names from mythology connected to the name Remus anyway.
* * *
Hairy Snout, Human Heart
By Lux Lumen
Remus Juventas Lupin was the only child below the age of eight and above the age of two in all of Snidget Hill. Owing to this, the five-year-old didn't exactly have many friends. His parents tried to make it up to him, mostly by spoiling him horribly, but there aren't a lot of things in the world that can take the place of good friends, as Remus well knew.
The village of Snidget Hill wasn't an overly large one and it consisted primarily of wizards. There were a few non-magic families in the area, but most of those were the relatives of muggleborns. This meant, obviously, that magic was no big secret in Snidget Hill. Remus's father, Romulus Lupin, had grown up in Snidget Hill and, after getting married to his muggleborn wife Rhea, had decided to move back there.
Remus's childhood was not quite as pleasant as his father's had been, some 25 years ago, full of fun and friends as it had been. But he tried to make the best of it, spending his days outside playing, in the woods, down near the brook, racing his mother up and down the hill their village was named for. He had a brilliant imagination, Remus, and he used it often. It helped him out where real friends wouldn't.
But, despite his wonderful imagination, Remus craved actual friendship. All children should have friends, his mother had often said to his father whenever she thought Remus wasn't around. If they don't, it can stunt their emotional growth.
And Remus did want friends. But the only other kids in Snidget Hill, aside from the toddlers, were all much older and they thought the little Lupin boy was a scaredy-cat. They teased him whenever he ran across any of them in the village and if they ever walked through the woods where Remus was playing, the younger boy was apt to hide behind a bush until they were gone.
But sometimes he just couldn't avoid them, like when they came up quietly and spotted him before he saw them. Times like that, they wouldn't leave him alone at all, especially if the whole group was there. He would be teased mercilessly, about being little, about being scared of his own shadow, about being a Mama's boy. Times like that nearly always reduced the littler boy to tears.
"Just leave me alone!" young Remus shouted as he tripped over a root that had been behind him. He desperately held back the tears he felt welling in his eyes. "What do I have to do to make you stop bothering me?!"
Normally the older boys would sneer and laugh before walking away when Remus said something like this. But today one of them, a nine-year-old named Jasper Cragg, held out his hand to stop them from leaving. He stared down at the sniffling boy sprawled on the ground in front of them, considering.
"You really want us to stop bothering you, Little Lupin?" Jasper asked after a few moments, an almost indiscernible hint of compassion in his voice, which he quickly pushed out of his mind. Remus nodded. "What would you be willing to do to get us to stop?"
"Anything," Remus answered without thought, quickly wiping away a stray tear that had escaped down his right cheek.
Jasper smiled and the look was reminiscent of a cat that had just gotten hold of an especially large and juicy canary. "Anything?" Remus nodded again. "Okay, Little Lupin. We'll stop bugging you." Jasper friends glanced questioningly over at him, obviously wondering what he was leading to. Jasper waved a hand dismissively and kept his eyes on the younger boy.
"All you need to do," he continued, "is walk through the graveyard at midnight tonight." Remus's young, wide eyes grew to the size of a pair of small tea saucers. The graveyard? At *MIDNIGHT*?
Jasper's friends sniggered appreciatively at the good idea. "And when you do it," another one of them chimed in, "we'll stand outside and wait, just to make sure you don't lie about it!" The others all added their agreement, nodding and murmuring amongst themselves, and Jasper turned back to Remus.
"So? What do you say, Little Lupin? You going to show up or not?"
Remus thought it over, hunching his shoulders and wishing the older boys wouldn't stare at him like that. He REALLY did want them to stop teasing him. He hated it and it was starting to get to the point where he wouldn't even go to the store with his mother anymore because he was scared of running into one of these boys. But on the other hand, he hated the graveyard, too. And walking through it at midnight was one of the very last things he wanted to do.
But if he DID do it, they would stop teasing him. It might take a while, but if they stopped teasing him, maybe they might even want to be friends with him, eventually. It was a farfetched idea, and even at five, Remus knew it, but the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, after all. And besides, how bad could it be?
"Okay," he said at last. "I'll come."
"Great," said Jasper, clapping his hands together. "Then we'll meet you by the graveyard gates at midnight." He paused for a second before giving Remus a dark look. "And don't you dare tell your parents, or we'll make you wish you never had to leave that graveyard. Understand?" Remus nodded once more. "Good. So, we'll see you then, Little Lupin. Come on, guys."
With that, all of the older boys left, a few tossing finals looks over their shoulders at him as they did. Remus waited until they were out of sight before pulling himself to his feet and plodding through the woods in the other direction, heading home to the Lupin House.
The Lupin House was pretty. This was the word most of the other citizens of Snidget Hill used when they talked about the medium-sized cottage that Romulus and Rhea Lupin lived in. It was two stories high and it had a wide verandah with gingerbread-house style trim that wound around the front, back and left side of the house. It had been painted a pretty light yellow by Rom and it had a pretty garden that had been planted by Rhea. The front porch, of course, had been strewn with pretty little toys by young Remus.
