Disclaimer: No matter how much I wish I did, I don't own any of the
characters in this story except Carol and Remus' family (more to come
later). J.K. Rowling owns all the characters in their entireties.
A/N: My very first fanfic! I plan to write this rather quickly, but with
school, don't expect the chapters really fast until mid-June. I've always
liked Lupin, and the idea of writing from a werewolf's point of view
intrigued me, so here it is:
A/N: Please note, this is rated R for a reason!! If you have problems with
strong violence (it gets worse towards the end) or are offended by bad
language, this story is not for you!
One
Sorrows
The transformation was complete.
The wolf's mind had no trace of any emotion in its endeavors. It was driven by hunger, not by hatred, and it was this hunger that compelled it to throw itself, single-mindedly, at its two companions in the dark room. The human mind tried to temper it, but it only showed a tiny vestige of its former self in its efforts to calm the beast that was brewing inside the werewolf's head.
Its companions were a black dog and a white stag, both considerably larger than the werewolf, but each driven not by the animal need for killing that the werewolf expressed, but only preservation of both themselves and the wolf. They settled into their resting positions opposite the room from the wolf, watching warily, until the werewolf attacked.
Its teeth were bared, dripping the saliva that held countless nightmares for the others in the room. The werewolf leapt, first at the stag, then, after it missed the stag entirely, at the dog. The dog, commanded by human craftiness, dropped onto its belly. The leaping wolf passed over, but it slashed underneath the bulk of its mass with its claws. The claws, not nearly as dangerous as its teeth, connected and left glistening marks in the dog's fur. The cut sent a small spray of crimson over the space surrounding the animal.
The wolf landed on all four paws and the other two beasts turned to regard it. The wolf snarled and batted with its paws, but it refrained from attacking, perhaps its claws stayed by the human lurking inside the creature.
The two minds inside the creature were uniquely bonded, each communicating with the other in a way beyond understanding, the impulses from the wolf understood by the human, and vice versa. The human mind gave voice to the thoughts inside the werewolf's mind. Currently, it fought against the killer's instincts to keep the wolf's myriad weapons at bay. The wolf noticed the rat running across the floor, but abandoned it for the larger prey.
I have to stay, he tried in vain to tell the wolf's body. These are my friends. I cannot hurt them. If I bite them, I condemn them to the horrors that have been my life for the past nine years.
Meat, was all the wolf mind had to communicate to the muscles in the wolf's body to attack again.
The werewolf launched at the white stag, slashing with its claws again, drawing a ruby streak through the white hairs on the stag. Perhaps by reflex, the stag kicked at the wolf, knocking it through the air. The werewolf tumbled into the corner and was silent.
Just sit, the man inside the wolf thought desperately. Sit here, and don't get up until sunrise.
Meat, the wolf insisted, not by any language, but its meaning clear just the same. Cold, it also tried to tell him.
It is damn cold in here, the man thought and commanded the wolf's body to curl into a ball for warmth.
The dog and the stag kept a silent watch over the curled wolf over the next few hours. It seemed to fall asleep.
At what they both estimated to be almost dawn, the werewolf sprang to its feet. Snarling, it edged towards them, the dread saliva dripping onto the floor and wetting the peeling floorboards. Don't hurt them! the man tried to tell the wolf, but it was too late. The wolf launched its body at the dog, nearly connecting with its teeth, and its claws dug into the skin. It slashed repeatedly at the dog until the stag kicked it to the floor. The wolf arose and edged maliciously toward the stag, until the dog bashed it from behind with its paw. The werewolf collapsed into a heap on the floor.
Dawn soon broke, and the werewolf began to change. Soon it was not a wolf, but a 15-year-old boy laying on the floor.
Remus J. Lupin sat up, rubbed his eyes, and prepared to resume his life as a human being. Not by any means a normal human being--a fifth year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, one near the top of his class.
The standardized test in Defense Against the Dark Arts was later that day and Remus walked outside of Hogwarts with the stag, the dog, and the rat--except that they had now also resumed their human forms. They were his best friends--the stag, James Potter; the dog, Sirius Black; the rat, Peter Pettigrew. Each month, they helped him make his transformations into werewolf form underneath the full moon bearable. He owed them everything for that.
"Did you like question ten, Remus?" Sirius asked as they walked onto the lawns.
"Loved it," he answered. "'Give five signs that identify the werewolf.' Excellent question."
"D'you think you managed to get all the signs?" asked James.
