"Remus!" called Remus' mum (in a voice that was far too loud to be alerting her son with superhuman hearing). "Are you dressed?"

Remus sighed. "Yes, Mum! I've been up since five-thirty! Of course I'm dressed!"

"I know you're nervous, love, but please don't give me that attitude. You have everything you need?"

"But of course, Mrs. Lupin, Her Majesty of the Lupin Household, forever and amen."

"You can't get rid of an attitude by replacing it with sarcasm."

"Worth a try."

Remus' father was currently trying to make Remus' robes look nice, but it was futile. The robes, though functional, were old, plain, and patched in places. Remus' father reached out and tried to smooth down Remus' hair, but Remus ducked out of the way.

"That's not going to help anything," said Remus grouchily. "What do you think is going to happen? Oh, look, that werewolf's hair is neat! He must be a fine, upstanding citizen!"

"Of course!" said Professor Questus, who was (once again) sitting on the armchair with the Prophet. "Werewolves can have neat hair! They're not all unkempt animals! Why didn't I think of that?"

"Looks like I've been wrong about werewolves my whole life! I guess they're just like us!"

"Maybe even better! Even the Minister for Magic herself doesn't have hair that neat!"

"You're free to go! You don't even need to be Registered! We don't need to see anything else!"

Remus' mum shook her head. "You're both ridiculous. Remus, you will have neat hair whenever you enter the Ministry of Magic. It's good manners."

"I know," said Remus, smoothing down his own hair. "It is neat, though. I combed it this morning."

"Well, you didn't do a very good job of it. Lyall, are we getting lunch at that Muggle place or the wizarding pub?"

"Muggle place," Remus' father decided. "It's been empty this week, and it has more vegetarian options. We'll go out for Butterbeers afterward at the pub, though, just to calm our nerves." He looked at Remus and pulled a letter out from his pocket. "This is for you, Remus. I talked to Dumbledore yesterday, and he made arrangements to get you back to the school tomorrow."

"Great," said Remus. "More special accommodations. Wonderful." He took the letter and started to read.

Remus—

I am more than happy to take you back to the castle on the morning of the tenth. I shall pick you up at seven-thirty, which should give you plenty of time to unpack and eat breakfast before your morning classes. Please know that this is no inconvenience for me whatsoever—Apparating is, and excuse my arrogance, very easy. I hope your Christmas holidays were pleasant, and I shall see you very soon.

—Professor Dumbledore

P.S. Please inform John Questus that the houseplant should have a name if it is indeed immortal. I think that any sort of immortal houseplant deserves a name, don't you?

"That man is odd," said Remus' father. "I sent him a letter and signed it with my own name... and then he sends a letter back addressed to a Remus Lupin."

"I think it's nice of him," said Remus. "Apparating me back to Hogwarts, I mean. Not the letter. I'm sure he had a reason for doing that, but I don't know it." Remus did know the reason, though—or at least he had a very good guess. In the letter, Dumbledore had personally assured Remus that Apparating was "no inconvenience for him"... surely that was because he knew that Remus would be guilty and worried about being a burden. Surely he wanted to write down an assurance and send it to Remus to read in order to assuage his worries. And had it helped? A little, Remus supposed, though now he felt even more guilty about being a burden since Dumbledore had gone out of his way to soothe him. Remus tried not to think about that, though; instead, he set down the letter and grabbed a piece of toast. "Are we driving?" he asked.

"Yes. Your mother doesn't like to Apparate, and Apparating with two people is exhausting. Don't worry, we'll get there on time. Why don't you take another piece of toast and eat in the car? The Ministry of Magic is a ways away, I'm afraid."

"Sure," said Remus, taking two more pieces of toast. "Guess what? My friends told me yesterday that they'd write to me in the notebook after classes end!"

"That's sweet of them. You have your Defense textbook so that you can work ahead on some homework?"

"Er, yes, but I... don't want to do that in public. You know? The other... the others won't be happy. You know. If they find out I'm going to school."

"Stupid of them," said Questus, now munching on his own piece of toast. "You're just about the best chance they have for reduced discrimination in the future."

"No pressure or anything," said Remus.

"Nope. None. All you've got to do is graduate with highly impressive OWL and NEWT scores, twist an employer into giving you a job, be your usual innocent self, and charm the entire world into thinking werewolves are wonderful. Easy. You can do it."

Remus snorted. "Yeah, right. Ready to go, Mum?"

"Yes! Come on!"

Remus slipped on his coat, hat, and scarf. "Bye, Professor," he said.

"Don't call me that."

"Oh, and Professor Dumbledore says that the houseplant needs a name."

"Think on it while you're at the Registry. I think we've both learned from the Werewolf-cat incident that I'm terrible at naming things, hm?"

