Title: A Changing of Worlds

Summary: Little is known about Remus Lupin's past. He's a quiet, passive man...almost seems as if he is hiding something, eh? This is a look back. A world we haven't seen before, and a night Remus will never forget.

I don't own anything but the plot...and the sister. A big thanks to the real Riley for letting me use her so recklessly!

Also: So...who do you think the half blood prince is? My vote will always be for my lovely little Remmy...besides...I have to give him something to ask for forgivness after this fic...

Nope...I didn't die...I'm back. And in full force, I should hope. Enjoy!

A Changing of Worlds

The sun rose slowly on a crisp, oddly cool, July day. It lit the water of the Thames, sparkling on the surface, and then slowly crept along the streets and roads and lanes of London and the surrounding towns. As light slunk along the asphalt of a somber Muggle street, illuminating the dew, and making the bushes seem as though fairies danced in their depths, it finally met with the windows of a white house with green shutters.

Little did the Muggles in this neighborhood know, but this house was home to the street's only wizard occupants. A small family; a mother and a father with their two children, one daughter and one son. They were happy to stay to themselves; to assure their friends that they didn't notice the odd assortment of owls showing up around their house when asked during Neighborhood Watch meetings. The son was the first to stir on this particular morning, a restless seven year old who didn't let a good day go to waste. Though the sun through his open window stung at his eyes, he sprang from his bed and dressed quickly.

"Riley!" The young male voice called impatiently down the hall toward another bedroom. Riley rolled over, thoroughly annoyed and wondering--again--why her parents wanted to have another child, when they already had her. Yet there was nothing she could do about it now and, much to her dismay, little Remus was actually growing on her. She leapt up just in time, catching Remus around the waist and carrying him, screaming in only the way a little boy can shriek and giggle without shame, into the kitchen.

"No horse play!" Mrs. Lupin pulled Remus from Riley's clutches with a smile across her friendly, if slightly wrinkled, face. She set out a breakfast, pots and pans still on the stove, showing unmistakably that she had created the breakfast in a Muggle fashion. She refused her husband's offers of just 'whipping things up the magical way.' She always shook her head when he insisted, telling him that although she may have married into a wizarding family, she still clung to her Muggle roots.

When the dishes had been cleared and Mrs. Lupin was washing them--with soap, water and her own two hands--a tall, broad shouldered man with thick brown hair and bright smiling eyes came running into the room. "Is everyone ready?" Both Riley and Remus smiled and cheered, exclaiming that they were, that they had been for the past three weeks, and they wanted to get on with it already.

Remus and Riley were laden with bags, covered in motherly kisses, and filled to the brim with breakfast and juice, before they finally made it out their front door. "They'll be fine! We'll all be fine. Yes, we have money. Yes, we have flashlights…though I imagine we won't be using them much. Bugger, Lorene, sometimes you are such a Muggle!" Mr. Lupin was trying desperately to get away from the house, smiling widely at his wife's worries, giving her kisses and hugging her to reassure her that, for the love of Merlin, she would see them all again in two day's time.

And finally they were off, making their way quickly down the side walk, toward another street. Rather, Remus was making his way quickly, Riley was yelling at him to slow down, and their father was panting and laughing, running after the two of them to keep up.

Into a house, greeted by another family, grown-ups armed with wands, children carrying toy brooms. To the fire place, white powder thrown into the flames, ash, whipping, twisting, shoulders hurting, coughing, tumbling out into a dimly lit room with a dusty old book in the center. Piling in shoulder to shoulder, a tug at their navels, screaming happily, being pulled across time and space itself, and finally appearing in front of two tired, oddly dressed wizards.

"Lupin, McCloud, Taylor. From Ravenswood. Everyone here?" And the adults were all a twitter with news of growth-spurts, and powers, and other things adults twitter about their children to other adults. The children were left in an excited huddle, some not realizing where they were, and others explaining pompously what exactly a World Cup was.

"C'mon guys," Mr. Lupin pulled at the back of his children's collars playfully, dragging them along through the mass of people who continued to materialize with portkeys. They camped with another family, supporting England (of course), a family that had British flags flapping aggressively from dozens of poles and wires about the campsite. Remus drank it all in, having never been to a place where so many people were like him…a wizard.

