Part Two

I did not answer. I didn't need to. I saw it in their eyes that they knew, just as they saw in mine the truth. My ears caught the faint sharp intake of breath as Peter realized the full extent of this. But nervous as he was, not even he was afraid. I could smell no fear on them. My eyes caught no hesitation in their movements. That left only one other emotion for them. They were angry. Angry that they had associated with a mutt like me.

I turned from them and opened my trunk. I apologized hurriedly, saying that if they told no one I would leave quietly. I ran to collect my things, throwing them toward my trunk, not checking to see if they made it in.

My frantic movements were stopped by Sirius who caught my wrist in a strong grip. I kept my gaze to the ground, submissive to the beta member of the pack. But I could not stop the pathetic whimper that escaped my lips. I was acting like such a weak pup then, but I could not stop it. Memories upon memories of burning homes, hateful children, kicking adults… it all came back to me in that small touch. And it disgusted me.

But then I felt a small, timid hand on my shoulder. Peter, my nose told me. But why? He, who was so nervous around the school bullies, willingly touching a creature who could rip him limb from limb without the help of a full moon? But then, why should he be afraid when he has his two powerful packmates to protect him?

I heard the confident footsteps of James drawing near and I braced myself for whatever he had planned. He knew hexes like nobody's business and I had seen him attack a Slytherin for no reason more than glaring at him. What would he do to this dark creature that befouled his pack?

He did nothing to me. Nothing save sit on the bed next to me and lift my chin so I wasn't staring at the ground. There was no anger in his eyes, nor in Peter's. But Sirius' still held a trace of it. His uncle had just been in the news recently for turning in a family of wolves who were caught outdoors during a full moon. He was calling for their execution. At the time Sirius had ranted and raved at the unfairness of it. But what would he say now that he had a wolf of his own at his mercy?

"Why didn't you tell us, mate?" He asked with indignation. "We're your friends!"

That was why he was angry? Before I could reply, Peter's small voice piped in. "We were really worried about you, Rem. We thought you were in some kind of trouble or something. Or you were sick and weren't getting better."

"You're afraid of us," continued James sadly. "We're best friends and you are afraid of us, like we'd hurt you or something. And we are friends, right mate?"

"Are we?" I asked softly, amazed at their reactions thus far, but still braced for anything.

"How could you even question that?" asked Sirius, no longer angry. He removed his hand from my wrist, noting how it only frightened me more. "Don't be daft, Remus. How could you think so little of us that we'd hate you just cause you get a little shaggy sometimes? My mum is a hell of a lot worse than that during her time of the month. You're hardly something to make a fuss about."

For a moment I could not respond. My mouth formed the words, but my brain forgot how to make them come out. They… didn't hate me? They weren't afraid? But how could that be? How could they so casually accept something like me? Finally I had to ask them.

"How long have you known?" James' eyes twinkled behind his glasses.

"Long enough to find a solution. It was Peter, actually, that tipped us off."

Of all the people that would figure me out, the last person I would think of was Peter. But, perhaps I should have seen it coming. The boy may be tragic in most of his classes, but in Care of Magical Creatures, he was a fountain of knowledge. A guru of all things that walked on four legs… or sometimes six. It was he who first brought it to the others' attention that I just happened to show the same symptoms as a wolf. James and Sirius just picked it up from there.

Their solution, it turned out, was risky and dangerous. In the end, they would not even accomplish this until early 5th Year. But Sirius had rationalized it as a whole extra 1,555,200 seconds that we had to bring laughter and joy into the hearts of our fellow students before graduation. James had translated our packmate's rambling to mean that Sirius wanted the chance to run with a werewolf and create much mischief in the process. I, being the voice of reason of the pack, warned them of such an attempt for a solution. Unable to dissuade them, my only demand was that they remember that I was not a fuzzy pet to be laughed at. I was a wolf and should be approached as the danger I was.

Third Year passed as one of the greatest of my life. I no longer had to hide anything from my pack who accepted me in all my neurotic, and 'shaggy,' quirkiness. For the first time, I was able to have fun with the powers my wolf self gave me. Sirius, being the 'growing boy' that he was, used my sensitive nose to determine what would be for dinner every evening. I have yet to be wrong. James tried to implement my gifts into our new pranks, making them nearly failsafe. There are few who can hear or see so well as a wolf.

