Why the Wolf

Andre Masterson was not, by nature, a trouble-maker. He didn't go out of his way to break the rules, and didn't even step up to half the trouble that asked him to come play with it.

He did, however, have an unfortunate tendency to get into trouble. Like the time he was climbing one of the day-care's trees, only to have a branch break under him. He fell forty feet, smacked every branch on the way down, and landed on his head, his neck making a sound much like the branch had. One of the day-care ladies had rushed over and shrieked, "His neck is broken! He's paralyzed!" Andre had sat up, looked at her in his curious way, and asked, "What's para--whatsis?" And then there was the time he had leaned over a bridge, looking for the cat he'd just heard someone say was in the fish, and he took a header into the river below. Luckily, it was shallow water, and a fisherman had been close enough to step over and haul him out. (Later, that fisherman would swear that the water actually caught the boy.)

And of course, no one could forget the time he'd tried to catch a three hundred pound boulder at age four.

All in all, Andre Masterson was very well-acquainted with Sir Isaac Newton's most famous discovery.

So Andre knew when he stepped out his window that he was taking a risk. On the other hand, at five years old, he also knew he hadn't gotten really hurt by any of his little teas with gravity, and it wasn't like the roof couldn't support him. When his friend Robert had come over, he'd been sitting in this window and fallen out. Robert was twice Andre's size, and had hit the roof far more sharply than Andre was planning too. (Andre's parents were in the room below, and a light landing was key.) Andre knew he had a very good sense of balance, and wasn't going to move very quickly.

And last but not least, Andre knew that eight o'clock was a silly bedtime for a five-year-old, and that a night like this was too nice for a stuffy little bedroom in the attic. (It only counted as breaking the rules if the rules weren't stupid.)

Once out the window, Andre scooted far enough down the roof that he could lean back, and looked at the stars. He loved the night sky; it was so... forever.

The view was much better out here. For one thing, the roof wasn't in the way as much. For another, from this point he was looking over The Wood, not straight into it.

The Wood was the forest that surrounded Andre's house. It wasn't dense, or dark, or littered with monsters... until Robert and Andre were there. Then there were wolves and bears, pirates and at one point even a dragon. (The dragon showed up right after Robert, who was a Muggle and a few years older than Andre, had finished reading The Hobbit. Andre was very accusatory about it.)

Andre relaxed into the shingles. This was the way to be! The stars twinkled, like everyone always says they do, and the full moon looked heavy, and golden. A breeze blew his light brown hair in his face, and a radio was playing somewhere in the house.

Something was cracking the twigs in The Wood.

Andre stiffened, and a frown creased his forehead as he sat up. It had sounded close. He inched down the roof, trying not to loose his balance.

A door opened below. "While you're out there," his father's voice called, "look around for my glass, would you darling? I think it's by the grill."

"Along with the tongs, I suppose?" his mother laughed. She was always laughing at something.

Something rustled. There was something in The Wood.

It took Andre a bit to realize what that meant. He put his knee on the gutter. He wondered if it was magical or not; he knew all about magical creatures. Well, not all of them, but a few. His father worked at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and Andre was good at listening. He leaned further forward; the moon, high in the sky, threw the edge of The Wood into shadow.

He squinted.

Crickets chirped.

Suddenly, something glinted out of The Fringes. It was a huge, dog-like shape that glinted in the moonlight like it was wet. Its fur looked very thick. For something so big, it was very quiet, and it was completely focused on Andre's mother.

Its mouth opened in a snarl.

It had fangs. Andre flinched. "Mum!" he yelped. It sounded rather high and girly to his ears. He found that the sudden movement had cost him his balance. He pitched forwards and fell.

He hit the ground much harder than he had thought he would, and much harder than he every had before. There were sharp pains in his chin and chest, and he felt like he couldn't breath.

As Andre tried to get to hands and knees, he looked up. He saw teeth. Sharp, slobbery, hungry-looking teeth.

And then he saw fur. It was all round him, and filled all his senses. For a moment, a single, frozen moment, his memory was burned with the clarity of the world around him. There was a sharp, dusty scent which he thought must be "musk", although he'd never known what that smelled like before; there was a soft feeling against his face, where the thing's fur pressed; there was a truly fascinating light pattern, as the moonlight hit fur a quarter of an inch from Andre's eyes; and most of all there was silence as the already-quiet night was muffled in what he later learned was three separate layers of pelt.