"Think I did," Remus answered, dead serious. "One: He's sitting on my chair. Two: He's wearing my clothes. Three: His name's Remus Lupin..."
They all laughed together as they found a spot beneath their usual tree and Remus pulled out a book. He lost himself in the stories of famous wizards although he was dimly aware of the others chatting around him and James playing with a little flying Quidditch ball that Remus decided that he must have nicked.
"I'm bored," he heard Sirius say out loud. "Wish it was full moon."
"You might," Remus said, aware that the full moons were more exciting and considerably less painful for the others than they were for him. "We've still got Transfiguration, if you're bored you can test me."
"I don't need to look at that rubbish," said Sirius. "I know it all already."
"This'll liven you up," said James. "Look who it is..."
Sirius's head turned to regard the students around them. "Excellent," he said softly. "Snivellus."
Snape, Remus thought. Severus Snape was a year younger than them, definitely one of the stranger students at Hogwarts, with a rather big nose, as well, and was the target of countless assaults on James' part. Remus wondered why James did some of the things he did to Snape, and certainly didn't approve, but he decided he wasn't going to get involved, lest he put their friendship into a perilous position. What would the full moon be like without James and Sirius?
"All right there, Snivellus?" he heard James say loudly.
Snape immediately dropped his bag and reached for his magic wand, but by the time it was halfway in the air, James had shouted "Expelliarmus!" and Snape's wand was blown several feet across the grass. He dove for the fallen wand, but James shouted "Impedimenta!" and Snape fell face first onto the lawn.
A small crowd had amassed around the little scene which played out. Remus wished that they would all go away, but he knew beyond doubt that this scene would end the way it always did...
"How'd the exam go, Snivelly?" James asked.
"I was watching him," Sirius cut in. "His nose was touching the parchment. There'll be great grease marks all over it, they won't be able to read a word."
The crowd laughed and Snape stared up at James with a look of unbridled hatred."You wait...you wait..."
Sirius taunted him: "Wait for what? What're you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?"
"You lousy shit," said Snape. "You lousy, dirty, goddamn shit!!"
"Wash out your mouth," James said with a sneer. "Scourgify!" The spell caused pink soap bubbles to stream from Snape's mouth, gagging and choking him.
Remus looked up and a group of girls were marching toward this humiliating scene. His heart sank: not only was James' secret crush, Lily, but Remus' girlfriend, Carol, were part of the group. He wished he could melt into the environment.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" screamed Lily upon her emergence onto the scene.
"All right there, Evans?" said James, much more pleasantly than he had been speaking to Snape.
"Leave him alone. What's he done to you?" She was staring at him with intense dislike in her eyes.
"Well, it's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean..."
The surrounding crowd laughed, but Remus studied his book all the more intensely. He prayed to God that Lily and Carol didn't notice him...
"You think you're funny," said Lily in the most disgusted tone she could muster. "But you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone."
"I will if you go out with me, Evans. Go on, go out with me, and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again."
"I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid," said Lily quickly, eliciting laughs from the crowd. Remus chuckled, but he tried to hide that from James.
"Bad luck, James," Sirius said, focusing his attention on Snape. "OY!"
Snape had crawled back to his wand and aimed it at James; the next second there was a flash and a loud bang and a gash formed on James' face, leaking blood onto his robes. Another instant and James had whirled about and directed his wand to lift Snape up by the legs, his robes falling down and revealing thin, pale legs and a gray pair of briefs.
"Let him down!" Lily roared.
"Certainly," said James. The next instant, Snape fell in a crumpled heap to the ground. He scrambled for his wand, but James shouted, "Locomotor Mortis!" and Snape's means of movement instantly failed him.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Lily shouted, drawing her own wand.
"Ah, Evans," James said in a devil-may-care tone, "don't make me hex you."
"Take the curse off him, then."
Sighing loudly, James muttered the countercurse.
"There you go," he said to Snape, "you're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus."
"I don't need help from filthy Mudbloods like her!"
Lily blinked in surprise, and Remus turned his head to regard Snape, shocked by his reaction. Perhaps he was embarrassed that it had been Lily that saved him from James. "Fine," she said. "I won't bother in the future. And I'd wash my pants if I were you, Snivellus."
The crowd roared with laughter. "Apologize to Evans!" James shouted at Snape, wand brought to bear on him once again.
"I don't want you to make him apologize," said Lily. "You're as bad as he is."
"What?!" said James, clearly wounded. "I would NEVER call you a...you- know-what!"
