Chapter 8

"Do you think she likes me?" James asked Remus. He was looking at Lily from across the room and he had been doing so for the entire breakfast.

"Of course," Remus said sarcastically, "I bet she's going to ask you out any day now…" Remus took a bite of toast , flipping to the next page in his book.

"I hope she does that today!" James said excitedly, and Sirius glared at him.

"Mate, you know Remus is joking, right?" he said, clearly confused how James actually believed what Remus had said.

"Oh, what? Yea! I was, I was joking too…" James said, a look of disappointment printed on his face.

Remus, Sirius, and Peter began laughing slightly, which earned an angry glare from their friend James.

Suddenly, James sat upright and stared as Severus sat next to Lily and the two of them began smiling at each other.

"That fowl-" James was cut off before he could say more by Peter, he raised his hand, clearly uncomfortable with where this was going.

The clock bell rang right when he was about to talk and the four of them hurried, not wanting to be late to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Remus took the seat next to Sirius, and James tried to sit next to Lily, but he couldn't because Severus quickly took the seat, shoving James aside.

"I hate Mondays…" Sirius groaned and Remus murmured in agreement. Remus was very tired and Sirius probably was as well. The two of them had stayed up late playing more Wizard's Chess, and Remus still couldn't win…

Professor Aubirth walked into the room, raising his hand as a signal for everyone to stop talking.

"Good morning everyone," he boomed, and everyone nervously murmured their agreement. No one was really fond of Professor Aubirth, he was strict, and if you put one toe out of line you might not see the end of it…

"Tomorrow I'll be assessing you all on the three defensive spells we learned recently," he began and Remus was nervous, he hadn't had much time to practice the spells. "So today I'll let you guys practice with no talking…"

Everyone opened their books and began flipping towards the correct pages, and right away everyone was practicing the spells.

Suddenly, Remus heard someone gasp, he turned around and saw it was Frank Longbottom.

Remus just turned back to his work, trying to ignore the excited murmurs and gasps of the people around them. What was so exciting?

"Professor, can you tell us about that?" someone exclaimed, but Remus ignored them, he had finally done the spell correctly, and this was no time to get distracted.

Sirius turned his head and his expression turned to one of shock and amazement, but Remus still didn't look. I did the spell correctly a second time! He thought to himself, and he realized that this was probably going to be a good day.

"Well… I mean I guess I can," Professor Aubirth said, responding to the student who had asked him a question a few seconds earlier.

"Yes!" One of Lily's friends exclaimed, and everyone dropped their wands, looking eagerly towards their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

Remus decided he'd listen to the story, whatever it was. He wasn't really in the mood for practicing the spells right now so he decided to listen. also everyone had dropped their wands and Remus didn't want to be the only one still casting the spells.

"So, before I came to teach here at Hogwarts… I was a werewolf hunter…" Gasps came from everyone and Remus's jaw dropped, but he closed it quickly. Sweat was starting to form in the palms of his hands, and his heart began to beat quickly, so fast in fact, that Remus thought it would burst from his chest at any moment.

He looked towards the picture everyone was staring at before and he felt like he would be sick. Professor Aubirth, probably him when he was younger, was standing next to a dead werewolf. It layed limply on the floor, covered in blood as Professor Aubirth stood behind it, a look of pride on his face…

"Remus," Sirius said gently, clearly noticing that Remus was nervous, "Are you ok? You look pretty nervous…"

"Oh, what… Me?" Remus began, trying to keep his voice steady, "Why shouldn't I be?"

"It's just that…" Sirius stopped as if he was lost in thought of what might be possibly bothering Remus.

"I remember when I was first offered the job by the Ministry," Professor Aubirth began, and he began walking around the classroom, "And I was sure happy in the long run I decided that was the right path for me." His gaze landed on Remus, or at least he was imagining it had. Remus wanted so badly to disappear and never set eyes on this classroom ever again.

"It was very frightening, but of course I managed," the Professor bragged and everyone stared in amazement, "It was exciting, breathtaking, and most of all, good for society.

Remus' breath caught in his throat… This was getting worse by the minute.

"Werewolves are destructive, monsters, who are bad for society, and they don't deserve to live…" It seemed again that his gaze landed on Remus and Remus just wanted to run away right now, he wanted to run as far as he could from the school and to never come again.