Remus giggled. "You absolutely are."

"We really need to go," said Remus' father, all but pulling Remus out of the house. "I know you want to stall, Remus, but it's very important to be on time..."

"Even though the Ministry itself never is," Remus grumbled. "Yep, okay."

"Don't let Garrison out when we're gone!" yelled Remus' mum to Professor Questus.

"Wouldn't dream of it," said Questus, and that was the last thing that Remus heard before he entered the car and heard the door shut behind him with a final sort of slam.

The nightmare was officially beginning.

The car ride was indeed long, and Remus managed to fall asleep two separate times. He finished all of his toast and about a fifth of his homework for Pensley (who was assigning massive amounts of reading and research to cover, since they did nothing in class but read Shakespeare). The bulk amount of time, however, was spent thinking about how much he didn't want to go to the Registry. Remus wasn't very good at chess, dots and boxes, or Transfiguration, but he was very good at staring out the window and feeling sorry for himself.

Despite his internal pleas, they arrived at the Ministry building right on time (early, in fact). They walked the familiar path to the Registry section, keeping their heads down as much as possible—fortunately, the Ministry was always crowded and nobody noticed them. "I go here every day, but it always feels different on Registry Day," said Remus' father pensively. "Come on. Here we are."

Remus counted. There were seventeen werewolves this time. Last time there had been fifteen. That meant that some people (more than two, since someone either stopped Registering or died every year) were attending a regular Registry for the first time. Remus felt awful. This was his... what, seventh year? Eight times Registering, seven times doing it on the regular January date? And he still wasn't quite used to it, so he couldn't imagine how the others felt.

Suddenly, he spotted Susi, his friend, on a bench. Remus only saw her once a year at the Registry, and she looked wildly different every time, but Remus always recognized her. She was in her early thirties, but she looked much older; her dark blonde hair was going slightly grey, and it was knotted and wispy; and her robes were blue today (Remus had never seen her wear those before). He let go of his father's hand and ran up to her, smiling widely.

"Remus!" she cried. "You're even bigger than I last saw you! You look so healthy!"

"I know," Remus boasted. He wanted to say the same about Susi, but she... looked worse than she had last year, if that was possible. Four new scars ran across her face, which must have made it even more difficult to get a job, and the prominence of her cheekbones and skinniness of her wrists confirmed that. "How are you?" Remus asked timidly, knowing the answer (and also knowing that whatever answer Susi gave him would be a lie).

"I'm fine! A little worse-for-wear lately, but I'm doing okay. How's Hogwarts?"

"Shh!" said Remus. "I don't want anyone else knowing."

No one was listening, though; they were all busy looking self-pitying and apprehensive. Besides, Susi always talked quietly to Remus. It was so much better when they were both werewolves and knew each other's preferred volumes. Remus had to shout to be heard when he was talking to his friends or parents—or at least he felt as if he was shouting—but with Susi, he could speak in a volume that felt totally natural and comfortable to his own sensitive ears. "Hogwarts is going well," he said. "Could we go behind that corner? It's more private, and I have something big and important to tell you."

"Sure. Your parents are okay with that?"

Remus looked back at his parents, who were walking up behind him. His mum nodded. "Of course. Remus does have rather big news. Lyall, why don't we sit on that bench..."

Remus pulled Susi behind the corner, and she laughed. "Is this good news? You seem rather eager."

"A lot of good things happened since last year," said Remus. Secrecy was of the utmost importance when one was a werewolf, so Remus seldom got to share exciting news—even when it was so strong that it seemed to be bubbling up inside his chest and begging to be told to every single person who so much as walked by. "Okay," he said, "I don't know where to start. Actually, I do. I came out top of the form after exams last year!"

Susi squealed and clapped a hand over her mouth. "You didn't!"

"I did! First in everything but Transfiguration, Potions, and Flying. I can't fly well, and my Transfiguration isn't great. My Potions is only sort of decent—I have trouble remembering all the ingredients in such a crowded room. But... oh, Susi, it was great! I can't believe it! Me! It's been half a year since that happened, and I still don't believe it!"

"Going to be top of the form this year, too?"

"I hope, but it's a long shot."

Susi smiled, and she seemed to grow five years younger. "What else happened?"

"Well, my Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher from last year moved next to my house. I really liked him, and we've been having tea every so often recently. He spends more time at my house than he does at his, I think. Sort of a family friend now. Or a weird uncle. No one knows what he is, exactly. But it's nice to be able to talk to someone besides my parents! They're getting boring after seeing no one else for six and a half years."

"I can imagine," said Susi, laughing. "What else?"

"Okay, so... this is the biggest thing... my friends found out. That I'm a werewolf."

