Remus Lupin jolted awake, his eyes wide and seeing nothing but the black of the night. Taking a moment to get used to the dark, he prayed that he hadn't shouted out and woken the others. He held his breath listening for any movement, Remus didn't know why he bothered, they hadn't heard him before in all their time at Hogwarts.
He got up, grabbed a jumper and went down the stairs to the common room.
Remus collapsed into his favourite armchair, and curled up into a ball…glancing momentarily over at the artificial Christmas tree propped in the corner of the room.
He wasn't sure whether he should be glad that Sirius, James or Peter had never heard him or not. He didn't want to have to give awkward explanations but it still hurt that they had no idea that he often left the room in the middle of the night. Of course he couldn't expect Sirius to notice, he slept like the dead, and he was the last person to -
"How often does this happen Moony?" Remus pulled his eyes away from the tree and looked towards the voice from the boys' staircase. Sirius was standing there in his favourite top with the magically sparkling words 'Siriusly Rules' emblazoned across it in big, bold letters.
"You, coming downstairs in the middle of the night. Almost every night I wake up and you're not there."
"So if you know how often it happens why are you asking me? It is Christmas after all, Padfoot, I can come down here whenever I want." Remus replied bitterly.
"Okay, so what did you get?"
"The usual," Remus waved a hand in the direction of three still wrapped presents under the very tacky tree with flashing fluorescent lights. It was this time of year again and he wasn't particularly thrilled, but seeing Sirius' face softened him from his bitter mood a little. Remus knew that Sirius wasn't all that happy at Christmas either, but at least he tried. "I'm sorry Padfoot, you know that I have never liked Christmas but that is no need to bring it out on you. Of course I'm looking forward to opening your present."
"And your parents present," Sirius stated with a smile, "where is that anyway?" his brow creased in thought. "Infact where has it been for the past seven Christmases? I mean do they just not send you one?"
"Yes"
"So you get it when you go home instead?"
"No, I don't get a present from my parents. They are…unable to send me a Christmas present."
"Why?"
Silence filled the room as Remus stared into the fire; he had either missed the question or ignored it completely. Sirius regretted asking it and thought it better to change the subject, yet as he was about to speak the silence was broken.
"Because they're dead."
Sirius froze. "They're what?" he asked in a strained voice hoping he had misheard.
"They're dead," he repeated, "died when I was eight."
"But…the place…you go…every summer," he couldn't believe it. This was just some joke.
"Montague House Boys' Orphanage, Blackheath, London""Why didn't you tell us Moony? You could've –"
"What?" he cut in angrily standing up, "gone to your house Padfoot? Or maybe James' or Peter's. Everyone pitying me? It would've been 'oh poor Moony, he has no parents', of course until they found out I was a werewolf. I don't need your pity or anyone else's and trust me I'm not worth it."
"Moony – "
"NO! I don't deserve it! And do you know why? If it wasn't for me they'd still be alive."
"I'm sure you're – "
"I killed them Sirius! Me. It's my fault." Remus moved across the room to sit down on the sofa with his back to Sirius and placed his head in his hands.
Sirius stood still, frozen in the same spot watching Remus, letting his thoughts run over what he had just said.
He stood there for some time when the silence was broken once more.
"Why are you still here?" Remus asked wearily, "Why aren't you running away shouting to everyone that I'm a murderer?"
"Because you're my friend."
"I killed my parents Sirius!" his voice rising in volume.
"Not intentionally!" Sirius followed suit.
"How do you know that?" Remus was now shouting much louder.
Sirius calmed and moved to crouch beside him. "Because I know you."
"You don't understand," he whispered.
"Then explain it to me."
"I can't,"
"Explain it to me," Remus took a deep breath.
"Picture a clear night, only a gentle wind blowing but it is still bitterly cold. A couple huddle together against the chill, they walk along the footpath, heads bent, their breath producing white mists to float in front of them. Stars scatter the night sky round a full moon. It is so bright that the thin layer of ice covering everything causes the surroundings to glitter under the moonlight." He turned to look at Sirius once more. "How could anything so beautiful be so dangerous?"
Sirius knew, he'd known for four years, though they forgot about that danger for the excitement of being out as a group at night, every month when they left the school in secret in their animagi forms, running around the grounds.
