Full and New

by FFcrazy15

Fall 1998: Between his curse, a new family, and a castle full of war-scarred students in need of guidance, newly-reinstated Professor Lupin has enough on his plate– and that's before an old foe rears his ugly maw. Myth and Magic mix in this tale of wizards and wolves, making one lesson very apparent: whatever you do, keep clear of the moonlight. Post-war AU; RLNT, HPGW, RWHG, DMLB.

17. Chapter 17: Hunter's Moon

Disclaimer: I neither own the intellectual property of the Harry Potter universe, nor do I profit from this work produced here.

Warnings: naked werewolves, cursing, blood, Greyback being Greyback, transformation scenes. Oh, and lots of Teddy and Remadora fluff!

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Theron Lowell did not particularly like potatoes.

At least, he didn't like them raw. Until the last year and a half or so, the only time he had ever had potatoes was when they were served seasoned and slathered in butter as a side to a good cut of dragon steak. Of course, that was when he had been the sort of man who could afford dragon steak. The very memory of it was enough to make him salivate; he hadn't had a plate of ordinary beef steak in almost as long– at least, not cooked, and certainly not all to himself.

Even after all these months, Theron couldn't help but feel as if the old him had been a different man, living a different life. Once upon a time– sometimes, it did indeed seem a very long time ago– Mr. Theron Lowell had been a successful young business tycoon, the wealthy CEO of Cauldrons and Co., the largest cauldron-manufacturing company in Britain and, if the projections proved accurate, soon enough Northern Europe. Theron had taken pride in his work; he was a dedicated, ambitious young entrepreneur that set perfection as the standard of his company. No cutting corners for his firm, no-sir! No poor housewitch was going to write to Home and Gnome complaining that her bleaching elixir had burnt through the bottom of his products! Soon his reliability and industriousness had paid off; he'd sold shares of his company to three other buyers, 40% to himself, twenty to each.

In hindsight, he could admit, that had been a mistake. One of three. The second had been so minor he'd put it out of his mind… at least, until it came back to bite him. Quite literally.

It had been a cold day in London, just a few days into December. He'd been late for a meeting– now, he couldn't recall what it had been about, but at the time he had thought it important. He was crossing a street with a crowd of muggles and heading into the part of London which housed most of the undercover wizarding businesses and corporations, when a hand had reached out and caught at his cloak.

He'd turned, startled, to see a thin-faced young woman looking back at him, sitting curled up in rags on the sidewalk. Her hungry yellow eyes had thrown him off-kilter; one of them was crossed but left undamaged by a white scar. Similar marks littered her face like cracks in porcelain. "Please, sir," she'd mumbled huskily, head ducked low, but looking, always looking at him with those unsettling yellow eyes. "Please, d'you have anythin' t'spare? Only I ain't eaten in three days…"

Theron had stared for a long moment, trying to figure out who this woman was, why she'd reached out to him. Then he realized the origin of the scars crossing her wind-chapped face, noted the sharpness of her long, white canines, read the hunger and fear in her yellow eyes.

He'd pulled his cloak out of her grasp, disgusted. "How dare you touch me, you- you foul freak," he'd hissed, repulsed, but the woman, far from shrinking away, reached up and grabbed at his arm, "Please, sir, I'm starving, I can't go back to them, please-"

Go back to them. His fury had been stoked then, as he realized that this creature had, perhaps recently, been running with a pack, possibly with ferals. Enraged, he'd clamped a hand over her wrist and wrenched his arm from her grip, pulling her to her feet. "I told you not to touch me!" he snarled. "Learn to keep your claws to yourself, you loathsome little bitch, or next time I'll call the authorities!" He threw her down hard against the concrete and turned to go, only to find the muggles all staring at him, stunned at his show of violence against what they indubitably perceived to be just an ordinary beggar. Assuaging his pricked conscience by reminding themselves that they couldn't possibly understand what a horrid beast even now sat in their midst, he pushed through the crowd and hurried off into the snow. A glance back confirmed his justifications; the werewolf was glaring at him ferociously, tears flowing from yellow eyes filled with absolute and utter hatred.

The third mistake had been a simple one, a common one, made by nearly every foolish witch and wizard across the globe: the full moon had come, and he had not bothered to set a ward around the warm walls of his luxury cabin.

The next few weeks had been a living hell for Theron as his disgust for what he had become battled with his sense of self-preservation. Not a single one of his so-called friends had bothered to visit him at the hospital or even send a get-well card. His longtime girlfriend, saved from the same fate only by the happy accident of having been away for a modeling photoshoot that week, sent him word by owl as he was recovering that she saw no reason to continue their relationship. His partners at the firm had told him in cold, hard terms that they would walk away with their combined shares and assets to begin their own company if he didn't sell, rather than risk the inevitable drop in stock; Theron, backed into a corner and wanting to leave with at least a portion of what he had put into his company, his pride and joy, had agreed, signing the forms even while in his hospital bed. But all the money in the world could not buy him a cure; all it could do was convince the Healers at St. Mungo's to allow him to remain the ward long past when he should have been released, anonymous, snapping at the other happy patients when they tried to interact with him. What did they know about suffering? What had they lost?

The only discourse he'd had with anyone save healers and patients in those weeks had been the unexpected conversation with one of the visitors of the other patients, a man about five years his senior. Theron had known the moment he entered that this man was one of their– his– kind, and had watched him warily throughout the visit. When the wife of one of the patients (an overly-cheerful redheaded man with, in Theron's opinion, far too many kids– redheads, too, probably a load of Micks) had lost her temper over some matter or another, the children had all scattered, and the other werewolf had approached.

"Hello," he'd said kindly. Theron glared. He'd had enough of kindness. All the healers and sisters had been so blasted kind, some with pity, others with compassion. Theron didn't care which, it still made him feel like an invalid with only a few weeks to live. Bitterly remembering that the full moon wasn't far off, he thought to himself that maybe they had a point. "I'm Remus Lupin," the man continued. He extended a hand, and then withdrew when Theron didn't shake it. "It's, er, it's nice to meet you."

Theron rolled his eyes. "Save it," he growled. The man blinked, and he found a strange sense of pleasure in knowing that he could startle even him, another beast. "I don't want your pity, and I don't want your soapbox on how I'll be able to live an 'almost normal life.' I've had enough of that shite." He rolled over in his bed and hoped the bloke would just go away.

"You know, you've got a lot of nerve," said Mr. Lupin sharply, and Theron looked over his shoulder, startled. "I came over here hoping my friend there had been wrong about you–" He jerked his head back to the cheerful redhead, who was now not looking nearly so cheerful as he was being berated by his wife, "–but clearly he was far too polite in his judgments."

"Oh really? And what did he tell you?" Theron sneered, forcing himself upright. "That I'm a beast? An animal they ought to lock up?"

"No," Lupin replied flatly. "He said you've been right horrid to the healers and to the other patients. Amazingly enough, he actually pities you for it."

"And you don't?" Theron snorted.

"No. I don't." His mouth was tight. "Life's dealt you a pretty hard blow, I won't deny it. But that doesn't give you the right to be an insufferable arse to everyone else." And with that, he turned on his heels and walked away, leaving Theron to gape in his wake.

He didn't see the man again for another five days, and by the time Remus Lupin visited again, Theron had done a lot more thinking. He'd realized, after much internal ranting at the other werewolf, that maybe the man had a point. The trouble was, Theron realized, he wasn't "an insufferable arse" because he was a werewolf. He'd always been an insufferable arse, and his frustration over his new condition had just pushed him over the edge into a new level of insufferable arsery. Feeling rather ashamed of himself, he'd made it a point to be nicer to the healers, and found to his surprise that his own mood had improved, as well.

It was nearing the end of visiting hours on New Years' Eve when the other werewolf came around to the hospital again, this time bearing flowers and gifts. He spoke again quietly with his redheaded friend, chuckling at a joke and handing him a tin of what appeared to be handmade cookies, and charmed the wilting bouquet of flowers on the man's nightstand to bloom again. Then, he'd approached Theron, still carrying a small potted poinsettia and a tin under his arm.

"Hello," he said, looking surprisingly sheepish.

"Hello," Theron had replied back, startled and equally embarrassed.

"I- ah- I brought you some cookies," Mr. Lupin began uncomfortably, holding out the tin. "And a flower. Thought it might, er, brighten up your space here…"

"Oh. Um, well, thank you."

He watched Lupin set the red poinsettia and the tin down on the nightstand. "They're gingerbread," the man explained. "I hope you're not allergic."

"Oh. No, I'm not."

Lupin nodded, bit his lip. The two sat there in silence for a few uncomfortable seconds. Theron wondered if he should say something.

"I came here to apologize," Lupin said abruptly, startling the other werewolf. "For the way I acted last time, I mean. I forgot how hard it must be, being so newly turned."

"It's alright," Theron replied, surprised. "I- I think it's what I needed to hear, honestly."

"Oh. Er, well… good," the other said lamely. They fell into silence again, watched as the door opened and the redheaded man's redheaded wife came in, bundled up in cloak and scarf and blushing with cold. She sat down beside her husband and they talked about children and homemaking nonsense for a minute or two, before she pulled out a magical firecracker and handed one to her husband. His face lit up with glee, and, after warning the other patients (who were all watching with much excitement), they pulled it together. A loud bang went off, covering the two in blue smoke, and when the coughing had ceased they found themselves with a bejeweled crown.

Theron watched with a mixture of jealousy and amusement as the man made a joke about the pudgy woman being his "fair queen" and crowned her, causing her to blush red and smack his arm. His ex-girlfriend would never have stood for anything so cheesy, let alone blushed at it, yet Theron was somehow moved.

"I'd hoped he'd be home for New Year's," Lupin sighed, drawing Theron's attention. "The family misses him terribly. They're good people."

"The wife thinks I ought to be locked up," Theron said quietly, a forlorn feeling entering his heart. He felt as if he'd been shut out of that happiness forever, and was looking in on it through a window.

Lupin glanced down at him sharply. "What?"

"She said so earlier. She thinks I'm dangerous, that I ought to be in a private room."

"Oh." Lupin relaxed, and Theron realized how his original comment must have sounded. "She means well, you know. She just worries; she's sort of everyone's mother."

"Even yours?" he said doubtfully.

Lupin laughed aloud at that. "If the three servings of Christmas pudding she nearly forced down my throat are any indication?"

"How can she stand being around you?" Theron demanded, baffled. "If she's so scared of werewolves?"

"Well, that's the thing about Molly; she really loves everyone, no matter how scared of them she is. Sometimes I think if You-Know-Who himself came to her door begging for food, she'd insist on giving him second helpings. But she's not frightened of me anymore, really," he mused. "Gotten used to me by now, I suppose."

Theron nodded. They sat in silence again, this time more comfortably. After a long while, the younger werewolf managed to get up the courage to whisper, "What's it like?"

Lupin glanced over, and his eyes softened.

"It's hard," he admitted. "Not impossible, but hard. The transformations are painful, even with Wolfsbane, and you'll probably find that your temper is more volatile, too."

"Yeah, I noticed that." He hesitated. "Just… just how much does it hurt? I don't really remember much from that night at all, just the attack."

Lupin bit his lip. "…It's bad," he murmured. "Awful, really– but it's over soon enough. If you've gotten your hands on some good Wolfsbane, it's not as hard. But the, um…" He looked away, and murmured so softly that only the other could hear, "The cravings, on those nights, they're difficult."

Theron felt his mouth go dry. "Difficult?" he rasped.

"Oh- not like that. I mean, they're certainly tempting, but they won't overpower your free will, not so long as you've taken the potion. No, I meant that they're difficult to cope with. As in… as in, emotionally, they're… disheartening." He swallowed and continued in a more ordinary tone, "And of course, the social stigma isn't particularly pleasant."

