DISCLAIMER: i own nothing. jk rowling owns everything. any language used in this fic is not meant to offend anyone so please don't hate me.

DEATH OF A CLOWN:

"Ahem."

Remus sat up straighter in his seat at the Gryffindor table as the voice of the headmaster thundered across the Great Hall.

"Ladies and Gentleman, and Sirius," Professor Dumbledore nodded in the direction of a very loud and all too uncensored Sirius Black. He continued once Sirius had quietened with a charming grin to the headmaster.

"As you are all aware the Great Willow in the grounds is out of bounds, so please do not let me hear any more stories of these 'games' involving the tree. It is most valuable and these games are most dangerous. Heed my warning…"

Remus began to tune out as he stirred his porridge absentmindedly. He didn't really feel hungry anymore, ever. He added a spoonful of sugar to make it look like he had every intention of eating it, even though that was far from the case.

He slumped back down in the bench with a sigh. His back was aching and he felt quite queasy. As he sank back, the Hall erupted with noise.

Surprised, Remus looked up from his untouched breakfast. Dumbledore had finished talking and everyone was back to eating, and chatting happily.

"If only people knew why the tree was so dangerous," Sirius whispered mischievously. Remus glowered at him, but he merely raised his eyebrows suggestively. Peter snorted.

"Could you imagine Snivvely's face?" Peter's chubby face lit up at the thought. Remus felt his eyes widen in fear.

"Mate, you know they're only kidding," James laughed, but he stopped when he saw Remus' doubtful expression. Were they really kidding?

"Yeah, Jamesy boy is right, Moons," Sirius assured him, now sounding slightly concerned; the glint of mischief lost from his grey eyes. Remus' lips didn't want to smile, but somehow they turned up at the corners anyway, and even if it were just for show, it worked. James, Sirius and Peter mentioned it no further and went back to their nearly empty breakfast plates.

As if on cue, hundreds of owls swarmed into the Hall from the ceiling and began dropping parcels and letters to various students. He tensed at the thought, knowing what might be dropped in front of him. Bracing himself, he looked up. From what he could see no owl appeared to be searching him out, but then, how could he possibly know from that blur?

As if to taunt him, however, James received a letter, and then so did Peter. To his astonishment even Sirius received one, but no letter came for Remus. And before Remus could relax, a thought occurred to him. All three of his friends had received letters, and while it was common for Peter or James to be written by their parents, Sirius had no such affections from his own family. Remus reasoned it could, of course, be fan mail from his female entourage, but somehow that didn't seem likely to him. Something else entirely more awful did seem likely.

It was him. He had written to them, and told them what a foul, disgusting, faggot of a Dark creature Remus was. He could see them reading their letters, as if synchronised, and their expressions changing together. They all looked up at him together, six cold eyes staring through him.

He began to breathe harder, and faster. He looked at all three of them in turn before he stood up and ran out of the Great Hall. He didn't stop until he'd reached the Fat Lady, who snarled at him to go back to his lessons but he grunted the password and she let him through after a moment's irritating hesitation.

He walked briskly up to the dormitory and locked the door behind him. Sinking to his knees, he let out a small howl of pain and doubled over into a violent fit of sobbing.

Remus was late to their morning History of Magic lesson, with the result that he sat next to a rather steely Peter. Peter barely said more than 'hello' to him all lesson, and even that was delivered with a forced cheerfulness. Remus could also feel the glances at his down turned head from James and Sirius, sat in front of them, as well, passing judgement over his head. No one even mentioned Remus' abrupt departure from breakfast.

He sucked in each breath as if it were an effort just to remind himself to breathe, and used it as a distraction from the nagging feeling that something was considerably off. He wrote line after line of notes that meant nothing to him. Words that barely reached his distracted ears, and would fail to register on his troubled mind. All the while, they knew. And he realised by their silence towards him, they were biding their time.

Lunch had taken place surprisingly early, coming just after first lesson, and had been incredibly uncomfortable. All three of them, Peter, James and Sirius, seemed to be avoiding talking about the letters, instead occupying themselves, and occasionally a distanced Remus, in unnatural conversations actually involving the previous lesson.

Since this was not a common practice for the Marauders, Remus knew he was in for something later. They were waiting until just the right moment before announcing his demotion from their friendship. There was no way out, they definitely knew alright.

Once again, Remus didn't eat. He didn't, however, bother to hide this fact now as he knew his friends no longer cared. He sat there in his stony silence – except on the rare occasion when one of the other boys would make a comment that required his input – practically immobile. Apart from those sparse inclusions, Remus was treated as no more than a table ornament which was simply an annoyance they had to look around in order to see each other.