It was also very close to the woods. This came in handy when Rom needed firewood and when Remus wanted somewhere to play. That meant that he didn't have very far to walk after his chat with Jasper and Co., for which he was thankful.
His mother was out on her knees in the garden when Remus emerged from the trees. Hearing the leaves rustling, she looked up and gave him a smile. "Hello darling. Lovely day, isn't it? I thought I'd come out and get a little sun, have a little fun. You seem to have had the same idea." She yanked a weed out of the soil. "You're being careful in those woods, right, Remus? We don't want you getting hurt, falling out of a tree or some such thing."
Remus forced a smile. "Don't worry, Mum. I'm being careful."
Rhea squinted slightly in the sun and studied her son more closely. "Are you alright, dear? You seem a bit pale."
"I'm fine," he answered quickly. "I'm just going to go make a sandwich. Have fun with your flowers, Mum."
"The peanut butter's on the counter," Rhea added before he left, and he nodded in thanks. As Remus trotted into the house, his mother's eyes followed him thoughtfully. Something was obviously amiss with her son, but he didn't want talk about it, then she would give him time. Remus was a very shy child, after all.
~~~~
11:40.
Remus glanced over at his clock for the thousandth time that night, growing more and more anxious each time.
He was determined to go, he honestly was. He really should have started getting ready by now. The problem was that his mind didn't seem to have enough influence over the rest of his body to make it get out of bed. He had attempted it several times in the past few minutes.
11:45.
He managed to convince his legs to at least move him out of his bed, so he could get changed out of his pajamas. That would be delightful, that would. He was going out to a cemetery at midnight to prove that he wasn't a wuss and to get the other boys to stop teasing him, and then he shows up in his PJs. No thanks.
Picturing this to distract himself, Remus managed to pull on a pair of beige pants and a t-shirt before he fully realized what he was doing. Quickly pulling on his jacket, which was hanging over the armrest of a rocking chair his mother had installed in the corner of his room for when she read to him before bed, he went to his window.
Then his body caught up with him again and froze.
11:48.
His mind fought with his arms to pull open the window so he could climb down the tree and onto the ground below. His mind was fixed upon getting to the graveyard gates by midnight, but his arms kept sending back the message, 'Come on, Remus! Reconsider this! Please?'
He spared another couple of minutes, just thinking about what he was doing, before he slowly, forcibly, made his arms pull open his bedroom window. Then he carefully slid himself out onto the roof of the side verandah, stretching and straining to reach a nearby branch when he hit the edge.
And at long last his fingers touched it. Grasping it tightly, Remus swung off the edge and latched his feet into the familiar grooves on the tree. Taking a deep, relaxing breath and trying not to think about what his parents would say if they knew their five year old son was sneaking out of the house at this time of night, he climbed down until his feet were within a few inches of the ground. Releasing the branch he had been clinging to, Remus felt his feet hit the grass.
Crouching, he scurried quickly to the shelter of a nearby bush to prevent being seen by either one of his parents who might happen to be looking out the window as he went by. Taking a quick glimpse over top of the bush, Remus made sure that the coast was clear before trotting to the road and heading toward the cemetery, ready to leap into the trees lining the road at the slightest indication that there might be someone coming.
11:59
He had almost reached the gates. Remus could hear the quiet chattering of the other boys waiting for him up ahead and breathed a sigh of relief. He jogged the rest of the way and waved once the boys came into sight.
The older ones were actually a bit impressed by the fact that Little Lupin had shown up at all. Most of them would have willingly bet half their Bertie Botts card collections that he hadn't had any intentions of coming, but Jasper had talked them into coming out anyway, just in case.
And, Lo and behold, here he was. Perhaps a bit jittery, and maybe he was biting his bottom lip so hard that it was astonishing to see that it wasn't bleeding yet, but the kid had shown up. Jasper went over and clapped a hand around Remus's shoulder.
"Good to see you, Little Lupin. You're right on time, too." He pulled the younger boy ahead of the others, closer to the unlocked gates. He placed a hand on the bars and pushed gently. The gate creakily cracked open. "Now all you've got to do is walk to the end of the graveyard and back, and then we'll never tease you again."
Remus nodded absently. He was more absorbed in studying the place that, under just about any other kind of circumstance, he would desperately be trying to avoid.
The Snidget Hill cemetery was just like the rest of the village: Not overly large, but more than a little ornate. It wasn't wide, but it was quite long, a few hundred meters, at least. It was located along the bottom side of the hill and, on the opposite side from the peak, the graveyard was closed off by another part of the same forest that was near the Lupin House. It was desolate and very, VERY dark.
Remus gulped quietly and took a few steps, going just inside the gate. He turned to look back at Jasper and the others and was surprised by the eagerness on their faces as Jasper closed the gates quietly behind him. Usually when they looked at Remus, their faces wore expressions that were malicious or sneering or, on the worst days, pitying. But no, tonight they seemed just as excited and nervous as Remus was.
He turned back to his task and took another few steps. He was now level with the first group of graves. It was too dark to read the names on the tombstones. Remus took another deep breath, pushing back the feelings of fright and expectation of suddenly seeing a rotting arm spring out of the ground to grab his ankle, and kept walking.