Theron felt a stab of guilt. "No," he mumbled. "I guess not."

If Lupin caught on to this, he didn't make any indication of it. "It's not all bad, though," he said, with a small smile. "People can be cruel, but they can also be incredibly kind. Our condition, it's… it's a weakness, certainly, but weaknesses are chances to let others love us."

"I don't have anyone," said Theron quietly. "Not anymore."

"For a long time, I thought the same thing," Lupin confessed. "But you'll find them, Theron. And if no one else," he added, smiling down at the man, "You have me."

And that night, for the first time in many weeks, Theron had managed a real smile.

He'd left the hospital the day after the next full moon. Lupin had been right; the cravings were "disheartening," to say the least, but with the morning light they had faded, leaving him tired and hungry, but still with his dignity. Lupin had come to see him off, with promises to keep in touch, and Theron had had every intention of doing just that… until the next full moon.

His fourth mistake had been his biggest. Of all he had lost, Theron had, at least, kept the little cabin out in the woods. He had prepared for it all day, reading up on the transformation itself, setting off anti-muggle wards around the cabin, forcing himself to eat as much of his steak as he could manage. But he had made one small, innocent little mistake, without even realizing it. After having taken his wolfsbane, he made himself a cup of tea to wait and had mixed in two tablespoons of sugar, waiting calmly for the moon to rise. He didn't realize his mistake even as his consciousness shut down, but he knew that something had gone wrong, and that terror drove the wolf mad.

The next morning, quite apart from waking up in his cabin, he awoke back in the empty Dai Llewellyn Ward, burns covering his arms and back in a crisscross pattern where the aurors' silver nets had caught him, realizing what fate he had by grace alone somehow escaped.

After that, Theron had decided he could not dare to even be near ordinary human company anymore. He sold the cabin and all his assets, put away a reasonable amount in Gringotts in case he should ever change his mind, and gave the rest away to charity. Then he walked off into the English wilderness and waited for a pack to find him.

And find him they did. He had not realized how strong the alpha-submission instinct would be until he met Fenrir Greyback, the fearsome leader of the most powerful pack in Great Britain. He'd been less than pleased to find that Theron was unwilling to turn feral, but said that he would 'adapt eventually' and assigned him to watching over the 'pups,' three children who ran with the pack after having been orphaned or abandoned by their families, the eldest no older than ten. There he'd met the young woman with the scar who'd begged him on the street– the young woman, he'd realized, who'd bitten him, and had used his victimhood to turn feral.

At first, he had been terrified of her, terrified and disgusted. Unfortunately, they'd had no choice but work together; it seemed that the woman had likewise been assigned to caring for the children, and, though Theron couldn't claim to know much about parenting, he knew at least that a united front was better than a house divided (or a den, as it were). Much to his surprise, it had seemed that the woman was as frightened of him as he was of her; as the days passed, however, they slowly grew accustomed to each other. Theron could even admire how well she managed the children; the woman– Mallory, as he eventually learned– had a firm nature but a gentle hand, and the children were utterly devoted to her.

In time, the two grew close; one night before the full, Theron had summoned the courage to ask her whether she ever regretted turning him. Mallory had begun to cry, and, through her tears, admitted the whole story: she had been raised in the pack from her childhood, and had only managed to find the strength to leave when she'd heard Greyback's plans to side with the Dark Lord, whom she thought a despicable man. But, being an unschooled werewolf whose very existence was unknown to the Ministry, she had found it impossible to get work or shelter, and had resorted to begging on the streets of London to survive. After he'd rejected her, she'd turned to hatred of all humankind, and, seeing no other means of survival, had returned to the pack. There she had been given an ultimatum: turn feral, or leave the pack forever. "Lone wolves never survive," she'd whispered, full of shame. "You know the rest."

He knew. He understood, and forgave. How could he do otherwise, Theron realized? He loved her.

They became a family then– Theron and Mallory, and the children they would later properly adopt, protecting each other, caring for each other. For him she turned Tame again; for her he became a humble man, a loving father. Eventually the two were married, and, after the pack had crumbled, they'd fled together here to this place, a small haven of peace in a world of chaos. Here they'd hid their children through the dark days of the war, here they'd kept each other safe.

And now, the war was over. Now they could live safely, though still secretly; the small family had good reasons not to draw attention to themselves. Theron bought their daily bread through carefully rationing out the money still left in his accounts and bookkeeping for the squib who owned the local wizarding pub, while Mallory took in washing and tailoring for the muggle women in the village. They trapped rabbits and other small rodents in the small nearby wood, albeit illegally, and tended to the small garden from which he was currently digging up several potatoes because, Moon Day or not, the transformation that night was bound to go smoother if it was done on a full stomach. Theirs was a poor life, and so rabbit and potatoes it would have to be.

He rested on his hoe for a minute, looking out into the darkening trees. The sun had turned the color of a ripe apricot and was slowly sinking towards the horizon, a sign as to the dwindling time before his companion, the silver moon, rose opposite him on the horizon. The sound of birds cooing in the dying light and the rustle of small animals in the trees near the cottage met his ears, and drifting from the window behind him he heard a gentle Gaelic tongue croon:

"Dacw 'nghariad i lawr yn y berllan,

Tw rymdi ro rymdi radl idl al.

O na bawn i yno fy hunan,

Tw rymdi ro rymdi radl idl al..."

Then again, he thought, glancing into the window of his humble cottage, the gold light of the kitchen framing the image of a young woman, scarred yet smiling, no side of sirloin ever made me as happy as a bowl of scrap stew.

He leaned the hoe up against the cottage wall and picked up the potatoes, groaning as his stiff joints creaked in protest. Mallory was still singing in the kitchen as he entered, and he was struck as always with her particular fortitude in the face of another full moon:

"...Dacw'r ty a dacw'r 'sgubor;

Dacw ddrws y beudyn agor.

Ffaldi radl idl al, ffaldi radl idl al,

Tw rymdi ro rymdi radl idl al..."

She trailed off, setting aside her knife and scrutinizing the chopped rabbit meat with a disatisfied, hungry look in her eyes, which were ringed with bruises of strain and fatigue. Theron knew that years of eating her food raw was exacting its pull on her instincts, and so he spoke up: "Don't stop just because of me."

Mallory looked over, surprised, and then smiled. "Theron. I didn't know you were listening."

"You sing beautifully, my love." He approached and kissed her gently on the cheek, handing her the potatoes. "Where are the children?"

"Sleeping. We ought to wake them, or they'll be too tired to eat."

"I'll do it." He tilted up her chin and kissed her again, this time on the lips. Mallory smiled tiredly as he drew back, and he brushed a stray strand of chestnut hair out of her eyes. "Be strong, love."

The children were indeed all asleep, curled up together on the bed in the larger bedroom. Michael, the eldest, stirred as he entered. "Time for dinner?" he mumbled, even more exhausted than his adoptive mother.

"Nearly. Wake Charles, will you?"

Michael sat up, yawning, and turned to his younger brother, shaking him gently as Theron knelt down at the edge, brushing his fingers through the black hair of the youngest and his only daughter, Lucy. The girl opened her eyes and looked up at him, confused for a moment, and then pleading.

"Can't I sleep a little longer, papa?" she whispered, looking very sickly indeed.

Theron smiled sadly. "Afraid not, little one. We'll be eating soon."

"I'm not hungry, papa..."

"I know, Lucy, but you have to eat. It'll make you feel a bit better, I promise."

Lucy sighed and closed her eyes again. Theron's heart was tearing in two, as it did every month at this time for his children. None of them, of course, were his by blood; Michael had been abandoned by his parents at the age of six, both of whom had refused to show up to the adoption hearing; Lucy and Charles, alone among the five actually related, had been orphaned the same night they were turned, then only four and seven years old. But whatever their beginnings, whoever they may have been but for the bite, they were his now, and he loved them as much as if they had been his own flesh and blood. Moved with pity, Theron picked his little girl up into his arms (a task which would have been difficult for an ordinary man, being that the girl was now seven, but which for him was only uncomfortable due to the proximitiy of the full moon) and carried her into the kitchen.

The stew was ready not long after, which Mallory served in the chipped ceramic bowls that Theron had no doubt were older than even himself. The small family murmured grace in unison, and then all five looked with distaste down at their meals. The brown sludge was peppered here and there with orange and khaki chunks of carrots and potatoes, and steamed softly with an odor that Theron was sure on any other day would have smelled delicious, but which this evening made his stomach turn with nausea.

"Mama, it doesn't smell good," Lucy pleaded, looking up at her parents with pitiful hazel eyes.

"That's not polite, Lucy," her father reproved, as Mallory's expression had fallen even lower at the innocent comment. "Your mother worked very hard on this dinner." Feeling that, as the head of the household, he should be the first to set a good example, Theron swallowed his distaste and picked up his spoon. Mallory followed and, with a nod from his father, Michael did the same. The younger two followed suit, albeit glumly.

In the end, none of them managed to choke down any more than a few spoonfuls. Theron gave his wife a weak smile and said as he stood, muscles stiff, "It was delicious, love."

"Don't flatter me, Theron," Mallory mumbled, resting her head exhaustedly on one hand. The man bit his lip and took pity on her, clearing her bowl to the kitchen. Again Michael followed his lead, generously collecting the dishes from his siblings. Outside the kitchen window, beyond the garden, the sun had turned to a blazing scarlet in the sky, brushing against the horizon. Theron glanced down to his son and saw Michael looking back, the dying light gleaming bronze on his golden hair and pale skin, his eyes serious and intelligent like those of a pious child-saint.

"It's time, isn't it?"

Theron nodded and tried to smile ruefully, to give the boy some encouragement, but his mouth twisted into a grimace instead. Michael looked again towards the setting sun, and his father was struck how at the young age of twelve, the boy looked older than he himself had at twenty-five.

Soon after the family took their leave, each with a blanket under one arm and a change of clothes under the other. Theron took Lucy's and picked her up, allowing her to latch her arms around his neck and rest her tired head on his shoulder. Michael kept Charles distracted with talk about racing brooms as Mallory locked the door behind them, and in unison, the five started 'round the cottage and east towards the growing darkness. There was a slight ripple as they passed the wards of the fidelius charm, and, as they reached the crest of the hill, they paused, each taking in the sight before them.

The ruins of the ancient castle stood, ivy-covered and crumbling, black silhouettes against the blue of the evening sky. A slight tingle ran along Theron's spine, and from Mallory's shudder he could tell she felt the same. The children fell silent as they continued the climb up the hill, sensing the gravity of the location. Of the castle itself there was little left; fifteen hundred years of weather and wear had brought it low from the strong fortress it once had been. It had not been a large castle, little more than a walled keep with an attached chapel, but it had been tall and stalwart, a stronghold against dangerous foes and darker forests.

In the center of the keep was a cloistered courtyard, the walls crumbling on every side; this was the most heavily enchanted part of the ancient castle, and thus had fared better than the rest. The vegetation here had long since grown out of control, the walls covered with ivy and the ancient gardens overcome by weeds, but in the center of the courtyard, where the magic was strongest, was a shallow, perfectly circular pool built from white marble, the water still crystal-clear despite the passage of the centuries. Here the family paused and stopped to look: in the bottom of the pool was an enchanted mosaic, depicting gray wolves wandering the green moors, beneath a sky that was slowly shifting from purple to indigo. At the eastern horizon a silvery light was beginning to grow, and around the edges of the mosaic were the words:

CASTRVM LVPINVS ~ COR HOMINIS VINCIT VNGVIBVS BESTIA

"Alright, you lot, on down to the dungeons," Mallory said at last, breaking the silence; here, if nowhere else, she held the authority, and something about the ancient stones and clear waters made the rough-cut woman seem like a lady of days gone by. "Quickly now, before the moon rises."