And why should it be any different, when he was just a worthless werewolf? A pathetic excuse for a man, a sub-human, who couldn't even defend himself. What kind of a monster can't even defend themselves?

The feelings he hadn't experienced since he was a young boy began to surface again. Loneliness. Depression. Remus knew he could only hold on a little longer before he would lose the fight. The fight he chose to engage in everyday with the wolf inside him. The fight against selfishness and animalism. No boy of his age should ever have to go through that choice, and especially not everyday, but for Remus it was commonplace. Only as he grew older, the temptations became increasingly more difficult to resist as the wolf inside him grew stronger.

Remus knew he couldn't hold on much longer, not without the Marauders.

In Potions, which followed lunch, things took a definite turn for the worse. All of them knew Potions was Remus' worst subject, and he had become accustomed to the slight mick-taking from the other marauders about it. Usually this was just Sirius and James, as Peter couldn't consider himself much better than Remus in the subject, but today they seemed to be taking it to a much higher level.

'At least they're acknowledging me' was Remus' desperate attempt at solace, but now that they were talking to him, sort of, he almost wished that they wouldn't. Peter was grumbling about being stuck with Remus once again, who tried to ignore the subtle slants to his name. James and Sirius were in the table opposite them, with their heads together, obviously talking about him.

Every so often he would catch a comment, or they would send one his way, which would make his already low self-esteem plummet through the dungeon floor.

"I love being better than him at something, don't you?" James whispered clearly, glancing over his shoulder towards Remus.

"Yeah, the know-it-all needs to be pegged down a few notches," Sirius replied sincerely.

"Or his head won't fit through the door!" Sirius snorted at his best friend's comment while Remus took to mercilessly stabbing at the Gurdyroot in front of him, until Peter stepped in to save it.

"Do you do it intentionally, or are you really that stupid?" Peter asked in irritation as he grabbed the Gurdyroot and began attempting to salvage its remains. Remus remained silent, but Peter wasn't finished.

"I thought bookworms were meant to be clever, obviously I was wrong," he muttered, curling his nose in contempt at Remus. Again Remus said nothing. He merely watched Peter clumsily drop the rescued Gurdyroot into their cauldron, which hissed in response to the new addition.

They were dealing with a particularly nasty memory potion, which involved a lot of precise time-keeping, and intricate cutting up of ingredients. The practicality of Potions was not Remus' forte for this reason. It was therefore unsurprising that the potion did not turn out well. But didn't James, Sirius and Peter let him know it.

He had tried to convince himself that it was all in jest; after all, he was particularly rubbish in Potions. But when all James and Sirius did as Peter and Remus' potion exploded in his face was laugh raucously, he realised this was not the case.

He knew Snape to act viciously towards a mistake made by himself in his least favourite lesson, but for his now obviously former friends to be slandering him with so much passion; it was more than he could take.

Of course, it had been his fault – he was too quick to add the crushed rat droppings – and consequently this gave them more ammunition to use against him.

Sirius was the worst offender. He not only reprimanded Remus for causing his sleek Black hair to curl slightly in the heat, but also accused him of being sub-human, allowing for subtle hints towards Remus' lycanthropy, because "No one could possibly be that bad in a subject."

Sirius made him feel like he was the vilest thing that walked the Earth by uttering only a few choice words. The way he said it was the clinch. He spat the words at Remus with such a cruel humour in his eloquent voice it made the hairs on the back of Remus' neck stand to attention.

"I suppose you can't expect too much of a half-breed, really."

And that was it.

That was the last thing Remus heard before the rounded, walrus-like Potions professor stepped in.

After receiving a three week detention from Professor Slughorn for sullying the Potions classroom, Remus was excused early, though not too early in his opinion.

He tore out of the dungeon classroom and instead of taking himself to the common room, or the Great Hall, or even the library, Remus instead headed outside to clear his head, and the tears that had flowed freely from his cheeks since his abrupt departure from the dungeons.

It was almost dark already as the winter season was fast approaching. The grey colouring of the sky was what reminded Remus of why today had felt so off, not just due to his friends, but from a gut feeling; it was a full moon tonight.

Remus ran to the Whomping Willow and threw himself past branch after swinging branch towards the knot, which he pressed with two trembling hands.

He would be alone tonight. He would be alone from now on.

As his empty stomach told him to go to dinner, Remus instead sat, alone, in the Shrieking Shack: ignoring the run of tears down his cheeks. How had he been foolish enough to believe he could have friends? Should he not have known from the moment he was bitten, or maybe earlier, maybe when he was born, his life would be a cursed one? He wasn't normal. So why should his life be? Why had he believed himself worthy of such a thing: a normal life?