Peter had a new 'lab rat' with which to get extra credit points in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures. I believe for his 7th Year thesis, Peter wrote his essay about me. Sirius claims it to be perfectly scientific, but as he was grinning at the time, it makes me concerned.

As 3rd Year was filled with laughter, 4th Year passed into sorrow and tears. It started in the summer before I began the new term. Wolf's Haven had their meetings like always, and I was able to attend. Marie and her mate were happy for me when they heard of my latest year at Hogwarts, and the close-knit pack that we had formed. The rest of the large pack at the Haven received me with open arms as their only wizarding werewolf. One wolf in particular.

His name was Derrick Ferren and he was as scruffy as they come. A wolf with no outside pack of his own, he had joined Wolf's Haven hoping for a mate. But he was obviously Omega material and he soon fell down the ranks faster than I did, which was rather fast indeed. There was a shady look in his eye, one that I didn't like. Marie warned me to stay away from him, that he was bad news.

I needed no warnings from her; there was something about him that told me to stay as far away as I could. But even as I kept my distance, he managed to find way after way of getting close to me. Apparently he had been asking about me. Trying to get information on me. But he was not the only one getting information.

Marie's mate, the alpha's younger brother by the name of Etienne, did some snooping of his own. What he turned up made my whole world drop beneath me. Derrick had been an unfortunate homeless Muggle that begged his way too close to a werewolf safehouse on a full moon. Bitten, Derrick might have died from his wounds if he hadn't been rescued by a nearby witch and treated at St. Mungo's. There he had to get a crash course on the magical world and all that lay in it. This included his new role in society as more of an outcast than he already was.

Unable to cope with the overload of information, his wolf side convinced him to flee. He ended up outside on a full moon, and therefore tracked down a meal. That was almost ten years ago. His last known position had been eight kilometers from my house.

Tests later proved it. That wretched wolf was my father. My wolf one, that is. I inherited all my wolf traits from him as he inherited from the she-wolf that bit him. And now he was back. Back to find the little lost pup he remembered creating so long ago.

By the laws of wizards, he would be put to death for being so brazenly stupid and for both tasting human flesh and turning that flesh into one of its own. By the wolf laws, pups treated their Makers as though they were their parents. He had come to Wolf's Haven for sanctuary and a wolf would not turn in one of its own to the Ministry no matter how scruffy or stupid it was.

He did not want me before, when I was just a nameless kid he had bitten and then lost. I could not learn from him as many of the others had done to their Makers or parents. Instead of owning up to the little lost pup, he fled for his life from the Ministry and it was only luck that he hadn't been caught. But now, years later, he was back. He knew me the moment he saw me, he told me. He knew that I was the one he sired. And now he wanted to take care of me. Not legally of course. I was still under the guardianship of my parents and that wouldn't change. But he wanted to see me more often and 'teach me everything there was to being a wolf.'

As if I didn't know what being a wolf was nearly a decade after the fact. No, what he really wanted was the right to shout to the others that he had sired the very first wizarding werewolf. It would promote him to status near my own if I allowed it of him. He was after only my abilities and did not try to hide the fact very well.

For all the forgiveness that my pack of Marauders accused me of, I had none for this rogue mutt. He disappointed me so much. I had never given too much thought to my Maker. Marie and Etienne Laspron were all the wolf parents I needed. But I had always imagined a poor tortured soul who couldn't help what he had done to me. A wolf who would have come back to me if he could. Someone who felt terrible about hurting a little boy but couldn't find me or couldn't remember exactly. I had thought up dozens of reasons why my sire had disappeared, and none of them came close to the craven wolf I saw before me.

Etienne eventually drove him away from me when my constant refusals didn't make it through his skull. But Derrick kept his offer open as he ran with his proverbial tail between his legs. I never wanted to see him again.

School began for me on a sour note after that. I told the rest of my pack what happened. James and Sirius wanted to hex the mutt for me. Peter told me to stay away from him, that a rogue wolf after power could never mean a good thing. For a month or so, things went back to normal and they made me forget about my sire.

Then the attack came.

