The Songbird and the Serpent
Prologue
Remus Lupin at age 10...
The small boy walked through a dark forest. He glanced fearfully through the shadowy trees surrounding him as he made his way towards a small patch of light that never seemed to get any closer. It was twilight on a particularly hot summer evening, but he wasn't sure how he knew it, since he could feel neither heat nor cold in this place.
The trees in the oddly colourless forest appeared to sneer at him as he walked past, their claw-like branches reaching out towards him. He couldn't remember how he had ended up here. Was he lost?
At long last, he came to a small clearing, lit as if by a spotlight. The sinister-looking trees surrounded him, like some kind of bloodthirsty audience waiting for some entertaining spectacle. He wanted to keep walking, to get home as quickly as possible, but his limbs no longer seemed to be taking orders from his brain.
He stood, watched and waited, glued to the spot, until a deep guttural growling behind him made him shudder. His feet unstuck, he started to run, but moved so slowly that he didn't see how he could possibly outrun the source of the low rumbling growl.
Still moving in seeming slow motion, he turned his head to look at the creature, but before he could see clearly what followed him, he was bowled over onto the ground. Something heavy, with large clawed feet that dug into his flesh, stood on his shoulders as he lay face down on the forest floor.
The growling continued as the creature sniffed him, ruffling his hair with gusts of rancid breath. He could feel a trickle of drool on the back of his neck, and then blinding pain in his right shoulder.
The colourless forest disappeared, replaced by red. Nothing but red, and the pain ebbing away to be replaced by a pleasant floating sensation. He heard footsteps, then frantic shouting, and then nothing.
Remus woke with a start, flailing wildly to release himself from the bedclothes, which had somehow wound around him. He fell out of his bed with a loud thump and lay still on his back, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember who he was, what he was doing, and other such important things that he couldn't seem to recall. His right shoulder was throbbing, and he was covered in a cold sweat and very much out of breath. He heard movement in the room next to him.
As he began to regain a sense of self, his bedroom door flew open and his mother rushed in. She held her wand out in front of her, the tip dimly illuminated so she wouldn't have to put the lights on. She kneeled beside her son, feeling his forehead with her free hand.
"You're burning up. What happened? Was it nightmares again?" Said Mrs. Lupin, her voice full of motherly concern. She lifted Remus off of the floor and placed him back in his bed. He was ten years old, but so small and thin for his age that it was no trouble at all for his mother to lift him. He nodded weakly, his eyes still a little glazed. His mother sighed and sat on the bed next to him, placing a hand lovingly on his shoulder.
"It's all right darling...I do wish I could make it all go away, but I can't. You'll grow out of them eventually, I promise. Now, try to get some sleep..." She continued with a weary smile. She then stood and bid her son goodnight, returning to her own bedroom.
It seemed like no matter how often he had these dreams, he still felt just as shaken afterwards. He would give anything not to have to live through the memory of the attack almost every night of his life; it was bad enough having to live with the physical consequences without the addition of horrible nightmares.
The creature that had bitten Remus at age four was a werewolf, and now he was doomed to share its fate every full moon. Not only did this mean an extremely painful transformation, the loss of his human mind, and the inability to be around those he loved for a few days every month, but it also meant that he would likely never get to go to school, and never be fully accepted in wizard society.
When he thought about the future, about how he would ever manage to make a living, it seemed utterly hopeless. His parents were hardly wealthy; they wouldn't be able to look after him forever. He couldn't help but wish that the beast had just finished him off then and there.
Remus did not fall back asleep that night, but instead lay awake contemplating these things, as he did most nights, and at first light he clambered out of bed and made his way downstairs. His parents were still asleep, but soon his father would be waking up and getting ready for work. Mr. Lupin worked as a sales representative for a local company, earning a modest wage. He was a muggle, and a very tall, thin man with fair hair. Family friends had always said how much Remus looked like him.
Sure enough, before Remus had finished making toast his father trudged down the stairs with a yawn, wearing a worn out old dressing gown and crossing the room to the kitchen window to retrieve the paper from the owl that had just arrived there.
"Morning Remus...you feeling all right? Your mother said you had a bit of trouble again last night..." Said Mr. Lupin as he sat at the kitchen table and set the paper down on the table top, his eyes on his son and full of weary concern.
"I'm fine...used to it by now." Said Remus, picking at a piece of toast that he'd liberally smothered in honey. His father grinned at him, made himself a cup of tea and picked up the paper, glancing over the headlines on the front.
"Hmm... Nothing interesting going on. Seems like forever since we had a good scandal in the papers...something worthwhile to read in the morning." Said Mr. Lupin absently as he sipped his tea. Remus's mother made her way down the stairs, fully dressed and pulling on her apron as she made a beeline for the stove. She was a tall and well-built woman with dark auburn hair, and Remus couldn't help but notice the immense pride in his father's eyes every time he looked at her.
Mr. Thaddeus Lupin had known nothing of the wizarding world before he had met the statuesque Wynne Flowerdew. He had spotted in her in the street one day and she, as he put it, "utterly bewitched him"; an interesting choice of words, considering. Everyone had been most impressed at how quickly he'd come to accept the idea of wizards and witches existing in the world, and how quickly he and Wynne fell madly in love with each other.
"Don't you boys want something a bit more than tea and toast?" She asked them both cheerfully, giving her husband a kiss on the cheek. "Bacon? Eggs? Anything?"