"Mama, can't we change out here?" Lucy pleaded. "We've taken our potion!"

"It'll be alright, Lucy," Michael interjected, sparing his mother the need to answer. "We'll run free just as soon as we've turned, I promise." The dungeons, which had been prepared specifically for their kind, disgusted Mallory and Theron, but they were indubitably the safest place to transform in case anything went wrong: sound-proofed, inpenetrable and having been repaired less than thirty years ago, the chances of them escaping without full possession of their mental faculties were slim at best. The five were just about to return inside the keep when a breeze drifted through the courtyard, swirling the dirt and crumbled leaves at their feet. In unison, they froze.

Another draught whispered through the ancient stones, carrying with it that dreaded scent. Mallory turned to Theron, yellow eyes wide. The children looked up at their parents in fear. "No," Theron whispered hoarsely.

Mallory looked quickly to the pool. The tiles at the eastern edge were shimmering from blue to white. "Theron, take the children and run," she whispered.

"No– Mallory, you go– I'll hold him off–"

"He won't hurt me– at least, not too badly. But if he finds you here, he'll kill you. You're the only one who knows how to apparate, Theron!"

"Then I'll take you with us!"

"And who will protect the village? How many people will be turned or slaughtered tonight if I run?"

Theron was about to respond when a sound caught their sensitive ears: the noise of footsteps crunching lightly over grass. "There's no time, Theron!" Mallory hissed. "Take the children and go!"

"No– Mallory, no–"

She seized his shoulders, eyes blazing like fire. "By the blood of Melion which flows through my veins, Theron Lowell, I order you to take our children and run!" she commanded, and there was something in her voice that he was compelled to obey. "For our children," Mallory pleaded, "for me, Theron, please, just go!"

He hesitated, and then looked back towards the kids. They were wide-eyed, frightened. The man swallowed, and then turned again and kissed his wife fiercely. He drew back, tears gleaming in his eyes, and vowed hoarsely: "I'll come back for you."

Then he was gone, disappearing into the growing gloom with the speed of a hunter, the little ones following like shadows in the night. Mallory turned towards the break in the keep walls from which the scent had come and drew a deep breath, closing her eyes, every instinct on the alert.

She knew the moment they arrived, both by scent and by sound, but did not look up until he spoke. "Bright Eyes."

Mallory opened her eyes, gleaming gold in the darkness. Fenrir Greyback stared back. "It's Mallory now, actually," she replied calmly, though inside her heart was thundering.

The man opened his mouth as if to reply, but apparently decided against it, turning to his companions. "They can't have gotten far," he told the two. "Catch them before they get to the apparition wards. The pups aren't to be harmed; do whatever it takes to get that traitorous dog back here. But leave him alive." His mouth twisted into a snarl. "I want him for myself."

Mallory's heart leapt into her throat at that, but she said nothing as Brute and Cyclops dropped to a knee in submission, and then dashed off in pursuit. When they were gone, Greyback took a moment, looking around. "How ironic," he murmured, but for him it sounded more like a growl. "How fitting, that you would come here. How could I not have guessed it before?"

"We were protected," she replied stiffly. "By the magic you so hate."

"Ah, yes," the man replied with a snort. "I should have known that the mutt would hide you away, like something to be ashamed of."

Mallory snarled, baring her teeth. "The only thing we were hiding from was you!"

Fenrir stopped for a moment at that; she imagined a flicker of pain crossed his brutish features, but in the next moment it was gone. "I've been patient, Bright eyes, but this childishness has gone on long enough," he growled, stepping forward. "Tonight we will run, and tomorrow you will return with me."

"I can't do that."

"You would stay here?!" he demanded, gesturing to the crumbling walls and the gleaming marble pool. "Here, where they hate you? Here, where you burn the flesh to eat it, where you hide in men's hovels instead of running free? Here where you deny your instincts to pretend to be human?"

"I am human!" she cried. His yellow eyes flew wide. "I belong here, with my family! What you do, what I have done, it's unnatural!"

"What is unnatural is to abandon your pack!" he snarled. "You are a wolf, Bright Eyes! Your future is with your pack, and as your alpha, I order you to return and fulfill your duty!"

That was the final straw. Mallory's eyes gleamed, and she stood tall, setting her chin. "They are not my pack. And you are no longer my alpha."

Fenrir Greyback stared at her, stunned. He looked as if he wanted to speak further, but at that moment, far to the east, the full moon's silvery curve rose above the moor's horizon, and the pain struck them both. Mallory cried out as she fell to a knee; every bone seemed to be cracking, every nerve shocked with a thousand volts of electricity. Her skin burned, her jaw ached, her hands buckled and clawed at the stone–

Another scream wrenched from her throat as her humerous bones snapped, forcing her to collapse to her side. A roar of pain met her ears, and through bleary vision she saw the man before her curled up on the stone, contorted into a form unnatural. "Don't make me do this, Bright Eyes," he rasped. "Run with me– I beg of you, don't fight it–"

He bellowed as she screamed, back arching, fur sprouting, fangs arching white and sharp over her teeth as her jaw pushed itself forward. She writhed and bawled and pleaded for it to be over, just let it end, oh, why, why wouldn't it end–?

...Three minutes later, the lower edge of the moon crossed the horizon, and, like angels dousing the fires of purgation, the pain faded away. Mallory lay there, whimpering, and wated for the trembling in her limbs to wane.

A sound met her ears; she lifted her head, sniffing the air. Greyback's wolf lay not far from her, still gasping for breath; she stumbled to her feet, but before she could do anything more, two wolves came stumbling painfully into the courtyard. The great alpha wolf pushed himself to his paws and lumbered over, giving them each a sniff; they quickly lowered themselves into the position of submission, and the alpha gave them each a snort. Mallory tensed as Greyback turned to her. There was no light in his yellow eyes, no human recognition, but she knew that, traitor though she was, he would not harm her unprovoked.

Somehow, that made this all the more difficult.

The alpha paced over her, unaggressive, merely expectant. He waited for her to submit, and Mallory summoned her nerve. Crouching in an attack position, she growled, raising her hackles. The alpha looked at her in surprised, and then growled in return, hunching its shoulders. The meaning could not have been clearer: down, pup.

The witch didn't listen. Instead, she snarled, baring her teeth. The challenge had been made. The two beta wolves approached their alpha, and he growled again. Nobody challenged Greyback's authority. No one.

She snarled again, and then snapped her teeth, dancing forward. Goodness knew if she could survive a night brawling with the greatest werewolf to ever live, let alone his betas, but for the sake of the peacefully sleeping village below, she had to try.

With a fourth and final snarl, the alpha had lost his patience. He bounded forward, and as Mallory felt his teeth sinking into her shoulder, she could only pray that somewhere beyond the madness and bestial wrath, he still remembered that once, not so long ago, she had been his daughter.

It was her only hope.

---

(Twenty-Four Hours Previous)

The time just before the full– commonly called "Moon Week" among the lycan kind– could be measured by symptoms more accurately than clockwork, at least to the experienced. Having been a Tame werewolf for longer than most managed to live after the bite, Remus considered himself to be among that unfortunate band whose chronological instincts were accurate almost to the second.

The first few days of Moon Week always ran the same: from the first day to the fourth, his levels of alertness and attentiveness would progressively rise. This could have its advantages and disadvantages; Remus was never more skilled in a duel than in the week preceding a full moon. On the other hand, in peacetime, this hyper-sensitivity could make him irritable and jumpy, more prone to outbursts of panic or anger during the day, and spells of insomnia or night terrors at night.

Day five was what he chose to call "Feast Day," the beginning of the intense hunger cravings in preparation for the massive energy loss drawn by the change. This was followed by day six, "Wolf Day," where the moon, one night before the full, was fat in the sky, sending his senses into overdrive and making it increasingly difficult to control his baser instincts. Day seven, "Moon Day," was marked by intense fatigue, aches, and nausea as his body conserved as much energy as possible.

The Sunday before the October full moon fell on a Wolf Day, and by sunset, Remus's nerves were like live wires. He had spent the entire day on edge, hungry, and irritable; every time he came in out of the cold he felt like a caged animal, reduced to pacing, anxious to taste the fresh air. Morning services in the church had been almost unbearable, due to the combination of his near-claustrophobic aversion towards the indoors and the distracting scent of Dora's hair, which smelled even better than normal. Afterwards, he had escaped out into the village and spent the day wandering the roads of Hogsmead, venturing into the forest whenever the clamor of humanity grew too much for his sensitive ears.

Now dusk had fallen and, after taking his dinner in the Hogwarts kitchens where only the discreet house-elves could witness him tear into a roast like a starved dog, he'd retreated to his apartment, climbing up to the tower to watch the near-full moon rise over the Scottish mountains. The great silvery orb pulled at his blood and set it ablaze, silver through his veins, fire crackling over the snow.

Remus sat down with his back to the stone pillar and clenched his fists, forcing himself to breathe through his nose. "You are a man, not a beast," he chanted to himself, "control your passions… cool your blood, Remus…" He felt like a piece of yarn being unraveled and strung taught, his natural instincts pulled out of the realm of the virtuous into the selfish, the animalistic. He wanted to be a brute. He wanted to eat an entire feast, brawl a thousand men and be with his wife as a man ought until the moon set in the west.

But Remus Lupin did none of those things. Instead, he went down to his study, made himself a cup of chamomile-mint and sat down to grade the third-years' essays on ghouls. Halfway through a rather poorly written paper whose author seemed to believe that ghouls were "defiantly" the ugliest creature he knew, he heard the study door open behind him, and was nearly taken off-guard by the tantalizing wafts of his wife's green-apple shampoo. "Hey, love," said Dora gently as she approached, mindful of his sensitive hearing. "How're you feeling?"

"Like a bottle of butterbeer someone shook up and set outside in the sun," he sighed. "I just wish this were already over."

"I know. I'm sorry, darling." She set a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, and Remus flinched instinctively; every nerve seared where she'd touched him, like a brand under his skin. "Is there anything I can do?"

He looked up at her imploringly. "I don't suppose there's any chance we wouldn't make another kid tonight?"

Dora shook her head. "Sorry, love."

Her husband let out a groan and put his head down on the desk. The auror chuckled ruefully and dropped a brief kiss on his head. He flinched again and she bit her lip. "Sorry. I guess that wasn't helpful, was it?"

"Not particularly," he mumbled from the parchment. "Oh, who am I kidding, I can't focus on this." He stood and rolled his shoulders. "I'm going for a run."

Dora nodded sympathetically. "Don't be out too long; you need your rest for tomorrow."

Remus grimaced and ran a hand through his brown hair. Moon Day was by far the worst day of the month, full of aches and chills and the growing dread of the approach of his own personal hell. "Be back soon, love," he mumbled as he brushed past her, not trusting himself to actually kiss her goodbye.

Within fifteen minutes he'd left the castle grounds, traveling north around the Black Lake and out of the forest, stopping at the edge of the Scottish moors. The night air was crisp and refreshing on his feverish skin; Remus stripped off his shirt and removed his shoes, standing barefoot in the long cool grass. The moonlight caught on the jagged scars cut into his pale flesh, eyes glowing yellow as he turned his head to the sky and breathed the cold air deep into his lungs.

Then he took off, chasing the winds across the open fields, wild and free under the starry sky and the swollen moon.

Back at the castle, a figure sat upon the roof of the tower, golden hair fluttering in the wind, white skin glowing like marble under the great pearly moon, and fought the urge to scream.