The self-pitying sobs continued until the sun faded to an orange glow. Sunset. It occurred to Remus then that the sunset was occurring peculiarly early, but then, who was he to question the stars?

To his greater astonishment, having been certain he would be left alone tonight, three boys entered the Shrieking Shack. And as he felt the first pulls at his aching muscles, his eyes locked with Sirius', and met with a strange emotion. Remus knew the emotion only too well, but it did not bode well with the grey eyes it spilled out of; pity.

Remus couldn't bear those eyes searching him so he turned his face away. Curiosity, however, got the better of him and he looked to the other two for some sort of explanation. Had they forgiven him for being weak?

All three of them looked commiserating. Pitying.

They looked ashamed. They looked ashamed at themselves, though it wasn't clear to Remus why. Perhaps they were embarrassed at how they had taken the news. Or perhaps they were embarrassed that they had ever accepted friendship from him in the first place, and accepted him.

They weren't speaking. His throat was too dry to add his own words and so they stood and sat in silence.

The room and the three figures faded to black and then reappeared within seconds, although they seemed paler than before, and a shiver ran up Remus' spine. In his head, a dull ache began to accommodate itself. Every few seconds the painful silence was interrupted by blackness. It was starting.

Remus didn't have much longer as the wolf began to pull him out of his mind. The pins and needles started up his arms and legs but he was only half aware of it. He was able to feel his insides begin to rearrange themselves, however, and he gurgled in pain.

He even looked despairingly at the three who stood before him, watching as if mesmerised, and utterly calm. Six blank eyes watched him, tracing his distorted figure. Three blank faces stared at him; three human faces.

In the instant he realised this, his spine began to curl and bend forwards. He screamed hoarsely, the whites of his eyes expressing the agony of his torment. The torture. And they still weren't changing.

"Gah - you - change - NOW!" he gasped, and then gagged as his head began to shrink and his jaw slowly lengthened.

With the last remnants of his human mind, Remus pleaded silently with the three boys. They began to laugh, hollow and cold, at him. It was humiliating; the three of them leering at him, and laughing at his pain, watching him turn into a monster with revolted fascination.

Sirius stepped forward, his bark-like laugh thundering and splitting into Remus' sensitive ears. He looked at Remus, who by now was hunched forwards on all fours, and nearly completely resembled a wolf, and Remus saw his eyes flash with amusement.

It was all a joke to him. Moony. The transformation. His pain. All a joke. But if Sirius didn't change now those eyes would soon lose their laughter. Moony would wipe that sneer off those perfect lips.

Sirius mimed the word "fag" and a growl leaked out of the wolf-like Remus. Sirius' wicked laughter faltered. His sneer flickered into a look of fear and he began to shrink into Padfoot.

With the wolf in his heels, and not yet fully transformed, Remus launched at Sirius. Sirius was only half changed, with Padfoot's head and shoulders on his human torso. It looked horrific, and the grimace in Padfoot's eyes told of the pain.

A distant and pained screaming could be heard, but it sounded shallow, as if underwater and it only intensified Remus' blood lust.

He sank his sharp, still human teeth into the mutt's neck, crimson blood erupting from Padfoot's throat deliciously. Remus lapped at it, relishing in the coppery taste of it, and his teeth elongated into fangs that sank deeper into furry skin.

His mind seemed to be holding on, staving off the wolf, and Remus was enjoying the adrenaline-filled lust himself. He was becoming the wolf wholly and heartily.

Something hard collided with his head and Remus dropped his food to search out the source. Prongs stood defiantly behind him, baring his antlers. Remus bared his blood stained teeth at him, warning him to back off but the animal would not conform, its hazel eyes shining in anger. Remus lashed out with his claws, causing the stag to stumble, but still it remained defiantly stubborn, and now placed itself in-between Remus and the bloodied form of Sirius. Remus growled low and long. The stag dipped its head in its own form of threat. Remus launched himself again, this time on Prongs and sank his fully grown fangs into its neck. Prongs stumbled backwards from the pain, and tried to shake Remus off, but Remus was strong, and only sank his fangs in further. The stag let out a sound of pain and Remus let it go, for a second, only to go at it again with more force. His snout clamped around Prongs' leg, pulling hard until he heard a snap. Prongs went down quickly, breathing hard and snorting furiously through the pain. He was defeated.

