All characters are JK Rowling's, etc.
Remus's first detention with Madam Pomfrey went about as well as a hospital wing detention could be expected to go. She didn't even seem to hold any ill feelings, but a woman whose profession was to clean up after students' stupid mistakes was surely was not one to hold grudges for long. However, she didn't hold back in delegating to him the worst tasks of the night, including cleaning up several bucketfuls of vomited-up leeches- the unfortunate result of a second year's Charms homework gone wrong- that took Remus a while to realize regenerated upon contact with water and did indeed crave human blood.
However, between the evening detention and his early first class of the next morning—as well as his own troubled mind—Remus did not get nearly enough restorative sleep to feel refreshed after the trials of the weekend. To compensate, at breakfast he let his tea brew until it was bitter as coffee and poured in enough sugar to outfit the entire table, then sucked the chocolate filling out of three pastries and left the rest behind.
"Post-moon cravings?" James asked, raising an eyebrow. Although Remus had not yet fully forgiven Sirius for the night before, they all sat together out of habit. James was clearly trying to act as normal.
"Well it is his 'time of the month,'" Sirius smirked. He too was doing a good job of putting the night before behind him. "You should see Bellatrix on hers. I once saw her spread jam on a sausage for breakfast. Bloody repulsive."
"Like she's anything less than repulsive any other time of the month?" James sniffed.
"Sounds like a metaphor for what she does during her time of the month," Peter pointed out wryly, in rare form. It took a moment for the joke to sink in, but then Sirius and James met eyes and howled in laughter. "Ohhhhh!" James gave Peter a high-five. Remus had neither the energy to laugh nor roll his eyes, but smiled slightly and shook his head before taking another sip of tea.
All too soon it was time to head down to the dungeons for their morning Potions class. The pleasant weather of the weekend was long gone, replaced by a depressing icy rain, so the temperature fell dramatically as they headed into the stone chambers below ground.
The four of them were just setting up their equipment for the lesson, James pairing with Remus after a brief semi-silent spat with Sirius about how Remus surely wouldn't want to work with him that morning given the circumstances (which Remus pretended to ignore), when Slughorn arrived and removed his coat to hang over the chair behind his desk. His voice piped up from behind. "No point unpacking, Lupin. You're wanted in Dumbledore's office."
"Now, sir?" Remus asked, pausing with cauldron in hand. Urgency was not a good sign.
Slughorn shrugged disaffectedly; he clearly had no interest in the matter. "As soon as I saw you, he said."
Remus nodded and rose, quietly collecting his things so he could leave before being noticed by the other students setting up. Habit made him hyper-conscious of making his absences conspicuous.
Making his way to the headmaster's office, he couldn't believe he felt more tired than the morning after full moon, but despite copious amounts of caffeine two sleepless nights compounded with so much running and stair-climbing over the past two days left him feeling as numb and detached as a ghost. At least the Headmaster's Tower was bound to be warmer than the dungeons.
As he entered Dumbledore's office, he was surprised to find it was not only not cold, but downright cozy. There was a fire roaring in the fireplace, and between all of the thick wood, tapestries, and well-stocked bookshelves the heat was reflected all over the room. Remus found himself relaxing in spite of himself, although he was certain this meeting would be anything but warm. Dumbledore sat at his desk writing, but rose when Remus entered. He didn't look angry, but Remus did not want to get his hopes up. Like the warmth of the room it could all just be misleading.
"Ahh, Remus," Dumbledore sighed. "I heard from McGonagall it was an eventful weekend. Alas, I was attending a conference at the Ministry and regret I was not here for it."
"You- you shouldn't have to be here for every full moon, sir," Remus said, hanging his head. "It's my fault it didn't go as normal this time."
"I was referring more to your father's visit afterwards," he replied, turning thoughtfully towards the fire. "Have no doubt, I trust McGonagall entirely to her duties as Head of House. But a Head of House has limits to her authority, and given the special circumstances of your enrollment and my role in them, I would have preferred to have been there."
Remus's heart thudded so hard against his chest there was a slight choking sensation in his throat with each beat. Circumstances of enrollment . . . So his enrollment was indeed in question?
However, rather than announce what Remus thought was the inevitable threat of expulsion, he asked an unexpected question. "Do you think your father was too harsh with you?"
"No, sir," Remus replied automatically, assuming this of course was the right answer.