---

"Remus. Remus, love, you need to wake up."

Hazel-gold eyes fluttered open and squinted in the rosy light. The man groaned and clutched at his head with one rough hand as a sharp pain drove into his skull. "What time is it?" he mumbled.

"Nearly half-seven, love. I let you sleep as late as I could."

Remus cursed under his breath and sat up with a moan, looking around. He seemed to have collapsed on the couch, as was his wont on Wolf Nights, and missed breakfast. That was fine with him; he felt sick to his stomach, courtesy of the way the world seemed to be spinning around him. He mumbled another curse and took a deep breath, trying to settle his stomach; Moon Day was like the world's worst hangover.

"Poor dear." Remus glanced up blearily as Dora knelt down, her hair fizzling to orange with worry. Even the color made him feel ill. "Love, I think you should take the day off…"

"No," he mumbled, shaking his head and fighting to stand, "No, I'm going to teach… just need to get dressed…"

He took one step and stumbled; Dora caught him around the shoulders with a change of roles that, at any other time, they would have found amusing. "Love, I really don't think you're well enough to–"

"Dora. We had a deal."

His wife bit her lip, making him feel awful, though he didn't retract the statement; in exchange for letting her stay with him during the transformations, Dora had promised not to coddle him any more than he asked her to on the full moon. She had grudgingly agreed, calling him a blasted fool, which Remus ignored; he had long ago promised himself that he would not allow his condition to make him a victim, and that meant getting up and going to work even when he'd much rather lay in bed all day sipping tea.

He choked down a piece of dry toast, got dressed with some difficulty, and kissed his wife and son goodbye. Stiff and limping, wishing dreadfully that it were a weekend, he made his way down towards his classroom. The weather was fair and it promised to be a lovely day, the pale pink dawn brushing gently through the windows and over the gray stones, but Remus was in no condition to appreciate it. His body ached, his thoughts were muddled, and the nausea had not gotten better upon standing up. Worse still, his biological knowledge told him that the symptoms would only get worse; his body was undergoing the first cycles of a positive feedback loop, hormone levels building higher and higher until the transformation, all while the energy conservation drove him into a deeper and deeper stage of fatigue.

Remus could hear the students chattering long before reaching the door, courtesy of his heightened sense of hearing; thankfully, they all quieted as he pushed the door open and shuffled inside. He managed a weary glance up and found that every eye was on him, fixed with worry. The professor blushed and tried to look stronger than he felt. His gaze found the back corner, and was surprised to see that Lavender Brown was present in her desk– equally pale and sickly-looking, it was true, her curly blonde hair tied back in a messy ponytail and her scarred face without a dusting of makeup to be seen, but present. Remus shot her a bare smile, but the girl was far too miserable to return it.

With effort, he hoisted his briefcase up onto the desk and opened it; thankfully he'd finished his class notes several days ago, so that he all had to do that day was read from the parchment. "Alright, so," he began, rather uninspiringly, "Today we will be, ah, beginning our first study in the defensive and offensive magical powers of sentient beings, beginning with–"

He blinked hard as the letters blurred momentarily in front of his eyes, cleared his throat, and continued. "–Beginning with the being you're most familiar with, which is to say, other wizards. During the first term we will be covering how to cast a patronus, shielding and disarming charms, and other lessons that were overlooked in your fifth year… identifying and defending against animagi and metamorphagi… how to withstand or fend off the more powerful forms of dark magic, including the imperius and cruciatus curses…"

Whispers were beginning to fill the air; Lupin stumbled over his words as he lost his concentration, the murmurings swirling in his mind:

"…Doesn't look well, does he? Should we do something?"

"…This is exactly why you can't hire their kind…"

"…What if he passes out?"

"…And hopefully, at the end of the term, the practice of basic occlumency. Any questions?"

Thank Merlin, there were none, although there were plenty of questioning looks. Remus nodded and winced at the way it made his head pound. "Alright then… we'll be starting with disarming charms today. How many of you know how to…"

Oh, Merlin, he really didn't feel well. Maybe he should have stayed in bed. What he wouldn't give to be asleep right now, ignorant of pain and illness, only waking up to the smell of beef broth and his wife's hair as she crept inside, her anxious heart-shaped face appearing above him like an angel of mercy…

Remus realized the students were all looking at him with obvious confusion, and he cleared his throat. "Pardon?"

Several snickers came from the back row, and embarrassment swept through him, twisting in his stomach. "Er, know how to what, Professor?" Hermione inquired courteously.

"Oh." He blushed, prickling hot all over, and coughed. "Er, how many of you know how to–"

He stopped suddenly as he realized, far too late, that the feverish churning of his stomach was not due to shame. The room spun as the blood rushed from his face; he tried to brace himself against the desk and missed, stumbling sideways and collapsing onto the wastepaper basket. This in fact was fortunate, for in the next moment, his morning toast made its reappearance, accompanied by acid and bile and whatever else had been left in his stomach from the night before.

"Professor! Professor Lupin!"
The students were crowding around; he could hear them, smell them, the press of distinct scents crowding around him like a cloud of cloying perfume, choking him and making him retch again dryly into the basket. The world was fading in and out of focus, stars dancing before his eyes, and in the moment before the gray nothingness overtook him he realized once again just how much he hated Moon Day.

---

…When Remus awoke, it was to the sound of wind and birds chirping and the fading, sweet humming of a tune which Madame Pomfrey had told him long ago was called Adoro Te Devote. He looked around dazedly and found himself in the bright, sunlit infirmary he knew so well, filled with the comforting smells of medical potions and fresh air and…

He turned as the third and fourth scents caught his attention. Dora didn't see him at first, smiling softly down at the sleeping Teddy in her arms. Remus, still feverish and dazed, stared at them without a word, lifted into a strange kind of euphoria.

Dora's warm chocolate eyes glanced up, and her face split into a grin. "Remus!"

"In the flesh," he whispered weakly.

"I'm glad you're awake. How are you feeling?"

"A little less like I've been run over by a herd of hippogriffs," he rasped. Dora smiled wryly.

"Just one hippogriff now?"

"Mm. Rotten bastard."

She actually laughed at that, as it wasn't often Remus cursed. "Madame Pomfrey's just left."

"I know. I heard her go." He struggled to sit up, but Dora reached over with her free hand and pushed him back down. It didn't seem to take much effort.

"None of that; she said you're to stay resting. Told me to threaten you with a sleeping potion if you didn't."

"Sounds like her," Remus sighed, leaning back against the pillows. "Is that what she gave Teddy?" Dora nodded. "What time is it?"

"A little past noon. You've been out for nearly four hours."

He groaned and closed his eyes; he'd been hoping he'd be well enough to go back to teaching, but there was no chance Madame Pomfrey was letting him leave the infirmary now. "Bloody fantastic."

"Serves you right, for trying to work today," she scolded, though not unkindly. "Remus, why won't you just take Moon Days off?"

"Because I'm a professor, not an invalid," he mumbled, though it didn't have half the conviction he'd intended.

"Well, you're an invalid today, and I don't care if I have to wrestle you back in myself," his wife retorted, tapping his chest, "you're staying in that bed until sundown."

Remus managed a ghost of a smirk. "Not today, darling; I've got a headache." Dora scowled and smacked his arm lightly, but she seemed relieved he was feeling well enough to make jokes. "How's Teddy?"

"He was fussy and spitting up until Madame gave him the potion, but he's doing alright now." She cupped his cheek with her free hand and tilted her head, lips pursed. "I hate seeing you two so sick. I wish there were something I could do…"

"It's alright," he whispered hoarsely. "My fault, really, for biting off more than I can chew…" He cringed at the memory of his students crowding around him, some looking at him with pity, others with disgust. It was hard to decide which he hated more. "I must have looked so pathetic," he muttered, mostly to himself. "None of them are ever going to take me seriously now."

"Don't go there," Dora scolded. "This wasn't your fault, Remus, and you're a wonderful teacher. Your students love you."

"Do they?" His eyes had darkened from honey-hazel to a dark amber. "All I've ever wanted to be, at least until I married you, was a teacher. But now… I can't handle a boggart, I pass out in class… let's face it, Dora, I'm a joke."

"Hm." He glanced over to see that Dora's face had grown thoughtful, her hair faded to a soft lavender. "Remus, did I ever tell you about what happened on my first stakeout?"

"No," he replied, startled by the shift in conversation.

"It's an awful story, really. I was twenty-one, just out of training, youngest auror in the office at that time. Anyhow, we'd gotten a tip-off about a group of druglocks in Birmingham who were mixing diluted billywig venom with heroine and selling it to the muggles. Moody took three of us down to sniff the place out and see if we couldn't bring them in. Since I had the least experience I got put on lookout. To this day I don't know what happened; one minute I was scoping the area, the next, I was waking up in some basement with the worst headache of my life– and I was a beater, mind you." Remus chuckled. "I found out later that the druglocks were holding me for ransom, but at the time, I didn't think I was going to make it out of there alive. I was terrified."

"What happened?"

"I still don't know all of it. All I remember is Kingsley opening the door and telling me everything was okay now. Later I found out that there had been a massive duel; that was how Moody lost his eye." Remus's own eyes widened, surprised. "I had never been so humiliated; I even thought about leaving the corps. The other officers thought so too, said if I was this clumsy and inept I should just take a desk job, instead of putting other, better aurors in danger."

"Harsh."

Dora shrugged. "Maybe. At the time, I thought they were right. Anyhow, later that week I worked up the courage to go visit Mad-Eye at St. Mungo's. I was so ashamed I couldn't even look him in the eyes– well, eye. He noticed and said he'd heard the rumors, that I was thinking about leaving the corps. And do you know what he said to me?" Remus shook his head, and Dora morphed her hair gray and her nose crooked, setting her now heavy-set eyebrows into her best scowl. "Now you listen to me, Auror Tonks," she growled. "I've seen a lot of good aurors drop out of the corps because they couldn't handle the pressure. They crack, go soft. Can't take the cold, hard fact that if they bugger up, it can get someone killed. And frankly, that's a bloody shame. Nobody but nobody has a perfect record. Not me, not you, and certainly not those puffed-up windbags in the office, you can take that from me."

Remus looked away. He knew exactly what Nymphadora was telling him, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"Now if you want, you can hand over your badge and go find yourself a nice, cushy desk-job to slowly suffocate yourself in when you know full well you weren't made for it. Or you can put on your big-girl panties, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and get back to doing what's right. The choice is yours. If you want to quit, there's the door."

Her hair and face morphed back to normal, and she stared down at her husband with a piercing gaze. "So what'll it be, Remus?" she said coolly. "How much do you want this? Because honestly, it's up to you."

Her husband was silent for a long moment, and then sighed, smiling ruefully. "You channel Alastor remarkably, did you know that?"

Dora grinned back. "So you'll stay?"

"I'll stay– if only because I fear the wrath of Mad-Eye Moody if I refuse."

Dora laughed, switched to the edge of the bed and poked his shoulder. "Scooch over." Remus acquiesced, shifting his prone form so that Dora could lie down on her side next to him, cuddling Teddy in between them. He breathed in the comforting scent of her hair and closed his eyes again, counting himself at that moment the luckiest man in the world, werewolf or otherwise.

---

…Sister Irene "Poppy" Pomfrey was deep in thought when she returned to the infirmary, breviary in one hand and a case of potions vials in the other. Though it had been many years since she'd been Remus Lupin's primary healer, she still had a soft spot for the man in the far bed, and had added to her daily prayers a petition for his swift return to good health. Still, it had not been by prayers alone that the good Father Mungo had founded her order and cured so many of the sick and lame, so, thinking she would do well to check again on her patient, she set the vials aside and peeked behind the white curtain.

