BEFORE READING THIS CHAPTER : Please keep in mind that my story in non-canon. This is how the idea formed in my head, and I'm going to stick with it. I'm really sorry if you don't like it.

None of the characters are mine except the ones I made up myself. Credit for Harry Potter goes to

J K Rowling, not me.

Lupin followed Snape into his study, his mind whirring faster than a Snitch's wings. He had absolutely no idea what he would learn after Snape removed the memory blocks. Lupin looked at the other man, still trying to adjust to the sudden shift in how he now viewed him. In school, Snape had shown an extreme curiosity towards him, which James and Sirius had always been adamant was a poorly disguised hatred. But Lupin had never really formed his own opinion of Snape, just tried to stay out of his way. Lupin had always found his quiet intensity slightly unsettling, because Snape was one of the few people Lupin had a hard time reading.

Snape motioned towards a chair in the far corner of the room.

"Sit there, and I'll prepare both of us for what I have to do."

Lupin sat on the edge of the chair, his nerves starting to get the better of him. Without realizing, he began to shred the cuff of his already ragged sleeve.

"Lupin?"

Snape watched as Lupin jumped, and discreetly summoned a vial of a calming draught.

"Here, you really need to calm down or this is not going to work."

Lupin gratefully drank the potion, and could immediately feel it start to work. His breathing evened out and slowed, and his hands stopped their impulsive movements.

"Good. Ok, what I'm going to attempt to do is called a "Memory Walk." If it works, I should be able to enter your mind through legilamency and assume a sort of spirit form so I can walk through your mind and find and remove each of the blocks, while not invading memories that don't need to be messed with. I wish I could explain it better than that, but this technique fell out of the memories of wizards for years, and was only recently rediscovered. And even now, only a sparse handful of Legilimens know of it. Dumbledore was the driving force behind the Wizengamot banning it from being used, which is ridiculous. This is a very precise and genius discovery that could do nothing but good to those who have had their memories obliterated, changed, or stolen."

Lupin nodded his understanding.

"Ready to get started?"

Lupin nodded again, swallowing hard.

Snape pulled a stool in front of Lupin and instructed him to close his eyes and lay back into the chair. Quickly perusing his notes on final time, Snape took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself for what he had to do. Fixing the words of the enchantment in his mind, he began to quietly and carefully chant the words.

"Consentire la mia voce in modo che io possa recuperare cio che e stato perso."

He felt an odd sensation rush up his spine, and stiffened as the spell began to take effect. His body went oddly numb, and he began to feel as though he was floating. Opening his eyes, he knew immediately that it had worked.

Looking around, Snape saw a multitude of images flashing around him, the bursts of sight and sound showing where each memory resided. Walking towards the nearest bunch, Snape saw a moment of himself healing Lupin's wrist a few hours ago, and for a moment he was overwhelmed by a feeling of intense gratitude. Gently brushing the memory aside, Snape saw a small column of black murkiness surrounding a different memory, and reached towards it. A resistance stopped his hands, and he started to chant a different spell to remove it.

"Sbloccare le porte della memoria."

A bright blue light surrounded the black, twisting around it and slowly covering it as the black writhed angrily. As the black became completely covered, a haze eeked out of the blue, and Snape blew it into a small bottle he had taken from his pocket. Then the true memory broke free, and Snape was pulled into it.

Lupin, a tiny boy of 4, was laying in bed, holding a small stuffed wolf. The little boy was slowly drifting off, before being jerked into full wakefulness by a loud CRACK outside the house. He heard his parents speaking to a voice angrily, before hearing his mother scream, and his father shout in anger, and then two thuds. Clutching his stuffed toy, Lupin shrank into a corner, watching a shadow appear under his door before it creaked open, revealing a man with a long grey beard.

"There you are, you little brat. Your parents thought they could hide you from me, but I have such plans for you. A natural animagus, hmm m'boy? I can't let such talent go to waste."

Waving his wand, the scary man pointed it right at little Remus, who was quietly crying. As the spell hit him, the boy morphed into his animagus form, a wolf cub. The scary man chuckled evilly, and began to say a lot of strange words that made Remus hurt. He began going from his wolf form to human to wolf to human, and each time it got more painful to change to a wolf. Remus screamed in pain, and the man finally stopped the bad words. Raising his wand, he slashed it down three times, creating the wounds that would forever scar the little boys face.

"How execellent. You will now serve me as a spy. I have created the perfect servant for myself. Who would ever want to keep you around if they think you are a werewolf? You'll have to come to me for survival, my own little wolfy pet."

