Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, and probably never will…

Once in a Blue Moon

A red headed woman was perched on a simple metal chair, appearing to be engrossed in a bizarre newspaper. Punchy black letters proudly displayed the name of the newspaper (The Daily Prophet), and images of people waving covered the front page. Unlike the ordinary newspapers found in ordinary newsagents on ordinary streets, the people on the paper were actually waving. Bright white flashes temporarily filled the page as the pictures were taken, and the pictures were animated for a few seconds. The people repeated their actions over and over again, in an endless loop, doomed to spend all of eternity staring out of a newspaper.

But that is beside the point.

The point is that the woman was not, in fact, reading the newspaper. Rather, she was watching the inhabitant of the bed next to her.

She was in a hospital. St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, to be precise. The occupant of the bed had not moved, and had certainly not spoken, since he arrived several hours ago. It was a young boy of around five or six years of age. Faint pink lines scarred his face, a distant memory of the trauma of the previous night. The worst injuries, however, were hidden under the sheets. Deep gashes marred his back, wrapped up in layers of gauze and bandage, and his shoulder was cut through – nearly to the bone – by horrific tooth marks.

The medical staff at St Mungo's may have been miracle workers, but no miracle could heal those wounds.

The woman had never seen the boy before. Actually, that may not have been strictly true, depending on whether or not he was who she thought he might be.

"Remy!" She gasped, as she saw her husband walk through the door, "Are you okay? Was it -?"

"Me? No," He answered grimly, "but that isn't to say it wasn't my fault." Remus looked worn and haggard after his monthly transformation, more so now than usual. His normally shining amber eyes had been replaced by dull yellow ones, saturated with guilt. His face bore new scars, shining silver in the light of the ward, and he walked with a limp. He closed the distance between him and his wife and gently embraced her, his chin resting on the top of her head.

"How's he doing?" He asked: conflicted as to whether or not he wanted to know the answer.

"His back is scratched quite deeply, claw marks by the looks of it. His shoulder is worse though. Bite marks – practically to the bone. It's going to take a good long while for that one to heal up. Oh, and the nurse says he has magical exhaustion, we're not really sure why. It's not going to do wonders to his recovery time, anyhow." She reeled off with a façade of impartiality.

"So is he…"

"Yes, Remy, he is a werewolf." She sighed, the glass walls of detachment collapsing around her.

"Oh, Calla," he whispered quietly, "it's all my fault."

"No, Remus, it's not. There's nothing you could have done." Calla reached up and caressed his soft, greying hair.

"But there was. There was so much I could have done. I was supposed to make sure he didn't hurt anyone, to make sure he didn't go out of sight. One moment was all it took, and now," he gestured towards the bed, "this has happened."

"One moment. You said it yourself: it was only one moment. And just imagine the chaos if you hadn't been supervising him. He was abandoned with no assistance or guidance. Helping him was the right thing, Remy. You did the right thing."

"I had wolfsbane. I had everything. But I still let him down. He trusted me, and I threw that trust away." His gaze turned dark, "I let -"

"No, no, no! Don't go there!" Calla pulled away quickly, knowing exactly what her husband was thinking, "It's not him! It can't possibly be!"

"He looks so much like James. He can't possibly not be. And even if it isn't. What then? A child has been turned under my watch. He might even be a muggleborn! How do you explain to someone that their six year old child has been cursed by a creature that they thought was out of a fairy tale? I should have done more to help."

"What, Remus? What could you have done?" Calla's deep brown eyes lit up in anger. "Stop moping around about could-have-beens and should-have-beens and focus on now! Think about what you need to do to help Harry through this."

"So you admit it, then?"

"What?"

"That it is Harry."

Calla sighed in defeat. "I suppose so. I just can't see anyone looking quite this much like James. But I guess we won't know for sure until he wakes up."

"His eyes. They were just like Lily's."

Calla's eyes glazed over with a thin sheen of tears. "I miss her – I miss them both – so, so much. Everyone else celebrated his downfall."

"Voldemort." Remus corrected, "Call him Voldemort. We don't need to be afraid anymore."

"Voldemort's downfall, then." Calla amended, "They never spared a moment to think about the cost."