The sickly professor was still snoring softly on the bed, and curled up beside him was his wife, her hand resting gently on his chest and their infant child tucked between them. All three were sound asleep.

Smiling to herself, the healer closed the curtain and returned to her work, the sweet strains of the Salve Regina filling the air.

---

"…and if you follow Coughlan's Rule of MediCharming, the cells will begin to rapidly divide."

Although the library was the preferred place of study for the Hogwarts pupils, it was not a particularly good place for study-groups, thanks to Madame Pince's fiercely enforced silence policy (there were rumors that she had been raised by Trappists, but no one had yet confirmed them), which had led the group of fourth-year Gryffindor girls to retreat to their dormitory. Hermione, Parvati and Ginny were all crowded onto the first's bed, while Lavender lay on her own, trying her best to listen.

"I still don't understand why we can't just use an ordinary engorgio charm," Parvati argued, frowning down at the charms textbook, which Lavender knew without looking contained several complicated equations and definitions. She grimaced as another wave of pain rolled through her body, biting her lip hard to not make a sound.

Hermione sighed, a tad exasperated at having to explain this for the third time. "Because engorgio takes in sub-atomic particles from the surrounding environment to build new atoms. Cresceros makes the cells replicate themselves."

"But why does it matter?" Parvati's voice grated on her ears. The werewolf gritted her teeth and tried not to think of how satisfying it would be to punch her best friend in the mouth.

"It matters because if you mess up the second you overgrow the bone. If you mess up the first, you run the risk of causing a nuclear fission accident inside a magical being."

She's such a know-it-all, Lavender growled internally. Would it kill her to take a day off? And none of them had even noticed she was in pain…

Ginny spoke up, still clearly clueless. "And that's a bad thing because…?"

Hermione sighed again, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Remind me to show you pictures of Chernobyl sometime. Alright, let's go over this again–"

"No!" The three jumped and looked over as Lavender slammed her hands down on her comforters. "I'm sick to death of charms and bones and stupid rules from stupid wizards in stupid books! So just SHUT UP!"

The satisfaction at their stunned silence lasted only a moment, before she realized exactly what she'd said and turned bright red. "I-I mean- I don't–"

"Oh, Lavender, we're sorry," Parvati interrupted, much to the blonde's surprise. "We- we completely forgot, you're not feeling well, are you?"

"And here we are, going on and on– we can go down to the common room, if you like, and let you sleep?" Hermione suggested. "Would that help?"

"I– nghah!" A sharp, cramping pain spread through her abdomen and up her spine, forcing her to curl over on her side. Tears prickled at her eyes as her friends surrounded her, worried.

"Lavender?"

"Lavender, are you okay?"

"I-I just- I–" The dam broke, and the young werewolf dissolved into tears. "I j-just feel s-so a-a-awful!"

The other three glanced around at each other. "How long until sunset?" Hermione inquired quietly.

"Three hours," Ginny replied. "Do you think we should–"

"I think so, yes. Lavender?" A cloud of brown frizz came into the werewolf's field of vision. "Lavender, do you think you can walk?"

"I-I–" She let out another whine and curled in tighter, shaking her head.

"Okay. We're going to get Madame Pomfrey to help you, alright?"

Lavender nodded tearfully, and Hermione quickly left the dormitory. Parvati and Ginny tried to comfort her, but Lavender flinched away. She didn't want to be touched. She just wanted the pain to go away…

A few minutes later Madame Pomfrey was standing at her bedside, checking her temperature with cool hands. "You poor dear, you're burning up," the nun said, shaking her head. "If I'd known it was going to be this bad I would have given you something at the beginning of the day… I don't think it wise to use the floo, but I should be able to levitate you down to the infirmary. Miss Granger, if you could fetch her books and a change of clothes?"

Lavender was by this point far too miserable to care what they did, even despite the strange looks she got from the other students as she was floated through the hallways towards the infirmary, wrapped in a blanket. All she knew was that she was grateful when Madame Pomfrey laid her down in an infirmary bed and gave her a potion tasting of strawberries, which immediately brought the pain down to a mild ache. "There you are, dear," the good sister said soothingly, patting her arm. "It should wear off before nightfall, so you'll be able to take your Wolfsbane then. Try to get some rest, hm? I'm afraid the sleeping potions don't mix well with that stuff, but I imagine you're tired enough as it is."

With a whispered reassurance from Lavender that she would try, the matron smiled sympathetically and left, pulling the privacy curtain. Lavender was just about to doze off when her keen hearing caught the whispers coming from the other side of the screen to her left:

"–Think that must be Lavender."

"Yes. I'm surprised she wasn't in here earlier; I used to spend all off Moon Day in the infirmary…"

"Used to?" the first teased, and that was when Lavender spoke up:

"Professor Lupin? Is that you?"

There was a moment's silence, and then a hand drew aside the white curtain to reveal not just the professor, but also his wife and infant child, who was sleeping fitfully in her arms. "Lavender," Remus Lupin said awkwardly. "I didn't realize you could hear us… Which, to be fair, was not a very bright assumption."

She managed a thin smile at the joke, and Mrs. Lupin cleared her throat. "I think I'll take a little walk with Teddy," she murmured to her husband, bending down to peck him on the lips. "Need to stretch my legs."

Lavender very much doubted that this was the auror's primary reason for leaving, but she didn't question it as the woman disappeared beyond the edge of the curtain. Lupin regarded the girl with an expression of unfortunate sympathy. "How are you feeling?" he asked quietly.

The younger werewolf grimaced. "Is it always this bad?" she croaked.

He shook his head. "It's harder when you're new, or at least, that's what I've heard. And some people just get it worse than others, like myself."

"'What you've heard?' Don't you remember?"

She knew immediately from the way his face fell that this was the wrong thing to say. "Er– well, no," he mumbled, looking away. "I've, ah, I've been this way for as long as I can remember, so…"

"Oh." Yes, she remembered now; hadn't the article said he'd been bitten at a young age? How young, Lavender wondered? She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked…"

"No, it's alright. I understand that you must be curious."

"And I'm, um, I'm sorry," she said, her own gaze falling to the blankets, unable to meet his eyes. "About… how I reacted last night…"

"You have nothing to apologize for," Remus reassured her. "I once broke my roommate's nose in a similar situation, convinced he was Greyback. I'm sure the werewolf scent wasn't very helpful, either."

She crossed her arms uncomfortably, as if she wanted to speak but wasn't sure how. "Lavender?" The professor questioned. "…Is there anything you want to talk about?"

"I'm fine," she whispered, and they both knew it was a lie.

"Really?" Lupin said softly. "Because I'm not."

The girl looked up, surprised. The man's hazel eyes were understanding and very, very sad.

"Professor, I'm so scared," she choked out, finally breaking. "I'm trying to be brave, I really am, but- but I don't know if I can live with this for the rest of my life, I'm not strong like you, I can't, I just can't…"

"You are very strong," he said firmly, "far stronger than you realize. I know it's difficult right now, believe me… but one day, you will wake up and realize that your life can still be a very happy one."

"I hate myself," she whispered, as if it were a confession. "I hate what I am."

Remus felt as if his heart had been squeezed in a vice. "I understand," he said again gently. "Really, Lavender, I do. But it's not a sin to be sick."

"I can't control it," she mumbled. "I can feel it, when it's angry… I'm scared it'll get out…"

"What you are feeling are heightened senses and emotions," he informed her. "They're a part of the disease. Believe it or not, they're meant to keep you alive."

"Keep me alive?"

"They make you more alert, as do the heightened reflexes and increased strength." He smiled thinly. "The few benefits of a horrid disease, I suppose. And it was right helpful for sneaking around the castle late at night."

She managed a very small giggle at that, and he was happy to see it. "So, it's not- not the wolf, trying to get out?"

"No. For a long time, I thought the same, but you'll find you feel happiness or excitement more intensely as well, not just fear or anger."

Lavender nodded, and then bit her lip. "And- and what about the- the nightmares?"

He sighed. "You'll probably have them for a while- perhaps for the next few months or so. I recommend taking a Dreamless Sleep every night for a while until they go away, but you'll likely still get them occasionally for the rest of your life."

Lavender swallowed. "I don't want to keep reliving that. It was bad enough, going through it once…"

"You won't. Eventually they'll fade, and grow fewer; I haven't had one in over a year now, and I woke up almost immediately."

"How old were you?" she asked hesitantly. "When you were…"

Lupin's eyes flickered away again. "…I was four," he admitted. "Almost five."

She covered her hand with her mouth, feeling suddenly ill. "You were-"

"Yes. But it's alright." He gave her a sad smile. "It does get easier, Lavender, I promise you. I learned to live with it, and so will you."

She shook her head, looking away. "I don't want to live with it. I want it gone."

"Believe me, so do I. But allow me to let you in on a secret a wise soul once told me, and which took me twenty long years to accept." She looked up uncertainly, and gold met gold as he looked her dead in the eyes. "This struggle is going to define you, Lavender, in one way or another. But how it does so is up to you. Courage isn't being unafraid, or denying there are problems; courage is looking pain and suffering in the eyes and allowing it to mold you into someone who is strong and gentle and kind. Knowing you, the battle is already half won."

The girl didn't know how to respond to this, so she didn't, merely remained silent. Lupin let the statement hang in the air for a moment, and then drew back. "Well. I suppose we'd best get some rest, shouldn't we? Long night and all that."

Lavender grimaced and nodded. The professor took his wand in hand and, with a half-hearted wave, closed the curtain between them. With a sigh, Lavender rolled over, wincing at the twinge in her stiff limbs, and let herself drift off…

---

"…Remus…"

The man mumbled something under his breath and curled in deeper under his warm blankets.

"…Remus… love, you need to get up…"

But why? The bed was so deliciously warm, and he felt so very tired…

"Remus, it's nearly moonrise."

His eyes opened. The room around him was bathed in the golden glow of the sunset, and fear spiked through his heart, escaping his mouth in a shaking gasp. Sunset. Moonrise.

Oh Merlin, no.

"Oh, love," a voice sighed, and he looked over to find his wife sitting in the chair next to him, biting her lip. "I'm so sorry."

Remus sat up, slowly, his head pounding, bones aching. Even his teeth hurt, and his stomach was twisting itself into knots. Across the curtain, he could hear Madame Pomfrey's gentle encouragements to Lavender, who it seemed had started to cry. Remus wanted to cry, too, but instead he clenched his fists and summoned his nerve. This is the way things are. You can either hide from it like a child, or you can stand and face it like a man. A noise drew his attention, and he looked over to see that Teddy had awoken and was fussing again, face red, tiny red fists beating at the air. Maybe not today, but someday, Teddy would look up to his father on these nights, trying to find his courage in Remus's own. His resolve hardened. For your son, you will be a man.

On the other side of the curtain, Lavender was tearfully wiping at her eyes, trying to find the strength to get up and put on her dressing robe. "Professor McGonagall will be down in a minute," Madame Pomfrey informed her, helping her dress. "She'll take you to the Room of Requirement, and then help you back here in the morning."

Lavender nodded with a sniffle, and glanced over to see the professor's wife supporting him as they walked past, Lupin's face stiff and resigned. She swallowed, wishing she could have his composure.

Soon enough, McGonagall did arrive, dressed in a set of fresh robes and with her hair in a simple braid down her back. "Are you well enough to walk?" she questioned. Lavender nodded; thankfully the pain had subsided some over her hours of rest. Madame Pomfrey gave her a vial of Wolfsbane, which she gulped down with a grimace, and then, limping and leaning on McGonagall's shoulder, she followed the professor over to the floo in Pomfrey's private quarters. A moment's dizzying ride later, they stepped out of the fireplace in the arrithmancy office.