Darkness came much too quickly, blue and silver lights danced within the forest just beyond their campsite, and Remus was sullen as he realized that bedtime was soon to come. The light of a brilliant full moon sparkled in his eyes and he sniffed at it moodily. Gives it no right to be so pretty, he thought, if it meant he'd have to go to bed. He collected his blanket and stuffed elephant into the cozy, flag-covered tent and awaited his sister to come through the flap. When Riley did not follow, an auburn-haired Remus stuck his head out curiously.

"There you are, you ragamuffin!" Riley shouted and grabbed him about the waist as she did every morning, carrying him kicking and giggling into the throngs of wizards making their way into the thick, dark forest.

"Where are we going?" Remus gave a tremendous twist, tumbling out of Riley's grasp and falling into a spastic step beside her. His sister ruffled his hair as he looked up at her with wide, golden eyes.

"We're going to see the World Cup, silly. What'd you think we were doing here? Loony Remmy," Riley giggled, wrapping one arm around his skinny shoulders. She looked up to take her father's hand, which she had let go of to rush back and capture her little brother in their tent. When she peered around now, however, she realized that her father's brown head had been lost in the sea of rushing witches and wizards.

Riley's dark eyes widened fearfully and she refused to step into the forest without the aid of her father. She had to grasp Remus's hand smartly to keep him--running on youth and boyish adrenaline--from rushing in without her. Her heart was beating in her throat as the last of crowd dispersed along the two paths through the woods, none of them being anyone she recognized. She'd never been anywhere without her mother or father before, and the thought of delving into the thick unknown without either of them seemed unfathomable.

Remus was wriggling impatiently. "Why're we standing here, then? Blast, Riles! My first World Cup and I'm gonna miss it b'cause of you!" Riley glowered at him with a look that could have rivaled her mother when she was angry; Remus cowered and stopped wrenching at her arm.

Riley turned his words over in her head until there wasn't anyone left on this side of the woods and the sound of the crowd was dying out behind her. I'm ten years old, she told her self doggedly; blast if I can't make it through some blasted woods on my own. Besides…I dun wanna miss the game either! With a huff, she tightened her grip on Remus' hand--much to the boy's loudly voiced dismay--and plunged into the flickering darkness.

It was then that Riley and Remus both realized just how dark darkness can be. Sure, they had both experienced darkness, as every child does. When you grow too old to use a night light and you lie in your room with the door closed, the thick air around you seems the darkest dark could ever be. Or if you walked into a closet and the light bulb wasn't working, or your father didn't have his wand on him…that was quite dark also. Any number of things could claim themselves to be the darkest of dark in the mind of a child…but no child should experience quite the kind of darkness that descended upon the young Lupins now.

The air was heavy and murky, lush as if the greenery around them were encasing their entire beings. Though the moon was full and bright in the cloudless sky it gave little radiance through the thatched roof of branches above them. The lanterns that had been set to light of the way of the excited crowd had since extinguished and the glow their memory left in Remus's mind did little to settle his thumping heart. This was an unearthly kind of darkness, a darkness that whispered into your ear that you should fear every rustle of every leaf; every chirping of every midnight bird. And the two had listened intently, realizing that perhaps gaining a bit of independence right at that moment may not have been the greatest idea.

"Riley…"

"Hush!" She didn't want to wake it…though what "it" was, she wasn't quite sure. Something in her heart told her that they must be quiet, and who was she to argue with herself? So she pulled Remus's lithe body closer to her own and hurried on into the darkness, colliding with a tree only once until she found something that felt like a trail under her rushing feet.

"Did you hear something, Riley?" Remus murmured after a while into his sister's ear. She was holding him so tightly that his feet were barely touching the ground as they raced along through the invisible thrush. Everything around them had been utter silence for the past few minutes--that is to say except for the bout of shrieks that they had gotten into when a thorn bush caught Remus by the pajama bottoms. A few more moments of nervous laughter had followed that, but there had been nothing since then. Now, however, Remus was sure he could hear a rustling, which was saying something since their breathing was already so loud.

"No." Riley lied flatly. She'd heard it. Of course she had. That bit of rustling was the reason why her foot steps had quickened so ferociously. She reckoned Remus wouldn't have been able to keep up if she weren't clutching him to her chest, just because she was running on pure panic. Her logic, however, was overpowering her fright. A small voice in the back of her head whispered that it couldn't possibly be as sinister as she feared, and she was surprised when Remus put words to her thoughts.