Then his shoulder had a fast, tearing, burny sensation, and he knew the thing had bitten him. He heard with the ear not buried in the things fur the sound of someone shouting a curse. The thing backed off, and he fell backwards into an undignified sitting position. He looked at his father, holding a wand and looking as furious and cold as Andre had ever seen him. His father's face seemed to be moving, though... no, his father's whole body... but his legs weren't moving... how could his father move without walking? And then his mothers face shone too, blurring out... and then Andre knew no more.

He awoke in a bed. He looked up and saw a ceiling, the cheap kind with little flowery patterns on it, or flashbulbs, or suns. Plain white plaster. Andre's room was roofed with oak beams, arching gracefully up towards a roof.

Andre tried to look to the left, but a sudden sharp pain in his shoulder made him stop. Then he tried to look to the right, and the pain was still in his left shoulder. It was less, though, so he put up with it and looked at what was there.

There was a table with a cup, and numerous medicines. Behind the table was a wall. Nothing else.

Andre looked back up at the ceiling, and slowly, the burning in his shoulder faded. He shut his eyes, and tried to go to sleep.

It didn't work.

The next two hours were the most boring of his entire life. He didn't sleep, he didn't have anything he could do, and he couldn't even move his head.

Finally, finally a doctor with a familiar device on his coat came in--the device of the DRCMC. They stared at each other. It seemed to be an improvised staring contest. Andre was mildly surprised when he won.

The doctor cleared his throat. "Well." Andre kept looking at him. There seemed to be more forthcoming. "Well, young man, there are some people who would say you were incredibly lucky."

"Why?" This was not news. People were always saying he was lucky. It was just the magic protecting him. What was so lucky about that?

"Well. You encountered a werewolf. And you're alive. There aren't many kindergarteners who can say that!" The doctor seemed to be forcing cheer.

Andre frowned. "I got bitten, though. Didn't I?" The doctor nodded. "Then..." Andre's brows were knitting. He hated it when they did that, it felt funny. "Wouldn't I be a werewolf too?"

The doctor's smile fell, then, like a faulty Christmas tree the day before the holiday, he hauled it up and plastered it on again. "Well, yes. Yes you would."

Andre kept looking at him.

"You are, in fact." He seemed to be trying to work up his nerve for something. "I have been instructed to tell you..." He gulped. "That--that in accordance with the Werewolf Being Act of 1936..." His voice trailed off, and cheap glass Christmas ornaments shattered as the tree-smile toppled once again. He looked very uncomfortable. "In accordance with this act..." Rather sympathetic, more than anything, really. "Your parents had the option of giving you up to be Ward of the Ministry until people with sufficient, er, resources to, er, deal with a werewolf could be found to, well... deal with you."

Andre kept looking at him while he translated this. "So I go to a foster home?" The doctor nodded uncomfortably. "Until someone with the time and money can take me." The doctor nodded again, looking concerned. Andre frowned. Something didn't fit. "My father is a high-ranked ministry official. We have the money. And my mother stays at home all day. Why wouldn't they be able to take me back?"

The doctor squirmed, and fidgeted, and finally burst out, "You'll have to just ask them!" He took his clipboard and quickly left the room.

But Andre didn't ask them. He never saw them again, in fact. The next day, a woman from the Werewolf registry came in to see Andre. She asked many questions, many of which Andre didn't know the answer to. "Where was the bite? Where is the bite? Where were you when you were bitten? Do you know what time that was? When were you born? Do you know the hour on that, or just the date?"

Finally, Andre said, "I don't know! Why don't you ask my parents?"

The Registry woman looked frozen. Then she said, "Did Doctor Rupert not tell you? You don't have any parents anymore."

Andre stared at her. "Of... of course I have parents. Their names are Janet and Theordore Masterson, and my father works at the Ministry, in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. They would know the answers to all of this stuff!"

The Registry woman looked at him in a very motherly way. "Oh, dear. Why do they leave me these things? Dear, your parents aren't your parents anymore. It's not right, but they have decided that you are no longer their son. Really, I'm the closest thing you have to a mother now."

"But..." Her face seemed to be blurring out. Then Andre realized that it wasn't her face that was blurring, it was his eyes. He swiped at them. "But... They're my parents. Not you."

"I'm sorry, little one. Really. But that's the law. They have the right to say that you aren't their son anymore." The tears were coming faster, now. He wished they wouldn't. The woman looked down at him, then leaned over and took him in her arms. "There, there, dear. I know those words don't help, but..." She seemed to be confused as to what to do, and patted at him, awkwardly.

