Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by the author, J.K. Rowling. I gain nothing from the writing of this fanfiction, other than a deep sense of self-satisfaction.

Pairing: RemusxOC, RemusxSirius, Sirius... Mrs. Norris!

Rating: M. I'mnot wasting time withwarnings, because this is an R (M, whatever) and you should know what you're getting into when you decide to venture into slash-land. I will warn you about how graphic the slash will become when I actually write it, just to give a little heads up so that you don't end up getting caught in the missing scene of that dicovery channel special about the mating habits of wolves.

A/N: Okay, this is my first attempt at slash, but I'm hoping it won't end up being a bad one. I'm pretty sure I'll get all the body parts right. Hey, all I've got to remember is 3 minus1 equals2(dirty joke... never you mind that). I hope you like it as much as I enjoy writing it! I'm still fiddling with the plot, so nothing is stone-solid. Sorry if I don't update; I'm lazy. The events of the sixth book really come into play later on (next chapter), just so you know that I'm trying to be at least a little bit canon about this. With that said and done, enjoy!

Dear Moony,

I'm sorry that I can't come and see you this summer, I'm really busy with homework, new spells and books, you know, the usual.

(If you are unable to find the humor in that, then please escort yourself to the nearest hospital immediately)

Sorry, I couldn't resist myself. Everybody misses you and Prongs says for me to remind you to do your potions homework. Wormtail didn't say anything worth mentioning, or anything that sounded relatively human, so enough about those two.

How have you been?

Stuff here's been… hectic, to say the least.

It's like I'm a fly stuck in a bowl of salsa, it's so hot, and I want to leave, but I can't because it tastes so good with tortilla chips.

(If that made any sense, please floo yourself to St. Mango's immediately. Instantly. RIGHT NOW!)

Please write back, we're all waiting to hear from you, and if you don't, I'll be mad at you when we get back to Hogwarts.

Sincerely,
Padfoot

Remus chuckled lightly before folding the paper, putting pressure on the creases gently, lowering it back into the old, wooden chest a few inches away. It was another useless artifact of the past, another letter that had passed from Sirius to Remus through owl and had never been answered by the young werewolf. One of the things that he had been famous for during his youth, other then his surprisingly weak will power against Sirius and James, was his ability to procrastinate longer, and more effectively, then any other person in Hogwarts.

It was a title that followed him through his entire life, whether that was a bad or good thing he was still trying to decide.

" Never leave that till tomorrow that which you can do today." Remus recalled the quote from a book he'd read on Abraham Lincoln once, a famous American icon, though just a very tall, stern man to Britain. As Remus quietly whispered the words, he felt a bit of sadness well up in his throat.

He tried desperately to cough it out, but to no avail.

' Well enough.' He thought to himself after closing the chest and flicking his wand to snap the lock shut. ' It was bound to happen sooner or later, anyway.'

Remus sat himself down on the wrinkled and soiled bed that was in the middle of the room. It was a small room, and only fit a dresser, a queen sized bed and the chest that he had just been inspecting, but it was comfortable enough.

He positioned his long, pianist fingers on the place where the forehead meets the hairline, expectantly pushing across his scalp, wanting to feel the light rush of his long, graying hair against his hand. But as his fingertips were greeted with only a rough, scratchy surface, he felt another wave of disappointment run through him.

' I keep forgetting that it's all gone now.' Remus thought, images of the muggle electric shaver in one hand and a dirty, cracked mirror in the other came to him briefly before fading away again. Why exactly he had done it was still a mystery. He was quite drunk—or was it high? —at the time, making everything a blur.

The only reason that he could think of at the moment, in the midst of sorrow and what could have been a hangover, was to try another futile attempt to erase the feeling of his touch on his body.

' But which one's?' Remus thought bitterly to himself as he brushed away a few forming tears that threatened to fall from his red and irritated eyes. This wasn't the time to get emotional, not when David was supposed to be at the apartment at any minute and by that time Remus was expected to be gone.

Remus gave an audible sigh before standing up a bit shakily and walked over to where his coat lay suspended by the corner of his faded brown dresser. He glanced quickly over to the door that led to the bathroom, not willing to walk over to it and turn the doorknob, knowing that he would probably be confronted by the catastrophe of what used to be his full head of hair.

' David is going to be pissed when he sees that mess.' Shivers went up the length of his spine and back down again before he pushed the fear that was beginning to mount inside him down and began the walk through the bedroom, across the living room and out the front door.