Susi's eyes got large, and the smile dropped off her face and crashed to the floor. "Oh, I'm so sorry. You had to leave?"

"No! That's the best part. They don't care. I know—I didn't believe it either! But they really, really don't... and they're so nice about it."

Remus grinned at Susi expectantly, but she didn't celebrate with him; instead, she merely pursed her lips and sighed. "Remus... that's great news, that really is. But... it won't be like that for long. No one likes us, and the sooner you accept that, the easier it'll be..."

"No, you don't understand. I've been a werewolf as long as you have, so I know all about prejudice. But they honestly, really like me!"

"They'll always choose their own species over you."

"They won't. They're funny, they joke about it with me, they ask if there's anything they can do, they're sensitive about it... it's perfect. And Dumbledore's there, so I'm not worried one bit."

"Remus! This is dangerous!"

"Well, I am a Gryffindor."

"You could die!"

"They're twelve. And thirteen. They're not dangerous."

"You don't know that! I've had a dozen employers over the last year. They all seem to like me until they find out... but Remus, people hate us. They always will. Anyone finding out will ruin your chances at a decent life!"

"Or it'll give me a decent life! I can't keep living alone!"

Susi leaned closer. "I know that it's been hard, Remus," she said in a tone of voice that suggested she was holding back. She'd always had a more difficult time than Remus when it came to controlling her anger. "You've grown up without playmates and friends, your childhood was ruined when you were young, and your future is uncertain. But you aren't alone, you never were, and I don't ever want to hear you say that again." She took a deep breath. "You have family. You have teachers at school. You are very fortunate, and you don't even know what it's like to be totally, completely alone—alone without any sort of support and not a friend in the world. I shudder to think that you'll ever really be alone, but I know that it's likely to happen... and then you'll look back and see how good you had it, even without school and friends—even during those six and a half years before Hogwarts. Most werewolves can only dream of having two parents who love them. That would be enough for most of us, you hear? You aren't a lucky boy, but by werewolf standards... you're a lottery winner. Look around. Do you see any other werewolves with anyone else?"

Remus peeked around the corner. "No," he admitted. "They all came alone."

"But no one would ever let you come alone."

"Well, I'm twelve."

"Correct. The other twelve-year-old werewolves in the area didn't come precisely because they didn't have anyone to take them. I beg of you, Remus... don't throw away everything you have in case there's something better, because things can always be better. You'll be stuck in a never-ending cycle of risking your life for a better one, and then you'll realize that what you ended up with is actually worse than what you had at the very beginning."

"Things are perfect right now," said Remus stubbornly. "I'll never want anything more than friends."

"You say that now, but improvement is a greedy thing. Remus, I... I can't convince you, can I?"

"No. I've never been happier."

She sighed and hugged him, drawing him to her chest possessively. Remus hugged back, despite the surprise—Susi didn't usually instigate hugs. "I just don't want you to end up like me," she said, voice muffled. "Being a werewolf without anyone to depend on is an awful existence. Please... know when to stop, okay? We're werewolves. We don't have good lives. That's all there is to it, and it'll be better the sooner you settle."

"I am settled," said Remus. "I'm stopping here, I promise. No more. I have friends, I have school, and that's plenty for me."

"Good, although still risky. Let's go back to your parents; I don't think you've checked in yet."

"Right!" said Remus. He said goodbye to Susi, found his parents, and then the three Lupins walked up to Madam Macmillan, who checked werewolves into the Ministry every single year. She was scowling at the mere sight of him, just as she usually did. "Morning, Madam Macmillan," said Remus. "All right?"

"Significantly less all right because you exist, Rainfall Llama. Name?"

Madam Macmillan had seen Remus seven times now, and his constant snark toward her (Remus' only way of feeling in control) wasn't exactly forgettable. She knew his name, of course. Yet she still asked every single time, and she always got it wrong whenever she said it. That was okay. It was tradition, and Remus could tell that Madam Macmillan secretly liked him. "Remus John Lupin," responded Remus. "How are the kids?"

"Also significantly less all right because of your very existence."

"So do they just sit around moaning 'Remus Lupin is the reason for our misery' all the time, ma'am? They must be fascinating children. It's good to know that I'm so well-known, even outside of the Registry..."

"Enough, Remus," said his father out of the corner of his mouth, and Remus let himself be pulled towards a bench.

"Teasing her is fun," he whined, but Remus' father stood firm: for the next hour and a half, Remus and his father played the largest game of dots and boxes that they could muster on twelve inches of parchment while Madam Macmillan glared at them from afar. Remus lost, but at least it was good practice for playing Professor Questus. Once the paper was so thoroughly filled that they could play dots and boxes no longer, Remus spent the next several hours sleeping on a Ministry bench, talking to Susi, and playing scissors-paper-rock with his mother. They even ate lunch with Susi at the Muggle place, which was quite possibly the highlight of Remus' day.