When Remus didn't carry on, Sirius put a reassuring hand on his arm causing him to look up. He gazed into Remus' blue eyes seeing them clouded with pain of his memory. He wished he could reach in and take that pain away, or even take it upon himself. "What happened?" he whispered.
Remus felt his mind go back into his past as he began to tell his story.
* * *
"Do you think he'll be alright, it's going to be cold tonight?"
"He'll be fine, dear…he always is."
Remus looked upwards from his low perspective. His parents were discussing him again, with no possibility of a group conversation.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am!"
His mother pulled up her sleeve and stared at the hands on her watch.
"It's almost time."
Moira Lupin pushed her sleeve back down and escorted her son to the basement door. She swiftly opened it and led Remus down the rickety wooden steps and into the dank stone room, the high, narrow window barred.
As he raised his arms and stood with his bare back against the rock wall, Remus caught a glimpse of the moon moving behind the clouds. He quickly retracted his gaze, as it burnt his eyes.
His mother stroked his head lovingly, combing his hair with her fingers as he screwed up his eyes to block out the pain that was growing inside him.
"It's going to be okay, Remus. Tomorrow morning… everything will be back to normal."
Remus nodded his head slowly in agreement, as his father began to fasten the leather straps and buckles tightly around his arms. The bruises from the previous month still ached, as the leather was firmly secured, and locked into place with the metal pins.
"Hmmm… better get these buckles fixed, they're wearing out. Have you got my wand?"
"There isn't time, James. Do it in the morning."
"Okay, but make sure you wri…"
He stopped abruptly as Remus began to lose self-control. The boy was shaking in a mixture of fear, and unavoidable spasms as the moon appeared from behind the clouds. Giving himself just a moment to stand soothingly in his son's eye line, James turned and exited the cellar with his wife.
* * *
"This happened every month, it was like a routine," Remus told him sadly halting his story. He couldn't believe he was actually telling him this; he had kept it inside, buried for so long. He thought reliving it would hurt so much, but Sirius cared and wouldn't judge him for it. He knew he could count on him; there was no one else he'd rather confess this to. "Every full moon evening I would have my dinner early and get escorted down to our basement. My Dad tied me to the wall, they would leave me down there for the night and come to fetch me in the morning."
Sirius watched Remus' face as he told his story, staying silent on the sofa next to him, letting him tell it with no interruptions.
"Any other parent would have got rid of me as soon as I had been bitten but they didn't. They stuck by me, helped me through the horror and pain of it all," he winced, "well most of the pain."
* * *
Remus was hit by the darkness instantly, as the cellar door was slammed shut and bolted. The only illumination in the room came from the tiny glimpse of moonlight, shining through the gaps in the bars and burning Remus's skin.
His skin flamed red, and began to peel…hair sprouting all over his hands, arms and face. Unable to see the physical transformation, Remus closed his eyes, hoping it would all be over soon.
But the worst was yet to come. As he fell forwards, his face elongating and his eyes narrowing…the buckle around his left arm made a loud snapping noise, and flew away from the wall.
Remus attempted to scream to his parents, but found his voice drowned out by the monstrous roars. He began to lose consciousness, and allowed the beast to take over his body for the evening.
The leather already tattered and aging, ripped with a swift tug from the Werewolf as it pulled itself away from the stonewall. Spinning its body around, the razor sharp teeth gripped the other buckle, restraining the right claw, and tore it away.
* * *
"Who would ever think freedom could be a bad thing?"
Sirius' eyes were wide as he realised what was going to happen, he knew what a werewolf could be like, he had been running around with one every month for two years. There had been near misses where one of them had almost been bitten, of course they laughed about it now but imagine Remus' guilt if he ever did infect one of them.
A tear slid down Remus' cheek. Sirius couldn't bear seeing him like this, he couldn't remember the last time he cried, infact Sirius didn't think he'd ever seen him cry. He slid across the sofa next to him and awkwardly put his arms around his shoulders. Remus froze for a second before leaning into the comforting embrace. Sirius looked down on the top of Remus' head and wondered at the clear, simple truth of how right holding him felt.
Whereas Remus' thoughts were on overdrive, for so long he had thought about being this close to his best friend, yet for all of that time he had kept it hidden away, squashing it, pretending it didn't exist. It wouldn't do to yearn after his best friend, his boy best friend, his boy best friend that seemed to be going out with a different girl each week. He knew he had no chance, there was no point in even thinking about it and he knew what Sirius was like with the girls anyway. He didn't want that, he wanted to love one person and be with them for the rest of his life - Remus froze - like his parents.
