REMUS

Ever wondered what it's like to be half human and half animal?

Yeah, me neither.

On a completely unrelated note, my name is Remus Lupin and I'm a wizard, and a werewolf. 

Now, let's get one thing straight. 

I only told you I'm a werewolf because I'm blindly trusting that you will not, under any circumstances, tell anyone. 

You might be wondering, so what's your father like? or do you live in a pack and go hunting on the full moon? or something of that sort, but I'll have you know that my father is a perfectly normal wizard. 

 Perhaps if you've done a bit of reading, you'll know that to become a werewolf you must be bitten by one, and that's pretty much what happened to me back when I was four. Twelve years later and I'm still hating myself and the werewolf that bit me. 

 If you've done a bit more reading, you'll know that every full moon, us werewolves go through a transformation that shall we say, brings out the inner us. 

 I bitterly envy you if you imagine transformation to be something beautiful, with me spewing golden light everywhere and afterwards leaving me wearing dazzling white robes and a wreath of flowers on my head. You should keep thinking that way. 

 Transformation is probably the worst thing ever, even worse than the sound of nails scratching against a chalkboard. It's painful, and cruel, and most of the time I don't remember anything until I wake up the next morning and find claw marks on everything - me included. My family's always moving because once we stay in the same place too long people begin getting suspicious. 

 To be honest I don't understand how they can still bear to live with me. My mother, Hope Lupin, is the sweetest, most patient person I know, but I guess once in a while she gets tired of me. 

 Let's face it. Nobody wants to be around a werewolf - a lycanthrope - a freak like me. I'm even too dangerous to trust myself. 

 Another thing you should know about lycanthropy: there is no cure, no vaccine, nothing. The Ministry of Magic - yes Magic has a ministry - is out there apprehending underage wizards and watches for lighting stoves with their wands and whatnots while we sit here, struggling to keep off the bad guys, which is, by the way, the ministry's job. 

 I mean, sure, potions might exist, potions that could help, but I'm not likely to find someone who'd be willing to brew it for me. I have told myself this several times and every time it becomes more and more relevant. 

 Remus Lupin, your life is fucked up. 

 * * *

King's Cross Station was this ridiculously large train station that was always overcrowded, but today being the first of September, it was extra crowded. 

 As I pushed my way through the mass of people, I caught a glimpse of Lily Evans, one of my really good friends. She was accompanied by her parents and her sulky elder sister, Petunia. Lily had told me that they fought a lot, mostly because Lily was a witch and Petunia was just a normal kid. I didn't know about her but I'd have loved to have been just a normal kid. 

My parents weren't far behind; they were having a little chat with Euphemia and Fleamont Potter, the parents of one of best friends, James Potter. They were a fairly old couple, and James was their only child, so he received a lot of love and cuddly stuff from them. I really don't want to say that James was spoiled, because I truly don't think he was. A good word to describe him would be: confident. 

 How confident, you ask?

 In second year he asked Lily to go out with him and hasn't stopped pestering her since. But the poor lovesick bloke really botched his chances last year when he along with another friend of mine, Sirius, magically manhandled one of Lily's (weird) friends, Severus Snape. 

 OK fine, nobody really liked Snape, and he and James loathed each other, but it was a bit cruel, what they did to him. However, I think it would have been perfectly fair to give old Snivellus a kick in the ribs after he called Lily a mudblood. 

 'Mudblood' isn't a word you can throw about, like stupid or damn. Mudblood is a really offensive way of saying 'Born from Muggle parents' (non-magic parents.) Usually you inherit magic from either one parent or both, but sometimes magic appears in children whose parents aren't magic. Those types are called Muggle-borns and, and I think they're really special. Of course, some people think they're fake and thieves of magic etc., so when Snape 'accidentally' called Lily a mudblood, it pretty much ended their friendship. Now Lily won't speak to James or Snape. 

 My eyes lifted to the clock. We had roughly fifteen minutes before the Hogwarts Express left, and I intended to get good seats in those fifteen minutes. 

 An ordinary, cracked brick wall was the barrier between Muggle Train station and the Hogwarts Express Station, quite cleverly named Platform Nine and Three Quarters because the wall stood roughly between platforms nine and ten. 

 Ingenious, right? Most magic is. 

 The only thing was, you had to run through the barrier. It wasn't as scary as it sounds, it was just a little awkward because you never knew if one day the barrier would stop working and you'd bounce off, sending all your belongings flying. Fortunately this had never happened. 

 "Coming?" I asked my parents, interrupting their conversation. 

 "Oh, right. Yes, we'll be there in a minute," said my mother. 

 "We only have a minute left," I mumbled before pushing my trolley forward and running straight through the barrier. 

