A/N: OMG! It's been so long since I updated this. If anyone can still stand to read it, I am majorly sorry! I have no excuse except that I've had exams and my brother was being a computer hog. I don't even know how long its been. I really need to catch up now -:Proceeds to begin the next chapter:-

Everything Changes

It's true. Everything changes. Everything that you want to stay the same at least. The beauty of autumn fades to the barrenness of winter; days pass, weeks, months, and years. An incentive to stay becomes an incentive to leave. Birth fades to death, age creeps up on its unsuspecting victim. Friends become lovers and lovers become enemies. And time brings you back to where it all began.

A greying wizard in tattered robes who had known the pain of time ripping him to shreds, pulling him away from the comfort of his past, stood at the front of a classroom in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His greying hair fell loosely down to his ears, gleaming silver in the glowing candlelight. Desks stood before him in rows, each one decorated with a seventh year student. Throughout the room were tanks of creatures, portraits of them and tomes that looked old and valuable.

"Today class, we will be adding to your newfound skills with wandless magic. I am assuming that most of you know how to cast spells without incantations?" Remus Lupin numbly caressed the wand he carried in the holster at his hip.

At the nods from most of the group, he continued. "The next step is to put these two invaluable skills together. We will begin with the shield charm. First I think a demonstration is in order."

He took his wand out of the holster and placed it on the table. "Now, Mr. Gonna, I would like you to cast a hex upon me. Any will do, but nothing past sixth year level please. Whenever you are ready."

"With my wand sir?"

"No."

Remus quickly pulled his shield up around him, moulding it around his body, the incantation forming in his mind. Protego.

The young wizard's hands began to glow as he started to draw the power. "Rictusempra!"

The spell bounced off Remus's shield, which only began visible in the split second that the hex had hit. "Well done," he congratulated. "However, your power began to show before you cast. You'll need to work on that. Can you tell me why?"

Gonna shrugged. "Because the enemy could see it?"

"Exactly. Now each of you will be trying to cast the Shield Charm without your wands or your voices. Your partner will be casting a simple spell upon you, I think, Cheering Charms. Yes, Cheering Charms and Cheering Charms only, am I clear? Good. Wands away please. Begin."

When his lessons ended at four-thirty, Remus felt drained and tired. But, underlying this inherent tiredness was the familiar sharp authority that marked the time close to the full moon. The wolf was beginning to stir inside his restricting flesh, the slim mould of his body that looked forever malnourished. The body that didn't look as if it could possibly hold a secret so dark and sinister.

He inhaled deeply as he entered his room, locking the door behind him. The scent of the room was becoming familiar - the scent of old fabric, soot and floo, and the scent of that bitter potion that sat so ominously on his desk, waiting.

He turned his back on it purposefully, instead reaching for a bottle on the shelf opposite the desk. It was small and teardrop shaped, filled with swirling silver vapour. This was the memory he could not face. The mark of when his life changed, the mark of why Dumbledore felt it necessary to keep him under close surveillance. The mark of when Sirius became both the best and worst thing to ever happen to him.

He slammed the bottle down on to the desk and shot a powerful glare at his Wolfsbane potion. With visible effort, he reached for the goblet and consumed its contents, face twisting with disgust. He was sure Snape made it taste horrible on purpose.

He lifted the bottle of memory again, deciding that he should finally make the effort to add it to his Pensieve.

With a deep breath, Remus uncorked the bottle and tipped the contents into the silver pewter bowl. Wispy tendrils reached up to him and pulled him roughly into his guilty memory.

A young, tawny haired boy sits on the windowsill of the Gryffindor sixth year boy's dormitories. He stares out at the stars and the huge, glowing moon with the chunk bitten out of it. The sky is cloudless and the air is so cold that his breath forms vapour in front of him. His eyes are glassy with tears and his hands are shaking.

He is approached by a taller boy, dark hair making him almost invisible in the night, except for his pale alabaster skin and luminous eyes. He wears school robes over his thin pyjamas but still shivers in the night air.

"Close the window, Remus," he whispers.

The boy on the windowsill shows no sign of having heard him. He covers Remus's small, scarred hand with his own freezing, pale one. Remus flinches as if the boy has hit him, but he closes the window anyway.

"What do you want, Sirius?" He muttered tiredly.