My parents were always fierce defenders of the Ministry. A rising new radical wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort was gaining power all across Great Britain, promoting the purebred wizard and renouncing those of mixed blood or Muggle lineage. As he grew in power, so did he in ruthlessness. More and more families were becoming affected by him in one way or another. My own family wasn't a very rich family like James' or Sirius', but we got by. Influential enough to catch the eye of the Dark Lord. He tried to recruit my father, then my mother. Learning of my existence, he tried for me the hardest. A young impressionable werewolf; how could he refuse the temptation?

The answers to his attempts were all the same. He was not happy with this.

It was just after Christmas break began and classes ended that I was called into the Headmaster's office. I had originally planned to go home for the holidays, but the full moon occurred during that time, and I felt safer in a place where I knew nothing wrong could happen. This decision saved my life.

Nothing was left of the house, nor of its possessions or of its occupants. It took days before the Dark Mark faded.

It had been years since I let the wolf rage like it did. For a good few hours I was as feral and as dangerous as my alter-ego, or so I was told. I remember very little of my time spent in Dumbledore's office. The last thing I remember being coherent for was being told that I could not attend the funerals for my own safety.

I was so frightened, more frightened than I ever remember being. An orphaned werewolf is as helpless as a newborn pup. I had just enough money to get myself through school. No one in their right mind would take in a wolf pup. Marie and her mate couldn't possibly take me in. And what if my sire found out…? He would come after me with twice the force than before.

In the end, it was Dumbledore again who saved me. He placed me in his protection. As he was a very busy man who couldn't take the time to play nursemaid to a pup, he instead paid all my expenses so I could stay with the Pettigrews until I was able to get a place of my own. But until the Dark Lord stopped hunting me, I was a virtual prisoner within the castle. No Hogsmeade visits for a year, special surveillance… My only respite from my fear and anger was, as always, inside my hoard of books.

I wasn't the only student who lost family. There were so many of us, Dumbledore didn't know what to do with us. As such, we weren't all given the individual attention we needed. So we had to find our own ways to cope with it. My coping method was to bury myself with schoolwork and books.

Sirius' coping mechanism, as it turned out, was to cause mischief. Our pack of four was very tight-knit, as I had previously mentioned. When one of us hurt, the entire pack felt it as their own. And of me most especially, my pack was very protective. Therefore, I should have foreseen something coming in response to my loss.

When our exploits failed to cheer me, my pack didn't know what to do. Peter left me alone for the most part, to heal in my own time. James tried to distract me. Sirius, ever the watchful one, knew this didn't help. He grew antsy, impatient, and angry. Small things set him off where before he would laugh it away. Perhaps it was this agitation that made him do what he did.

A fellow classmate, one that had fought with my pack for years, became suspicious of me. He followed me around, jotted down things I said or did that may give him a clue. It was a common rumor that this boy was, or soon would become, an initiated Death Eater. But rumors or not, I found his intrusion unwelcome.

The others tried to get him away from me. Picked fights to distract him from learning the truth. As I said, very protective of me. But still he persisted.

On a full moon of that Spring, the wolf was agitated all night. Wolves think differently than humans. Werewolves are no exception. I do not think in a linear series of events. I know scents, sights, touches, tastes. And on that moon, I had prey within my grasp, yet it escaped. Two in fact. One my subconscious was hesitant to attack, but prey was prey. I remember raging all night, biting and scratching myself more than usual. I wanted, needed, warm blood and flesh. If I could not take it from my prey, I would create my own source.

I hurt so badly the next morning. I hadn't hurt myself this badly since I first attended school. I knew something unusual had happened, but I didn't know what.

Entering the medical wing with Madam Pomfrey it all clicked into place. The scents of my prey hit my sensitive human nose as I looked at the scratched and bruised forms of my alpha packmate at our adversary on opposite sides of the room. The wolf that was still so close to the surface recognized its stolen prey and nearly took over my body and attacked. Fortunately for James and the Slytherin, I was human and in enough control to not rip them apart.

I don't know how long I knelt in the doorway in tears. All I knew was that I understood fully why so many wolves took their own lives rather than live with themselves. I felt like a dirty animal. A monster that should be put down rather than be allowed to live. I had attacked a human being so I did not expect to live long anyway.

