Remus remembered the very first time he'd met Albus Dumbledore. He'd been ten years old and the man had arrived at his parents' little house to ask if he'd like to go to his school.
Remus had long since given up on the idea of going to Hogwarts. He knew the castle was where his dad had been educated, but how could he possibly go there being what he was?
He'd resigned himself to a quiet, lonely life, doing what he could for his parents and maybe earning a living helping muggles with their homes or gardens. There would be no light or bright future for him.
That was until Albus Dumbledore became headmaster.
"Would you like to attend Hogwarts?" The wizard said, moving his piece forward on the gobstones board he had opened up and started playing with the boy.
Remus looked up at him. "More than anything in the world." He breathed.
"Well," Dumbledore smiled. "It's settled then." He said, as if that was all there was to it. "You're very good at this." He added conversationally as Remus took another of his pieces.
Remus blushed. He wondered if perhaps he ought to have let the headmaster win. Wouldn't it have been better manners to do so?
"You must always be yourself, Remus." Dumbledore said, smiling at him as if he knew just what he'd been thinking. "As the muggles say, everyone else is taken."
Remus smiled and bravely took his last piece. "Thank you." He said.
"Thank you for your bravery." Dumbledore replied. He turned to the doorway, where Remus' parents were hovering anxiously. "I do believe it's all settled, Mr and Mrs Lupin. Remus will receive his official letter on his eleventh birthday and I very much look forward to seeing him on September 1st."
And, with a passing polite comment on the Lupins' lupins as he opened the front door, he left.
Though Remus' parents continued to fret, Remus was secretly beside himself with delight. This was it. This was his chance to be a normal boy again.
He could only vaguely remember being bitten by a werewolf as a small child. All he remembered was screaming, blood and pain.
But he could remember the several dozen transformations he had undergone following the incident in his parents' garden.
He wasn't sure if he screamed more from the original attack or the times his body would twist and transform once a month, his bones snapping and regrowing, muscles stretching beyond anything normal...
It was total agony and it had scarred him in more ways than one. He barely considered himself human anymore.
He would watch the other children in his village as they made their way to the local primary school. His mother had enrolled him in muggle school when he'd been much younger, and he'd learned basic maths and English, but unfortunately his monthly absences (particularly as they were followed by so many fresh cuts and bruises) drew too much suspicion for the arrangement to continue.
As a result of this the Lupins also moved house often. There wasn't time to settle down in any particular place, even less so to make friends.
Could he have friends? Was there any chance, even the slightest, teeniest one, that he could possibly pretend to be a normal wizard.
...
"I can't do it!" He breathed, very nearly losing his nerves completely as he and his father arrived at King's Cross. Fortunately they had time for Lyall to take him into a little alcove so he could calm down.
"It's OK." The man said, stroking his back as he tried not to hyperventilate. "It'll be OK."
Remus wasn't sure why his father was trying to reassure him now. He hadn't been keen on this idea from the outset. Oh why hadn't he listened to him?!
"My time at Hogwarts was the best of my life." Lyall told him seriously. "You'll make friends, Remus. I promise."
...
It was a miracle. His father turned out to be quite right.
Within just a few days of starting at Hogwarts, he has three friends. James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew.
He'd met the boys on the Hogwarts Express and had been drawn to their easy going nature, good humour and confidence.
Everything seemed easy and simple for James and Sirius. They seemed to take starting at Hogwarts completely in their stride and what's more, seemed genuinely eager for Remus to tag along with them too.
Remus had never considered himself a particularly funny person before, but he seemed to genuinely amuse James and Sirius.
"It's brilliant because you don't even know you're doing it!" Sirius had said, clapping him on the back as Remus thought hard for what he'd said that might have made his new friend laugh this time.
The dark haired boys had expressed a desire to visit the castle's kitchens. This idea appealed to Peter greatly, who Remus had already discovered had a very sweet tooth. And then the three of them had turned expectantly to Remus.
"What do you think they'll have in the kitchens that they don't send up to the great hall at dinner?" He'd asked, genuinely curious. He hadn't been trying to be funny. Why was sense and logic so amusing to Sirius exactly?
But as time wore on, he began to ease into his role as 'a marauder' (the name for their group James and Sirius had coined at the start of the year).
He found it was quite good to relax the rules a bit and he often found James and Sirius quite as much fun as they seemed to find him.
He had to admit turning a blind eye to the way they behaved towards Severus Snape, a boy in Slytherin house however.
They seemed to go out of their way to irritate him, and Remus couldn't understand it at all.
When he plucked up the courage to finally ask, Sirius had just shrugged. "'Cos it's funny I suppose." He'd said before going back to his crossword.
Though Remus' dad was pleased he had friends, he consistently warned Remus not to let his guard down. "Especially not around Sirius Black." He said, pointing the knife he was using to help his wife chop potatoes warningly at him.
"Dad," Remus said, rolling his eyes (something he certainly wouldn't have done in front of his parents before starting at Hogwarts), "you really don't have to worry so much."
That was another thing he had learned from his friends. "I don't understand why you worry so much." James had said on countless occasions, frowning over at Remus and Peter who were fretting over their homework. "Why don't you just deal with whatever comes when it comes?"