Remus held her hand and squeezed it lightly. "It's over," he whispered, "There's nothing we can do now. They gave their lives for Harry to live, and I guess I've failed him now, too."

They both jumped and spun around, wands held up defensively as the white doors burst open. An old man hurried through, a desperate, pleading look in his pale blue eyes. His grey hair hung down to his waist and an incredibly long beard was bunched up in front of him with several black hair ties.

"Where is he?" he demanded breathlessly. Remus and Calla slowly moved in front of the bed, blocking Harry from sight.

"Who?" Calla asked calmly, knowing the answer but wanting to hear the response.

"Harry, of course, Harry Potter. The wards in Little Whinging collapsed. Only death or a change in species – a curse – like vampirism or lycanthropy can do that. Monitors on his magical core state that he's still alive, so I came here, but -" He spoke quickly, the words tumbling out of his mouth one after the other. His gaze fixed on Remus, finally acknowledging who the other people in the room were, "You? You did this? Remus, I thought you were -"

"He was!" Calla burst out, "He did nothing wrong! Hasn't anyone ever taught you not to make assumptions?"

"Then who was it?"

"Headmaster Dumbledore, with all due respect, this is a delicate situation. We don't need you charging in here like the Gryffindor you are. Have a little tact, and take a moment to consider the welfare of other people." Remus gently took hold of her shoulder and steered her away from Dumbledore.

"Calla, it's okay," Remus assured her, "He ought to know, and even if we don't tell him, he's going to find out one way or another."

"Remy, are you sure? But what's going to happen to … him?"

"It's alright; we can protect him with the headmaster on our side. Without his support, well, you know what the laws around werewolves are like." The pair of them turned back to the headmaster.

Remus began, "I took a newly turned werewolf under my wing. He was turned by Greyback, and then abandoned, just like me. He was only 18. Just out of Hogwarts. Ryan Zephaniah is his name. Muggleborn, I think. Not that it matters anyway. So I told him that I'd supervise him for his first full moon, because you can't take wolfsbane the first time you change. Well, you can, but you might never change back. I took him to my hut, and we spent the day walking through the woods so his wolf could get its bearings. It's never nice when you don't know where you are. We didn't go far: we couldn't in the state we were in. By lunchtime he'd had enough, so we just spent the afternoon there, dozing. Night fell before long. He was fine to start with – just a nip here and there to keep him in line. But then he bolted. I had no idea why. He just did. By the time I found him, he'd already bitten…" Remus trailed off at the end, unable to truly comprehend the damage it had caused. A young boy – Harry Potter no less – had just had his life turned upside down and shaken around in a matter of seconds. Calla squeezed his hand gently, and he gave her an appreciative smile in return.

"I'm so sorry, my boy. I'm so sorry. I can't begin to imagine what you went through last night." Dumbledore apologized, a pitying look in his eyes.

"Yet two minutes ago, you were perfectly willing to accuse him of attacking a child?" Calla countered. Remus was quite surprised by Calla's willingness to knock down the man who she had held up on a pedestal for so many years. Calla had always respected Dumbledore. She had been loyal to him, and Remus had been the same. The wizened headmaster had accepted him for who he was. He had no qualms about letting a classified dark creature onto school grounds and allowing him to live with ordinary witches and wizards for seven years. That act of kindness alone had made a rejected Remus feel like he belonged somewhere for the first time he could remember. Ever since he was bitten, he had spent his life in transit from one place to another so that nobody would ever discover his affliction. His parents had hardly hidden the fact that they thought he was a burden. But Dumbledore offered a place where he could be himself and not live in fear. For that, Remus had been thankful. Calla had been quite the same. After being sorted into Hufflepuff, she had difficulty socializing with her housemates. The house of loyalty had rejected her. That was enough for anyone to feel disheartened. She had spent much of her Hogwarts life with Lily and the Marauders – a year above her own. She quickly caught on to Remus' 'furry little problem' and had respected the headmaster for giving him a place to live when others wouldn't.

Post-Hogwarts, Dumbledore had presented them with the opportunity to join the Order of the Phoenix, where they could make a difference in the fight against the megalomaniac that terrorized their world. It gave the purpose to their lives that so many people searched for.