"Right this way, dear," McGonagall said kindly, helping the girl along down the stairs and through the corridor. She left Lavender to rest against the wall as she paced three times back and forth in front of the wall which hid the Room, and then turned to her as a pair of strong, wrought-iron doors appeared.

"This is where you will be transforming tonight, Miss Brown," she explained calmly. Lavender felt better for that; if the headmistress could speak about it so evenly, perhaps the werewolf could face it with similar poise. "It will be soundproofed and you won't be able to leave, but I will be able to get in if you need me. Bark twice and the door will open on my side." Lavender nodded. "You'd best go inside, then; we've only a few minutes until moonrise."

At the reminder, the girl froze. Her hands began to shake; tears filled her eyes. As she let out a terrified gasp, McGonagall murmured, "Oh, child…" and moved to embrace her. Lavender buried her face in the woman's shoulder, trembling like a leaf. "I know," the professor sighed, patting her back. "I know, my dear. But you must be brave." She drew back and held the girl at an arm's length, tilting her chin up and giving her a sad smile. "You are, after all, a Gryffindor."

Lavender took a deep breath and nodded, swallowing hard. McGonagall squeezed her shoulder and then nodded to the door. "Off you go, then. I won't leave this door until dawn, I promise."

"Thank you," she whispered. "Truly, professor." McGonagall inclined her head, and Lavender turned to the doors, drew another breath, and slipped inside, shutting the door behind her.

The room beyond was one of such stunning beauty that the werewolf stopped short, momentarily forgetting why she was there. The back wall was not a wall at all, but rather composed of great, arching cathedral-style windows, which showed the starry sky to the east (and, she realized, would show both the moon and sun as they rose). To the right was a crackling fire in an engraved stone hearth, before which lay a pile of cushions, and to the right a small shelf, quite high up, on which already lay her clothes for the next morning. Lavender set her wand on it, too, and, after finding a note there in McGonagall's handwriting which reassured her that the windows were only translucent on her side, undressed and left her used clothes there, too. Finding a blue fleece blanket not far away, she wrapped herself tightly in the soft cloth and sat down on the cushions before the warm fire, shivering. Waiting.

It couldn't be as bad as she remembered it, could it? That sort of pain, why, anyone would go mad, having to suffer it over and over again… and Professor Lupin wasn't mad, was he? But he was sad, so very sad… was that what happened to a person after they were bitten? Would she be that way, too? Would she ever be truly, carelessly, freely happy ever again? But he had sworn to her that life did go on, that she could be happy… Would she ever be able to marry? Have a family? What if no one ever loved her the way Mrs. Lupin loved him? What if this, here, now, was the best her life would ever be? What if–

Without warning, white pain split through her bones. Lavender screamed and collapsed onto her side, eyes rolling back in her head. Another blaze of agony raced through her veins, blinding her, an undying cruciatus, oh, please, she didn't want this, she didn't want this, she wanted to die–

She screamed again as her fingers buckled, fur sprouting, limbs thrashing uncontrollably as the pain seared through her like the claws of some great beast. She sobbed, cried out, begged for death, pleaded for release…

In the end, when it was over, she lay there for a long while, just breathing. Whimpers of pain and sorrow escaped her canine throat, and, prompted by an urge both foreign and familiar, she let out a howling cry.

In the east, the white moon rose.

---

Remus pushed himself up slowly, limbs still aching from the change. Through his nose he drew a deep breath, furry ears twitching side to side. The scent and crackle of burning pine filled him, and he knew that Dora had lit a fire in the other room. There was, too, the soft sound of crying. He cringed at that, which in his wolfish form looked rather like a sickened snarl. He hated that she had to hear him go through such torture, but there was nothing else for it; it was the only way she could know whether it was safe to let him out.

On that note, he clambered stiffly to his paws and limped over to where Dora had left one of her sweaters folded on the floor. Remus would have smiled if he could have; the sweater in question was woolen and bubblegum pink, adding a little color to the otherwise gray, crumbling bedroom of the Shrieking Shack. Summoning his will, he lowered his muzzle and snuffled at the soft material.

Instantly, every instinct flared to life, a dizzying cacophony of impulses filling his brain. The comfort of his wife's scent was overridden by a violent onslaught of images: teeth tearing into flesh, a howl in the air, blood in his mouth–

No! The man struggled and snapped his powerful jaws, fighting for control over his own mind. No. You are a man, Remus Lupin, not an animal. But the moon was high, and he craved the kill. Not at that price. Not at any price. He couldn't do it, he was too weak, and the beast was so strong– This is no time for self-pity. Come on, Lupin, get ahold of yourself!

Slowly, oh, so very slowly, he wrestled the wicked urges back under his own control, until at last they quieted, admitting their defeat. His stomach still twisted and his throat still thirsted for blood, but his mind, his heart, was in control. The heart of man overcomes the claws of the beast, Remus thought to himself with irony. Perhaps my forefathers did know something, after all.

Down below in the impoverished old living room, Dora sat on the sagging couch, sniffling to herself and trying to coax the fire higher with her wand. She hated listening to the transformation– hearing her husband scream and howl in agony was almost more than she could bear– but in the end, it was worth it. The wolf cub in her arms fidgeted and she looked down, ready to set him on the ground at a moment's notice, but Teddy merely sniffled his tiny black nose and didn't awaken. Dora relaxed; the sedative had worked, then, and would continue to work for at least another hour, which meant that, although her infant son couldn't take Wolfsbane (not that it would help, being that Teddy was at no age to control his own behavior anyhow), he at least didn't have to experience the torture of the transformation every full moon.

She lifted her head as a sudden sound met her ears: three short yips from the door at the top of the stairwell. Dora held her breath, waiting.

Yip- bark.

Yip- yip- bark- yip.

Yip.

SAFE. Dora let out a sigh of relief and set Teddy down on the couch before hurrying up the stairs, wand stowed in her back pocket with her muggle semi-automatic in hand. She had no doubt that her husband's moral fortitude was such that he would never tell her to open the door unless he knew for certain he could control his baser impulses, but he'd insisted, reminding her it was better safe than sorry.

"Remus?" she called, undoing the outside-facing lock and opening the door a crack. "You okay?"

Her husband let out a soft bark, and she smiled, opening the door wider and putting the gun back in its holster, though still within reach. "Teddy's downstairs. Didn't even wake up." She heard him let out a sigh of relief through his nose. "I'm going to go down the stairs now, alright?"

He barked again. Being that the full moon tended to render conversation a bit difficult, the pair had devised a slow but workable system of communication: one bark meant yes, two barks meant no (lots of barking meant, "I'm scared I'm going to eat you," but thankfully they'd never had to use that one). For anything more complicated, the werewolf would relay his message through Morse code.

Dora made her way backwards down the stairs, one step at a time. It was another one of Remus's rules: she was never, ever to turn her back to him while he was transformed. When she reached the bottom, she called up, "Okay, I'm down!" and soon after a large gray wolf came limped out of the bedroom. He trotted down the stairs and then, careful to remain in front of her, lumbered over to the sleeping Teddy. After giving the pup a sniff, he sighed again, circled his son a few times, and then lay down around him in front of the fire.

"You were limping there. Stiff, then?" she observed, sitting down beside them. Remus shrugged his shoulders and nodded. "I could try something to get rid of that, if you like."

Remus frowned, shook his head and let out two very emphatic barks, having had far too much experience with his wife's household magic in the past. Dora huffed and rolled her eyes. "It's not a spell! And honestly, I'm an auror; just because I can't cast a folding charm doesn't mean I can't do some basic medimagic." Remus ducked his head, clearly apologetic, and she chuckled. "Oh, I'm not mad, love. Take a joke, will you?"

He let out several soft snorts, which she knew was his version of laughing, and the auror faded off into a thoughtful silence, petting him along the back and rubbing circles onto the joints. Remus sighed in relief, but didn't try to communicate anything more. About ten minutes passed in this manner, before Dora said quietly, "How do you think Lavender's doing?"

Remus glanced up, the firelight flickering on his somber hazel eyes. Dora nodded. "Yeah. Stupid question." He shook his head, and she smiled ruefully, before her smile faded. "That poor girl… she must be so frightened."

Remus beat out a rhythm with his tail, and after a moment or two she realized what it was: M-C-G-N-G-L. "I know she has McGonagall, but it's not the same, is it? I just… I wish there were some way we could make this easier for her."

Remus began to wag his tail again, and she waited as he spelled out his reply: NEVER EASY.

"I know. Believe me, I know." Dora sighed and went back to petting his head, scratching behind his ears. Remus rested his head on his paws, saddened by the thought that some poor soul was suffering as he suffered, so near, and neither he nor anyone else could help her. As he watched the logs in the fireplace burnt down from gold to scarlet coals, he slipped into a daze, drifting in and out of consciousness. The wolf rarely slept, but it was easier to rest, curled up in front of a warm fire, listening to the wind and the cooing of doves in the old house's eaves, his wife's gentle fingers running through his fur…

"Remus. Remus, he's waking up."

The wolf opened his amber eyes and raised his head. Against his side the small wolf cub was stirring, his tiny paws twitching against the carpet. Remus snuffled his head and the cub opened his eyes, peering up at his father with an innocent confusion. Remus smiled inwardly and nudged him with his nose, play-biting the cub's snout. Teddy squealed happily and squirmed away, yipping and dancing about. Dora giggled.

The reaction was nearly instantaneous; Teddy turned, startled, and crouched low, baring his teeth with a growl. Dora quickly pulled her legs up onto the couch, her face falling, and Remus felt his heart miss a beat.

Oh, Teddy…

But then Dora did the unexpected: she reached down and pulled the squirming pup into her arms. Remus let out a sharp bark of surprise, but the auror didn't seem to notice, not even as the wolf cub growled again, nipping at her arms and hands (she had, thankfully, worn her dragon-hide jacket and gloves, in preparation for just such a situation). Instead she tugged on his tail and petted his ears, chuckling whenever he got his tiny fangs around one of her fingers. "Oh, stop looking at me like that," she scolded the shocked Remus. "He's not going to bite through the leather, and besides, look how cute he is!" She grinned and rolled Teddy over onto his belly, rubbing the gray fur; the cub clawed at her covered hands and wrists, clearly annoyed, and the auror giggled again.

Still deeply unsettled, Remus barked again, and his wife huffed. "Alright, fine. Here, your turn." She set the cub down on the floor, looking entirely unconcerned when the cub yipped and growled, crouching down as if he were about to attack a mouse. Dora pulled what appeared to be a rolled-up sock out of her pocket and dropped it on the floor; the pup sprung forward and began to roll around with it, tearing at the cloth with little growls. The auror laughed again, and her carefree attitude managed to calm Remus's fear and guilt a little.

Soon enough Teddy was worn out by the game, and he wandered over to the window at the back of the sitting room, looking up at the great white moon. Remus trotted over and sat down beside him. A melancholy feeling arose in his heart, and, lifting his snout towards the sky, he let out a mournful howl.

An odd noise joined the haunting bay, and he looked over, surprised. Teddy let out another shrill howl, his tiny eyes half-closed. Then he sneezed and looked up to his father, as if expecting praise.

And praise Remus did. Barking happily and dancing up and down on his back paws, he rushed back over to the couch, where Dora was laughing to herself. "Well done," she teased. "You've taught your son to howl at the moon."

He barked again, excited, and ran around the couch before trotting back over to his infant son, who was looking at him with a good deal of confusion. Remus howled again, and Teddy did the same. Soon the two were rolling about, chasing each other around the empty room and nipping at each other's ears. Dora's laughter echoed from behind them, egging the pair on.