"Maybe it was Dad…" Remus's voice was soft and as he spoke he twisted out of Riley's grasp and stopped running, standing as if he was unwilling to start up again. "He must be out looking for us. If we keep running maybe we'll never find him." And with that, Remus looked up at the almost fully obscured full moon, turned on the heel of his torn trainers, and began to stalk in the other direction.

Riley stood in shock for only a moment before she was running hastily after him. "I swear, Remus. You're such a child! Can't you be patient at any moment in your life? We were fine, we would have found our way out and then we could have found Dad together. There's no use in you trudging off on your own!" Eventually she realized that she was talking to herself, and when she did realize this, her voice got that high-pitched treble used by worried mothers and by sisters who have just lost their brothers in the darkness of a mysterious forest.

"Remus? Remus! Remus James Lupin you come back here right now!" Riley ran with her hands outstretched, scrabbling against tree after tree as they blocked her in her plight to find her brother. A voice that she had come to hate from the back of her head mumbled, You can't hear him, can you? You'd think you'd be able to hear his footsteps, right? But it's just silence beyond your breathing…

"Shut up!" Her true voice cut the darkness and brought with it a startled reply from a nearby owl. Its golden eyes shown like two identical moons merely feet above her head. She shivered, muttered an apology and rocketed on. The owl took flight a few moments after the girl had left it, flapping frantically against the interweaving branches, trying desperately to get away from something that had just woken up on the forest floor.

It was then that she heard a noise that sent tremors down her spine. There was a growl. An unearthly growl that fit into the unearthly darkness of the forest. The sound seemed to resonate all around her from every direction. It was a sound that grown men heard in times of yore just before they realized death would be a happy alternative to what was about to leap out at them from the underbrush. It was a sound that her father tried to imitated (poorly, she now realized) when he told them scary stories before they went to bed at night. It was a sound that no child should ever have to hear when they are alone in the desolate wood.

"Remus…?" She questioned the darkness cautiously. To her horror the growl increased; she stumbled backwards into a tree, her legs failing, and slid down the rough bark until coming to a rest on the splintery ground. Hot tears made trails down her cheeks and she called again, more desperately now, "Remus?!"

There was silence.

Nothing but a fearsome silence for a few painful minutes until it was shattered by a scream.

"Rileee-!" And the scream was cut off abruptly.

Pushed by a kind of wild need to defend the littlest member of her family, Riley Lupin pushed off on the tree with a force that sent her falling flat into the underbrush. She righted herself, coughing up leaves and dirt, thrusting on through the darkness with a wheezing moan, shouting incoherently that she was coming to help. Perhaps she still would have come if she had known what was going to be there to greet her…but, then again, perhaps she wouldn't have.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Remus Lupin hadn't meant to get away from his sister so quickly. He really hadn't meant to leave her behind at all. He'd wanted to annoy her, surely. That was always his goal as the pesky little brother, and he was proud to fill it on most occasions. Finding his father was also a top priority at the moment. This, however, was turning out to be nothing like what he had bargained for.

Riley's voice had traveled through the brush toward him, but it had sounded so far away that he couldn't tell which direction it was coming from. He had called back, but when her voice had become frantic he was sure that she hadn't heard him. The trees are too thick, he told himself as he pushed on in the direction where he assumed he had left his sister on the trail, the sound gets lost in the dark. They were probably only a few yards apart now. Not even that. If he could just reach through…this thicket…he could grab at her hair and give her a right fit. And then she would know he was safe and everything would be alright again.

One thin hand snaked through the undergrowth; five thin fingers traced a lock of long, soft hair, Hah! I was right, she's right beyond the trees…—he was just a boy, after all. Who was he to notice that the hair was rather closer to the ground than his sister's head would have been?—and he grabbed at it, giving a hearty wrench before bursting into giggles. He pushed back the thicket to see his reward, but what met him made his blood run cold.

There were two shining, silver eyes. If he were in a better mind he might have said that they were red with blood-lust, but such metaphors get lost when a growling wolf is focusing said eyes on your throat. Oh, yes…the growl. It started deep in the animal's chest, traveling all the way up through quite large, rather sharp teeth, past the shining eyes and into Remus's very body, making him quiver with fear.

In a tremor of almost-confidence he gulped a single word: "Gotcha?"