"I never apologised for the incident with Snape last year. I was -"

"Stupid. I know." Remus turns away as best he can on the narrow sill.

"To this day, I swear I don't know exactly why I did it. At the time, I told myself that I was defending you-"

Remus snorts.

"Just let me talk okay? I know I can't justify it. I just want you to know how miserable I feel that I'm too much of a bastard to have even apologised. He kept insulting you and saying that you were weak and pathetic and I wanted him to see that you're not so I- so I."

"Betrayed my confidence and let him in on my secret? Almost made me a murderer?"

"Yes. I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry. And I wish you would forgive me. I really don't like us being so icy to each other. I miss how we were."

"Me too," Remus confesses. "I forgive you Siri. It's just going to take some time for me to trust you again."

"Thank you so much Moony!" He throws his arms around the smaller boy, almost toppling them both out of the barely closed window. "I'm never going to do anything else to make you doubt my trustworthiness."

"Make sure you don't."

Memories swirled. Time sped up. Remus stood in the centre of the room, waiting for things to settle down, trying to calm his racing heart. When Sirius had come to him to apologise, he had acknowledged in his mind what his heart had learnt during the lonely summer holidays. Time ground back to normal speed and Remus looked back outside himself into his memory.

The calendar on the wall reads "2nd December". Approximately two weeks since Sirius's apology and things are almost back to normal. That is, James, Sirius, Remus and Peter are serving detention with Filch, cleaning all of the trophies without magic.

"Can't believe we got two week's detention with Filch!" Exclaims James incredulously. "It was just a little prank! It isn't our fault the Slytherins didn't see the funny side of having horns and a tail."

"And speaking in really high-pitched voices," adds Peter.

"Yes. Like I said. Nothing big. And we get two weeks with Filch. Oh the injustice!" James wails, drowning out Sirius's cackles.

The hour is almost up. Remus is scrubbing a particularly tough stain off one of the trophies when Sirius casts a cleaning spell on it. This earns the two of them another hour of cleaning, while Filch holds on to their wands.

James and Peter slink off to the dormitories, looking sympathetic.

Remus carries on scrubbing, but Sirius merely watches him. Remus turns his head to see what is the matter.

"Sirius, you've been acting weird since the beginning of the year. At first I put it down to us not talking so much so I had forgotten how you were or something, but now I'm not so sure. What's up?" He puts down the cleaning cloth and slides onto a table.

"I think I'm in love Moony."

Remus tilts his head to one side. "Oh? I'm sure the majority of the female population, and more than a few of the male population of Hogwarts will be disappointed. Who's the lucky witch?"

"Wizard."

Remus's eyes open wide. "What?"

Sirius approaches him stealthily, only stopping when his legs hit the table where the werewolf sits. "I'm gay."

"Well, who's the lucky wizard then?"

Sirius closes the gap between their lips in a soft kiss. He stills, waiting to gauge Remus's response. A faint pressure serves as his reassurance.

"You."

Everything begins to fade, colours dimming, sliding into black.

Remus was ejected unceremoniously from the Pensieve, surprised to find that his cheeks were wet. He angrily pushed the bowl away from him, wishing he could push Sirius from his mind as easily.

A glance out of the window showed him that the moon was beginning to rise. He stood, stretched himself out and yawned.

He shrugged out of his robe and pulled off the clothes he wore underneath. After all, there was no sense in wasting them. Once folded neatly, the clothes were placed in his bedroom. It was to be his first transformation at Hogwarts under the Wolfsbane. Taking a length of rope from the cupboard, he tied it around his leg and then around the table leg. Once transformed it would do very little, but it served as a reassurance to the human side of Remus.

He seated himself by the table and waited for the imminent pain.

As always, it was his eyes that changed first. They became brighter; a more luminous shade of amber and their pupils became slitted. His vision slid roughly into the grey spectrum, everything appearing in shades of grey. Next his nose became sharper; he could even smell a faint hint of the lemon drops the Headmaster kept in his office. His fingernails grew and sharpened into hefty claws.

The main physical changes happened last. He screamed in agony as bones changed shape and his human skin ripped and tore away. Finally it was over.

The huge grey wolf settled himself with a large stretch reminiscent of a cat and curled around the table leg to sleep.

Everything changes. Except me.