Authors Note: Yay! People seemed to like my prologue, so I have renewed will to update quickly. Thanks a million to all who reviewed, and since someone asked, the narrator is Dumbledore. This fic is going to be broken into four parts (all included as chapters) which will each be in a bunch of chapters, with an interlude from Dumbledore's POV in between each book. It'll make more sense when I have more chapters up.

Disclaimer: All the characters are Rowling's, except for the ones that aren't. Everything that is copyrighted is hers and her publishers and Warner Bros. Now that that's out of the way, on with the story.

Once, They Were Friends

Book One: Moony

Chapter One: Change

Romulus was older by five minutes, and much larger than his brother. Remus was always small, with a tendency towards frequent illness, though no more severe than garden variety childhood things. The boys, living in a small house near a forest, tended to be more or less isolated from other children. There was a playground in the town nearby, but the boys seemed happy staying in and around their home.

Early on, Rom tended to look after his brother, making sure he didn't fall, watching him carefully. He had that instinct to protect. Remus was more "studious." Rom was the first to walk on his own; Remus was the first to talk. Rom learned how to ride a bicycle at the age of four; Remus took that time to learn to read on his own. And they helped each other.

One would never have known it by observing this home, but both parents came from magically backgrounds. Emily was a Sqib. Julius was a wizard, but had not kept up his education, and avoided the magical community. They lived as Muggles, and they got along nicely. It was likely that the boys would get Hogwarts letters when they reached eleven, but that was an issue that would be dealt with when it came. There would be much greater problems to deal with first.

There was a playground in the village near the Lupin's home. It was frequented by the Muggle children who lived there, and though the Lupin family didn't use magic in daily life, their boys might do something accidentally. It was for this reason that Emily only took her children there at dusk, when most of the neighborhood children had gone home. It was easier that way.

One summer night, on the full moon, the boys wanted to stay out later, at this little playground. It was on this fateful night that their lives changed forever. The moon gave enough light that they could stay out even after the late sunset. The five-year-old boys were laughing and playing happily, having no fears of this kind of darkness. Emily smiled, watching them swing and run around. Then she turned sharply to the bushes around the park, her motherly instinct alerting her of some kind of danger.

Before she had time to react, a massive wolf bounded out of the shrubbery. "Boys!" Emily screamed to her children, who had frozen in fright, "Come here now. Run!"

They nodded and ran toward their mother, the wolf following them. Romulus reached his mother, who pulled him close instinctively. Remus, however, had tripped and fallen. Faster than Emily could run, the wolf grabbed hold of her son. It bit his arm violently, shook him. The small child was screaming, as was his brother. Rom was trying to run out to Remus, but his mother held him back. Suddenly, a gunshot came out from the distance. The wolf looked up, and another gunshot made it turn and run back into the woods.

Emily ran over to her injured son. She held him in her arms, tears running down her eyes. The man who had fired the gun was running toward them. "Oh, God," he said, seeing all the blood on the ground. "Wait here, ma'am. I'll get a truck, drive you to the hospital." She didn't look up, but she nodded.

Hours later, she sat by her son's bedside at the local hospital. He was alive, but badly injured, and he looked ill. Romulus waited outside the room, not allowed in. Julius ran in.

"Is he alright?" he asked, breathless.

"For now," Emily said softly. "But, Julius, it wasn't just an ordinary wolf. It was a . . ." She trailed off, her face filled with fresh tears, but she didn't need to finish. Her husband understood. It had been a werewolf that had attacked their son, who would now be a werewolf as well.

"Emily, we have to talk about this." He looked down at their child, who looked peaceful as he slept. "Emily, he's not human anymore."

"He's my baby!" she said, her voice rising.

"He's a werewolf. We have to do something about it." There were tears beginning to form in his eyes, his love for his son trying to prevent him from saying the words.

"I won't let you kill him!" Emily nearly shouted. She lowered her voice quickly so the nurses in the hospital would not hear the disturbance. "I won't let you hurt my baby."

"Em, he's not human any more. We need to report him to the Ministry or something."

"Do you know what they do to werewolves? They kill them, or cut them off from everyone and everything. He is human. They only change on the full moon, right? So one night out of every month he might be dangerous. We can deal with that."

Julius looked at his son, and at his wife. As much as he wanted to believe her, he knew their lives were forever changed, and not at all for the better. But seeing the innocence on the face of the sleeping child, and the tears in his wife's eyes, he knew he could argue no longer. "Fine. We keep him. But this means that both boys are relatively cut off from the outside. We stay together as a family, but no one else finds out. Do you understand?"

She nodded. "As a family," she whispered, tears finally falling from her eyes.