With the stag now unable to protect his comrade, Remus made to go at the weakened mutt again but his interest was captured by an incessant squeaking that only now reached his attention. He saw the rat move and lunged. It was not a threat, it was a toy. Wormtail had made Remus suffer and so Remus would allow the same for him. The rat was fast, however, and found a hole only just big enough to accommodate its rounded belly. Remus knew not to try his luck with the hole, his human common sense overriding the wolf's instinct, and he returned to his initial conquest.

The mutt was whimpering and its human torso was heaving. It had lost a lot of blood, it was weak. Remus licked at the wound on the neck of his victim, and to the untrained eye it could almost be seen as an act of tenderness. But what a fool to think that Remus Lupin was a tender being any longer. Remus Lupin was a monster.

He smiled inwardly whilst the wolf got to work on his old friend, tearing at skin and muscle, ripping through the anatomy that used to represent one Sirius Orion Black.

Then Padfoot was gone, and he wasn't in the Shrieking Shack, but in a dark, uncomfortably tight space. He thrashed about with a maddened reverie but didn't wake up, at least not of his own accord, anyway.

He was shaken awake by a violent force that he came to realise was one James Potter. At the sight of those sparkling hazel eyes Remus backed away out of his touch, cowering against the cracked headboard.

"Don't-touch-me!" Remus barked out, the whites of his own eyes showing manically.

James pulled his hand back to himself hastily and tried to look normal and comfortable and unaffected. But Remus saw his eyes lose their glint for a moment before it returned in them, dimmed. He felt the shame grow wider within him and fought back the threat of tears.

"Moons?" James hesitated before retreating off the bed and standing next to a concerned Sirius Black and bewildered Peter Pettigrew, both whole and alive.

Remus closed out the hazel eyes, closed out their faces, closed his mind.

But the force better known as James Potter was upon him again quickly. He growled low and menacing but James held his position this time. He was far too accustomed to Remus' behaviour around the full moon to be intimidated.

"I'm sorry, mate, but you can't sleep now. Full moon," James grimaced in an apology. He looked pathetic kneeling in front of Remus, his 'well-meaning' cronies behind him at either side.

Remus wanted to gouge out those endearing hazel eyes.

No. No, he didn't.

Remus was not a disgusting, foul, dirty, Dark creature. Remus was not a monster. And yet he felt compelled to rip James' skinny, outstretched arm off – with his teeth preferably.

No. His eyes widened in their golden haze and he backed further into the headboard, it letting out a groan in response to the pressure, and made himself as small as possible. He buried his evil head in his monstrous arms, knees pulled tightly to his skinny chest. New, refreshed sobs twisted through him and emerged in strangled cries and whimpers.

Something wet and sticky clumped his sodden eyelashes together and an overwhelming smell filtered into his flared nostrils. He gagged as the heightened odour only increased and he broke apart from his shell, defeated by his own natural reactions.

This was when he realised he was not alone on the bed. A large and very Black dog was curled by his feet, watching him intently with sad grey eyes.

Lifeless grey eyes, hooded by drooping eyelids that were framed with red and sticky fur, hanging limp off shredded skin. A path of blood led to a tangled mess of what used to be Prongs, and nearby a small rat was quivering.

But the image in front of him was blurring, coming in and out of focus. Remus was glad. He couldn't bear to face the full impact of that scene. He knew it was his doing. He knew he was dangerous, he'd known that for a long time. He knew he ought to die, deserved to die. How could he have done that to them?

The sobs that had continued erupting from Remus were turning into shaky, quick gasps. This continued into shallow sucking until he wasn't really breathing at all, not in the sense that any oxygen was entering his terse mouth.

As much as he wanted air, he could only breathe out, and trying to breathe in felt like his lungs were clamped tight, refusing to take in any air. His shell reformed and he pulled as far away from the terrible sight as he could manage in his tight form. The need for air overwhelmed him and his head tilted back as he slipped away again.

Instead of James waking him, the pain was the assailant this time. It spread down his spine and reached inside him, pressing against his lungs and ribs. The pins and needles crept up his arms and legs.

He felt his insides moving around in him, working out their structure to fit the wolf's frame. He felt the pull on his bones that made him want to be sick. He fought that urge by concentrating on the pain.

Remus looked around him in fear, praying that his eyes would not meet human faces. But they didn't. Instead his eyes took in the sight of a dog, a stag and a rat. All healthy, all whole, all alive.

The transformation lasted years but finally and without a fight, Remus' weakened mind was overtaken by the wolf. His mind rested with it in the first true escape from himself.

AUTHOR: perhaps now would be a good time to mention that everything in italics was a dream.