The older boys watched in fascination as he walked slowly past grave after grave. They were obviously expecting the same sorts of things Remus had been expecting, zombies popping up left and right, and they weren't about to miss it, if and when it did happen. But by the time he had gone halfway without anything happening, they started to lose interest.
Remus had just tripped on a rock, the most exciting thing that had happened to him all night, when he heard it.
A low, hungry, threatening snarl.
It made him jump, but after a few seconds of panic, he turned to face the group of boys accusingly. That wasn't very sportsmanlike, after all. He was doing their stupid dare to make them stop teasing him, and then one of them goes trying to scare him before he was even half done!
But after seeing the confused looks on the older boys faces, which were slowly turning to fright, Remus's panic returned and began to build. He took a few steps back towards the gates, turning slowly to look in at the dark trees as he did.
And there. He heard it again. The growl, coming from beside an especially thick patch of bushes. His breath hitched and he continued walking backwards toward the gates, unwilling to take his eyes of the dark bush.
"Remus, come on!" Jasper's voice called quietly. The growl sounded again, louder than before. "You can do the dare some other time! Get out of there!"
Remus nodded, though he was pretty sure Jasper couldn't see it and walked faster. As the growling continued, getting deeper and more threatening, Remus couldn't stand it anymore and he turned to face the gates, running away as fast as his small legs would carry him.
He heard the bushes rustle suddenly, the pounding of large, heavy feet on the ground behind him, gaining on him quickly, and the sudden screams of the other boys when they realized what was happening. And then he felt it hit him, like a bag full of bricks, on the back, knocking him roughly off his feet.
Jasper and the others saw the huge shape come running out of the bushes and barrel towards Remus. About half of them had already run screaming for help towards the nearest house when Remus thudded onto the ground. The beast rolled past him because of the extra momentum and the other boys managed to get a good look at it before it turned back to its younger prey. A wolf.
Jasper and a couple of the others who had stayed behind grabbed sticks and started banging them on the closed gates, yelling and throwing rocks at it, anything to try and get its attention away from the young boy in front of it. They were safe behind the closed gates, after all. If it came at them, they would be okay and it might give Remus a few seconds to run into the woods and climb up a tree or to do something else, ANYTHING, to get out of reach of those claws until help came.
But the wolf ignored them. Remus lifted his head from the dirt, his nose dripping with blood, caused by his rough landing. When his eyes lifted high enough to see more than an inch off the ground, a pair of fiercely glowing yellow eyes and a mouth full of sharp white teeth greeted him.
He let out a high, almost inaudible whimper and the wolf came closer. The boys at the gates were still shouting and banging and the monster was still ignoring them. Not knowing what else to do as those fangs came ever closer and the eyes gained the look of a beast preparing to pounce, Remus scrabbled backwards and curled into a tight ball against the ground.
And then it attacked. Remus could feel the teeth plunge into the back of his left shoulder and he screamed as the tears and blood streamed down his face and mixed into the dirt on the ground. The claws ripped into his back and his ribs and the teeth grasped his upper arm, viciously whipping it back and forth, trying to uncurl him from his defensive ball. The boys at the gate screamed louder still, desperately chucking rocks at the wolf, and not too far away, the boys who had fled had already reached the nearest house.
But Remus didn't know any of this and he had, it was extremely doubtful he would have cared at that moment. The wolf had finally wrenched his arm hard enough to unfurl him from his protective position, making him continue to sob and scream at the feeling of the ruined mess that was his shattered left arm. The pain the young boy was feeling was almost unimaginable. The claws and fangs attacked his chest and abdomen and the only thing Remus could think to do was throw up his right arm to try and protect his face and neck. He desperately kicked his legs out, using as much force as he had in him to use.
He managed to catch it in the side of the head. The only thing anybody could think of later to explain it was that it must have been a burst of adrenaline, but somehow tiny, weak little Remus Lupin managed to get the wolf off of him. And, even if it was just for a few seconds, he had managed to daze it.
The wolf lay there for a minute, seemingly trying to get its bearings once more. The screaming at the gates changed as the boys suddenly started shouting, "RUN REMUS!! COME ON, GET UP, GET OUT OF THERE!!"
Remus heard their screaming now, but he couldn't even get his eyes to focus properly, much less stand up and try to run. He could feel the burning pain from the injuries the wolf had just inflicted on him and he could feel his clothing and his hair and the ground beneath him as each become wetter and wetter with blood (HIS blood!) every second.
The wolf finally reoriented itself and climbed back up off the ground, snarling. Targeting its weak and defenseless prey again, its legs bent. It lowered its head, bared its teeth and lunged towards the boy.
And suddenly the sound of a gunshot rang through the cemetery, echoing through the rest of Snidget Hill and waking most of her residents. The wolf hit the ground mid-pounce, not dead, but most certainly unconscious.
The boys who had run away had returned, gun toting adult in tow. The adult, a thirty something muggleborn named Christopher Sterling, threw open the gates and ran to Remus, the boys trailing behind him. Jasper took one look at the younger boy and ran in the other direction.