Dumbledore raised his wand a final time, and implanted a false memory trail in the child's mind. Now the poor boy would believe that he had been attacked by a monster. He'd grow up hated, forced to seek refuge with the man who had cursed him to imitate the werewolf.

Snape pulled out of the memory, anger coursing through him. HOW DARE DUMBLEDORE CREATE A MOCK WEREWOLF FOR HIS OWN GAIN!

Stalking forward, Snape found 5 other memories surrounded with black, and pushed them together so he could recover them all at once and finish his task. Repeating his earlier spell, Snape captured the black mist that rose off each of the 5 memories, and then before he could get pulled into anymore memories, he finished the process of the Memory Walk by uttering the final two spells.

"Rimuovere tutti I magic indesiderati. Sanare cio che e stato ferito."

Snape felt the floating sensation again, and opened his eyes to see Lupin staring at him, shock written clearly on his face. Snape quickly summoned another calming draught, just in case.

"I'm… not a…a uh…uh…a werewolf?"

Snape was about to reply when Lupin collapsed back, his eyes rolling back into his head. A black smoke poured out of his eyes, mouth, and ears as Snape's final spells took effect. Snape took up his wand and summoned his patronus, a delicate silver doe. She cantered around the room, rearing on her hind legs to box away the ominous cloud. Stopping by Lupin's side, she gently nuzzled his face before disappearing.

Lupin groaned, struggling to sit up straight once again. Putting his hand to his face, he felt fur sprouting and looked at Snape in panic.

"What's going on?"

Snape fought back worry that something was going wrong and replied.

"The curse is reversing itself. Just let it work itself out."

Once again, Lupin began to flick from human to wolf to human to wolf. The quick change transformations stopped where they had started, on the wolf. Snape studied Lupin's form, amazed. As a wolf, Lupin was about the size of a great dane. Being a natural animagus, his form was not constricted by true size, as the learned or taught animagi were. His coat was a speckled gray, his left hind foot completely black. His eyes were bright gold. Lupin looked at Snape, and tilted his head, much like a dog. He looked so comically confused that Snape burst out laughing, his rich baritone rumbling through the room. The wolf sneezed (the closest thing to a laugh he could do) and then changed back to human. Lupin stared at Snape, bemused. He'd never heard the man laugh before. Before he knew it, Lupin was chuckling himself.

Neither mans' mirth lasted long. They both were troubled at the lengths Dumbledore was willing to go to further himself and his twisted ideals.

"I don't understand. Why wouldn't he just find an actual werewolf?"

Snape was quiet for a few minutes, mulling the question over.

"I think he wanted to see if he could make one, but without the mess involved. Since you weren't actually bitten, he didn't have to deal with the dangers of having one at Hogwarts, which would explain why you were admitted despite the prejudice. Also, the memory seemed to indicate that he had been wanting you under his thumb for a long time. Unfortunately, since both of your parents were squibs that were disowned, we don't have a record of what they may have done to anger Dumbledore enough to do this to a child. And since they both died the year you started at Hogwarts, we won't know what happened unless Dumbledore tells us himself."

Lupin shook his head angrily.

"How twisted of a person do you have to be to make a child believe that everyone would hate them no matter what? I HATED myself as a child. I was sure that if anyone found out what I was, they would abandon me or worse. In fact, I see now that James and Sirius DID know what I was, or really, what I wasn't. They used that information to torment me in school! James used it as a pretense to force me to never see Harry again! I had gone over for a visit, and tried to stop James from trying to force Harry to do accidental magic before he was a year old! Lily was desperate for help, and had called me to try to talk some sense into James. When I got there, I could see that James had hit her, so I went to confront him, and he accused me of trying to bite him. He then banned me from the house. I couldn't get within 50 feet of the place!"

Petal popped into the room, her purple eyes wide with concern.

"Petal is hearing lots of shouting. Is you being alright, Mister Remus?"

Remus smiled weakly at her.

"I'm alright, Petal. I just learned a lot about James, Sirius, and Dumbledore. It upset me."

Petal nodded, her ears flapping. She turned to Snape, looking unhappy.

"Petal has just been checking on Master Harry. He is being very scared and alone. Is we going to get him soon?"

Snape nodded.

"We'll go get him now."

Spells used are in Italian:

Consentire la mia voce in modo che io possa recuperare cio che e stato perso

Allow my entry so I may recover what has been lost

Sbloccare le porte della memoria

Unlock the doors of memory

Rimuovere tutti i magic indesiderati

Remove all unwanted magic

Sanare cio che e stato ferito

Heal what has been hurt