Remus—after walking down the concrete steps and past the next-door neighbor who was about six cats away from being evicted—spent the next half hour speed walking the tedious two and a half miles of sidewalk and pavement to his graveyard shift at the local 7 Eleven.

The pay was not very high, and the cashier was shot at an average of three times a week, but it meant that he could disappear at night without being questioned by David: including on the night of the full moon.

Once he got inside the building, hearing the familiar 'ding' caused by the bell that hovered over the automatic door like a vulture hovered over an army fleet of half decayed animal corpses, he proceeded to walk through the opening aisle that led to the smaller ones and over to the store's bathroom across the building.

The current cashier, who adorned a badge dubbing him 'Earnest', looked up from behind his book and mountains of pimples long enough to ask a drawling, " Where'ya goin', Lupin?"

" Gotta take a leak." Remus muttered as he strode past his co-worker. Earnest gave a grunt in reply before hiding behind his book once again.

Remus reached the door labeled by a stick figure man with a few bumps for the people who could read brail. With a hesitant hand, he reached forward and turned the knob, popping himself in quickly and slamming the door shut behind him. He released his tense knuckles from the bronze orb and made his way to the mirror lying idly on the wall in front of him.

The reflection in the mirror had much to be desired. Shallow cheekbones led down to a thin neck that was doing its best to support a rounded, though long, head. Amber eyes had long since been quenched of the fire that once burned in them. The golden flecks were still visible, giving the eyes a certain accent that seemed to draw attention away from the rest of the body.

One long, thin finger trailed its way over to the edge of his shirt collar from underneath his heavy jacket. The tip of the finger brushed against the skin hidden by the shirt as Remus flinched visibly. He softly pushed down the edge of the collar, bracing himself for what would probably be there.

Pale flesh was marred by the imperfection of a large, discolored bruise that made its appearance from under the black t-shirt.

' God… I didn't know he had hit that hard.' Remus thought with a groan as his hand reached up impulsively to his head. He frowned once he realized what he had unintentionally begun to do and patted the gray fuzz of what remained of his hair in regret.

With a few quick movements and the flick of his wrist, the large, tattered brown coat was cast aside and left to lie on the cold tile. Remus heaved a heavy sigh before shakily reaching down to the brim of his shirt and toying with the cloth there in a attempt to stall his mind from it's current objective.

' One… Two… Three!' In one fluid movement, Remus managed to let go of his shirt, grab his coat, put it on and swing open the bathroom door with just enough time left for a worried hand to travel towards his head only to fall back down in disappointment.

With a deep breath and a shudder, he walked slowly over to the counter, looking over at Earnest with slight interest.

" So… What are you reading today?" He asked as the younger male's attention shifted from the book to Remus for a few brief moments, taking in the new hair-do and pasty complexion with a nonchalant grimace.

' You're procrastinating again—'

" A book."

' It's not that hard, how do you expect—'

" What book?"

' To solve your problems if you can't even—'

" 'Night of the Full Moon'."

' Confront them. Wait, who said there was a—'

" 'Full Moon'? Wolves?"

' Problem? It's not a problem, it's a—'

" Werewolves to be exact. I've always been into the super-natural freaky stuff that goes on around us without us noticing. Who knows who could be a vampire, or a wizard, or even a werewolf."

' Habit. My God, he's talking about werewolves.'

" Sounds like you're just paranoid."

' Muggles.'

" Seriously, take you for example. I've never seen you work during the full moon, you have an uncanny ability to fix things that are broken with minimal effort and, to top it all off, you have a taste for blood."

' But that's not the point, the point is—'

" 'A taste for blood'?"

' That it shouldn't be so hard to look at your own—'

" Yes, I can see it in your eyes. You have that kind of bloodlust that is only common in vampires and those suffering from psychosis."

' Flaws. Every time you manage to screw up—'

" You've got to be kidding me. Are you suggesting that anyone, anywhere could be a character from an old horror film?"

' You get what you deserve. It's that simple—'

" No, I'm just saying that it's always a possibility. For example, in this book the main character is a werewolf who can live among humans simply by acting like one."

' Acting like one?'

" Are you suggesting that just because this character is a werewolf, he isn't human anymore?"

' That little—'

" Why? Does that bother you?" Earnest elongated the 'bother' and took delight in seeing Remus's eye give the slightest of twitches.

' But that's not the point—'

" Of course, sounds like a witty statement about racism rather then a poor quality science fiction book."