Remus's parents had to know what had happened. Jasper had been the one who told him to come to the graveyard in the first place, the one who had told him not to tell his parents where he was going. So Jasper should be the one who told them what had happened to their only son.
Never before or again in his life had Jasper run so fast as when he ran towards the Lupin House that night, except perhaps when he lead a tearful Rhea and a frightened Romulus back to the cemetery about a minute later. The three raced to the open gates, where a number of Snidget Hillians, curious about why a gun had been fired in their cemetery at ten after midnight, were beginning to congregate. Rhea pushed almost ferociously past them and ran to her son.
Sterling had quickly torn off his bathrobe and wrapped it tightly around Remus's chest and back when he saw the state of the boy's injuries, hoping the pressure might help with his intense bleeding. Now clad in only a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, he was checking Remus's pulse when Rhea and Rom got there.
Remus was barely conscious, which was probably a good thing. His mother's heart-wrenching sobs would have torn him apart if he had realized what they were. He was also too far out to realize that his father, who had gone to examine the wolf that had attacked him, suddenly went even paler than he had when he saw his son's injuries. Remus didn't hear Christopher Sterling ask his father if he was okay. And by the time Rom Lupin finally managed to stutter out the words, "It's a werewolf, Topher," Remus had already fallen into the dark depths of unconsciousness.
Rhea and Rom, however, did not hesitate for a second. Sterling leading the way, Rhea had gingerly lifted Remus up of the ground and held him tightly against her, running towards the nearest fireplace and pot of floo powder in Snidget Hill, her husband running along beside her.
~~~~
In the waiting room/lobby of St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Albus Dumbledore was waiting patiently in the long line for the Enquiries desk. A friend of his was currently a patient at the hospital, having accidentally turned his hands into a pair of cymbals, and Dumbledore had come to visit him for a bit.
He was only fourth in line when one of the reception's fireplaces burst into green flames. The form of a young woman came spinning out and when she emerged, Dumbledore could see she was carrying a large, bloody bundle in her arms.
"Help me, somebody, please! I need help!" she cried, kneeling onto the floor beside the fireplace and setting her bundle carefully down. The material covering the top of the bundle fell away when the woman set it down and Dumbledore could now see the blood-covered face of a very young boy. As nearby Healers raced over to help, another person came stumbling out of the fireplace.
"What happened?" a female Healer asked, a worried expression on her face as she gently removed the bloodstained wrappings from around the boy's torso.
"He was attacked," the woman said, biting her nails and breathing erratically.
"Do you know what attacked him?" another Healer asked, conjuring a stretcher underneath the boy. Dumbledore could see his hitched breathing even from where he stood at least twenty feet away.
"A werewolf," said a new voice. The woman looked up at the man who had spoken, the same one who had flooed in after her. He had a grave expression on his face, and his skin was pale. A few tears fell down his wife face as he looked at her.
The Healer who had asked the question suddenly wore a stricken expression. He looked back down at the face of the boy on the stretcher, so young and innocent, and a look of great sorrow crossed his face. He managed to push it back, however, and quickly took the stretcher in the direction of the first floor.
Most of the other Healers followed, but one stayed behind, quietly ushering Rhea and Rom into some seats in the waiting area. The Healer went to the Enquiries desk and the woman behind the counter dug through a drawer for a moment before finding a clipboard and a thin sheaf of papers and handed it to her.
The Healer pulled a quill out of her pocket and sat down next to the young couple. Dumbledore watched them out of the corner of his eye.
"What is the boy's name?" she asked gently.
"Remus Juventas Lupin," the young man answered. The woman didn't seem able to speak at all any more.
The Healer scrawled the answer and continued. "If you could please give me your names as well and tell me your relationship to Remus?"
"We're his parents. I'm Romulus Lupin and this is my wife, Rhea."
"Alright. Your son's age and birth date, please."
"May 13, 1960." Rom had to clear his throat noisily. "He's five."
The Healer looked up and met his eye for the first time. "It'll be alright, Mr Lupin," she said comfortingly. "Your son is currently receiving the best care it is possible for him to receive. You got him here as quickly as you could. That is the best thing you could possibly have done for him in this kind of situation. We'll take it from here."
Rom nodded and wrapped an arm around the shoulders of his weeping wife. "Are there any more questions?"
Dumbledore turned away as he suddenly became first in the Enquiries line. He asked for the ward his friend was in and while the WelcomeWitch looked up the name for him, he took another glance at Rom and Rhea, still sobbing quietly into her handkerchief. He remembered teaching them Transfiguration in school. He hadn't been aware that the two of them had gotten married, much less had a child, but it was a nice thought.
But this werewolf attack was such a horrible thing to happen to such good, pleasant people, much less their small son. Simply terrible. Knowing, of course, that there was nothing he could do, Dumbledore resolved to come talk to them in the waiting room when he was done visiting his friend, giving them time to get themselves together a bit first.
~~~~
Author's Note: Yeah! I didn't think I would actually be able to write a half-decent attack scene, but I did it. Anyhoo, next part'll be up soon. Take care of yourselves until then. Au Revoir!