"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you just got off your broomstick, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can--I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me sick." On that note, she hurried away.
"Evans!" James shouted. "Hey, Evans!"
With that, Remus left that crowd behind, back to Gryffindor Tower, hoping for James' sake that he would stop his relentless taunting of Snape.
Remus made his next journey out of the castle proper alone.
He had made his way to the third-floor corridor, which thankfully was empty, and walked to the end, where a stone statue of a one-eyed witch with a hump waited. Remus tapped it with his wand and murmured, "Dissendium," and it moved aside, leaving him room to enter a stone passage. He slid a fairly long way down and hit soft earth. A narrow, low passageway lay in front of him and he walked the considerable length of it quickly and climbed the two-hundred-something stone steps at the end. Careful to remain silent, he opened the trapdoor at the top and crept into the cellar of Honeydukes candy store in the nearby village of Hogsmeade.
After sneaking out of Honeydukes, Remus found himself on the very long main road that led into, through, and out of Hogsmeade. Since he looked a little bit older than he was, Remus could pass for a villager, and he did his best to blend in as he made his way up the road to his destination: a lonely cemetery, about an eighth of a mile past the edge of town, set in the little valley between two shallow hills.
Remus walked quickly through the wrought-iron gates that marked the entrance, and almost mechanically made his way through the rows of nearly identical tombstones, as he knew precisely where the grave he was looking for was, having visited it so many times over the past few years. When he reached it, he stopped and turned, still almost mechanically, and bent down to it.
The gravestone read:
John Lupin
1931-1968
Between honour and life, he chose honour.
Beneath that, someone had magically scrawled: what a fucking idiot!
With tears in his eyes, Remus bent down and muttered, "Evanesca," so that the writing disappeared from the face of the tombstone. Still, the outrage that had filled him when he first saw the words still smoldered inside of him. He took deep breaths to cool down his fury, and began to pay his father his respects.
Remus' father had not had an easy life, and it did not come to an easy end. Remus' grandparents had been penniless Dutch wizards who crossed the sea to Britain to be with relatives when his father was six. Remus' father had remembered very little about that turbulent time, but he knew quite vividly that, for his parents at least, England proved to be by no means an easier place to get by than Holland. Until his father turned eight, they were in a perpetual state of near-starvation, and poverty. It was then that a young Auror named Albus Dumbledore met these people, and helped the Lupin family for the first, and far from the last time.
From that point forward, John Lupin hero-worshipped Dumbledore. He went on to attend Hogwarts, and made an effort to earn entry to all Dumbledore's Transfiguration classes. Later, citing Dumbledore as his inspiration, he studied to become an Auror, an undertaking that took up his life until 1956, when a power-hungry man named Voldemort was on the rise. It was that year that John met Jessica, a woman who had become a vehement supporter of Voldemort's pure-blood claim to power, on an assignment with four other Aurors to infiltrate the organization and learn whether they were doing anything illegal. When two of the Aurors on the assignment were killed, the Ministry declared Voldemort's organization a threat, and Voldemort showed his true colors. He organized his more faithful followers into a new organization, the Death Eaters, ordered the rest killed, and began his reign of terror.
Shocked, Jessica withdrew from the organization and went into hiding. It was John's assignment to escort her to a wizard settlement in Scotland where she would be safe. On that journey, they fell in love, and at the end of the year, they married.
In 1960, Remus Lupin was born. John was very proud of Remus' very high intelligence, but would not live to see his son get bitten by or werewolf, or attend Hogwarts. For the first eight years of Remus' life, they were inseparable. John was Remus' best friend, confidant, and Quidditch buddy.
A few days after Remus' eighth birthday, a few days prior to Christmas, a couple of old nemeses from Voldemort's regime ran into John on a train bound for London. They had the train stopped at a little village and escorted John to a seedy bar. They took him out back and, wands aside, beat him within an inch of his life. They then left him to die, first telling him--quite truthfully--that they planned to kill his family, raping his wife first. Desperate for a solution, John used the Explosive Curse, which killed the two Death Eaters instantly, and mortally wounded him. John died alone a few minutes later.
When news reached Remus, he was so distraught that he withdrew for weeks, refusing to speak except to give monosyllabic answers to his mother's questions. One fateful night, he went for a walk in the woods to be alone, and ran into a seemingly insane wolf. He escaped with a minor bite, which neither he nor his mother understood was serious until the next full moon...
And here he was.