When at last Teddy grew tired of the game, laying down on the hardwood with a sense of definitive exhaustion, Remus picked him up by the scruff of his neck and carried him back over to the fire. Teddy snuffled the air in his mother's direction, howled again, and then curled up and appeared to fall asleep. Remus smiled at him with pride.

"I told you, didn't I?" He turned his head, and saw Dora smiling at him with tears in her brown eyes. "I told you everything would be okay."

Remus smiled again, rolled his eyes, and let out one quiet bark in agreement. He circled Teddy twice and then lay down, curling around the cub once more. Dora slipped off the couch and knelt down beside him. "…I wish people could see you the way I see you," she said softly. "Wizards hate you for being bitten, werewolves hate you for not biting others… it's not fair, Remus." She looked him in the eyes, meeting his wolfish golden gaze with her own and brushing the fur by his jaw with her thumb. "You're so good. And I wish everyone else could see that."

Good? Remus wasn't sure of that; on nights like these, it was harder to believe than ever. In his mind, in his heart, he knew it was true, or at least, that he was doing his best… but when the images of the kill drifted through his mind, when the scent of even his own wife made his mouth start to water, he began to wonder. Can someone like me ever really be good?

But then Dora looked at him with that sad, sweet, loving smile, and said the words that gave him all the courage he needed to try. "I love you, Remus."

Remus ducked his head, looking down at his sleeping son, and thumped his tail in pattern:

I LOVE YOU TOO.

---

Lavender heard her own screams subside into hiccupping sobs as the sun rose above the eastern horizon, great and scarlet and signifying that the morning had come at last. Her tears slowly died away as the room around her filled with a golden radiance, and she sat up, shielding her eyes from the dawn. Slowly, stiffly, she arose, watching as the light filled the world below her, the mountains and the forests turning from black to emerald in the morning light. A sense of relief filled her heart. It was over. The darkness had passed, and dawn had come.

Turning from the window, the girl made to dress in her uniform and, finding a small mirror and brush beneath them, did her best to untangle the golden curls and tie them back with the scarlet ribbon she'd found in her shirt-pocket. Then, slipping on her shoes and taking hold of her wand, she turned to the great iron doors. Without a sound, they swung on their hinges inward

In the hallway beyond, a gray tabby with strange markings around her green eyes got to her feet, stretched, and sat down. In the next moment, Professor McGonagall rose to her feet. "Miss Brown," she said courteously. "How are you feeling?"

"A bit shaky," she admitted.

"That's to be expected. Ah, your arm." Lavender glanced down and immediately turned pink; she hadn't noticed she was still bleeding from a pair of twin bite marks on her forearm, where she'd gnawed at herself in an effort to stave off the hunger cravings. She was terribly embarrassed, but it seemed McGonagall had prepared for just such a need; she retrieved a bottle from her pocket filled with what looked like liquid silver and uncorked the bottle, using a kerchief to spread a little onto the marks. Lavender let out a sharp gasp of pain as the silver cauterized the wounds, but then sighed as the cooling feeling of dittany took effect. "There," the headmistress said calmly, wiping away the excess potion and any remaining traces of blood; the wounds looked already several days old. "Now I imagine you'd like some breakfast; do you need help down to the Great Hall, or can you manage on your own?"

"I'll be alright. Thank you, Professor."

"Naturally. On you go, then." Lavender turned and began to head towards the stairs, when the headmistress called out, "Miss Brown?" She turned, surprised, and McGonagall smiled. "You showed a remarkable amount of courage last night. Fifty points to Gryffindor."

Lavender blinked, astonished, and then grinned. "I… I don't know what to say. Thank you again, Professor."

The witch inclined her head. "Have a good day, Miss Brown."

"And you, Professor."

As the young woman hurried towards the Great Hall, path lit by the rosy dawn streaming through the windows, she thought that perhaps she had discovered something which had not been apparent to her before– indeed, was not apparent to most people, werewolf or wizard alike. Perhaps her life was not an impossible choice between the misery and loneliness of self-loathing, and the wretchedness of giving into the beast, of handing herself over to unnatural passions and evil desires. Perhaps, she mused, perhaps there was another way.

"Lavender!" A voice caught her ears, and she looked over to see Parvati and Padma waving at her from the entrance to the Great Hall. Lavender grinned and hurried over. "How're you feeling?" Padma asked.

"A little stiff," she admitted, "but I'll be alright. Thanks for waiting for me."

"We've got your books right here," Parvati reassured her, lifting Lavender's satchel off the ground. "And Padma has your cloak." The Ravenclaw nodded, patting her own overstuffed schoolbag. "Let's get something to eat, yeah?"

"Good idea. Potions is no fun on empty stomach," Lavender agreed, and the sisters giggled. Together they walked into the Great Hall, chattering, ignoring the curious or hostile looks, and Lavender smiled to herself.

Yes, perhaps there was a better way, after all.

---

"Y'know, this place isn't so bad," Dora called over her shoulder, voice mixing with the sound of bacon eggs in the pan. "We could make the move out here permanently."

Remus snorted, bouncing Teddy on his lap and feeding the boy another spoonful of mushed apricots. "You should've seen it before McGonagall had it fixed up."

"Well, the claw marks on the wall are a little disconcerting." She walked over, and Remus made a point of leaning out of the way of the hot frying pan as Dora moved to push the bacon onto the plate. "But we could always repaint."

"Hm. Pass."

"Yeah, I think the apartment's a bit nicer. Still…" She leaned close and murmured in his ear, "Pretty soon Teddy's not going to be oblivious, love…"

Remus blushed and covered his son's ears, rather unnecessarily. "That's what silencing and locking charms are for, Dora. And we are not turning the Shrieking Shack into a love nest."

She huffed, heading back to the stove. "Spoilsport." Remus chuckled and stole a piece of bacon. "You know," Dora added, returning to the table, "We never did get a proper honeymoon."

"We never had the money for a proper honeymoon."

"It needn't be anywhere expensive," she pointed out. "We could pop down to some little seaside village, leave Teddy with the Weasleys … two weeks, all to ourselves…"

Remus considered this. "That… would actually be nice," he admitted.

"We could go to Llanbedrog." He wrinkled his nose, and she laughed. "I suppose it's not much of a vacation when you grew up there, is it?"

"Not really, no. Besides, I think the Lowells might not take kindly to me asking if I could have the cottage back for a few weeks."

"Probably not, no," she agreed. "Well then, what about France?"

"Mm. Or Italy?"

"Ireland?"

"Spain?"

"I know." He snapped his fingers. "Iceland."

"No," she said firmly. "I want to go somewhere with a beach."

"It's an island, Dora."

"A warm beach. White sand, crystal waters…"

"So it's settled then." He leaned forward with a grin. "We're going to Greece."

She gasped. "Oh, Greece! That would be wonderful! We could see the Parthenon, and the Acropolis…"

They were still debating the specifics of their hypothetical honeymoon when they left the Shrieking Shack, Dora shrugging on her scarlet robes. "Duty calls, love," she said with a sigh, "Oh, and McGonagall told me to tell you she canceled your class this morning."

"What? But–"

"No arguments. Besides, someone needs to watch Teddy."

He gave her a look. "You scheduled work early on purpose, didn't you?" Dora winked, and he sighed. "Alright, alright. I concede defeat."

"Knew you would. Love you, darling." She pecked him on the lips and broke off in the direction of the outgoing gate.

Remus hefted the sleepy Teddy up in his arms as she disappeared past the gate. "Well, little man, how's about you and I go for a walk?" he inquired. Before Dora, he would never have had the energy to do such the day after a full, but somehow her presence always made it easier to relax. In truth, she made him feel younger. "Would you like that, hm?"

Teddy yawned, and Remus laughed, heading off towards the Black Lake. As he did so, he caught sight of a group of students, clad in their cloaks against the morning chill, following after a rather pudgy old man. They seemed to be headed towards the forest. Intrigued, Remus redirected his course.

"Ah, Professor Lupin!" Slughorn called as he caught sight of the younger man. "Good morning! I thought you had a class?"

"I did, but it seemed my wife and McGonagall have been conspiring against me." He noticed that the students, particularly the female ones, were all fixated on Teddy; Remus chuckled and asked the rather enthusiastic Hermione Granger if she'd like to hold him.

As the other young ladies crowded around the head girl, cooing and watching the boy's hair change color, he caught sight of Harry's eye. James's son grinned. "Morning, Professor."

"Morning, Harry, Ron." The redhead gave him a joking salute, and Remus laughed. "Well, Professor Slughorn, where are you all headed today?"

"Ah, well, it was such a fine morning that I thought I'd take the students out specimen-hunting for a change," said Slughorn cheerfully. "As it happens, we're looking for wolfsbane, because–"

"-It's always the most potent after the full," Lupin finished. "I did remember one thing from your class, Professor."

"Possibly the worst student in the class," Slughorn stage-whispered; the other students giggled.

"Well, you needn't go on a wild goose-chase; I happen to know where a patch is not far from here," Remus said with a shrug. "I can take you there if you like."

"Wouldn't you get sick?" a voice inquired from the back. Remus peered over the heads to see Lavender Brown looking back at him, a little tired but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"Well, I'm not intending to roll around in it– and I'd advise the same to you, Miss Brown." She giggled. "But no, so long as I stay a few paces back I should be alright. Professor, may I?" Slughorn gestured for him to take the leave, and Remus started off in the direction of the trees, the students following behind him.

The forest was full of interesting scents, including rotting leaves and moss and the morning mist, but Lupin was interested in catching only one. About five minutes in he paused at a tree, frowning thoughtfully, and then took a right. "I think it's this way," he called back. "Mind you, it's been a few years, and I usually tended to avoid it, but–"

He stopped short, eyes flying wide. The students glanced around at each other, confused, and then a soft gasp came from the back. Everyone turned to see that Lavender Brown had gone very pale. She stumbled backwards and braced her hand against a tree.

"What is it?" a voice demanded; Draco Malfoy had made the connection, and was looking between the two werewolves with apprehension.

Lupin's hands had started to shake; his face was frozen, mouth half-open. A harsh, metallic scent had filled his nostrils, stinking like a fresh kill. A thousand images suddenly filled his mind: a woman with brutish features but kind eyes, laughing as she picked up a little dark-haired girl and swung her around in her arms; a she-wolf nuzzling against a male beneath the moonlight; a pastor murmuring the marriage rites as she placed her hands into those of the grinning man before her-

"Mallory," he gasped, and his eyes filled with tears.

The class began to murmur at this, whispered questions of who is Mallory? and What is it, Lavender? What's going on? But Remus was still reeling with shock. It couldn't be– not Mallory– Greyback would never–

"Professor?" Harry's voice broke through the haze of disbelief. "Professor, what's going on?"

At last, Remus managed to turn to the students; they started to see that his eyes had gone bright yellow, his face dangerously pale. "Blood," he rasped.

The students gasped; Slughorn had turned white. "Blood?" he questioned hoarsely.

Remus nodded, eyes watering. "And it's familiar, it's–" The cloying, metallic scent choked him for a moment; it was almost too much to bear. "You need to go. All of you, now."

Slughorn realized that this was no time to argue his authority and quickly began to round up the other students, urging them back towards the castle. Remus caught the arms of the three nearest students, who without even asking had remained behind. "Take Teddy back to the school and find McGonagall," he ordered. "Ron, Hermione, put in a floo call to the Auror Office; Harry, bring McGonagall and Pomfrey to the castle border with the blood ward papers. Tell her it has to do with Mallory Lowell."

"Professor, what-?"