Remus had to admit he didn't quite understand the logic of this. When McGonagall came to ask where their transfiguration essay on colour changing spells was, what was he supposed to say then exactly?
"Sorry Professor, I forgot." James grinned back on more than one occasion, appearing completely unabashed by their teacher's flared nostrils and thin lips.
But that was another example of where James and Remus differed. James didn't seem to mind getting detention in the least.
"It's not so bad." He'd say, returning to the dormitory and bringing the distinctive scent of silver polish with him. "She made me do the trophies on the third floor again." He explained. "But I've made up a good game with it. Try and guess the student's surname based off the first name."
Sirius frowned at him. "I know you think you're brilliant, Potter, but no one's that good. How can you possibly guess what someone's surname's going to be based off nothing?"
"Not nothing." James contradicted him. "If it ends in an 'us' it usually means they've got at least one magical parent." He eyed Sirius and Remus who of course fit that particular mould.
"Your family's easy." He told Sirius. "You're all named after bloody stars. Whose bright idea was that?"
"Merlin's." Sirius said uninterestedly, going back to the crossword.
Remus moved over to help him. The crossword and wizards chess were the only two things the pair of them did together and Remus enjoyed the rare quiet times he got to spend alone with his friend.
He had the distinct impression throughout their first few years at Hogwarts that Sirius was holding back on something however.
He never seemed happy to go home for the holidays and he never invited them to visit his house in London.
"Sorry mate, I can't." He told Remus every time he'd asked his friend to come and stay with the others.
He never gave a reason. It was very odd and if Remus hadn't known for sure that Sirius liked him (who else would accept a werewolf as a best friend?) he might have been a bit offended.
He wondered if perhaps it was because he was a werewolf that Sirius wasn't allowed to stay with him but surely he wouldn't have told his parents that.
Neither Remus nor his father could believe it when Sirius had accepted his lycanthropy without batting an eyelid. His friend had been mainly distressed it had taken them so long to work it out and Remus had had to hide it from them for so long.
He certainly wasn't anything like his dark family (who had a reputation for being horribly prejudiced and intolerant of muggleborns and half-breeds). Though this should have been apparent to everyone when he was sorted into Gryffindor on his first day of school.
"They're going to kill me!" He'd fretted to Remus when James or Peter couldn't hear that night in the dormitory.
Of all their friends, Sirius had been the most open with Remus about his struggles. He at least could admit to some of his fears with him, for which Remus was grateful and touched.
Though he moved in with James' family eventually in their fifth year, he told Remus it was always easier to talk about why he did it with him.
"You just get it, don't you?" He said quietly one night as they sat by the fire. He'd stolen another bottle of firewhisky (Remus, who had recently been appointed a prefect, had given up trying to ascertain the source and stop him). "You get what it's like… your life's not perfect either."
Whether it was the alcohol or being alone with Remus he wasn't sure, but that night his friend was finally able to share just how truly dreadful the last five years had been for him with his family. It had broken Remus' heart to hear it. How could anyone be made to suffer so much for something that wasn't their fault at all?
"Of course I understand." Remus promised. "You don't have to hide anything from me."
Sirius smiled sadly. "I wish you could have taken your own advice in our first year. There was a time when I thought your parents were as bad as mine. Every time you came back from visiting your mum you looked like you'd been put through a mangle. But they didn't hurt you, did they? You hurt yourself..."
He wasn't smiling anymore. He looked almost angry now. "It's not fair." He said, eyes far away as he looked at the fire. "It's not fair decent blokes like you suffer when smug gits like Malfoy who've never had a hard day in their lives sign up for the death eaters. We need to put it right."
And that had been what Remus had loved about Sirius. He always did the right thing where it really mattered.
He'd have died for the Order of the Phoenix. He'd been desperate to join since the start of the war. He was fierce, brave and loyal. Remus could never understand how he could have done what he did.
After James, Lily and Peter died, Remus became a shadow of himself. He would sometimes sit in the front room of his father's house (his mother had died while he'd been at school) and howl like a wounded animal for all he'd lost.
The pain he felt at having had something so wonderful and then for it to have been ripped away was surely ten times worse than having never had it at all.
He cursed everyone who had made it possible to go to Hogwarts and to have the friends he did. He cursed Dumbledore, the sorting hat and James and Sirius for taking an interest in him in the first place.
But more than anything, he cursed himself. He should have known people like him didn't have happy endings. He was foolish to have hoped.
The times he'd spent at Hogwarts in the company of his best friends had felt like they were from someone else's life. It had been too wonderful for words, planning their next moonlit adventure, sneaking into Hogsmeade, lying under the beech tree, whiling away the hours together.
It had seemed back then that time would go on forever. They'd been so young, so full of hope and potential. They had their whole lives in front of them, and Remus had felt more alive than he'd ever done in his whole life.
But not anymore. He was no longer Remus who had friends. He wasn't Remus the brilliant student or Remus the member of the Order of the Phoenix.
He was, as he should have known he always would be, nothing.
...
A/N: I promise I'll write a happier story for Remus soon!