"No no, I'm fine with tea, love...I'm running late anyway..." Said Mr. Lupin as he stood from the table and tossed the paper aside. "Got to go get dressed for work and be off." He continued and trudged back up the stairs. Mrs. Lupin frowned, and turned to Remus.
"Well, what about you darling? You really ought to eat something more than that..." She said, and Remus had to admit that looking at him, you couldn't deny that a full breakfast would do him good.
"No thanks mum...not very hungry." Said Remus, finishing his honey-laden toast. His mother sighed, putting her hands on her hips, looking around the room for something to do to keep her busy. She was the type of person that was only happy when she was busy, and although their house was poor, it was marvellously well kept because of her. They certainly had the nicest garden Remus had ever seen, although granted, he hadn't seen all that many.
Remus didn't get out of the house much, what with many of the wizard residents of their small village being aware of his lycanthropy. They didn't feel safe with him walking around. He always thought it odd that they were so afraid of a skinny little boy like him, but the fact was that very few people really understood his affliction, and all seemed to think he could attack them at any moment, or make them all werewolves just by breathing on them. No matter how often his parents explained that this just wasn't the case, people remained adamant that they didn't want him near them or their families.
So Remus remained indoors most days, helping out his mother. In her spare time she would lend him an old wand and teach him some of the simpler household spells. His parents didn't hold much hope that Remus would ever be accepted at school, so they did what they could to teach him enough to get by.
"That blasted Headmaster Dippet...I just don't understand why he's so against it! Surely there are ways to work around it all..." Said Mrs. Lupin one Saturday morning. It was a lovely summer's day in late July, Remus's eleventh birthday was less than a month away, and the subject of conversation at breakfast had turned to that of schooling once again. In the last year his parents had been sending endless letters to the Headmaster of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in an effort to persuade him to take on their son, but each reply came back negative. I can't risk the danger to the other students, he would say, and Remus could certainly understand the man's position, as much as it angered him. They had received their last reply from Dippet a few months ago, and since then it seemed that their letters were being ignored.
Mrs. Lupin was on a tirade about the whole situation while Remus sat and looked out of the window, and Mr. Lupin read the morning paper. "It's just rude, not to bother replying like this...he should be ashamed...that school needs a change in command if you ask me..."
"Well good news then...looks like they've had one." Said Mr. Lupin with a grin, and Remus saw his mother's eyes grow wide, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
"Are you sure, dear?"
"Oh yes, says right here..." He said as he pointed to the column he was reading. "Armando Dippet has resigned as Headmaster of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, appointing the now ex-transfiguration professor, Albus Dumbledore, as Headmaster in his place. When asked to comment on the reason for his resignation, Dippet said simply 'I've had enough'..." Read Mr. Lupin, and Remus saw a grin finally break out across his mother's face.
"Dumbledore! How marvellous...certainly an improvement...we'll have to write to him at once, of course..." Said an overly-excited Mrs. Lupin as she rummaged around for a quill and some parchment in a desk along the wall. Remus saw his father look up at his mother, his face set in a strangely serious expression.
"Now, don't get your hopes up too much, Wynne. Just because there's a new Head, that doesn't mean he's going to be any more supportive...for one thing, you've still got the school Governors to think about..." He said, but as he looked back over his paper, Remus caught the tiniest flash of a grin on his father's face. He couldn't help but smile, too.
Remus was woken by the sound of various locks being unlocked, and the heavily reinforced door creaking open. His mother came through into the small room, carrying a tray laden with food, which she set carefully on a small makeshift table consisting of a large solid slab of wood. She was beaming at him.
"Happy Birthday, Remus..." She said softly, kneeling down to help him sit up in the ripped-up old mattress that served as his bed during full moons. The room was an old bomb shelter under the house, which they had altered to suit Remus's needs. They didn't put much furniture in the place, since it would inevitably get smashed, and so the room contained only the makeshift table and the ruined mattress, and a few blankets that were hardly recognisable as such anymore, having been ripped to shreds. "Just your luck to have it fall right after the full moon this year..." She added with a grin.
Remus smiled weakly, and his mother helped him drink a simple potion to clear his head and help heal the wounds he always managed to inflict on himself each month, biting and scratching at himself for lack of anything else to bite and scratch. As soon as his head cleared a little, he began to hungrily consume everything on the tray. His mother watched him, still smiling, but there was a definite hint of worry in her eyes.
"Feeling well enough to come upstairs, darling?" She asked, and Remus nodded, feeling far from 'well' but so used to being tired and ill that he hardly noticed it anymore. His mother helped him up and into a dressing gown, and supported him up the stairs and towards the kitchen. She sat him down at the table there, taking a seat next to him.
"Your father had to go to work, but he wanted me to give you this now instead of waiting for him..." She said as she handed him a small envelope addressed to him in green ink. The seal on the back told him it was from Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and with a grin he tore it open and read:
Dear Mr. Remus Lupin,
I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Although the new school year does not officially begin until the 1st of September, due to your special circumstances we would like to ask that you arrive a day or two earlywe have a few things to sort out in order to make your stay with us possible, as I'm sure you understand.
Included with this letter is a list of all the things you will need for your first year here at Hogwart's, and we look forward to meeting you in person at the end of August.
Sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress
