Disclaimer - the other Lupins and their neighbors are mine, this little Welsh town does not actually exist, and everything else is JK Rowling's. Bet you didn't know that.

Paragraph breaks indicate a new event; line breaks indicate a new year.

Chapter Two: 1964 through 1970

1964. I know the year because Ambrose helped me reckon it up yesterday while he was drawing me. I also know that I am five, and that I live in Wales and that Wales is part of the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom is part of Europe. Ambrose is my brother. He is fifteen and he is an artist. It is summer because in the other seasons, Ambrose goes to school. The name of the school makes me laugh: Hogwarts. The closest neighbor, Mr Whittaker, has a hog. I asked him if it had warts but he said he didn't think so. I am in the backyard. The moon is behind the fence and it looks very big. I am digging. Ambrose said I could plant some vegetables next to Mum and Dad's. Ambrose is watching me from the kitchen window. I wave to him. I hear a dog howling. It must be Mrs Whittaker's dog, even though I usually can't hear him, because the Whittakers live over the hill. But then a dog jumps over the fence and it is much to big to be Mrs Whittaker's dog. It snarls. Dad told me that when a dog makes that noise, I should back away slowly and not be afraid. So I back away toward the kitchen door, calling to Ambrose with my voice as low as I can make it. But then, the dog jumps at me, and its teeth are in me, and I scream because it hurts worse than anything I have ever felt before. Dad said dogs wouldn't bite me if I backed away and didn't run and wasn't afraid and spoke in a low voice, and I did all those things, but it bit me anyway. The door bangs and Ambrose is on the back porch with his wand. I call, "That's not allowed, Ambrose," because I know he can get thrown out of school if he uses magic in the summer. The dog is crouching over me. Its teeth look yellow in the white moonlight. I can hear it panting. It is licking at the blood from my shoulder. Then it jumps right over me, its claws scratching my ribs, and it bites Ambrose. Ambrose screams as its teeth sink in and I can hear the teeth tearing his skin. Suddenly I know that it's not a dog. I have a picture of what it is in one of my books. It is a wolf. Ambrose shouts words I don't know and three lines of yellow light hit the wolf. It snarls and backs away, then turns and runs. Ambrose runs and takes me in his arms and I can smell that we're both bleeding. Ambrose is crying and so I hug him and tell him that it will be okay.

Neighbors are coming in and out. I watch them from the living-room sofa. My arm and side ache from the wolf's teeth. The visitors keep murmuring things. My dad is talking back to them, saying things like "Yes, they should be all right," and, "Thank you, it'll certainly be an improvement over the food at the hospital, let me tell you," and, "It was dreadful, Remus nearly died, but the doctors say they'll be fine." I think maybe I won't be fine, because Ambrose is really unhappy and I saw him cry again yesterday. Ambrose is upstairs pretending to be asleep, but the neighbors want to see me because I am on the sofa under my mum's yellow afghan, so they know I'm awake. One of them says, "But what's wrong with his eyes? Didn't they used to be blue?" and Dad says, "Yes, they were blue when he was born." I thought my eyes were still blue. When the neighbors leave I ask for a mirror to check. My eyes are green. Green is made of blue and yellow, I tell Dad, because Ambrose showed me how to mix his paints so I know that. Dad covers his face and says "Yes, it is," in a funny sort of voice. Later I hear Mum screaming at Dad. They say my name.

I lie on my bed and shiver. Ambrose comes in. He is limping. I keep shivering. Ambrose lays down next to me and hugs me. He tells me that I was very brave. I don't see why because I don't remember doing anything brave. He says he knows it hurts, but it won't happen again until next month and he says again that I was very brave. I ask why he's been so sad. He says, "Because I can't go back to school any more, and I liked it there, because my teachers let me illustrate my essays." He laughs. I laugh too, but I'm not sure why it's so funny. Then I ask what hurt so bad. Ambrose says it's because we're werewolves now. He says we'll turn into werewolves every full moon. He opens the curtains and shows me the moon over the hill. I can still see it even though the sun is up. The edge of it is touching the hill. Ambrose tells me that when the moon is round that way, it's called a full moon and we'll turn into wolves like the one that bit us last month. "Will we bite people?" I ask. "I don't want to." He kisses my hair and tells me that we'll always be very, very careful never to bite anyone. He also says I can't tell anyone. I tell him I think it's like being a wizard, we can't tell Muggles, except for Muggles like Mum because she's a special one. Ambrose says it's like that, but we can't even tell wizards that we're werewolves because they would be afraid. I can see why they'd be afraid. The wolf that bit me scared me. I tell Ambrose this and he tucks me in and tells me to sleep.

March, 1965. A man is at our kitchen table talking to Ambrose. Some of Ambrose's drawings and paintings are on the table. I stop in the doorway. The man looks at me. "Is this your model?" he asks, pointing to me then to one of the drawings. "Yes, it's my little brother," says Ambrose, then tells me to come on in. I come and sit in my chair. The man is big and has a beard. He talks a lot. He says that Ambrose is a child prodigy and I ask what that means. Ambrose tells me to hush, he'll tell me later. "You're really only sixteen?" the man asks, shaking his head. Ambrose says yes. The man says he'll represent Ambrose to dealers. He takes some of the pictures in his case when he leaves. Ambrose explains that the man is an agent, and is going to talk to people about selling his pictures. Ambrose has been painting a lot since he doesn't go to school any more. I tell him I don't want him to sell his paintings, because I like them. He says he'll mostly sell prints and copies, and keep the ones he's painted. I ask him when he's going to paint my wall like he said. "Today," he tells me. "Let's eat some waffles first. Then we'll go paint it."

24 September. I'm six years old today. I go down to the kitchen and Ambrose is there, with Dad. "I never thought that would be the first one to sell," says Ambrose. He is smiling and holding a piece of paper. "And Mr Hapscombe said he's in the process with an enormous greeting card company." He sees me and says, "Happy birthday, Remus." Then he tells me to get dressed, because we're going to Floo to London to buy me a present. Then Mum comes to the door and says no. She tells Ambrose to put the money into a savings. Ambrose looks at her for a long time. Then he says, "It's my money, Mum, and I think Remus ought to have a birthday present. Don't you?" She says something down low and Ambrose says louder, "No one's making you come along, are they?" He tells me again to go get dressed. I go upstairs and put on my favorite clothes. Mum doesn't come to London, but Dad and Ambrose buy me a green Puffskein and a brown jacket.

1966. Mum and Dad have been yelling a lot lately. Ambrose says I shouldn't listen to them when they do that. Today, I'm taking my shoes off on the back porch when I hear Mum start screaming. She calls Dad a lazy bastard. I'm not allowed to say that. I never know what Dad says back to her because Dad never yells. Mum keeps yelling. I sit on the porch and take my Puffskein out of my pocket. His name is Fred, because Ambrose wanted to call him that. Then a door bangs shut and Ambrose starts yelling too. He's even louder than Mum. "I know you hate it, it's not perfect like you thought, so magic can't fix everything, can it? If you can't handle it just leave!" he shouts. Mum doesn't come to dinner and I don't see her the next day or the next.

It's winter. It's almost Christmastime. Ambrose is talking to the agent, Mr Hapscombe. We're in a long room with Ambrose's paintings on the walls. I think it's in London. Ambrose tells Mr Hapscombe, "Honestly, it's amazing that you could get me a showing so fast. And this close to Christmas, too. If a cab hits you tomorrow you'll go straight to heaven and you won't even have to stop at the gates for check-in." Mr Hapscombe laughs loudly. Ambrose calls me over and straightens my jacket. He tells me again to behave. "Are we in London?" I ask him. "Yes, we are," says Ambrose. He looks nervous. Two people come in the glass door. I tell Ambrose that we should have a glass door in our house. He says it would be too expensive. A lot of things are too expensive, I think.

1967. October. A wolf should have a pack. Even as a wolf I know a few words and a word I know is pack. I raise my head to howl at the moon through the window. My room is full of spells so I can't break the door or the window. The bed is stripped. There is blood on the mattress and I can smell the blood and even though it is my own blood it makes me want more and my teeth wish for something to tear and so I sink my fangs into my foreleg and lift my head to tear it. Next door is my brother but I do not know the word brother but I know Ambrose so I lift my head and yip for him high-pitched and angry. I do not hear him answer and I know it is because of the spell on the wall. I leap to the bed and let my paws rest on the window and howl long and loud. When I get down my big paws are smeared on the window so that there are bloody pawprints on the moon.

November. I am tired and lost in the moonlight. My dark silver fur is washed in it. I bleed slowly and the blood turns to bluesilver. I howl long and lonely and sit up painfully to look out the window at the sheep in the field. Just one. Just one and for a while I would not be hungry. I picture sheep-blood and tufts of stained wool streaked on the floor of the cage instead of my own blood and hair. I am a wolf and a werewolf and I do not know the word sheep but I know the word prey and I do not know lonely or alone but I know how to howl so I do that again.

July, 1968. Ambrose and I are in France with Mum. Ambrose says I should pretend to like it, but I honestly don't. People say my name oddly and Mum drags us to specialists to poke and probe and make suggestions Ambrose calls "hogwash." That reminds me of the school, so I ask Ambrose, "Would you still be going to school if we hadn't been bitten?" He says no, he would have just finished his last year. The man we're seeing now has a waiting room with an enormous mirror and a lot of leather books. I've already read the titles while Mum talks to the doctor. There's a print on the waiting-room wall that I recognize as one of Ambrose's. Ambrose pokes me lightly. "Don't tell anyone I painted that, okay?" he says. "Why?" I ask. Ambrose grimaces and starts to tell me, but he's cut off by the sound of Mum saying, "I couldn't help but notice the painting in your foyer, you know, my older son actually painted that? What a coincidence." Ambrose sighs.

Our next specialist is in Spain. I have no idea what is going on. I'm sitting on an oak table in my shorts, which is actually a relief, because it's an awful, sticky day. I think I liked France better. I'm half French myself – Mum is half French and half Scandinavian, Dad is half French and half Welsh (of course) – so I've learned to speak it. The specialist is preparing something with his back turned, talking in Spanish. Mum can't possibly be following all this. Apparently, the doctor asks her name, because she says, "Margaret Sanxay." I mutter, "Margaret Lupin." It's the first I've realized that she's changed her name.

"Tell you what, Mum," Ambrose says later that evening, back in our French hotel where I understand people. "We haven't seen you in months. Why don't we spend some time with you, instead of with quacks who think they can cure something incurable?" Mum says coldly, "Excuse me for hoping," and leaves the room.

1969. I love Edgar Allan Poe. He's so wordy and yet he means all the ornamentation. "The Cask of Amontillado." "The Raven." And that odd poem about his military school, "Romance." I hate Dickens. He's wordy in the wrong ways. Hemingway is a bit of all right, if he'd just quit with the fish. Victor Hugo is God's best friend, because he created Jean Valjean and whatsisname Javert. Agatha Christie is a nice, comforting writer. Everything ticks away neatly in her books. All it takes is the little grey cells. Tolkien is another of God's best friends, except for a while in the middle of The Return of the King and when Tom Bombadil, Lord of Foresty Pointlessness, turns up. Other than that, though, he's good. I liked Alexandre Dumas when I read The Count of Monte Cristo, but felt betrayed by The Three Musketeers. Lewis Carroll is pleasantly insane. The Bronte sisters are admirable, but Wuthering Heights was much better than Jane Eyre. Jane Austen makes me vomit. Ambrose says nine is too young to have these sorts of literary tastes. Dad says nine is too young to know words like "ornamentation" and to feel betrayed by a book.

I've decided to become a writer. I'm not going to get to go to school next year, so I need to become something artistic. Most places won't hire you without a Hogwarts diploma, I guess. I'll never paint as well as Ambrose can and I wouldn't want to imitate him. Considering what I do to my hands every month, I'll never make it as anything that requires delicate hand movement, like violin playing. I'm going to learn to type so it'll be easier. Ambrose and Dad both agree that ten is too young to have definite career goals.

September 13, 1970. I walk into my kitchen to get a bit of lunch and there I see an old man with long silver hair and beard. Since I'm trying to learn to describe people, I immediately start mentally writing a paragraph about him. His robes are slate-blue, the real old-fashioned robes that bring to mind Merlin and graduation gowns, not the modern ones that go on over a pair of trousers. He has long silver hair and a longer silver beard, and blue eyes behind spectacles the shape of the waxing half-moon. He's a thin, athletic old gentleman who's got to be a hundred years old or so. "Remus Lupin?" he says, and rises to shake my hand. He's very tall. I shake back, nervously, wondering if he's from the Ministry and I'm about to be put down as a menace to society. Instead, he says, "My name is Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts. I was disappointed to find you wouldn't be joining us this year, but my Herbology professor has dreamed up a rather brilliant plan to see that you can come to school next year, if you wish. I would, of course, invite you to come this year, but the plan involves a newly hybridized tree which will have to be planted from a sapling. You'll be a year older than your schoolmates, but I wrote to your brother, and he said he thought you'd be interested in giving it a try."