He reflected on this as he made his way back to Hogwarts and to the top of Gryffindor tower. He spent his customary time around the fire with James and Sirius, (Peter was in Hufflepuff house) but he was preoccupied, and they were bound to notice. When they asked him about it, he said he was merely very tired and went up to his room, where he descended into fitful sleep.
One
Sorrows
The transformation was complete.
The wolf's mind had no trace of any emotion in its endeavors. It was driven by hunger, not by hatred, and it was this hunger that compelled it to throw itself, single-mindedly, at its two companions in the dark room. The human mind tried to temper it, but it only showed a tiny vestige of its former self in its efforts to calm the beast that was brewing inside the werewolf's head.
Its companions were a black dog and a white stag, both considerably larger than the werewolf, but each driven not by the animal need for killing that the werewolf expressed, but only preservation of both themselves and the wolf. They settled into their resting positions opposite the room from the wolf, watching warily, until the werewolf attacked.
Its teeth were bared, dripping the saliva that held countless nightmares for the others in the room. The werewolf leapt, first at the stag, then, after it missed the stag entirely, at the dog. The dog, commanded by human craftiness, dropped onto its belly. The leaping wolf passed over, but it slashed underneath the bulk of its mass with its claws. The claws, not nearly as dangerous as its teeth, connected and left glistening marks in the dog's fur. The cut sent a small spray of crimson over the space surrounding the animal.
The wolf landed on all four paws and the other two beasts turned to regard it. The wolf snarled and batted with its paws, but it refrained from attacking, perhaps its claws stayed by the human lurking inside the creature.
The two minds inside the creature were uniquely bonded, each communicating with the other in a way beyond understanding, the impulses from the wolf understood by the human, and vice versa. The human mind gave voice to the thoughts inside the werewolf's mind. Currently, it fought against the killer's instincts to keep the wolf's myriad weapons at bay. The wolf noticed the rat running across the floor, but abandoned it for the larger prey.
I have to stay, he tried in vain to tell the wolf's body. These are my friends. I cannot hurt them. If I bite them, I condemn them to the horrors that have been my life for the past nine years.
Meat, was all the wolf mind had to communicate to the muscles in the wolf's body to attack again.
The werewolf launched at the white stag, slashing with its claws again, drawing a ruby streak through the white hairs on the stag. Perhaps by reflex, the stag kicked at the wolf, knocking it through the air. The werewolf tumbled into the corner and was silent.
Just sit, the man inside the wolf thought desperately. Sit here, and don't get up until sunrise.
Meat, the wolf insisted, not by any language, but its meaning clear just the same. Cold, it also tried to tell him.
It is damn cold in here, the man thought and commanded the wolf's body to curl into a ball for warmth.
The dog and the stag kept a silent watch over the curled wolf over the next few hours. It seemed to fall asleep.
At what they both estimated to be almost dawn, the werewolf sprang to its feet. Snarling, it edged towards them, the dread saliva dripping onto the floor and wetting the peeling floorboards. Don't hurt them! the man tried to tell the wolf, but it was too late. The wolf launched its body at the dog, nearly connecting with its teeth, and its claws dug into the skin. It slashed repeatedly at the dog until the stag kicked it to the floor. The wolf arose and edged maliciously toward the stag, until the dog bashed it from behind with its paw. The werewolf collapsed into a heap on the floor.
Dawn soon broke, and the werewolf began to change. Soon it was not a wolf, but a 15-year-old boy laying on the floor.
Remus J. Lupin sat up, rubbed his eyes, and prepared to resume his life as a human being. Not by any means a normal human being--a fifth year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, one near the top of his class.
The standardized test in Defense Against the Dark Arts was later that day and Remus walked outside of Hogwarts with the stag, the dog, and the rat--except that they had now also resumed their human forms. They were his best friends--the stag, James Potter; the dog, Sirius Black; the rat, Peter Pettigrew. Each month, they helped him make his transformations into werewolf form underneath the full moon bearable. He owed them everything for that.
"Did you like question ten, Remus?" Sirius asked as they walked onto the lawns.
"Loved it," he answered. "'Give five signs that identify the werewolf.' Excellent question."
"D'you think you managed to get all the signs?" asked James.
"Think I did," Remus answered, dead serious. "One: He's sitting on my chair. Two: He's wearing my clothes. Three: His name's Remus Lupin..."
They all laughed together as they found a spot beneath their usual tree and Remus pulled out a book. He lost himself in the stories of famous wizards although he was dimly aware of the others chatting around him and James playing with a little flying Quidditch ball that Remus decided that he must have nicked.