Dumbledore frowned into the fire. "McGonagall was concerned that you might have left her office feeling unduly guilty, and at her report, I have my concerns as well. While it's not place to override your father's request to keep you from Quidditch games and Hogsmeade, I did want to check how you're feeling. Are you alright?"
"Of course I'm alright," Remus said quickly, hoping he was not being too brusque. But the unexpectedly kindly questions were unnerving him. "I mean . . . I'm disappointed in myself, but that's my own fault."
Dumbledore only stared at him for a moment, and Remus tried to make sense of his penetrating gaze, which was not the anger or disappointment he expected—but something more like pity, or even sadness.
It was an unnerving position to be in; Dumbledore should be the one angry at him, not Remus explaining to him why he deserved his anger. Uncomfortable with the silence, Remus spoke again. "He had every right to be angry with me. I'm lucky he didn't pull me out of school then and there; it'd be no less than I deserved."
"Do you believe it your father's place to decide whether Hogwarts welcomes you?" Dumbledore asked, his voice light but the question provocative.
A wave of defensiveness rose up inside him just as it had the night before with Sirius, though as he was speaking with the Headmaster he had to watch himself. "Well, it's his job to protect me- whether that means hiding my secret from others or shielding others from me when I'm dangerous. I mean, his entire life has been devoting to protecting me—and my mother, since she could never defend herself with magic like he can. Both of my parents tried so hard to cure me- and when they couldn't, they sacrificed everything and devoted their entire lives to keeping me safe."
"There is not a doubt in my mind that your parents did everything they did for you with the best intentions and greatest love." Dumbledore replied earnestly. He was so calm and matter-of-fact that Remus no doubt of his sincerity—and, after all, Dumbledore would have known Remus's father in his own years at Hogwarts, in order to see him as more than what Sirius imagined as a bitter reflection of his own parents. "But their love had always made them very afraid for you. And in their fear, I wonder if they have made some mistakes."
And the painful, awful truth was out again, hovering between them as it had before Sirius in their chambers. "You've been living in a prison all your life." Dumbledore's eyes stared into his so powerfully, so sadly, that Remus wondered if he was invoking Legilimens and able to see the memories of his childhood that played out before him. The bitter and burning taste of experimental potions which had made him nauseous, exhausted, and manic, thinned out his hair in clumps, and broke him out in spots, but never lessened the misery of his transformations. Long nights shut up in cupboards and basements, his Silenced howls nonetheless tearing at his lupine lungs as he strained against confines of the charms and curses that bound him to a safety that was never quite enough and always seemed to injure him just as much as it protected. Tearful unsaid goodbyes as they departed yet another anonymous country village without a word to their neighbors, local children Remus had been forbidden from knowing intimately and yet had in his desperate loneliness had still sometimes thought of as friends.
Remus closed his eyes and shook his head to block out Dumbledore's eyes and free himself from his own memories, conjuring up in their place the parents he held to be true, he wanted to be true: a woman who was smart, sensitive, funny, and strong; a man who was almost always polite, pleasant, a little shy, and in many ways like Remus himself, a man only driven to temper when he was afraid and felt out of control. "How else were they supposed to contain a monster?"
"Remus," Dumbledore's voice truly scolded for the first time. "Do you truly believe you are a monster?"
Remus squinted hard at the floor. "Once a month I am," he said bitterly, unable to look into Dumbledore's face.
"I mean you, Remus Lupin, the person. The son of Lyall and Hope Lupin, the Hogwarts student, the Gryffindor, the boy who stands before me now."
He had never considered that this was something subject to his own opinion; monsters weren't generally left in charge of deciding whether or not they were monsters. "I-I d-don't know," he stammered.
"Your classmates like you, Remus, as a loyal Housemate and dedicated friend," Dumbledore said. "Your teachers respect you as a diligent student and competent young wizard. And I see nothing monstrous about you at all."
Remus felt the color rising in his cheeks, embarrassed at these compliments he couldn't truly believe he deserved—especially when this was supposed to be a lecture. Wasn't it?
"But I'm still dangerous," he said quietly.