So anyhow, the characters and the title aren't mine and I've got nothing worth suing for. Snidget Hill, Jasper Cragg and Rom & Rhea are mine, but I stole the parents' names from mythology connected to the name Remus anyway.
* * *
Hairy Snout, Human Heart
By Lux Lumen
Remus Juventas Lupin was the only child below the age of eight and above the age of two in all of Snidget Hill. Owing to this, the five-year-old didn't exactly have many friends. His parents tried to make it up to him, mostly by spoiling him horribly, but there aren't a lot of things in the world that can take the place of good friends, as Remus well knew.
The village of Snidget Hill wasn't an overly large one and it consisted primarily of wizards. There were a few non-magic families in the area, but most of those were the relatives of muggleborns. This meant, obviously, that magic was no big secret in Snidget Hill. Remus's father, Romulus Lupin, had grown up in Snidget Hill and, after getting married to his muggleborn wife Rhea, had decided to move back there.
Remus's childhood was not quite as pleasant as his father's had been, some 25 years ago, full of fun and friends as it had been. But he tried to make the best of it, spending his days outside playing, in the woods, down near the brook, racing his mother up and down the hill their village was named for. He had a brilliant imagination, Remus, and he used it often. It helped him out where real friends wouldn't.
But, despite his wonderful imagination, Remus craved actual friendship. All children should have friends, his mother had often said to his father whenever she thought Remus wasn't around. If they don't, it can stunt their emotional growth.
And Remus did want friends. But the only other kids in Snidget Hill, aside from the toddlers, were all much older and they thought the little Lupin boy was a scaredy-cat. They teased him whenever he ran across any of them in the village and if they ever walked through the woods where Remus was playing, the younger boy was apt to hide behind a bush until they were gone.
But sometimes he just couldn't avoid them, like when they came up quietly and spotted him before he saw them. Times like that, they wouldn't leave him alone at all, especially if the whole group was there. He would be teased mercilessly, about being little, about being scared of his own shadow, about being a Mama's boy. Times like that nearly always reduced the littler boy to tears.
"Just leave me alone!" young Remus shouted as he tripped over a root that had been behind him. He desperately held back the tears he felt welling in his eyes. "What do I have to do to make you stop bothering me?!"
Normally the older boys would sneer and laugh before walking away when Remus said something like this. But today one of them, a nine-year-old named Jasper Cragg, held out his hand to stop them from leaving. He stared down at the sniffling boy sprawled on the ground in front of them, considering.
"You really want us to stop bothering you, Little Lupin?" Jasper asked after a few moments, an almost indiscernible hint of compassion in his voice, which he quickly pushed out of his mind. Remus nodded. "What would you be willing to do to get us to stop?"
"Anything," Remus answered without thought, quickly wiping away a stray tear that had escaped down his right cheek.
Jasper smiled and the look was reminiscent of a cat that had just gotten hold of an especially large and juicy canary. "Anything?" Remus nodded again. "Okay, Little Lupin. We'll stop bugging you." Jasper friends glanced questioningly over at him, obviously wondering what he was leading to. Jasper waved a hand dismissively and kept his eyes on the younger boy.
"All you need to do," he continued, "is walk through the graveyard at midnight tonight." Remus's young, wide eyes grew to the size of a pair of small tea saucers. The graveyard? At *MIDNIGHT*?
Jasper's friends sniggered appreciatively at the good idea. "And when you do it," another one of them chimed in, "we'll stand outside and wait, just to make sure you don't lie about it!" The others all added their agreement, nodding and murmuring amongst themselves, and Jasper turned back to Remus.
"So? What do you say, Little Lupin? You going to show up or not?"
Remus thought it over, hunching his shoulders and wishing the older boys wouldn't stare at him like that. He REALLY did want them to stop teasing him. He hated it and it was starting to get to the point where he wouldn't even go to the store with his mother anymore because he was scared of running into one of these boys. But on the other hand, he hated the graveyard, too. And walking through it at midnight was one of the very last things he wanted to do.
But if he DID do it, they would stop teasing him. It might take a while, but if they stopped teasing him, maybe they might even want to be friends with him, eventually. It was a farfetched idea, and even at five, Remus knew it, but the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, after all. And besides, how bad could it be?
"Okay," he said at last. "I'll come."
"Great," said Jasper, clapping his hands together. "Then we'll meet you by the graveyard gates at midnight." He paused for a second before giving Remus a dark look. "And don't you dare tell your parents, or we'll make you wish you never had to leave that graveyard. Understand?" Remus nodded once more. "Good. So, we'll see you then, Little Lupin. Come on, guys."
With that, all of the older boys left, a few tossing finals looks over their shoulders at him as they did. Remus waited until they were out of sight before pulling himself to his feet and plodding through the woods in the other direction, heading home to the Lupin House.
The Lupin House was pretty. This was the word most of the other citizens of Snidget Hill used when they talked about the medium-sized cottage that Romulus and Rhea Lupin lived in. It was two stories high and it had a wide verandah with gingerbread-house style trim that wound around the front, back and left side of the house. It had been painted a pretty light yellow by Rom and it had a pretty garden that had been planted by Rhea. The front porch, of course, had been strewn with pretty little toys by young Remus.