' The point is—'

" Of course." Earnest said with a grin, eagerly jumping over the counter and landing with a 'thop' on the other side. Flashing a quick smile over in Remus's direction, Earnest began walking towards the automatic doors and the open night air now that his shift was finally over.

" You know," He paused right before exiting the double doors to look at Remus. " The full moon is three days away."

' That you—'

Remus returned the gaze, then turned away, only looking back in the young man's direction once he was able to see Earnest walking through the doors and out towards temporary freedom from the confining building. Only then did he dare respond in a quiet tone, " I know."

' Can never replace him.'

After eight strenuous hours of slurpee junkies, porn addicts and people who had nothing better to do at three a.m., work was finally over, which meant both the relief of knowing that he had made it through another night at his job without getting shot and the fear of going home and facing what was certain to be waiting for him there.

' Out of the freezer and into the frying pan… Or was it out of the frying pan and into the fire? Out of the plastic and into the microwave, out of the bread drawer and into the toaster… Way to forget your euphemisms…' Remus almost chuckled aloud at his inner dialect, but stopped himself as the decrepit house came into view.

It seemed too easy to procrastinate when he was farther away from the towering building, but the problem was starring down at him with 4 rectangular eyes, following each and every step forward he took like a predator stalks its prey.

" Fuck." He let the curse word fly numbly from his parted lips as he shook his head vigorously to try and stop the fear from caving in on him.

' God, god, god, god, god, god, god, god…' That word punctuated each footstep in Remus's mind, at this point not caring if it was blasphemous or not having long since given up on the hope of there being a divine anything.

' If they have a heaven, they wouldn't let a demon in.'

His fingers trembled against the cold doorknob as he turned it. The quiet creak of the rusty hinges was the only sound in the room as Remus let himself in and closed the door behind him.

" Listen, I can explain—"

" What the hell was that bloody stunt?"

" I was really drunk, and I didn't know what I was doing and—"

" So you smashed the bloody bathroom in!"

" I—" Remus paused mid sentence, " What?"

The room seemed to come into focus again after Remus heard that last sentence. The fear ebbed away, rapidly being replaced with the comfortable knowledge that he didn't know what he did wrong; therefore, he couldn't be completely blamed for it. It also meant a few more minutes of extra time.

In front of the relieved and slightly confused werewolf was the mess that accumulated to create the 'living room' of their tiny house on Beckard St. The contents of the room included a old, gaudy couch acquired from a curb one Thursday morning, a wooden table stand complete with large, yellow lamp with painting's of rustic flowers on the bottom, a 25-inch Yamaha color TV resting on top of a black plastic table, a ceiling light and, last but not least, was one very pissed-off boyfriend.

' Ouch!' Remus thought, inhaling sharply as he felt a large hand wrap tightly around his wrist and pull him forward, leading him off into the bedroom and then into the bathroom.

" Holy…" Was all that the werewolf could manage as he saw what was supposedly their bathroom.

Pieces of white ceramic lay scattered across the broken tile, made even more obvious by how 3D they looked against the thin layer of water spread out and still across the floor.

' So that explains the wet carpet…' Remus flinched as he took another look at things in closer detail, taking advantage of his 20/20 vision that was perfectly flawless.

The white sink, which once stood erect, was now standing nearly upside down, tilted at a grotesque ninety degree angle that made one wonder how it even kept from breaking in half. The mirror was, more or less, still intact at the frame while the center of it lay amongst the debris. The toilet was steadily losing all of it's 'life fluids', spewing the chlorinated water all over the floor drop by drop as the bathtub joined in the charade, liquid leaking from the shower head all the way down to the bath tub's bottom before sidling it's way out the side through a large crack running down it's middle, huge chunks missing from their places.

" I mean… for fuck's sake, Lupin! Did you use a fucking sledgehammer or something?" David asked, more then a bit exasperatedly.

' God I… I don't remember anything!' Remus thought as panic began to come back to him, though by now he knew he had nothing to fear since David didn't sound angry, just confused. ' Humans fear what they do not know. Don't let your guard down… And goddammit, don't think of him that way, either! He's not the monster in this room!'

" Oh… Fuck! I… I don't know! Maybe it wasn't me! I mean, seriously, do you really think I could… crack a tub in half while it was still attached to the wall? I… I don't even have any cuts or anything or evidence or… Jesus!" He was stuck and more confused then ever. ' It couldn't have been me… The only way that I could have managed that was if I were a—'

David let go of his vice grip on Remus's wrist when he felt the man give a slight tug against the hold.