"You speak as if a castle full of underage wizards isn't dangerous," Dumbledore retorted, a playful twinkle in his eye. "Barely-trained wizards with their magic unmastered, playing out the drama of teenage emotions and hormones on one another with wands ready in their hands, in an ancient charmed castle next to a wood full of all manner of dangerous magical creatures. We have injuries by the week that put the Quidditch World Cup to shame." His voice dropped to a somber tone. "We have even had deaths. Believe you me, Remus; there have been far more dangerous wizards to walk these halls before you, and surely far more dangerous wizards to come after."
A normal wizard might have felt slighted by the implication that he wasn't the most powerful of all, but Remus breathed out a huge sigh—almost a sob—of relief.
"Do you know why you are at Hogwarts?" Dumbledore asked, his voice still light and questioning.
Remus blinked, unsure what exactly he meant by this question. "For my education, sirWith your permission, and the assumption I'm no threat to the other students."
"You seem to be under the assumption that your default state is to not be allowed to attend Hogwarts, but . . . you were born a wizard in Britain, and thus Hogwarts made note of your intended enrollment long before you were ever bitten. Your father starting making his own provisions for your education within months of your attack not because he denied your right to Hogwarts, but simply because he feared we would. Your mother, too; I have never met a Muggle more well-versed in the theory of magic, who could have taught you the name and gesture for any charm, the ingredients of all your fathers' potions- everything shy of picking up a wand and casting charms herself. As for myself, as soon as I found out about the wizard child bitten by Greyback who would surely be a candidate at Hogwarts in a few years, I did everything in my power to ensure you received your proper Hogwarts education. I spoke with Madam Pomfrey at length about the concerns of caring for and concealing a werewolf at Hogwarts and she made exhaustive research to assured me it would be well within her power to do it. I spoke to each Head of House about the hypothetical possibility of werewolf student at Hogwarts to gauge their reaction should you have been Sorted into any of their Houses. Every one of them was sure that with the proper precautions, there was no reason for them to deny your entry or fail to assist in your protection; even Slughorn was thrilled by the unique prospect of a lycanthropic student to potentially take under his tutelage. In the months before your arrival at Hogwarts, Hagrid made the complex arrangements for the transplant of a fully-grown Whomping Willow to conceal your path to transformation. And you remember I came personally to persuade your parents to allow you to attend."
Remus could only stare at him, his jaw a little slack. He remembered of course Dumbledore's visit- the most important day of his life so far; how could he ever forgot?—and had always been aware of Madam Pomfrey and McGonagall's role in concealing and protecting him. But with the full litany laid out before him, was stunned at the vastness of unrepayable debt he would owe all of these people forever. Even Slughorn, who had no idea that hypothetical student was currently a 3rd year Gryffindor with middling grades in his Potions class.
But Dumbledore hadn't meant to burden him; he peered over his half-moon glasses and smiled. "You see, every single one of us wanted you here so badly, and every single one of us still does. You are a student here by the same birthright of every other magical child in Britain. You are here because you are meant to be here, Remus. You belong at Hogwarts. You are no less welcome here than any of us."
Remus hadn't even realized tears were streaming down his face until a sudden sob rose up and he was forced to inhale an undignified amount of snot.
"But, all wizards and witches at Hogwarts have many things to learn," Dumbledore continued, "and you are no exception. And I'm afraid some of the most important and useful skills you will learn here is simply how to survive in this world as you are. As we both know, you do have to take extra precautions your classmates do not need to worry about, and to live on schedule with the moon regardless of how it interferes with the rest of your life. I expect that over this weekend you have learned this lesson. But I see absolutely no reason to ruin your life over what was truly a harmless mistake. And I hope you will see it as that: a mistake, and something to learn from—not something to destroy yourself over."
"Thank you, sir," Remus replied, nodding slightly. Between his father's exaggerated sense of devastation and Sirius's categorical insistence that he had done nothing wrong at all, Dumbledore's perspective was the first that truly made sense.
"However, I do have one requirement of you from here," Dumbledore added.
"Sir?" Remus asked, raising his eyebrows it was yet another punishment meant to impress upon him the seriousness of the situation.
"I am confining you to your dormitory until noon," Dumbledore said. "You're to return there immediately after we are done speaking, and I absolutely require you to take a very long nap." He smiled. "You're pale enough to be mistaken as one of our resident ghosts! I will let Professor Slughorn know you are excused from today's lesson."
Though he felt foolish laughing with the tracks of tears still clear on his face, Remus overflowed with joy and relief. No less desirable detention had ever been ordered.