Both James and Madam Pomfrey tried to calm me down, but I was too frightened and wouldn't let them within ten meters of me. One might say I felt like a panicked father upon learning his mate is with child. Having just met my sire, a fool of a stray, I was now faced with pups of my own. My whole world was crashing down before my eyes and it was all my doing.

The poor nurse must have given up on trying to calm me, because the Headmaster was eventually called down. At this point, I was nearing hysterics, lashing out at whatever came too close to me and having trouble remembering the language of man.

Dumbledore had to have spent some time among a society of werewolves or he wouldn't have known what to do. He approached me swiftly before I could attempt to escape again and smacked me lightly on the forehead. The 'Enough!' he commanded in a bark-like tone coupled with his actions were enough to impress his dominance to me. It was instinct for wolves to behave in such a matter. Therefore, it was instinct that was my life-line. What sanity remained pulled me together to respond in the proper manner, calming me almost immediately to logical thinking.

I tried to explain to him what had happened and how sorry I was. He hushed me with another smack on the forehead and guided me over to my distraught prey. Once I was close enough to take in their scents, I was assured that while I beat them quite soundly, they were no pups of mine.

This eventually led to the nest question: how exactly was it that I had the opportunity to attack them? I began and ended my night in the Shrieking Shack, so it must have been they who came to me. But why? Even James, who knew what he was facing, couldn't have been stupid enough to approach a full-grown werewolf. After I had rested for a few hours and my wounds healed, they allowed me to learn the answer.

It was Sirius, actually, who told me. The others had elected him to tell me by himself. He admitted everything to me; that it was he who told the Slytherin how to find me without telling him what kind of state I would be in. Then he told how James had learned of this and went to stop the Slytherin when Sirius would not. The rest I knew and did not care to hear again.

Impossible blue eyes could not hold my gaze for the first time. But even as he was sorry for me and James' injuries, there was still a spark of satisfaction in the Slytherin's pain and terror.

With the horror ever rising in me, it did not take much provocation for the wolf to rise to the surface again. This time I could not hold back my temper. And for the first time in my life I knowingly attacked a human in my human form. He never knew what hit him.

He looked so weak to me at that moment. I could have snapped his neck before he even realized I had moved. As such, I would not kill a pack mate. On this the wolf and human agreed. But I would show him his place. I couldn't rely on others to protect me. I had to protect myself. If he just saw me as an animal, then an animal I would be.

Sirius didn't fight back as I shoved him to the ground. I wasn't a pet I shouted to him. I wasn't a weapon! How dare he abuse my trust in him! I could have killed last night! I could have pupped! Did he not care if the Ministry put me to sleep? I was not a tame puppy and now he finally saw for the first time, even after seeing me in my wolf form many times, just what he had been playing with all along.

Damn human, I cursed him. Did he not understand in the slightest what I was? I think in that one instant, when his eyes locked with mine, that he did understand. He saw that I was no human, that this disguise I wore every day but on the full moon was only that, a disguise. Stupid human, I raged. What kind of a Black are you that you don't kill me outright? Aren't I a Dark Creature that you read about late at night to frighten you? Doesn't your family destroy beings like me? I had never attacked his family like this before, he had always done it himself, but there was no stopping me when I was in this kind of rage.

One drop of blood, I told him. One drop of sweat or spit or blood of mine was all it would take. And he would be the same animal he saw me as. Did he not realize the danger he was in and the trouble I went through to minimize that danger? Did he not realize that I could kill him now before he took his next breath?

I think I may have started crying again. I wasn't sure. All I know was that some time after I threatened to bite him, he left me alone. It took me a while to come to terms with what had happened, and I was alone for most of it. Not because the others alienated me. Quite the opposite. It was Sirius who my pack made an outcast. But I needed some time away from the human world. My pack could not help me. Any moment, I expected the Ministry to burst through the doors, demanding the dangerous beast who nearly tasted young human flesh.

Through some miracle, this did not happen. It was Dumbledore, for the third time, who saved me. The Slytherin was ordered not to tell a soul about me, and the rest of it was swept under the rug. I had a clean slate. No harm. No foul. Slowly and cautiously, I reintroduced myself to the world of humans alive and nearly whole.

