Chapter 5 - Remus' First Month

Remus woke early the next morning and, looking around, saw that he was the only one awake. Careful not to disturb his sleeping dorm mates, he got out of bed quietly and pulled on his clothes before tiptoeing out of the door, closing it softly behind him and climbing the boys' staircase to the deserted common room below.

It was so early that the sun was only just rising and the sky from beyond the small diamond windows was a beautiful pale blue. Remus settled himself in one of the comfiest red armchairs by the fire and closed his eyes, enjoying the rare moment of peace and quiet.

There was the sound of slippered feet on the carpet and he opened his eyes. It was little Sylvie Smethwyck, a blonde-haired blue-eyed girl in their year. She was still wearing her dressing gown and she smiled shyly at him. "Mind if I join you?" She said.

Remus gestured to the chair beside him and smiled back, though he had absolutely no clue what he could possibly say to her.

"Are you dorm mates sleeping too?" She asked, sitting down.

Remus nodded.

"Mine too." She said. "I thought I'd come downstairs so I didn't disturb them."

"Me too."

There was a slightly awkward pause as Remus wracked his brain for something to say.

"So, how are you finding Hogwarts so far?" Sylvie asked.

Remus smiled, grateful for the question. "It's wonderful." He said truthfully.

"I agree." Sylvie said, her blue eyes wide with excitement. "My parents already told me a lot about it but there's something about really seeing it for yourself, isn't there?"

Remus nodded again. He knew exactly how that felt.

"So... you're roommates with James Potter and Sirius Black?" Sylvie asked, changing the subject and going a little pink as she did so.

"For my sins." He told her with a smile.

"Oh. Well they're… they're very brave, aren't they?" She was blushing furiously now.

Remus considered the question. The night exploration of the castle could possibly have been considered brave, though was it bravery if one wasn't afraid of the consequences anyway? He wasn't sure. He wondered what on earth else they could have done that might have impressed Sylvie?

"Er, I suppose so." He said, because he had to say something.

"I wish I could be brave like them but I'm too scared of getting in trouble. My parents said it was very strict in their day and I wouldn't want to cross that Professor McGonagall." She gave a little shudder.

They talked a while longer, talking about Hogwarts in their parents' time and Sylvie telling Remus all about her father, who was a healer at St Mungo's and her mother, who worked in alternative medicine. "She's got this little herb patch in the garden," Sylvie said with a giggle. "She says I'm not to go near it 'til I'm of age but she says the plants there can help people get in touch with any magic they've lost."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"My dad thinks so." Sylvie said, rolling her eyes. "But he's more of a traditionalist. My mum says people never really lose their magic, they just sometimes need a little reminder. People love her. Though she says it's important they see it's not her who's doing it either. We really do have a lot of individual power." She smiled at him.

Before Remus could say anything (not that he had anything to say anyway), there came the sound of boys' voices from the staircase. "I'm telling you, you'd have to be asleep. It can't possibly work when you're awake. The boils would break out too quickly. You're welcome to try it on Pettigrew if you want but I'm only looking out for you." The voices broke off.

"Remus Lupin, first marauder to get a girlfriend!" Cried Sirius. He ambled over to sit on the edge of Remus' chair and grinned across at Sylvie. "Hi. I'm Sirius." He said, offering a hand to her. "You've picked a good one here. Remus is a prince among wizards." He winked at his friend.

"I'm not his girlfriend!" Sylvie said quickly, going bright red. "And I already know who you are."

Sirius gave her a slightly confused look then turned back to Remus. "You coming to breakfast? Potter wants to nip into the kitchens on the way down, he wants to see the house elves or something," he rolled his eyes as if such a desire was quite ludicrous. "You don't mind, do you?"

Of course Remus didn't mind. He bid a hasty goodbye to Sylvie and followed his friends down through the castle, listening politely to their conversation about house elves (James saying what a marvel they were, Sirius calling them 'irritating little spies', for reasons Remus couldn't fathom) and Peter's loud imaginings about the wonderful treats they'd be sure to have in the kitchen. "I bet they have baked Alaska. I'm sure they save all the best stuff for the staff table."

"Baked Alaska for breakfast? You're revolting, Pete."

"I didn't mean for breakfast!"

"How do you know where the kitchens are anyway?" Remus asked James as he led them down yet another seemingly indistinctive corridor.

"My dad." James explained. "Well, he told me where abouts they were. The Prewett twins told me how to get in." He added with a grin.

Remus watched a little confusedly as James tickled the pair in a portrait of a fruit bowl, but his friend seemed to know what he was doing, as the pear giggled and then the door swung inwards, revealing the Hogwarts kitchens and dozens of house elves, all hurrying around, presumably busy preparing breakfast, but seeming delighted to see the four of them.

Remus allowed himself to be carried away in the adventure, accepting a little offer of cream cakes and pot of tea, and thanking the elves very much as they eventually ate their fill and left.