It was also very close to the woods. This came in handy when Rom needed firewood and when Remus wanted somewhere to play. That meant that he didn't have very far to walk after his chat with Jasper and Co., for which he was thankful.
His mother was out on her knees in the garden when Remus emerged from the trees. Hearing the leaves rustling, she looked up and gave him a smile. "Hello darling. Lovely day, isn't it? I thought I'd come out and get a little sun, have a little fun. You seem to have had the same idea." She yanked a weed out of the soil. "You're being careful in those woods, right, Remus? We don't want you getting hurt, falling out of a tree or some such thing."
Remus forced a smile. "Don't worry, Mum. I'm being careful."
Rhea squinted slightly in the sun and studied her son more closely. "Are you alright, dear? You seem a bit pale."
"I'm fine," he answered quickly. "I'm just going to go make a sandwich. Have fun with your flowers, Mum."
"The peanut butter's on the counter," Rhea added before he left, and he nodded in thanks. As Remus trotted into the house, his mother's eyes followed him thoughtfully. Something was obviously amiss with her son, but he didn't want talk about it, then she would give him time. Remus was a very shy child, after all.
~~~~
11:40.
Remus glanced over at his clock for the thousandth time that night, growing more and more anxious each time.
He was determined to go, he honestly was. He really should have started getting ready by now. The problem was that his mind didn't seem to have enough influence over the rest of his body to make it get out of bed. He had attempted it several times in the past few minutes.
11:45.
He managed to convince his legs to at least move him out of his bed, so he could get changed out of his pajamas. That would be delightful, that would. He was going out to a cemetery at midnight to prove that he wasn't a wuss and to get the other boys to stop teasing him, and then he shows up in his PJs. No thanks.
Picturing this to distract himself, Remus managed to pull on a pair of beige pants and a t-shirt before he fully realized what he was doing. Quickly pulling on his jacket, which was hanging over the armrest of a rocking chair his mother had installed in the corner of his room for when she read to him before bed, he went to his window.
Then his body caught up with him again and froze.
11:48.
His mind fought with his arms to pull open the window so he could climb down the tree and onto the ground below. His mind was fixed upon getting to the graveyard gates by midnight, but his arms kept sending back the message, 'Come on, Remus! Reconsider this! Please?'
He spared another couple of minutes, just thinking about what he was doing, before he slowly, forcibly, made his arms pull open his bedroom window. Then he carefully slid himself out onto the roof of the side verandah, stretching and straining to reach a nearby branch when he hit the edge.
And at long last his fingers touched it. Grasping it tightly, Remus swung off the edge and latched his feet into the familiar grooves on the tree. Taking a deep, relaxing breath and trying not to think about what his parents would say if they knew their five year old son was sneaking out of the house at this time of night, he climbed down until his feet were within a few inches of the ground. Releasing the branch he had been clinging to, Remus felt his feet hit the grass.
Crouching, he scurried quickly to the shelter of a nearby bush to prevent being seen by either one of his parents who might happen to be looking out the window as he went by. Taking a quick glimpse over top of the bush, Remus made sure that the coast was clear before trotting to the road and heading toward the cemetery, ready to leap into the trees lining the road at the slightest indication that there might be someone coming.
11:59
He had almost reached the gates. Remus could hear the quiet chattering of the other boys waiting for him up ahead and breathed a sigh of relief. He jogged the rest of the way and waved once the boys came into sight.
The older ones were actually a bit impressed by the fact that Little Lupin had shown up at all. Most of them would have willingly bet half their Bertie Botts card collections that he hadn't had any intentions of coming, but Jasper had talked them into coming out anyway, just in case.
And, Lo and behold, here he was. Perhaps a bit jittery, and maybe he was biting his bottom lip so hard that it was astonishing to see that it wasn't bleeding yet, but the kid had shown up. Jasper went over and clapped a hand around Remus's shoulder.
"Good to see you, Little Lupin. You're right on time, too." He pulled the younger boy ahead of the others, closer to the unlocked gates. He placed a hand on the bars and pushed gently. The gate creakily cracked open. "Now all you've got to do is walk to the end of the graveyard and back, and then we'll never tease you again."
Remus nodded absently. He was more absorbed in studying the place that, under just about any other kind of circumstance, he would desperately be trying to avoid.
The Snidget Hill cemetery was just like the rest of the village: Not overly large, but more than a little ornate. It wasn't wide, but it was quite long, a few hundred meters, at least. It was located along the bottom side of the hill and, on the opposite side from the peak, the graveyard was closed off by another part of the same forest that was near the Lupin House. It was desolate and very, VERY dark.
Remus gulped quietly and took a few steps, going just inside the gate. He turned to look back at Jasper and the others and was surprised by the eagerness on their faces as Jasper closed the gates quietly behind him. Usually when they looked at Remus, their faces wore expressions that were malicious or sneering or, on the worst days, pitying. But no, tonight they seemed just as excited and nervous as Remus was.
He turned back to his task and took another few steps. He was now level with the first group of graves. It was too dark to read the names on the tombstones. Remus took another deep breath, pushing back the feelings of fright and expectation of suddenly seeing a rotting arm spring out of the ground to grab his ankle, and kept walking.