 I always found comfort in the gleaming, deep crimson body of the Hogwarts Express. It was almost like it was saying, 'It's totally fine if you're not normal, Hogwarts will still accept you.' That always made me feel slightly better. 

 I could see Peter Pettigrew, another friend of mine, being smothered by his mother, but he didn't appear irritated. I could see James hanging off one of the train doors, explaining something to Sirius, who wasn't on the train, but was standing outside it and occasionally looking around just for the sake of it. 

 Sometimes it really puzzled me how they still wanted to be friends with me. After they found out in second year, I thought they were going to hate me and distance themselves from me and maybe even tell people about it, but James actually walked up to me and said,

 "I think it's really cool that you're a werewolf." 

 And then he gave me the most mischievous grin ever and from that moment I knew I could actually trust them. But as I stood watching them from afar, a wave of sadness - sort of - washed over me. I had only caused them trouble, and they had sacrificed so much for me. The amount of work they had done just to become Animagi (humans who can change into animals at will) was to me a constant reminder that I was quite a burden. 

 "You'll be fine, Remus." my mother reassured me. I hadn't even noticed her coming to stand behind me. "You have special friends. And you're a special boy." She gave me a hug. 

 Special, alright. 

 "You'll do great, son," said my father, Lyall, holding out his fist for a fist bump. I gave him one and tried to make it seem energetic. He gave me a smile, but his eyes twinkled the most. That was one thing I loved about my father; his smiles weren't affirmed by his lips, but his eyes. Whenever he gave a genuine smile, you could see it in his eyes. He was an eye-smiler. 

 "Will you be home for Christmas?" asked my mother. 

 "I wouldn't miss your Christmas pudding, would I?" I replied, feeling an eye-smile coming on. 

 I pushed my trolley towards the train and a porter hauled it to the back of the train for me. A trail of steam was now issuing from the chimney and young witches and wizards were now swarming into the train. I joined Sirius and James and pushed them into the train, Peter just behind us. We found an empty compartment and settled ourselves in it. Sirius spoke first.

 "What have you been eating, Moony?"  

 I stared down at my stomach, not sure whether I looked chubby or not.

 "Why?"

 "Because you're as tall as the bloody Eiffel Tower, that's why." 

 I looked at Sirius and tried to keep a straight face but I couldn't.

 "I've only grown like, four inches this summer." I said.

 Sirius scoffed. "Yeah, right." 

 "It's OK to be short, Padfoot, and we do understand if you're a bit jealous." James said. 

 "I'm definitely not jealous," said Sirius indignantly, "I'm just..." 

 He trailed off and gave me a puzzled look, his head angled slightly to one side. I caught his gaze and for barely a moment we stared at each other until Sirius raised his eyebrows in questioning. I shrugged and pulled a bar of chocolate out of my bag and began unwrapping it. Chocolate was like the polar opposite of transformation. Transformation was hard and bitter and painful, but chocolate was warm and sweet and just magical.  

 Sirius ran a hand through his hair. It had grown even longer over the summer. 

 I'm not gonna lie, Sirius was hot. He had this sort of elegant cheekiness that pretty much made him a magnet. We had made out a few times, under the heavy influence of  butterbeer, which I now suspect might have been spiked with Firewhisky, but there wasn't anything serious about it; I didn't perceive it as gay or anything because I suppose that's normal if you're best friends with somebody. 

 "So how was your summer?" asked James. After a short period of silence I realized he had directed the question to me. 

 "Oh," I gulped down a mouthful of chocolate. "It was OK, I guess. The two times weren't too bad."

 "You should've told us to come. It would've been so much fun!" Peter gushed. I gave a little laugh, although nothing really was funny. 

 "I dunno about fun, Pete, but either way I couldn't have."

 "Why not?" asked Sirius.

"Because you guys already do way too much just to deal  with my stupid werewolf problems." I said. I had told them over and over that they should just drop the Animagi business and allow me to destroy myself in solidarity, but of course, they never listened.

 "Come now, Remus. I know you're not that stupid," said James."What sort of friends leave their best mate to suffer all alone, yet it's not even his fault he's suffering?" 

 "Well, maybe the suffering best mate doesn't want his friends getting hurt." I said.

 "Moony, you've talked about this Merlin knows how many times, and every time you know how it's going to end," said Sirius. "We're gonna be out there with you every full moon until you leave Hogwarts, and after that every full moon until you die, so you can save your speeches for then, lest you lose your voice." 

 "Well said, Padfoot," said James. Peter clapped. 

 "If you say so," I huffed, popping another piece of chocolate into my mouth before feeling a wave of sleep slowly begin to wash over me.