"I must say, they're friendlier than Kreacher." Sirius said as they headed back into the main castle, the house elves waving goodbyes and pressing foodstuffs on them right until they reached the corridor. "My family's house elf." He relied in response to Remus' questioning look. "He's a real beast."

"Well my Ethel is a wonder." James said, taking a cinnamon roll the house elves had given him and biting into it. "Though it has to be said these lot do a pretty good job too."

Remus' family of course didn't have a house elf. House elves usually came with big old manor houses like the type he expected Sirius and James lived in. You wouldn't catch one dead in his parents' two-bedroomed Yorkshire terrace, not that his mother would have allowed another living creature to do the cooking and cleaning as she sat idly by. Wouldn't that have been a little strange?

They reached the entrance hall just as the rest of Gryffindor tower were coming down for breakfast. Little Sylvie waved at them as she passed with Lily and he waved politely back. Lily ignored them all as usual.

Remus had to admit he didn't dislike Lily Evans, whatever the others might say about her. When he'd been alone with her she was good company and actually quite funny. It seemed her and Snape had been friends for a while now, having met in her hometown of Cokeworth ("no one enters, no one leaves, half the town have six fingers!"). It seemed that their friendship was incredibly precious to her and Remus could quite understand why she saw red when he was picked on so unkindly by the others.

He knew that being friends with Sirius and James would come with its disadvantages. People would assume he thought like them because he was friends with them. But wasn't there good and bad in everyone? And James and Sirius really weren't that bad, were they?

"What do you think, Remus? Great hall or somewhere else?" It was Sirius and he was grinning at him. And Remus felt all the doubts he'd had a moment ago slide away like rotten leaves in a stream.

"I don't mind." He replied honestly. "Though I suppose we've already eaten, so there's not much point in going to breakfast is there?"

"My thoughts exactly." James agreed. "I think we should visit the owlery. I'll introduce you all to Allegra."

Allegra, it turned out, was James' snowy white owl. She was a beautiful bird with big amber eyes and a smattering of freckles around her beak. They all took it in turns to stroke her, marvelling at what a lovely creature she was and how generous James' parents had been to buy her for him.

"I'd have liked an owl." Peter said, watching James stroke the bird enviously. "But my mum bought me a rat instead. She's called Martha."

Sirius laughed though Remus didn't understand what was funny about this.

"I wasn't allowed an owl." He admitted a little bitterly as they looked at him. "Mum hoped it might convince me to behave myself at Hogwarts. Obviously not a very effective punishment." He added with a smile that looked forced.

"That seems a little unfair." James said, cocking his head and frowning in a good imitation of his snowy owl. "Aren't parents supposed to punish you after you misbehave?"

"I don't see why they should at all." Peter said angrily. "My mum had the nerve to dock my allowance over the summer because I wouldn't mow the lawn for her. I mean, I'm not her slave!" He looked at the others indignantly as if inviting them all to share in his outrage.

"You're right." James agreed, looking cross too. "My dad was so unreasonable this one time I flew out of the grounds. He didn't let me fly for a whole week after that!"

"That's terrible." Peter said seriously. "But I still think no dessert is the worst."

As James looked shocked at such a prospect, Remus' eyes fell on Sirius, who was watching their two friends with a strange, bewildered expression as though they lived on another planet. He seemed to sense Remus' gaze on him and looked over at him. Remus smiled raised his eyebrows subtly. Sirius grinned and looked away.

This wasn't the first time Remus had reasons to suspect all was not well in his friend's seemingly privileged London home. Remus remembered the terror in his eyes as he read his letter from home the first morning of term and there had been an unpleasant altercation with his cousin Narcissa outside potions recently too. The Slytherin girl had backed him up against the statue of Stan the Spiteful and pointed her wand at him, telling him that if he did anything to embarrass him in any way she would 'make him pay'. Remus had thought the whole thing was awful and was shocked when Sirius laughed it off, telling Remus 'not to worry' as his expression of concern must have shown on his face. But Remus couldn't understand it at all. How could any family member talk to or act with another in the way his cousin had done?

They fawned over James' owl a while longer and then decided they should probably head to herbology as the owlery was at the top of the castle and the greenhouses were (of course) down in the grounds.

Remus moved to walk beside Sirius as their friends went ahead, the unspoken bond they had just shared still thick in the air.

"So, you're not like them either I take it?" Sirius said quietly at last.

Remus felt a sudden jolt of panic. "What do you mean?" He asked quickly, his pulse suddenly racing.

"Oh, y'know," Sirius gestured vaguely at their friends, "born with a golden wand in your hand and all that?"

Remus laughed. The idea that he had a life as simple and untroubled as James or Peter's was quite absurd. "Not me."

"Me neither." Sirius said quietly. But he said no more and Remus didn't push him.

Though Remus kept a close eye on his friend over the next few weeks he seemed just as cheerful as he'd ever been. He and James had a lot of fun in lessons and succeeded in losing so many house points there were now no more rubies left in the Gryffindor hourglass. Fortunately they (almost as frequently) would gain them back with their seemingly effortless good spell work.