For a time, I hated Sirius as I have hated no one. I hated him for using me like a weapon and an animal. For the intense trust I had had in him. For his inability to think things through to the end. For the execution I'd just escaped. And for the fear that shone in his eyes as I attacked him.

But as I hated him, I hated myself worse of all. It was not his fault that I was an animal. And I knew that if I continued to push him away, eventually he would stop trying to make it up to me. Did I want to alienate one of the only people who did not shudder at my touch? I had said horrible things, attacked my own pack mate. And I didn't even have the excuse that I was not in my right mind. It wasn't as though I could be picky about who my friends were. Not everyone would accept a wolf into their pack, let alone try over and over to be friends with it. Hadn't he suffered enough with his shame? He was sorry and I finally took his apology.

Things slowly went back to normal. The only difference being that when the summer came around, I went home with Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew.

It was strange at first. Wolves do not take change very well. We get into a pattern and like to remain in that pattern. New scents, new people, new surroundings… it put me on edge. It helped that I had met Peter's parents before, but not enough. They thought that my jittery and somewhat irritable behavior was a result from the grief of my parents' loss. In truth, the jittery behavior was because of my new surroundings, nothing else.

As horrible as it may sound, the grief did not last as long as it otherwise might. My sense of the bonds formed by a pack are strong. But as my parents had always rejected my other half, treating it like a shameful disease, they never appealed to it. They did not try to form a pack with me, didn't try to understand it. And once school started in my 11th year, I saw very little of them. I loved them, mourned their loss deeply, but I would not let it destroy me. I moved on.

6th Year passed in the flurry that the previous year didn't have the decency to do. I got into all the N.E.W.T. classes I wanted, so I was always hard at work. But both the wolf and the human saw the futile actions of this. I saw the insanity in even trying.

What could I possible use these N.E.W.T.'s for? My career advising meeting consisted of myself and Professor McGonagall trying futilely to pretend I had a future beyond school. We both knew all my hard classes and aced exams and late study hours would mean nothing to those who needed human employees. Even the management of Wolf's Haven were humans. What good was being the first wizarding werewolf if I couldn't do anything more than any other wolf once I left school?

But Dumbledore gave me his word that my studies were not for nothing. He convinced me to keep studying late hours, acing the exams, and taking advanced classes. I did not object very much as my studies kept me sane and focused when my pack could not.

Meanwhile, the war was becoming more and more desperate. More Aurors and hit-wizards were taking casualties than Death Eaters. The Ministry had been infiltrated, and the only things that kept the Death Eaters from taking total control were the hard law enforcers who would rather Kedavara a suspect than risk letting a Death Eater pass by free. Many innocents were imprisoned or killed during this, forgive the allusion, 'witch hunt.' But because of the hysteria lying just beneath the surface among the people, most incidents went by unchallenged. It also helped that if one challenged the only form of government we had left, they ran the high risk of becoming a suspect themselves.

In the Spring of my 6th Year, I received my second most devastating owl post. It was my pack father, Etienne. He was in the hospital now for minor burns only. But my pack mother did not survive her wounds. My poor gentle Marie was gone now. Murdered by Death Eaters. Her and two of her three young pups, all only three years old.

It turned out that I gave the Dark Lord the initial idea when he heard of a young wolf pup that he might corrupt. When I slipped through his fingers, he moved on to something bigger and better. Why have one unwilling pup, when he could recruit a whole wolf army?

Wolf's Haven was infiltrated. No doubt he tried the same tactics with them as with me. Promised them a future where they would be viewed as 1st class citizens who could learn magic and do everything humans could. A clever lie that appealed to wolves desperate enough to gain status that they would betray the pack. Most of these deserters were of the lower class; the Omegas and loners. Strays with no other home or means to take care of themselves. Like my sire. Those who would not join, like my Marie, were destroyed.

End Part 2

A/N: one guys, I'm writing this stuff out for you while I should be reading up on my Chinese. And I know that more than 5 of you are reading this. So please just take 2 minutes out of your day to write me a review. And that goes for my other stories too. Even if you don't like it, how am I suppose to fix my mistakes if you don't bloody tell me what's on your mind?! Ok, ranting done. J