The wolf stopped advancing, as if it was processing this simple phrase in its normally food-obsessed mind. The grey haired head tilted to one side and the eyes blinked, momentarily loosing their alarmingly fiery gaze. For a moment Remus broke into a jovial smile, every fiber in his being expecting the wolf to begin to chortle at his good little trick.

Suddenly, though, the wolf lunged, the fire in his eyes renewed, aiming perilously for Remus's throat, leaving Remus only enough time to shout one word before all became blackness.

"Rileee-!"

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Riley didn't even realize what she had stumbled over until she felt the warm fluid that covered her hand up to her elbow. She crawled up off of the saturated earth, willing her eyes to get used to the darkness. There was a figure at her feet, and if she would allow herself to see it fully she would have said that it was mangled. The hot tears began to flow again, running down off of her chin and wetting the front of her torn shirt.

Falling to her knees, she pulled one bloody arm away from the slack face. She ran a hand toward the chest, whimpering happily as she realized it was still heaving with ragged breaths. The white throat was intact, but covered with blood that had flowed from the arm which seemed to be in tatters.

And she began to laugh. Her entire body shook with heaving sobs and laughter. She took up the head and shoulders, wet with sweat, and clutched them to her own body, his blood merging with her tears.

And she began to scream. And her screams attracted the attention of a party of wizards lit by luminous wands. The only thing that the men could hear her say over her sobs was the young boy's nickname, whimpered over and over into the unearthly darkness of the forest…

"Remmy…My Remmy…Loony Remmy…Loony Remmy…Loony, Loony Remmy…Loony Lupin…Loony, Loopy Lupin…

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"…Loony, Loopy Lupin! Loony, Loopy Lupin! Loo--!"

A pillow was flung up from the moonlit bed and caught the poltergeist full in the face, cutting off his song mid-note. Peeves blew a wet raspberry at the bed's sole occupant and zoomed cackling out through the open window and across the grounds.

Remus turned over, crawling off of the bed to retrieve his pillow, his bare feet freezing on the cold stone floor. He tossed the pillow over his shoulder and heard the dull thump as it hit the cold stone wall and slid down onto the bed. Shoulders sagging, he wandered toward the mirror and wash bin on the other side of the room, wiping cold sweat from his forehead.

Golden eyes looked up into the reflective glass, and Remus was almost surprised to see a middle aged man staring back at him. What did you except? Said a hoarse inner voice, You're not seven years old anymore, Remus.

A thin hand did its customary trail down toward the end of the sleeve on his left hand, lifting it up to the elbow to let his eyes see the familiar lines of white scars across his forearm. One long finger traced them for the hundredth time as he remembered his sister's face when he had woken up a week later. He remembered the story his father had told him of searching for the two of them the entire night. At the time he'd felt terrible for causing everyone to miss the game.

Later on, when someone was able to explain to him what had happened without rushing out of the room in tears, he felt nothing but sheer boyish excitement.

For about five minutes.

That was because he was sharing a room with a fellow lycanthrope at the time…and when the Healers had wheeled the man's bed away when the time of the full moon neared, Remus began to realize the severity of the situation. He'd cried when they told his sister that she would have to leave him for the next three nights. And he'd screamed when he felt the pain in his back and his chest and his…his…his entire body. Everything was red with pain and then it was nothing but the moon and the heat and the hunger that couldn't be satiated.

And it had never gotten any easier. Not even when he was in human form, because then children's parents looked at him guardedly. Remus had lost every friend he'd had, even the ones that found it beyond cool that he turned into an animal at the full moon. Every wizard family that lost a pet to a scavenging forest-dwelling animal came knocking at their door to complain to his parents. Even the neighborhood Muggles, though they couldn't possibly understand, began to cast a wary eye toward their family when his dad took him on monthly trips to the country.

Even when he came to Hogwarts. Even when Sirius and James took him under their mischievous apprenticeship. Even when they were all together in forms that allowed safety and fun for all involved. Nothing got any bloody easier.

There was always just the moon. Just the moon and the animal inside.

And he'd never gone to a World Cup again in his life.

Remus washed his face in the icy water of the basin, running it over his hair to cool his muddled nerves. He glanced out of the open window toward the waxing moon that cast a ghostly glow on the Hogwarts grounds. Grinning wanly he closed the window with a snap, no use in allowing Peeves to ruin the rest of his sleepless night. And with that he crawled back into bed, watching the moon make its journey across the bluish-black sky.