"I'm bored," he heard Sirius say out loud. "Wish it was full moon."
"You might," Remus said, aware that the full moons were more exciting and considerably less painful for the others than they were for him. "We've still got Transfiguration, if you're bored you can test me."
"I don't need to look at that rubbish," said Sirius. "I know it all already."
"This'll liven you up," said James. "Look who it is..."
Sirius's head turned to regard the students around them. "Excellent," he said softly. "Snivellus."
Snape, Remus thought. Severus Snape was a year younger than them, definitely one of the stranger students at Hogwarts, with a rather big nose, as well, and was the target of countless assaults on James' part. Remus wondered why James did some of the things he did to Snape, and certainly didn't approve, but he decided he wasn't going to get involved, lest he put their friendship into a perilous position. What would the full moon be like without James and Sirius?
"All right there, Snivellus?" he heard James say loudly.
Snape immediately dropped his bag and reached for his magic wand, but by the time it was halfway in the air, James had shouted "Expelliarmus!" and Snape's wand was blown several feet across the grass. He dove for the fallen wand, but James shouted "Impedimenta!" and Snape fell face first onto the lawn.
A small crowd had amassed around the little scene which played out. Remus wished that they would all go away, but he knew beyond doubt that this scene would end the way it always did...
"How'd the exam go, Snivelly?" James asked.
"I was watching him," Sirius cut in. "His nose was touching the parchment. There'll be great grease marks all over it, they won't be able to read a word."
The crowd laughed and Snape stared up at James with a look of unbridled hatred."You wait...you wait..."
Sirius taunted him: "Wait for what? What're you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?"
"You lousy shit," said Snape. "You lousy, dirty, goddamn shit!!"
"Wash out your mouth," James said with a sneer. "Scourgify!" The spell caused pink soap bubbles to stream from Snape's mouth, gagging and choking him.
Remus looked up and a group of girls were marching toward this humiliating scene. His heart sank: not only was James' secret crush, Lily, but Remus' girlfriend, Carol, were part of the group. He wished he could melt into the environment.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" screamed Lily upon her emergence onto the scene.
"All right there, Evans?" said James, much more pleasantly than he had been speaking to Snape.
"Leave him alone. What's he done to you?" She was staring at him with intense dislike in her eyes.
"Well, it's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean..."
The surrounding crowd laughed, but Remus studied his book all the more intensely. He prayed to God that Lily and Carol didn't notice him...
"You think you're funny," said Lily in the most disgusted tone she could muster. "But you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone."
"I will if you go out with me, Evans. Go on, go out with me, and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again."
"I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid," said Lily quickly, eliciting laughs from the crowd. Remus chuckled, but he tried to hide that from James.
"Bad luck, James," Sirius said, focusing his attention on Snape. "OY!"
Snape had crawled back to his wand and aimed it at James; the next second there was a flash and a loud bang and a gash formed on James' face, leaking blood onto his robes. Another instant and James had whirled about and directed his wand to lift Snape up by the legs, his robes falling down and revealing thin, pale legs and a gray pair of briefs.
"Let him down!" Lily roared.
"Certainly," said James. The next instant, Snape fell in a crumpled heap to the ground. He scrambled for his wand, but James shouted, "Locomotor Mortis!" and Snape's means of movement instantly failed him.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Lily shouted, drawing her own wand.
"Ah, Evans," James said in a devil-may-care tone, "don't make me hex you."
"Take the curse off him, then."
Sighing loudly, James muttered the countercurse.
"There you go," he said to Snape, "you're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus."
"I don't need help from filthy Mudbloods like her!"
Lily blinked in surprise, and Remus turned his head to regard Snape, shocked by his reaction. Perhaps he was embarrassed that it had been Lily that saved him from James. "Fine," she said. "I won't bother in the future. And I'd wash my pants if I were you, Snivellus."
The crowd roared with laughter. "Apologize to Evans!" James shouted at Snape, wand brought to bear on him once again.
"I don't want you to make him apologize," said Lily. "You're as bad as he is."
"What?!" said James, clearly wounded. "I would NEVER call you a...you- know-what!"
"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you just got off your broomstick, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can--I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me sick." On that note, she hurried away.
"Evans!" James shouted. "Hey, Evans!"
With that, Remus left that crowd behind, back to Gryffindor Tower, hoping for James' sake that he would stop his relentless taunting of Snape.
