December 25th, 1969

Remus gripped his mother's hand on the street so hard he was sure his knuckles were pale white under his gloves.

"Remus love, there's really nothing to worry about." He didn't say anything, holding onto her blue mitten as if he were clinging to life.

"You don't mind, do you?"

"Of course not." Remus looked up the street.

"First time in Diagon Alley, what do you think?"

"It's bigger than I imagined."

"You've been here before. Would've been too small to remember." The words unsaid were buried under the words that were.

Remus John Lupin was in almost every shape and form, shaded from the world. He didn't mind as much as his Mum thought he did. He was fine, happy even, with his world of books and trees. He'd much prefer being closed off than being hunted for sport. The world seemed big, especially for a ten-year-old who lived in a world of books.

Remus continued next to her on the cobblestones, overtly and hyper-aware of everyone who saw him and what they were thinking. What people assumed had become of his face, if they could see right through him. His parents told him the wizarding world was dangerous, but they'd never told him how so, which added more of a burden on his shoulders than if they'd told him to begin with.

"Bloody Ministry."

"Hmm?"

"Making your father work on Christmas- it's ridiculous. I don't care that there's a bloody war on."

"You should if anyone dies." Her face put on a false front, and she shook her head.

"Nobody's dying." Her voice was quieter, and Remus stared at his shoes as they crossed the street and stood in front of the building.

"This isn't the ministry, is it?"

"No. They couldn't meet in the ministry building, it'd lead to them being found and-"

"Everything will be fine, Remus."

"Will be?"

"Everything is fine."

"Alright." Hope squinted at the clock as it chimed, and leaned against it until her icy-eyed husband emerged from the building.

"Lyall," She waved her arms, and his vision snapped into focus on her, and on Remus, as he scrambled over.

"Hope- What are you doing here?"

"Came to surprise you."

"It's not safe."

"We're fine." She squeezed his hand. Lyall rubbed his temples and glanced down at Remus, a smile plastered on his face.

"You know what you get to do?"

"Hmm?"

"We get to apparate back home." Remus's eyes lit up as his father grabbed onto his arm and with a flash they were in their yard. Remus bent over, clutching his stomach before stumbling up and lopsided.

"There's some Christmas magic for you, Remus." His father chuckled and balanced Remus upright.

"Now how about we open gifts?"

"You know good and well there's a war in our midst."

"We weren't in any danger, Lyall. Don't be unrealistic."

"Unrealistic? I'm being unrealistic when you're dragging our werewolf son into public when people like him are getting hunted in the streets-"

"I didn't drag him, we just wanted to surprise you."

"Hope, it's a war."

"No war has started yet."

"It will start." There's a haunting silence as Remus stood beside the wall holding a toy in his hand, listening to his parents on the other side of the wall, in the living room. He stepped into the doorway, gripping a box tightly in his hand.

"Remus?" His father held a drink in his hand, and his mother stood up from her spot beside him on the couch.

"The box says this needs batteries."

"Oh. There's some in my office. The bottom drawer of my desk." Remus nodded, and his mother gave him a swift kiss on the head, stroking his hair with her thumb.

"I'm turning in. Goodnight love."

"Goodnight." He nodded and she walked up the creaking stairs as he staggered into his father's office, crouching on the ornate carpet, rough under his knees. He pulled open the bottom drawer, and a collection of files stared him in the face. His eyes left the drawer and scanned the room, ensuring his parents were nowhere to be seen, before flipping open the file and scanning the pages. He had read nearly every book in the house, from top to bottom of his bookshelf as well as his father's, although given that most of his father's books were on politics, which Remus never found particularly interesting. He skimmed the pages, flipping through paperwork until a newspaper article jumped out at him. Remus leans back onto the carpet, crossing his legs.

Lyall Lupin speaks on recent anti-werewolf legislature.

The Daily Prophet recently had the honor to speak to Lyall Lupin, a member of the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in correspondence to recent legislature put in place by the Ministry of Magic about what is to be done about the recent spike in bloodthirsty werewolf attacks. A blood-lustful interview was conducted, and the master in control of magical creatures makes it quite clear he sees victims of lycanthropy as "Soulless, evil, deserving nothing but death."

Remus closed the newspaper before he read any more, sliding the rest of the papers back into the file, before closing the drawer completely shut and wiping tears off his face he hadn't noticed there to begin with, and he held his knees to his chest before standing up, stuffing the article into the pocket of his bathrobe and returning to the living room, where his father lit a cigarette. His father stared at him over the top of his newspaper with icy eyes that instead of cooling Remus or igniting him with a spark of enchantment, chilled him to the bone.

"No batteries?" Remus shook his head, his eyes boring holes into the wood floor.

"I'll check the kitchen." He smiled softly and stood up, pausing to pour more vodka into his glass and heading into the kitchen doorway. Remus stared at the vodka, then leaned over and smelled it. He thought to himself that it seemed like the kind of situation where an adult would comment on needing a drink, so he blinked at the bottle, sketching into his brain the burgundy and cream colored label, over the word vodka, and over the soft edges of the bottle. Remus just sat on the couch and waited. For anything, really. His mum to appear with a cup of tea. His dad to come back into the room. The feeling of that left something in his chest like a bump under the skin. Remus Lupin leaned back into the leather couch and managed to relax his muscles until a thought pushed its way through the sleepy haze of a couch being made of his own skin. He stood up and stumbled to his Mum's green tartan armchair near the fire, and he settled, tracing a scar on his leg over and over until he ran out of energy and closed his eyes, allowing sleep to lift him to a world so far away from politics and fathers and newspapers and scars and lycanthropy that the world with them seemed more like a dream, drifting asleep to a crackling fire and the scent of cookies and pine, the faintest whiff of vodka in the room managed to stay as distant as the idea of a nightmare in the midst of Remus's dreams.