" Hold the phone…" Remus whispered as he took a step forward, his brown leather shoes making small splashes in the tiny lake that had formed. He knelt down carefully and placed his index finger along the end wall of the small bathroom where the wallpaper had been torn apart in three horizontal gashes.

' That's impossible…' He thought in utter disbelief. ' The full moon's in three days, I couldn't have done this.' His amber eyes scanned the room again, catching onto something that seemed to peek his interest as he scuttled over to the toilet. David watched the spectacle with a raised eyebrow, not exactly sure what to make of it.

In silent horror, Remus allowed his fingertips to brush over the holes on the base of the toilet. ' A bite mark…'

" What's that?" David asked and Remus shook his head and promptly stood straight up, hearing a satisfied crack from his knees.

" You know," David grinned as he watched his lover walk over to the doorway and stop next to him. " Your new style takes off about ten years from you." Remus couldn't help but smile at the comment. It was partially true—the lack of his normally ragged, graying hair did make him seem younger, but it also seemed to bring out the dull lifelessness that had set into his features as of late.

' So he knows… Thank God he likes it, I thought he wouldn't. I guess it's… okay. It will take awhile to adjust to, though.'

" Thanks." Remus replied happily, smiling as a warm arm found its way around his neck.

" No problem." David said softly as he leaned forward to give Remus a kiss on the cheek. " We'll worry about this mess in the evening. Right now, let's get to bed."

" Don't you have work?" The werewolf asked with concern. They were already so close to being evicted, and David wasn't exactly the VIP of the packaging company.

" Jesus, all you do is worry, don't you? Work can wait, but I don't think I can any longer." Remus allowed himself to smile at those words.

' I love you, too.'

" Fire me, will you! I'll tell you what, I'll fire you, you… bloody ugly buggers!"

" Mr. Cohen!"

The man stopped halfway down the halfway to pause and look back at the elderly woman who dared to confront the enraged janitor.

" Mr. Cohen, what?" He watched in slight delight as the old woman's cheeks puffed up and her lips pouted before she stuck up her nose and turned the other way. He continued his incoherent mumblings and angry shouts all the way down the elevator to the floor of the 'Unspeakables'. When a guard asked for a pass, the man promptly gave him the finger and went staggering by with just enough time for the guard to say a rushed, " Another fine day, eh Mr. Cohen?"

" Stupid Ministry… Stupid Aurora's… They think they can outdo me in magic! I'll show them, I'll show them all! I'm better then ALL of them! … Damned doors! Bloody hell, how am I supposed to know where to go!" The man ranted on as he randomly opened one door, as the others began to spin rapidly around.

He gave the door a good shove, falling through and doing what he would soon describe as, " Damn! I fell on my arse!"

Now, Mr. Cohen was not what some people would either call a 'pompous idiot', a 'stumbling drunk' or a 'potential threat to society'—No! He was just a simple man who made an honest living as janitor for the Ministry of Magic—not the use of the word 'made'.

He no longer makes anything, except for the three… or five… or nine beers he had this morning. Yes, he had managed to successfully pull the tab and drink with minimal effort and no assistance, spurred on only by the knowledge of the inevitable.

He was going to get fired.

" I can go on without all of you! ALL of you! Yes, that even means you, large blunt object!" Mr. Cohen pushed a large blunt object to the ground, smirking malevolently at the loud sound it made as it hit the polished floor. He spun around with such velocity that he nearly fell to the ground again, but he managed to catch himself just in the nick of time. As his head continued to sway around once his body had come to an abrupt halt, Mr. Cohen chanced upon something that he had undoubtedly seen before.

" I remember you… You're the weird thing that swallowed the LAST damn Janitor… She was my cousin, you big, creepy jackass!" Mr. Cohen gave the cloth that was dangling lazily from a larger stone arch a good kick, a strange sensation running up his foot as it went straight through the darkness (nothingness) that swarmed on the other side.

" To hell with this! To hell with you, scary cloth!"

And, without further notice, Mr. Cohen pulled his wand from his blue uniform pocket and, summoning one final gasp of breath, shouted as loud as humanely possible for Mr. Cohen.

" SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTEOUS!"

The next morning, all that Mr. Cohen could remember was a big explosion and how to tie his shoes.


continuons...?