"They had no idea what was about to happen," Remus continued pulling out of the embrace missing the look in Sirius' eyes, "how could they?"
* * *
Upstairs, James and Moira Lupin were sitting down at their oak dining room table, ready to eat. James reached down to pick up his fork, struggling to ignore his sons shrieking. It was customary for them to sit in silence as they ate their meal every full moon. It was a time for reflection.
Any chance for contemplation of their son's condition was instantly destroyed as the Werewolf smashed through the wooden door, the bolt unable to contain the beast.
"WHERE'S MY WAND!" James yelled, leaping to his feet, and watching in dismay. The Werewolf was fighting its way through the debris, temporarily stalled. James turned to his wife who looked back in distress.
"I don't know! I don't know!"
They both frantically looked around for a moment, hoping for something to save them…but it was too late. Remus had escaped from the wreckage and was approaching them quickly. With a swift movement, he upended the table, slamming James into the refrigerator. Moira screamed and backed away, as the animal roared menacingly.
"GET OUT OF HERE!"
She turned and ran up the stairs as James' screams filled the air.
* * *
Remus had pulled away from Sirius during this latest part of his confession and had curled himself up into a ball once more. His arms were circled tight around his legs and his head was on his knees.
"I killed my father," Remus tried to speak through his tears, "I killed him! My own family, how could I? He had always been there for me, look how I repaid him - "
Sirius sat for a moment listening to Remus' rantings before knowing that he had to stop him.
"Moony" he didn't stop mumbling, "Remus!" Sirius said more forcefully placing a hand on his arm. Remus brought his head up off of his knees and inclined his head towards him while Sirius gently pressed down on his knees to make him sit properly. Tears were still running down his cheeks and his eyes were still filled with pain and anguish.
"Remus, it was not your fault," Sirius whispered holding his pain filled eyes with his own. "It was not you!"
Remus looked down into his lap, "it was me, I was inside, I am the monster."
Sirius placed his fingers under Remus' chin and gently lifted his face up again, once more holding his eyes, as if compelling him to believe him.
Sirius' face was so close Remus could feel his warm breath caressing his face.
"The wolf inside you is not you, it is separate. It lives inside you until the power of the moon gives it the ability to rise. Then you are the one inside, being controlled, unable to take control back until the moon has disappeared and it retreats. Nothing it does at this time is your fault. However deep down, you know this, don't you?"
"I…well…yea – " Remus' words were lost as Sirius' lips met his in a soft gentle kiss.
* * *
Remus Lupin opened his eyes slowly and cautiously. He was lying prone in his hall, covered in a thin layer of dust from the collapsing ceiling. Grabbing a nearby towel, and wrapping it around his waist, he gradually stood and was able to acknowledge the ruins around him.
A whole portion of the ceiling was torn out, and the air was full of plaster particles. The ground was covered in sharp splinters of wood where the door had been destroyed.
Remus rubbed his temple, trying to remember what had happened. His mind was blank, as usual. He rarely remembered anything but glimpses…like waking up from an obscure dream with no logical storyline.
As he lowered his hand, he realised that his fingernails were full of dried blood. He sniffed it quickly, his wolfish senses alerting him to a horrific fact.
This was not his blood.
He walked forwards and around the corner, afraid of what he was going to see…but deep down, knowing that it wouldn't be good.
His father lay crumpled against the bottom of the larder, his throat and neck covered in blood and pieces of ripped flesh. Remus didn't need to check for a pulse, one subtle sniff of the air told him his father was dead.
Too shocked to shed tears, Remus trotted barefooted past his father, his feet submerged in the pool of crimson blood, and leaving stains on the carpet as he left the room and walked quietly up the stairs.
He didn't know why, but his instinct told him his mother was still in the house. His bloodied feet began to run, and he launched himself several steps up at a time, hoping and praying that she would be sitting wearing a Christmas hat in the bedroom, and this would all be an elaborate practical joke to teach him the dangers of lycanthropy.
Sadly not.
Remus reached the bedroom and found his mothers limp form lying on the bed, her wrists bloody and a noisy wind billowing the curtains upwards as the broken glass of the window lay smashed on the ground. In her left hand she clasped a large jagged piece, which had been used to slice through her arteries.
