Disclaimer: Remus Lupin and other related characters and events belong to JK Rowling. Insiparation for the true werewolves coimes from Silverhand and whoever wrote it, whatever i don't tke credit for anything but the subtle bledin of the two.
It was coming to that time of the month again. He wouldn't have been able to tell if he couldn't feel it. Heavy black clouds and dark gray rain curtained any view of the sky. Remus Lupin was standing by the window looking up into where the sky would have been as if he looked long enough he would be able to see through it all. On days like this he became pensive and almost depressed. On days like his he thought of his mother.
He had always loved his mother. She was always caring, energetic, and alive. He remembered her short yellow orange hair, her unique smile, how she always made him feel better. The only early memory he had of his father was a vague feeling that he always seemed a little sad. If someone would have asked him when he was very little which he loved the most he would have said 'My Pop!' For some strange reason people always thought he meant his father.
When he was small he couldn't understand it. It was most likely, he reflected, because he hadn't said it properly. Pup, she was his Pup. But by the time he was old enough to have learned that he had also learned calling her Pup was not only odd but frowned upon. He had stopped calling her that in public.
He sighed and moved away from the window. He had lost his staring contest with the weather. He didn't like where his train of thought was going, but he couldn't jump off without breaking his leg. He counted how old he had been when he reserved his mother's name for private conversations. He had been only six.
That was when he made up the story. At first it was a simple one line that ended with a pause that stopped all questions. Then it grew as people around him grew more curious. 'I was bitten when I was very young. I was playing in the forest behind our house one day. I wasn't allowed out there but I went anyway,' he told his friends by the time he was nine. There was, in fact, a forest behind his house; his mother couldn't live somewhere there wasn't an abundance of trees. He was allowed to play in the woods though, and it had absolutely nothing to do with him being a werewolf, but it seemed to convince people.
Even his three best friends had believed it still when he saw them last. He deeply regretted lying to them, but after he told them initially it was hard to tell them the truth. Perhaps it wouldn't have really mattered anyway. In his years at Hogwarts it had really gotten out of control. He started cursing himself for being bitten. He suspected he had started to believe it a bit then. It was something almost real. It was like an alternate universe that he could step into.
His mother had been gone by then. He didn't really know what happened to her. She had gone off into the forest one day and never come back. One thing he did know was wolfs liked to die alone.
He supposed he could have told Harry, but Sirius had been there. The rest had been true though. It was painful, almost as much as if he had been converted. His parents had tried everything, not that it would have worked. If there had been a cure it probably would have killed him. Their hearts weren't really in it anyway. They only did it because he took the transformation badly. His mother had been half-blooded and could change whenever she pleased, but her human form was still slightly wolf, unlike that of a true werewolf. A misconception people had was that if a werewolf bit you you were one and changed at the full moon. True werewolves could transform whenever they wanted, silver bullets didn't affect them anymore than regular bullets did, and they looked more like dogs than wolfs.
Remus was one-fourth werewolf. This made him almost completely wolf when he had that form and it was very painful. The wolfsbane potion did work. It would work on any werewolf, but only those who were not true werewolves and him seemed to need it.
He sighed for the second time and got up to close the curtains. He didn't really wasn't to see the depressing gray outside. He still had a couple days left. He thought he might take a walk in the woods. His mother used to take him on walks often when he was little. It sounded like a great idea. He picked up his coat off the back of the chair in the corner and walked out the door.