Remus made his next journey out of the castle proper alone.
He had made his way to the third-floor corridor, which thankfully was empty, and walked to the end, where a stone statue of a one-eyed witch with a hump waited. Remus tapped it with his wand and murmured, "Dissendium," and it moved aside, leaving him room to enter a stone passage. He slid a fairly long way down and hit soft earth. A narrow, low passageway lay in front of him and he walked the considerable length of it quickly and climbed the two-hundred-something stone steps at the end. Careful to remain silent, he opened the trapdoor at the top and crept into the cellar of Honeydukes candy store in the nearby village of Hogsmeade.
After sneaking out of Honeydukes, Remus found himself on the very long main road that led into, through, and out of Hogsmeade. Since he looked a little bit older than he was, Remus could pass for a villager, and he did his best to blend in as he made his way up the road to his destination: a lonely cemetery, about an eighth of a mile past the edge of town, set in the little valley between two shallow hills.
Remus walked quickly through the wrought-iron gates that marked the entrance, and almost mechanically made his way through the rows of nearly identical tombstones, as he knew precisely where the grave he was looking for was, having visited it so many times over the past few years. When he reached it, he stopped and turned, still almost mechanically, and bent down to it.
The gravestone read:
John Lupin
1931-1968
Between honour and life, he chose honour.
Beneath that, someone had magically scrawled: what a fucking idiot!
With tears in his eyes, Remus bent down and muttered, "Evanesca," so that the writing disappeared from the face of the tombstone. Still, the outrage that had filled him when he first saw the words still smoldered inside of him. He took deep breaths to cool down his fury, and began to pay his father his respects.
Remus' father had not had an easy life, and it did not come to an easy end. Remus' grandparents had been penniless Dutch wizards who crossed the sea to Britain to be with relatives when his father was six. Remus' father had remembered very little about that turbulent time, but he knew quite vividly that, for his parents at least, England proved to be by no means an easier place to get by than Holland. Until his father turned eight, they were in a perpetual state of near-starvation, and poverty. It was then that a young Auror named Albus Dumbledore met these people, and helped the Lupin family for the first, and far from the last time.
From that point forward, John Lupin hero-worshipped Dumbledore. He went on to attend Hogwarts, and made an effort to earn entry to all Dumbledore's Transfiguration classes. Later, citing Dumbledore as his inspiration, he studied to become an Auror, an undertaking that took up his life until 1956, when a power-hungry man named Voldemort was on the rise. It was that year that John met Jessica, a woman who had become a vehement supporter of Voldemort's pure-blood claim to power, on an assignment with four other Aurors to infiltrate the organization and learn whether they were doing anything illegal. When two of the Aurors on the assignment were killed, the Ministry declared Voldemort's organization a threat, and Voldemort showed his true colors. He organized his more faithful followers into a new organization, the Death Eaters, ordered the rest killed, and began his reign of terror.
Shocked, Jessica withdrew from the organization and went into hiding. It was John's assignment to escort her to a wizard settlement in Scotland where she would be safe. On that journey, they fell in love, and at the end of the year, they married.
In 1960, Remus Lupin was born. John was very proud of Remus' very high intelligence, but would not live to see his son get bitten by or werewolf, or attend Hogwarts. For the first eight years of Remus' life, they were inseparable. John was Remus' best friend, confidant, and Quidditch buddy.
A few days after Remus' eighth birthday, a few days prior to Christmas, a couple of old nemeses from Voldemort's regime ran into John on a train bound for London. They had the train stopped at a little village and escorted John to a seedy bar. They took him out back and, wands aside, beat him within an inch of his life. They then left him to die, first telling him--quite truthfully--that they planned to kill his family, raping his wife first. Desperate for a solution, John used the Explosive Curse, which killed the two Death Eaters instantly, and mortally wounded him. John died alone a few minutes later.
When news reached Remus, he was so distraught that he withdrew for weeks, refusing to speak except to give monosyllabic answers to his mother's questions. One fateful night, he went for a walk in the woods to be alone, and ran into a seemingly insane wolf. He escaped with a minor bite, which neither he nor his mother understood was serious until the next full moon...
And here he was.
He reflected on this as he made his way back to Hogwarts and to the top of Gryffindor tower. He spent his customary time around the fire with James and Sirius, (Peter was in Hufflepuff house) but he was preoccupied, and they were bound to notice. When they asked him about it, he said he was merely very tired and went up to his room, where he descended into fitful sleep.