In the middle of a very pleasant bench-nap, he heard the voice of a woman that he didn't know... and his mother's voice. They were talking together, and that was odd. It was sort of taboo to talk to strangers in the Registry. He lifted his head, and his mother looked over. "Oh, Remus, dear, you're awake," she said. "I was just talking to Helen here."

The lady (Helen) looked at Remus with big eyes. "Oh, er, I was just..."

"You're new, aren't you?" said Remus, which would explain her neat appearance, healthy weight, bright eyes (clouded with fear), and willingness to talk to strangers at the Registry. She looked to be about forty... just about Remus' mum's age. "To the Registry, I mean," he elaborated when she didn't respond. "First time?"

The woman's eyes grew bigger, if possible. "How did you know?"

"Remus, that's not very kind," chided Remus' mother. "Let people speak for themselves."

"But it is!" said Helen. "It is my first time! He's right! Am I doing something wrong? Is it truly so obvious?" She let out a little wail and covered her eyes with her cardigan. "I'm so nervous."

"It's not... obvious," said Remus, even though it was.

"I know," she said, still weeping. "I look different. Healthier. You're skinny as a rail... they all are, and they're so... sad. Broken. That's my future, isn't it?"

Remus didn't answer. What could he say? Maybe Dumbledore will give you a place at Hogwarts? No. Perhaps they'll find a cure? Even less likely. Be optimistic? No, that was just plain rude. As much as Remus hated to admit it, even to himself, she was right. That was her future, and there was nothing that any of them could do about it.

"You know, the only reason I came to talk to Hope was because she looked so healthy," Helen wept. "Tired, but healthy. Look at her. She's thin, but she's not... not like the rest of them. I thought... maybe... there was hope."

"Yes, that's me," said Remus' mother, trying to lighten the mood. Remus stared at her. Lightening the mood wasn't wise in this particular situation.

Helen chuckled anyway as a formality before barreling on. "I thought there was... and then she said..." She hiccupped. "She said, 'No, I'm here with my son,' and you look awful!"

"Er, sorry," said Remus uncomfortably.

"I'm going to be... to be ugly and ill and... and broken... and no one will ever love me again!" she cried. "My husband left me, you know. Said he didn't want to be... to be married to a... a monster!" At this point, Helen completely dissolved into a puddle of tears. Remus' mum patted her back awkwardly. Remus' father looked at Remus, who was currently trying not to be offended by the phrase ugly, ill, broken, and no one will ever love me again.

"Say something," Remus' father hissed.

"Why me?" said Remus.

"You're better at this than we are," said Remus' father, which sort of surprised Remus. He'd thought the answer would be "because you're a werewolf", because there was no way on Earth that Remus was good at comforting weepy ladies the age of his mum.

"Er..." he tried, but Helen wasn't listening. "Er, ma'am? Helen?"

Finally, she looked up. Tears were streaming down her blotchy face. "There's no hope, is there?" she whispered.

"Not particularly," said Remus before he could stop himself. He winced as she started to cry louder; everyone was staring now. Remus' father elbowed him sharply. That probably hadn't been the right thing to say. "No hope for your life before," Remus amended quickly, "but now you have a new normal."

"I don't want... a new normal!"

"Think of it as starting over. You know... new house, new village, new... species..." Remus winced again.

"You aren't nearly as good at this as I thought you were," whispered Remus' father.

"Sorry, sorry!" said Remus, but Helen paid him no mind. Hope was hugging her and shooting Remus glances, but Remus couldn't decipher them. "I have friends," Remus blurted. "I have friends. Three. And they know about me and still like me."

Helen looked up. "They... you do?"

"Yes. There's always somebody; they're just hard to find. As long as you..."

"Remus John Lupin." Remus' head snapped up to find the source of the voice, and he saw a man with a clipboard standing by the doorway. "Your turn."

"Sorry," he whispered. "I have to go. See... see you later."

"Right," said Helen miserably. "Cheers."

Remus sighed as he stood up from the bench and rubbed the remnants of sleep from his eyes. He hated this part. Being interrogated as if he were a common criminal, being questioned as if he were a pathological liar, being treated as if he were stupid and glared at as if he were dangerous and immoral... it was all so detestable, so dehumanizing. He didn't often feel so much like a monster as he did when he was at the Registry. But... would it be better this time? Would everything be all right? Would they be kind, understanding, or sympathetic? Would it all be over soon? Was there hope?

Not particularly.

AN: lol sorry again for forgetting to post this chapter