Sirius stared at Remus again, concern flashing in his gray eyes, "Remus… Are you sure you're ok?"

"I told you I'm fine," Remus snapped, his voice shaking slightly.

"Oh…" Sirius said as though he finally understood, Remus' blood ran cold. "Are you… Scared of werewolves?"

"What!? No!" Remus responded.

"It's ok I mean, they are pretty scary…" Remus looked down, not wanting to hear more, "We can just ask Professor Aubirth to stop if it's making you uncomfortable…"

"No, no… It's fine…" Remus said, laying his head down on his desk. Professor Aubirth was deep in the story and it was evident that Remus and Sirius had missed the beginning of the story.

"There I was, face to face with the werewolf…" Professor Aubirth began, pausing to add

Suspense to the story. "It looked me in the eye, and from the moment it set eyes on me I knew what it wanted to do… Kill me…"

Lily looked disapprovingly towards the Defence Against the Dark Arts Teacher. "I mean, it's not their fault, they're not completely themselves when transformed…" she piped in and Remus felt suddenly grateful for at least one person's support.

"Don't interrupt!" someone from the room called out.

"Yeah! We want to hear how the story ends!" Even exclaimed.

"I lifted my wand, pointing towards the disgusting half - breed creature, and I began shooting spells at it, I dodged with ease as it lunged at me…" Remus couldn't suppress a gasp of horror, this was definitely the worst class he ever had… "I levitated a log I found nearby, and dropped it onto the werewolf, and it quickly was killed."

The class erupted into claps, and Remus was basically the only person not clapping.

"That story was intense!" exclaimed Sirius.

"Yea…" Remus responded.

The clock bell rang, dismissing everyone for next class, and Remus turned and saw Severus and Lily talking in the corner of the classroom.

"Can you believe how disgusting werewolves are! Honestly who could believe they deserve anything," Severus told Lily, a hint of anger in his voice.

"Shhhhh!" Lily said, holding her finger to her mouth, "There might be werewolves in this classroom hearing everything that you're saying!"

Severus looked at her with a mixed expression of disgust and confusion.

"You know I'm joking Sev, come on let go!" Lily said, running out the door, Severus trailing closely behind her.

Remus didn't feel like doing anything anymore, but he knew that he had to get through the school day which ended up being pretty tough. He distanced himself from everyone during that school day, sitting by himself in the back of the classroom. He didn't have an appetite and couldn't bring himself to take even more than a bite of food during lunch. And when his friends tried to start a conversation with him, he only replied with a couple of words.

Finally it was dinner, but Remus still wasn't hungry, so he skipped it and headed to the dorm so he'd have some alone time while his friends ate.

He laid down on his bed, recalling everything that happened during Defense Against the Dark Arts. He was about to break down when he heard the door open and he sat up quickly, wiping his eyes to hide any trace of tears.

"Are you ok?" said Sirius, walking in, a look of concern on his face. "You weren't at dinner just now…"

"Oh, I'm fine," Remus began, trying to sound cheerful, "I just felt a little bit off, so I decided to get some rest."

"You're not sick are you?" Sirius questioned, walking over to his bed. He placed his hand on Remus's head and removed it a few seconds later, "You don't have a temperature…"

"Yeah, I guess I'm just feeling a bit under the weather, rest will make me feel better."

"Hey, maybe playing a game of Wizard's Chess will cheer you up," Sirius said excitedly, already rummaging through his stuff to find the board.

As much as Remus wanted to play the game to make his friend happy, he couldn't bring himself to do it. "Sorry Sirius… Just not in the mood, maybe you could play with James or Peter when they come back from dinner…"

Sirius looked a bit disappointed but nodded his agreement, turning to look at the door when James and Peter walked in.

"Hey!" Sirius greeted and they murmured their greetings as well.

After about an hour, all of them settled in their beds, and James turned off the lights, saying goodnight to everyone in the room.

Remus thought back to everything he had heard that day. The shocking revelation of Professor Aubirth's past job, everything he had said about werewolves, and even what some of the students had said.

Remus suddenly wanted to break down, to get all these bad thoughts out of his head. He closed the curtains surrounding his four poster bed, and burrowed deep into his blanket, sobs shook his body.

He cried himself to sleep that night, but quietly so his friends would hear him breaking down.

I'm a werewolf and I'll never be more than that, Remus thought, Why does anything matter to me anymore, I should have never come here…