Diagon Alley has never looked so fresh, so real. People look cheerful. For once, it isn't crowded, but it's full of life. Dumbledore gave us a note to get twenty Galleons out of the bank – he said it was a scholarship, and Ambrose was to buy me books to keep me occupied for the year. He also gave us another note, handwritten, which Ambrose has in his pocket. The bookstore, Flourish and Blotts, smells like heaven. For the first time since I can remember, I can pick out almost any book on the shelves. I'm careful, though. I pick one about the history of potions, a thin one about recently developed plants (my Whomping Willow, my new favorite plant, is in there), and one about rare forms of Transfiguration. Those are the subjects that sound as though they might be hard. Then I go over to historical fiction. I pick interesting ones that are also long, because they'll have to last me a while. I'm running out of things to borrow from the neighbors. We go a Galleon over the twenty. Ambrose helps me carry the bags. I've never been so happy in my life. I have new books of my very own and I'm going to Hogwarts.

Mr Ollivander is a rather frightening man. His shop is long and narrow, as though it might once have been an alleyway but is now walled off. Ambrose gives him the second note. Mr Ollivander reads it. His pale eyebrows shoot up. "I remember when you got yours," Mr Ollivander says to Ambrose. "Rowan and unicorn hair, eleven and three-quarter-inches?" Ambrose nods his agreement. "Is yours still working for you after . . . the change?" Ambrose nods again. "Hmm," says Mr Ollivander. "I rarely give wands so long before Hogwarts, but . . . as the Professor tells us, he may be difficult to fit." And he vanishes into the depths of his shop. "Don't worry," Ambrose whispers to me, "he's not a terrifying as he seems." Abruptly a tape measure is trying to molest me. I ignore it. "And which is your wand arm?" Mr Ollivander's voice floats from the depths of his shop. "Ah . . . either, sir," I call back. "I prefer the left." The tape measures my left arm. Mr Ollivander comes back with an armload of long boxes. Six hours later, I have tried every wand in the shop and every one of them hates me.

Three months later, there is a knock at the front door. I mark my place in Recent Developments in Magical Horticulture and go to answer it. There is Mr Ollivander. "Please come in," I say, my heart rising. He enters. "I had to go clear to Lithuania for some of these," he says, and spills an armload of boxes across the battered coffee table. "Some tea or something to drink, Mr Ollivander?" I ask. "Tea would be lovely," he replies. Once he has his tea, he starts handing me more wands. "Ebony and werewolf's hair, Romanian, nine and a half inches, swishy." It feels cold against my hand, and I shake my head and lay it down without trying it. Mr Ollivander is unperturbed. "Dogwood and unicorn hair inlaid with cherry, North American wood, twelve and a sixteenth inches, bouncy." A floorboard splits when I move my wrist. Mr Ollivander repairs it with his own wand. "Mahogany with core of iron, ten and a half inches, rigid." Nothing. "Holly and phoenix feather," says Mr Ollivander, looking, for the first time, quite interested. He leans forward in his chair, but the wand fizzles at the tip and quits. He sighs and leans back. "Next one, boy."

"Willow with a core of mercury, nine and a third inches. Don't ever break this one." Nothing. "Maple burl and mermaid's hair, Scandinavian, twelve and a quarter inches, flexible." Nothing. "Sheoak and dragon heartstring, Australian, twelve inches even." It pops and does nothing else. "Sequoia and and veela's hair, unusually thick, Californian, ten and a quarter inches." Absolutely nothing. This is beginning to worry me deeply. "Moonlight-cured mahogany and Diricawl feather, inlaid with Brazilian tulipwood, Saudi Arabian make, eleven and a third inches, very pliable." I'm not a wizard. I never will be a wizard. They were all fooled and I'll stay at home reading histories and being bitter until the day I die. "Silver ash and unicorn hair, magnolia and sandalwood inlay, washed in mercury, dried in moonlight, eleven and a half inches, slightly springy." Yes. This is it. Mr Ollivander smiles at the white and silver sparks that stream from the tip of the wand. I smile back, delighted. Mr Ollivander pats my shoulder with cold, spidery fingers and gathers up his wands. "What do I owe you?" I ask, but he brushes me off with, "Dumbledore is taking care of it. Mind you never polish the hilt end too hard, the velvety feel comes from sequoia underbark. If it ever gives you trouble, come back and I'll give it some attention." He walks out the front door. I smile at my wand. The inlay is in a pattern of a flowering vine. It's a beautiful wand. Mr Ollivander never gave me a chance to thank him. I have a wand, a wonderful wand, and I am going to Hogwarts next year. I truly don't think this can get much better.

TBC