Unable to comprehend what had happened, Remus sat apprehensively on the side of the bed and touched his mothers face. She was as cold as ice, and as white as snow.
She had been dead for some hours.
For the first time, Remus gave into his childish impulses and allowed tears to stream from his eyes.
Aside from the self-inflicted injuries to her wrists, his mother had a vicious looking bite mark on her shoulder, where Remus astutely suspected he had bitten and infected her.
Before he could allow himself to completely crumble emotionally, a deep ominous rumbling began to emanate from outside the window. Remus clambered to his feet, trying to prevent his towel from falling.
He looked out in terror to see dozens of his neighbours and fellow villagers carrying huge flaming torches and crude weapons. They looked like a crowd of rioters, moving in for the kill.
"BURN THE HOUSE! KILL THE BEAST!" BURN THE HOUSE! KILL THE BEAST! BURN THE HOUSE! KILL THE BEAST!"
* * *
"I have blamed so many people for so long but now I see at last, I understand." Remus confided from his position on Sirius' shoulder. "My neighbours for one. Of course I can't blame them, they were afraid and who wouldn't be afraid of a werewolf? I had just wrecked my home and killed my parents, who knows what would've happened if I had got out of the house and let loose on the town. I don't believe I would be alive now, or many others come to that. And of course another person I have been blaming all my life."
"Your mother," it was not a question.
"Yes, at such a young age I couldn't understand why she had killed herself and left me. It didn't make any sense. I understand now that she couldn't have lived with being a werewolf, it was just too much to ask. I don't suppose it was an easy decision, but I can only assume."
"Your mum wouldn't have done that lightly Remus,"
"How do you know?"
"I know you," he replied simply. "What happened when the people came to your home?"
* * *
Chanting like a murderous mob, the crowd closed in on the house and began to hammer away at the door, trying to bust inside.
Remus didn't know how they had found out the truth, but his parents had warned him once that werewolves were considered diseased outcasts by society, mindless evil monsters that should be wiped off the face of the planet.
Stopping for a moment to gently grab his mother's hand, in a feeble last attempt to see if she was still alive, he ran off back down the stairs, just as the mob exploded through his front door and witnessed the devastation inside.
"If any of you come near me, I'll bite!" He cried hysterically.
"If his saliva gets into your blood stream you'll be infected, everyone take a step away," a large elderly woman bellowed, as she lowered her pitchfork.
A bearded wizard of about 50, holding a machete interrupted "What do we do with 'it' then?"
* * *
"They took me to a boys orphanage in London until I was old enough to come here. They were very kind to me. Someone from the Ministry collected me every full moon and took me to a secure room, they just told the orphanage that I was taken to a relative every month, they seemed happy with the explanation and never questioned it. Every summer they allowed me back to stay until I could return to Hogwarts in September, for all they knew a rich relative sent me to a boarding school every year. But it worked."
"The Ministry did that?"
"Yes." Remus looked away, "I miss my parents Sirius."
"I know," Remus looked back
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"Opening my eyes," and he leaned in for another kiss.
James stood up from his perch on the bottom of the stairs and stretched, stiff from sitting there for so long. Looking over at Remus and Sirius once more on the sofa, he smiled and walked back up the stairs to bed.
THE END
Everything I need to say: I have decided to write notes and such at the end of the story this time as I feel they can sometimes stop the flow or something. You know what, I have no idea what I'm saying just that this isn't mine. Any of it really. Firstly, the characters are JJ Rounding's, oops I mean JK Rowling's, sorry. Secondly, the storyline itself belongs to my good friend David, who had the brilliant idea and got me to write it. Thirdly all of the flashbacks also belong to David. Why is this story even up on my name I hear you ask, well, I was just asking myself the very same thing. I would like to apologise profusely to David for not having anything with his name on here. I was so sure I had written an authors note and everything that goes with it and I have no idea what happened. I have either lost my mind and didn't actually write it or I wrote it but didn't put it up *shrug* who knows.
This was my half of another challenge between me and Polkat so if you would like to see her side of the challenge (which is Draco and Ginny) then here is the link: Though if that doesn't work (which I know it doesn't at times) and you have the inclination - go find her!
Anyway thank you for reading *our* story and getting this far to actually read what I had to say afterwards. You're very dedicated :)
I hope you enjoyed it, or at least found it interesting, and if you have the time to review it would be very much appreciated.
Thank you