"Oh it's easy." Sirius said, demonstrating the feather levitation spell in charms again for Remus. "But I suppose it's easier for me. My brother and I had tutors growing up."

Remus knew he was just being modest. Many of their classmates had grown up in wizarding families where they were taught by their parents or tutors (if their parents could afford it) and they didn't have the same knack for mastering the spells as James and Sirius did. They were just naturally very bright and Remus supposed this was also why they caused so much trouble. There had to be some outlet for their creativity and brains, even if sadly the Gryffindor hourglass and poor Snape paid the price for it.

With intelligence also came curiosity. Remus had already thought up the lie about going home to visit his sick mother in advance and considered he would have no absolutely issues with his friends when he told them about it. Surely no one in their right mind would question him on something as sensitive as that.

"But why do you have to go and visit your mum?" Sirius asked, frowning at him as he explained this to his friends the night of the full moon in the common room. Peter was working his way through homework, James was reading a quidditch magazine and Sirius had been doing the crossword.

"Well, she's not well." Remus explained again, not sure exactly what else Sirius wanted him to say.

"Can't your dad take care of her?"

"It's not about taking care of her. It's more about keeping her company, you know, stop her getting bored. Or as bored." He added with a self-deprecating shrug.

Sirius frowned at him again. "Why on earth would you want to do that?"

It was Remus' turn to frown. "Well, because she's my mum I suppose."

Sirius stared at him incredulously. "Well, rather you than me I suppose..." He said and went back to his crossword.

Still a little confused, Remus said goodbye to his friends and headed down in the direction of the hospital wing. The whole thing had been planned out with Dumbledore. Remus would meet Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing, from where she would take him down to the whomping willow to transform before bringing him back to the hospital wing the next morning to patch him up.

Remus had to admit he was glad to know there would be a trained healer for the aftermath of his transformations at Hogwarts. He hoped she wouldn't be as unkind to him as the staff at St Mungo's had been when his cuts and bites had been so bad his parents couldn't fix them and had taken him there. Remus dreaded his transformations for the pain and indignity of them and he dreaded the pain he suffered after, when the wolf had bitten and scratched itself, but worse still, he dreaded the way people looked at or spoke to him when they knew what he was. Like he was a thing, an 'it', a monster.

But he had no need to worry. Madam Pomfrey greeted him warmly as he arrived and led him into her little side office where she poured him tea. They chatted for a while and then Madam Pomfrey looked at her watch and told him it was time to go.

She led him through the grounds and down the underground tunnel at the base of the whomping willow into the small house which was to be the site of his transformations for the next seven years. Dumbledore had shown Remus the shack already. He remembered the way the headmaster had looked at him as he'd shown him around the little building, as though Remus' opinion mattered to him deeply. Remus couldn't understand how anyone could value the viewpoint of a werewolf so much, but then he supposed Dumbledore was quite an unusual wizard.

After Madam Pomfrey had left, Remus undressed and got into the little bed on the second floor, determined to preserve his dignity for as long as humanly possible. But far too soon (it always was), the sun was setting and the moon rising. He felt the painful start of the transformation and he fell from the bed and his body grew rigid. There was the familiar agonising feeling of his bones twisting and snapping inside his small frame, but fortunately he didn't need to think for much longer. The wolf was not him. And when the wolf took over, he was no more.

"You're back." His friends said, grinning as he entered the common room the next day. Madam Pomfrey had fixed him up brilliantly and the cuts and bruises that he'd borne just that morning were practically invisible already.

"How's your mum?" James asked with genuine concern.

"Better for seeing me." He smiled.

He wondered if 'mum' could possibly be considered a euphemism for 'werewolf'. It might make his lying to his friends for the next seven years a bit easier if he could make it so in his head. But was the wolf ever happy to see him? He knew he wasn't ever happy to see it... He would have to pretend to be genuinely keen to go home next time he told his friends that's where he was going. Maybe that's why Sirius had looked so confused yesterday, he had seemed reluctant to go.

"She's lucky to have you." Sirius said, looking at him seriously. Remus did his best to smile.

Though Remus' conscience still disturbed him over the next few weeks as his friends continued to pick on Snape and racked up so many detentions McGonagall told them she'd soon need to buy Filch a new record book, he became better at quieting the nagging voice in his head that told him to stand up to them. He knew they'd never accept him for who he was so he needed to just go along to get along. He'd become rather good at that...

Remus did not consider himself a wizard of much worth. He'd been born into a poor household with a mother and father who (though they never said it) he knew he was a burden to. His friendship with James, Sirius and Peter had been the most precious thing that had happened to him in his life so far. If the price to pay was a nagging conscience and the odd detention and disapproving look from McGonagall, he considered it a price well worth paying. Around the others he didn't feel like so much of a monster. He was their friend.