The older boys watched in fascination as he walked slowly past grave after grave. They were obviously expecting the same sorts of things Remus had been expecting, zombies popping up left and right, and they weren't about to miss it, if and when it did happen. But by the time he had gone halfway without anything happening, they started to lose interest.
Remus had just tripped on a rock, the most exciting thing that had happened to him all night, when he heard it.
A low, hungry, threatening snarl.
It made him jump, but after a few seconds of panic, he turned to face the group of boys accusingly. That wasn't very sportsmanlike, after all. He was doing their stupid dare to make them stop teasing him, and then one of them goes trying to scare him before he was even half done!
But after seeing the confused looks on the older boys faces, which were slowly turning to fright, Remus's panic returned and began to build. He took a few steps back towards the gates, turning slowly to look in at the dark trees as he did.
And there. He heard it again. The growl, coming from beside an especially thick patch of bushes. His breath hitched and he continued walking backwards toward the gates, unwilling to take his eyes of the dark bush.
"Remus, come on!" Jasper's voice called quietly. The growl sounded again, louder than before. "You can do the dare some other time! Get out of there!"
Remus nodded, though he was pretty sure Jasper couldn't see it and walked faster. As the growling continued, getting deeper and more threatening, Remus couldn't stand it anymore and he turned to face the gates, running away as fast as his small legs would carry him.
He heard the bushes rustle suddenly, the pounding of large, heavy feet on the ground behind him, gaining on him quickly, and the sudden screams of the other boys when they realized what was happening. And then he felt it hit him, like a bag full of bricks, on the back, knocking him roughly off his feet.
Jasper and the others saw the huge shape come running out of the bushes and barrel towards Remus. About half of them had already run screaming for help towards the nearest house when Remus thudded onto the ground. The beast rolled past him because of the extra momentum and the other boys managed to get a good look at it before it turned back to its younger prey. A wolf.
Jasper and a couple of the others who had stayed behind grabbed sticks and started banging them on the closed gates, yelling and throwing rocks at it, anything to try and get its attention away from the young boy in front of it. They were safe behind the closed gates, after all. If it came at them, they would be okay and it might give Remus a few seconds to run into the woods and climb up a tree or to do something else, ANYTHING, to get out of reach of those claws until help came.
But the wolf ignored them. Remus lifted his head from the dirt, his nose dripping with blood, caused by his rough landing. When his eyes lifted high enough to see more than an inch off the ground, a pair of fiercely glowing yellow eyes and a mouth full of sharp white teeth greeted him.
He let out a high, almost inaudible whimper and the wolf came closer. The boys at the gates were still shouting and banging and the monster was still ignoring them. Not knowing what else to do as those fangs came ever closer and the eyes gained the look of a beast preparing to pounce, Remus scrabbled backwards and curled into a tight ball against the ground.
And then it attacked. Remus could feel the teeth plunge into the back of his left shoulder and he screamed as the tears and blood streamed down his face and mixed into the dirt on the ground. The claws ripped into his back and his ribs and the teeth grasped his upper arm, viciously whipping it back and forth, trying to uncurl him from his defensive ball. The boys at the gate screamed louder still, desperately chucking rocks at the wolf, and not too far away, the boys who had fled had already reached the nearest house.
But Remus didn't know any of this and he had, it was extremely doubtful he would have cared at that moment. The wolf had finally wrenched his arm hard enough to unfurl him from his protective position, making him continue to sob and scream at the feeling of the ruined mess that was his shattered left arm. The pain the young boy was feeling was almost unimaginable. The claws and fangs attacked his chest and abdomen and the only thing Remus could think to do was throw up his right arm to try and protect his face and neck. He desperately kicked his legs out, using as much force as he had in him to use.
He managed to catch it in the side of the head. The only thing anybody could think of later to explain it was that it must have been a burst of adrenaline, but somehow tiny, weak little Remus Lupin managed to get the wolf off of him. And, even if it was just for a few seconds, he had managed to daze it.
The wolf lay there for a minute, seemingly trying to get its bearings once more. The screaming at the gates changed as the boys suddenly started shouting, "RUN REMUS!! COME ON, GET UP, GET OUT OF THERE!!"
Remus heard their screaming now, but he couldn't even get his eyes to focus properly, much less stand up and try to run. He could feel the burning pain from the injuries the wolf had just inflicted on him and he could feel his clothing and his hair and the ground beneath him as each become wetter and wetter with blood (HIS blood!) every second.
The wolf finally reoriented itself and climbed back up off the ground, snarling. Targeting its weak and defenseless prey again, its legs bent. It lowered its head, bared its teeth and lunged towards the boy.
And suddenly the sound of a gunshot rang through the cemetery, echoing through the rest of Snidget Hill and waking most of her residents. The wolf hit the ground mid-pounce, not dead, but most certainly unconscious.
The boys who had run away had returned, gun toting adult in tow. The adult, a thirty something muggleborn named Christopher Sterling, threw open the gates and ran to Remus, the boys trailing behind him. Jasper took one look at the younger boy and ran in the other direction.