"Harry James Potter I am not arguing with you on this, get the others and go!" The young man started to hear his full name and blinked again when he saw that the teacher's face was full of fear, nostrils flared, knuckles white around his wand.

"Right," he said hastily. "McGonagall and Pomfrey, right, Professor?"

"With the ward papers." He didn't look back, eyes still scanning the forest around them, as if something was there that shouldn't be. Harry nodded again and hurried after the others.

As Ron and Harry left, he heard a low voice say at his side, "Is he here, Professor?" He glanced down to find Hermione Granger watching him with wide eyes, Teddy still held tightly in her arms.

"I don't know. Go, Hermione. Quickly."

She bit her lip, squeezed his arm briefly in solidarity, and dashed off. As quickly as she could, she caught up with Lavender, who had gone very pale. "What was it?" she demanded in a low voice. "What did he smell?"

"Blood," Lavender croaked. "Lots of it. And it– it was werewolf blood, not–"

"Do you think it was–"

"No. It wasn't him. But he could be close." Her hands were shaking; Parvati and Padma each grabbed one and pulled her quicker still down the green, the young witch looking positively faint with terror.

Back in the forest, the teacher lifted his face to the wind. It was coming from the southeast, and as far as he could tell there was only one scent. "So where did you go, you bastard?" he muttered, ears perked.

Nothing. Wind in the branches. Wand still at the ready, he took off running through the trees, following the smell of blood on the wind. Within moments he'd passed the border of the wards, marked by a crumbling wall of stones; within a few more, he stumbled into a clearing and skidded to a stop.

The grass was covered in blood, leading in a long streak to a pale, naked woman, lying face-down on the ground. Remus's breath hitched; he hurried over and dropped to his knees. "Mallory," he gasped, rolling her over, "Mallory can you hear m–"

His voice faded off into a tremble as he saw the damage done. Fresh fang and claw marks covered her body, most of them scoring her back and shoulders, but one particularly vicious swipe had opened up her belly, and a long, oddly shaped strip of skin was missing, stretching from her ribs to her lower thigh. Remus gagged and turned away, wanting to vomit at the smell and the gory sight. Covering his mouth with one hand, he pressed the other under her neck and let out a gasped sob of relief. Beneath his fingers pulsed a weak but persistent heartbeat.

"Alright, Mallory," he muttered, "if you can hear me, I need you to hold on to that. If you can just hold onto that, you'll be alright… I'm going to bring you to the castle, we have a healer there, she can help you…" He didn't know if that were true; Madame Pomfrey's skills in healing werewolf wounds were incredible, but this was near to needing muggle-style surgery. "Alright, I'm going to have to lift you… I'm afraid I haven't any magic left, so I'm going to carry you. You're going to be fine, Mallory, just hold on…" He lifted the bleeding woman into his arms and hurried as fast as he dared back towards the remains of the old wall.

---

Back inside the castle, the trio hurried around the corner and stopped in front of the golden griffin, breathing heavily. The statue blinked at them, decidedly unimpressed. "Password?"

"Tell her it's an emergency," said Hermione breathlessly. The gargoyle closed its eyes, and a few seconds later, it moved aside. The three dashed up the stairs and burst into the headmistress's office.

McGonagall took one look at them and sighed. "What is it this time?"

"Professor Lupin," Harry stammered. "H-he smelled blood in the forest- said you needed to bring the ward papers–"

"Blood? Whose blood?"

"Don't know- I think- he said it had to do with someone named Mallory Lowell?"

The headmistress's face turned grim. Rising to her feet, she drew her wand and tapped the top right drawer in her desk. Even Ron gawped when he saw her pull out a silver-gripped revolver and leather holster, fastening the latter around her waist. She checked the ammunition, retrieved the ward papers, and then said in a tone sharp as broken glass, "Potter, put in a call to the Auror Office; make sure to ask for Nymphadora specifically. Weasley, Granger, lock the door behind me when I go. Whatever you do, do not remove Edward Lupin from this room, do you understand?"

The three nodded, shocked, and the headmistress swept from the room, drawing her wand and sending a cat patronus flying down the steps in search of the infirmary.

Remus Lupin was beyond grateful to see both the headmistress and the infirmarian at the crumbling wall when he arrived. Both let out a gasp as he stumbled into view. "My word," Madame Pomfrey stammered, rushing forward. "What happened to–"

"Greyback." He didn't need to speak another word. The healer quickly set to work on stopping the internal bleeding, and McGonagall took advantage of the excess blood to add Mallory's name to the list of approved personnel who could cross the castle wards. Soon after, Madame Pomfrey had conjured a stretcher and blanket, leaving McGonagall and Lupin to follow after, faces so hard and severe that any student unfortunate enough to cross their paths hastily scampered away.

---

"Remus."

The man didn't move, his strong jaw and sharp nose set in an motionless profile, eyes staring down at the sleeping woman before him.

"Remus. Love, look at me."

The defense professor looked over. Dora had knelt down beside his chair and now reached out to touch his cheek. "This wasn't your fault," she insisted. "You did everything for them that you could."

"I'm their alpha," Remus muttered. "I should have been there. I should have stopped this."

"If you had, he would have killed you on sight."

"Then I would have died doing what was right!" he snarled, standing; Dora merely watched him with sad eyes. "I'm supposed to protect them, Dora! To lead them! That is my duty to my pack and I abandoned them!"

"You did no such thing," she retorted sternly, rising to her feet. "You gave them a home, Remus. You gave them a future. This was not your fault."

He struggled for several moments, and then looked back down to the woman in the bed. Mallory, thankfully, had survived thanks to Pomfrey's intervention, but Remus's stomach still twisted with fear and anger at what could have been. He'd known that Greyback was a monster, but this? He had thought that this was even beyond him.

You should have known better, the thought to himself bitterly. You out of anyone should have known better.

Just as he was about to give in and sit back down, both he and Dora were startled to see a silvery bird fly in through the wall and settle on the edge of Mallory's bed. "Theron!" Remus exclaimed, dropping to a knee to look the magpie in the eyes. "You got my message?"

"We were hiding away," the patronus replied, "Remus, we were attacked- I have the children, but Mallory-"

"Mallory's here, Theron; she's in a bad way, but she'll live."

The magpie let out a strangled sort of gasp, nearly crying in relief. "Thank you. Thank you…"

"Come quickly; I'll have the headmistress meet you with the wards to let you in."

The magpie nodded and vanished into a cloud of smoke; Remus sent his own wolf patronus dashing off in search of the Headmistress, and then, with a sigh of relief, settled back into the chair. Dora squeezed his shoulder, bouncing a sleepy Teddy on her hip. "It's going to be alright, Remus, don't you worry," Madame Pomfrey called from where she was filling medicine bottles with various colored potions. "That's a strong young lady there; she'll be up an about in no time."

Remus nodded stiffly and said not a word.

"Mummy!"

The whole of the infirmary jumped as a small, dark-haired child rushed into the room, nearly leaping onto the bed. Remus quickly caught her around the stomach before she could land. "Lucy! Lucy, calm down!"

"No! Mummy!" the girl began to bawl, weeping and beating at his arms. "Mu-mmy!"

"Mummy is going to be fine," Remus replied. "But she's hurt right now, Lucy; if you jump on her she'll hurt even more."

The girl let out a little noise and buried her face in his jumper, still crying. Remus rubbed her back soothingly, murmuring comforting words in an effort to calm the distraught child.

"Professor?"

He looked down; an older boy was standing at the side of the bed, dark-haired like the girl and clearly frightened. "Is Mum going to be okay?"

"Your mother will be fine, Charles. We have one of the best healers in the country helping her."

"Remus! Charles, Lucy!"

All three turned as Theron rushed in. A blond boy of about twelve followed behind, tight-mouthed, and after him McGonagall and Professor Slughorn. "Oh, Mallory," Theron gasped, hurrying to the bedside and kneeling down beside her, taking her limp hand and pressing it to his mouth. "What happened, Remus? How did you find her? Has she said anything? How much blood did she lose?"

"Theron, for goodness sakes, calm down!" Remus said sharply, and then glanced meaningfully to the children. The man took a shaking breath and nodded. "Mallory apparated here to escape," Remus continued, now a bit more gently. "We found her on the edge of the forest, near Hogsmead; she was bleeding heavily, but our healer managed to patch her up. She hasn't woken up yet, but she'll be alright."

"Apparated? But she can't– she never learned how–"

"She splinched herself rather badly," Madame Pomfrey interjected, walking over. "And I imagine she was in no shape to be doing so, considering the beating she's taken. She must have been desperate to try."

"Splinched?" Charles inquired curiously, frowning at the odd word.

At the same moment all the adults became suddenly aware that the children were still in the room, and Remus cleared his throat. "Michael, why don't you take your brother and sister down to the kitchens, hm?"

Thankfully, the oldest boy understood, and quickly began to tell his brother and sister of all the good things he'd heard the house elves at Hogwarts could make. Remus gave him a grateful nod as the boy led the other two out of the room. One by one, the adults all turned to each other.

"Theron. What happened?" Remus said at last, but the authority in his tone made it apparent that this was no request.

The man wiped his eyes and stood, still pale and shaken. "He came for us, Remus," he croaked. "I don't know how he knew we were there, but then all of a sudden he was there at Lupin Castle–"

"Lupin Castle?" Slughorn broke in, turning to the man who'd always been to him an image of poverty. "Your family owns a castle?"

"No, my family owned a castle," said Remus shortly, irritated that someone had interrupted his conversation with the man who was indubitably his beta. "There's not much left to it now save for the ruins. What happened next, Theron?"

"She told me to run," he choked. "To take the children, and– I should never have left us, Remus, but the moon was rising–" He broke off in a shuddering sob and covered his face with his hand.

"But why?" McGonagall demanded, stepping forward. "Why would he attack Lupin Castle if he knew Remus is here?"

"He wasn't looking for me," Remus said with a weary sigh. "I gave the Lowells my cottage in Llanbedrog. They've been living there since the pack fractured…"

"He was looking for them?" said the Headmitresss, frowning. "But why? I mean, I'm sure you're lovely people, Mr. Lowell, but I'm afraid I don't understand…"

Theron looked to Remus, surprised, who shuffled his feet. "You didn't tell them?"

"Wasn't exactly my place," he mumbled.

"Remus?" Dora's inner auror had come out, and now she was crossing her arms. "What's he on about?" Her husband hesitated, and she drew herself up, hair flaming red. "Remus, this is a criminal investigation; either you tell me what's going on, or I swear I will–"

"Don't be angry with him, Nymphadora Lupin," a soft voice broke, in, startling the whole party. Mallory Lowell looked back, exhausted and pale. "Our alpha was acting in our best interests."

"Oh?" Dora crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "How so? Why was Greyback after you last night?"

The woman drew a breath, and Theron spoke up: "Mallory, don't."

"No, Theron," she sighed. "It's time. They need to know." The werewolf seemed to steel herself, and then said, quite simply, "Fenrir Greyback came for me because he is my father."

There was dead silence in the infirmary. After several seconds, Dora turned, walked to the door, and closed it tightly. Then she turned around, arms crossed.

"Alright, Remus Lupin," the auror said flatly. "Start talking."

---

A/N: So! Thoughts? Ideas? Did you like the fluff? Did you like the Lowells? Please do tell me in a review!

From here on out I will begin posting another story in conjunction with this one, entitled, Among Wolves. It will be a story about the time Remus spent with the pack, including Greyback, the Lowells, a few of the characters you've seen in this story and a few that you haven't (yet). Look for the update around the end of the month!

LATIN TRANSLATIONS:

Castrum Lupinus = Lupinus Castle

Cor hominis vincit unguibus bestia. = The heart of man overcomes the claws of the beast.