As a Hufflepuff – albeit ostracized, but a Hufflepuff nonetheless – Calla took loyalty seriously, so her sudden and drastic change of heart shocked Remus.

Clearly, seeing Harry in the condition he was in had shaken her. Dumbledore had told them both that the child was safe, that nothing could hurt him behind the blood wards. It all led back to the inevitable question: what was Harry doing in the forest? It was hardly a common destination. If it was, then Remus wouldn't have been there on the full moon anyway. Privet drive was halfway across the other side of the country. It could have been accidental magic, Remus mused. That would explain the magical exhaustion. But why would he have apparated there in particular? You had to picture the place, for starters, and Harry had never been there before. Not even before Lily and James had been killed.

Remus wordlessly cursed his curiosity as he felt the beginnings of a headache forming at his temple. Overthinking wasn't a good idea the day after a transformation.

Drawing himself back to the present, he found Calla viciously interrogating Dumbledore with pointed questions. She was a fair few inches shorter than him, yet the headmaster – defeater of Grindelwald and the only one feared by Lord Voldemort – was visibly shrinking before her.

Damn, she was hot when she did that. Remus' lips twitched upwards.

"…told us he was being looked after! So where were Petunia and that monster of a husband when he was being attacked?"

"My dear, the blood wards –"

"Don't you 'my dear' me! You have no right to do that anymore! And what good are blood wards when he's hundreds of miles away? Surely you can't expect a young boy – the son of James Potter, for Merlin's sake! – to permanently stay in the same place, can you?"

Remus decided that it was probably a good idea to intervene before Calla got too carried away. He stood next to her and turned his body so that he was partially in between his wife and Dumbledore, taking Calla's attention off the headmaster. He saw that her dark brown eyes flickered with flames, and her fiery hair was slightly ruffled.

"Calla, give the man a break. He clearly didn't mean any harm. Yes, his actions weren't entirely justified, but I'm sure he thought that he was doing the right thing at the time." Calla huffed in frustration, and Remus noted that Dumbledore actually looked older than his years for once. He deserves it, though a vindictive voice rang inside his head, sounding disturbingly like the traitor, Sirius Black. He ignored it.

"But he doesn't give a knut about Harry's welfare. Has he once asked how he is? No! Instead he runs around throwing wild accusations at the first people he sees." Remus could see her point. Very clearly, in fact. However, it was neither the time nor the place for a confrontation. That could wait until later. He told her as much.

"Remus, Calla," Dumbledore addressed them quietly; "I take full responsibility for my actions. I simply want what is best for Harry, and for no harm to befall him."

"Well it's too late for that now." Calla interjected before Remus could stop her.

Dumbledore continues, "It seems that we must now discuss the matter of Harry's living arrangements." Calla sobered up immediately. "Obviously, he cannot return to the Dursleys, so it remains to be seen where he shall stay. There is always the option of Hogwarts, or -"

"We'll take him." Calla said without hesitation. Dumbledore's eyes widened marginally in surprise at the sudden proposition. It was expected, of course, but not quite so soon. "It makes perfect sense." Calla continued, "We've known him since he was born; Remus here can help him through his transformations; we can gradually help get him used to living in a magical world after living with Petunia for so long – she abhors magic, you know. Says it's freaky and unnatural -, and finally, we can provide him with a loving home."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course!" Remus answered assuredly, "We could do nothing less. We've wanted him to live with us since the beginning, but it was too dangerous. Now, I pose no threat to him. Anyway, we've always wanted a child of our own." He smiled gently at Calla, whose eyes were now twinkling with excitement.

"Well," Dumbledore spoke, "I'm sure we can arrange something." There was a hint of reluctance in his voice, but he had no valid arguments remaining. Calla's stare caused him to scuttle out of the room. She watched him leave with a satisfied smirk on her face.

Remus sat himself down on the chair Calla had previously occupied. The woman in question elegantly sat on his knees, ignoring the muffled 'oomph' that came from beneath her.

"I love you, Calla Evans." Remus murmured.

"Lupin," she corrected with a smile, "Calla Evans-Lupin."