Remus's parents had to know what had happened. Jasper had been the one who told him to come to the graveyard in the first place, the one who had told him not to tell his parents where he was going. So Jasper should be the one who told them what had happened to their only son.
Never before or again in his life had Jasper run so fast as when he ran towards the Lupin House that night, except perhaps when he lead a tearful Rhea and a frightened Romulus back to the cemetery about a minute later. The three raced to the open gates, where a number of Snidget Hillians, curious about why a gun had been fired in their cemetery at ten after midnight, were beginning to congregate. Rhea pushed almost ferociously past them and ran to her son.
Sterling had quickly torn off his bathrobe and wrapped it tightly around Remus's chest and back when he saw the state of the boy's injuries, hoping the pressure might help with his intense bleeding. Now clad in only a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, he was checking Remus's pulse when Rhea and Rom got there.
Remus was barely conscious, which was probably a good thing. His mother's heart-wrenching sobs would have torn him apart if he had realized what they were. He was also too far out to realize that his father, who had gone to examine the wolf that had attacked him, suddenly went even paler than he had when he saw his son's injuries. Remus didn't hear Christopher Sterling ask his father if he was okay. And by the time Rom Lupin finally managed to stutter out the words, "It's a werewolf, Topher," Remus had already fallen into the dark depths of unconsciousness.
Rhea and Rom, however, did not hesitate for a second. Sterling leading the way, Rhea had gingerly lifted Remus up of the ground and held him tightly against her, running towards the nearest fireplace and pot of floo powder in Snidget Hill, her husband running along beside her.
~~~~
In the waiting room/lobby of St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Albus Dumbledore was waiting patiently in the long line for the Enquiries desk. A friend of his was currently a patient at the hospital, having accidentally turned his hands into a pair of cymbals, and Dumbledore had come to visit him for a bit.
He was only fourth in line when one of the reception's fireplaces burst into green flames. The form of a young woman came spinning out and when she emerged, Dumbledore could see she was carrying a large, bloody bundle in her arms.
"Help me, somebody, please! I need help!" she cried, kneeling onto the floor beside the fireplace and setting her bundle carefully down. The material covering the top of the bundle fell away when the woman set it down and Dumbledore could now see the blood-covered face of a very young boy. As nearby Healers raced over to help, another person came stumbling out of the fireplace.
"What happened?" a female Healer asked, a worried expression on her face as she gently removed the bloodstained wrappings from around the boy's torso.
"He was attacked," the woman said, biting her nails and breathing erratically.
"Do you know what attacked him?" another Healer asked, conjuring a stretcher underneath the boy. Dumbledore could see his hitched breathing even from where he stood at least twenty feet away.
"A werewolf," said a new voice. The woman looked up at the man who had spoken, the same one who had flooed in after her. He had a grave expression on his face, and his skin was pale. A few tears fell down his wife face as he looked at her.
The Healer who had asked the question suddenly wore a stricken expression. He looked back down at the face of the boy on the stretcher, so young and innocent, and a look of great sorrow crossed his face. He managed to push it back, however, and quickly took the stretcher in the direction of the first floor.
Most of the other Healers followed, but one stayed behind, quietly ushering Rhea and Rom into some seats in the waiting area. The Healer went to the Enquiries desk and the woman behind the counter dug through a drawer for a moment before finding a clipboard and a thin sheaf of papers and handed it to her.
The Healer pulled a quill out of her pocket and sat down next to the young couple. Dumbledore watched them out of the corner of his eye.
"What is the boy's name?" she asked gently.
"Remus Juventas Lupin," the young man answered. The woman didn't seem able to speak at all any more.
The Healer scrawled the answer and continued. "If you could please give me your names as well and tell me your relationship to Remus?"
"We're his parents. I'm Romulus Lupin and this is my wife, Rhea."
"Alright. Your son's age and birth date, please."
"May 13, 1960." Rom had to clear his throat noisily. "He's five."
The Healer looked up and met his eye for the first time. "It'll be alright, Mr Lupin," she said comfortingly. "Your son is currently receiving the best care it is possible for him to receive. You got him here as quickly as you could. That is the best thing you could possibly have done for him in this kind of situation. We'll take it from here."
Rom nodded and wrapped an arm around the shoulders of his weeping wife. "Are there any more questions?"
Dumbledore turned away as he suddenly became first in the Enquiries line. He asked for the ward his friend was in and while the WelcomeWitch looked up the name for him, he took another glance at Rom and Rhea, still sobbing quietly into her handkerchief. He remembered teaching them Transfiguration in school. He hadn't been aware that the two of them had gotten married, much less had a child, but it was a nice thought.
But this werewolf attack was such a horrible thing to happen to such good, pleasant people, much less their small son. Simply terrible. Knowing, of course, that there was nothing he could do, Dumbledore resolved to come talk to them in the waiting room when he was done visiting his friend, giving them time to get themselves together a bit first.
~~~~
Author's Note: Yeah! I didn't think I would actually be able to write a half-decent attack scene, but I did it. Anyhoo, next part'll be up soon. Take care of yourselves until then. Au Revoir!