A few days later, young Remus was home, tired and ill but alive. The family knew that they had problems to deal with, but the next full moon would not be for another four weeks, so they had time. Julius set to work strengthening the tool shed in their yard. It was small, but so was Remus, and it was unlikely that the boy would transform into an adult wolf. He reinforced the shed so it would hold at least for a few moons, and he could fix it more when the time came.

Rom was running around the yard while his brother sat in the shade reading a book. They were both so innocent, so oblivious to the life that was ahead of them. Explaining Remus' new problem to both boys was going to be hard. Remus could sense something was wrong and looked at his parents with an expression of worry that was almost alarming to see on such a young face. Romulus had no idea that something may be wrong, but sometimes when he saw the worry on his brother's face, he felt that things were different. Emily and Julius didn't know what to do, so they waited it out.

The full moon approached sooner than anyone would have liked. Remus felt different now, he felt himself changing. The day before the moon, Emily gathered her children together.

"Boys, I have something important to explain to you. Do you what tomorrow night is?"

Rom shook his head no, but Remus said in a quiet voice, "It's the full moon." The expression on his face was painful for the mother to see, a grim resolution that he knew what was happening, even if he didn't entirely understand it, and he was scared.

"That's right, baby. Do you both remember what happened a month ago?" The boys nodded, their normally bright faces somber and serious. "That wolf bit Remus, right?" They nodded again. "That wasn't an ordinary wolf." She paused, not sure how to continue.

Remus looked up into her eyes and asked, "It was a werewolf, wasn't it, Mommy?" She nodded, working hard to suppress tears that were welling up behind her eyes. "Does that mean I'm going to be a werewolf, too?"

"Yes, baby." He looked at her thoughtfully. How, she wondered, could someone so young look so serious.

"Does that mean," he swallowed, and looked as if he was about to cry, "I'm going to die?"

Emily inhaled sharply, shaking her head. "No, baby, of course not. You're going to be just fine. You'll just be different once a month."

"But I read that they kill werewolves. Because werewolves are dangerous, the Ministry of Magic kills them."

"But we won't let them hurt you, baby. Daddy and I will protect you from anything that would hurt you. I promise."

"And I'll take care of you, too," said Rom, putting his arm around his twin. "I won't let anything happen to my little brother!"

"I'm not little!" said Remus, suddenly acting five again. With that, they ran off to play games, reassured that things would be alright. Emily Lupin was left sitting on her kitchen floor, a single tear rolling down her cheek, but she smiled. How lucky she was to be blessed with such caring, sweet boys.

The day of the full moon, Remus was tired and seemed ill. He sat reading in the warm August sun, or played quiet games with his brother. As dusk grew closer, their parents grew ever more worried. Just before the sun set and the moon rose, Julius led Remus into the small shed.

"Are you alright?" he asked his son before locking him in. The young boy nodded, frightened, and the father locked the door to the shed.

That night, neither parent could fall asleep. They sat up, neither able to speak, listening to the howls that came from that shed in their yard. The night seemed like an eternity, both filled with worry about their small son, though about different things. Emily had a mother's ordinary concern for her child's well being, hoping he would be alright after this experience. But she was also filled with a sort of relief, that if they could get through the first full moon, then they would be able to get through anything.

Julius' fears were quite different. Though he did fear for Remus' well being, he also had a deeper fear. He worried that as Remus grew, the wolf would be harder to cage, and if he were to get out, to kill someone, the father worried about what he knew he would have to do. He would have to kill the wolf that was his son, but he didn't think he could do it. He prayed he wouldn't have to.

The next morning at sunrise, Julius carried his sleeping son back into the house. Emily gasped when she saw him. A deep gash ran down his chest, and other smaller scratches and cuts covered his body. A streak of bright red blood marred his otherwise innocent face. Tears filled her eyes, and she hoped Rom wouldn't come down to see this.

Her husband had left the boy on the couch in their living room and gone into the cabinet he usually kept locked. From it he retrieved a small bottle, its cork a little dusty from long years of disuse, but the potion inside was still effective. He dabbed a small amount on Remus' cuts, and they healed instantly. Remus slept the rest of the day, and seemed a little ill for a day or two afterwards, but otherwise was fine.

So full moons continued like that for several years. The boys continued to grow up, and were still sweet, caring children, but their parents felt a shadow that was coming as they grew older. It would be time for them to get an education of some kind, a magical one. They learned other things on their own, but they would need to go to Hogwarts. At least, Rom would, and that was where the problem lay. But that was still years a away, and it was something they would deal with when it came.

A/N: Again, many thanks to those who have reviewed. Please leave more, it makes me ever so happy! More to come as soon as possible, but probably not for at least a week. After that, don't expect things until the end of May, 'cause I'll be really busy for the next few weeks.