She held him until he stopped crying. He thought it was about an hour, but when he looked at the clock wall it turned out to have been only fifteen minutes. He lay back in the bed and snuffled a little. Finally, he looked up her. She seemed to have rather bright eyes, as well. His brows knitted again, and this time it actually hurt; he had a headache from crying. He tried to think of something to say. "How are you the closest thing I have to a mother?" he asked.

She swallowed, opened her mouth, swallowed again, and said, "I'm going to be your case manager at the Registry."

Andre thought back to what his father had said about that, and came up blank. "What's a case manager?"

"When people become werewolves--or at least, when they become werewolves and deign to tell us--" she seemed rather angry about something in that "--they get assigned someone at the WSS desk to tell them what's going on, and to make sure they don't bite anybody else, and--other things. That person is called a case manager, and I'm to be yours. That's why I need to have all these questions answered; I need to know as much as I can about your legal status if I'm going to help you." She seemed to think it a shame that no one had told him what was going on, and was trying to make up for it.

"Can you at least talk to my--my former parents and get them to answer? Because I really don't know the right answers."

She looked at him. Finally she said, "I can ask them, of course, to answer questions, but they're not obligated to. It's yet another part of that stupid, stupid law."

"That law... Miss, um..." Andre started to say her name, and then realized he didn't know it.

"Soltiz. Misses, actually, I'm married."

"Mrs. Soltiz, where am I gonna live? I don't--" his voice faltered "--I don't have a place to live anymore."

A horrible look came over her face, as if she were absolutely horror-struck. "I--I don't know where you're going to live. It's never come up... never... there's the law, yes, but it's never been enforced before... Well, we'll think of something. Oh... oh, that might work... I'll see what I can come up with, Mr. Masterson."

She tried to look comforting, but something she had said made him think of something else. "Mrs. Soltiz? I... I don't want to be Mr. Masterson anymore." She looked very confused, and he tried to explain. "'Cause, that's my dad, to me. And... if they don't want me... then, it just kinda hurts to be called that." He could feel the tears stinging his eyes, but he didn't stop looking away from her. (Mostly because he'd spent the last fifteen minutes crying in front of her and there was no more point to hiding it.)

She patted his hand and looked sorry for him. "What would you like to be called, then?"

His face fell as he realized that he had no answer to that. "I don't know... just give me some time. I feel like... like I'm not the same person, though, anymore... and I just can't keep the same name, I can't!"

She sighed. "Alright, then. I see no real reason for you not to change your name. Moving on... there are some books that have been written about being a werewolf; should I get you some of those?"

Andre's eyes shone. "Other werewolves have written about it?"

"Erm... no. The books are all written by people who aren't werewolves. But they might have something to say anyway," she added hurriedly, seeing the look on his face. "And I'll try to get some other werewolf to come in and talk to you about being one."

Andre smiled gratefully. "Thanks, Mrs. Soltiz."

The next day, she did indeed bring the books. Andre was grateful for more than just the information; sitting in bed all day was really boring. Luckily, he could now turn his head to look around the room, and even sit up.

Unfortunately, what he couldn't do was read the books. For one thing, they were way above his reading level, and for another, they were heavy, with smeared ink and smudged pages. One of them wasn't even in English. To get around that, Mrs. Soltiz agreed to stay with him and read the books. Which she did. He would hold it up for her, and she would read aloud to him, telling him what words meant when he didn't know, and sewing by hand, which looked very strange to Andre, who had never seen that before.

"I'm muggle-born," she said when she asked about it. "And my mother taught me when I was very little... There's really no reason not to do it at the same time as something else, I must have finished six dresses in school."

Then, one day, Mrs. Soltiz didn't come. Instead, a large man, who looked about the same age she did (forty-ish), came to read to Andre. Andre was surprised, but when he asked who the man was, he said with a smile, "I'm Mr. Soltiz. My wife's been reading to you?"

"Oh," said Andre. "She didn't say you were going to come read to me." He paused, and regarded Mr. Soltiz with big eyes. "Do you sew?"

Mr. Soltiz blinked, and blinked again. "No. Why would I?"

"Mrs. Soltiz always sews when she's reading to me. What were you going to do while reading to me?"

"Um... just read to you, I guess. I didn't realize that one needed to do something else at the same time as one read."

Andre leaned back in his seat. "You don't. She could, though; that's really impressive. I have to work hard just to read."

"Well, I imagine it's gotten easier, having these thick things around."

"Why?"

"Well... you can practice hearing the sounds and seeing the sounds at the same time."

"No, I can't. I always hold the book so she can read, and that means I can't read it at the same time."

"Well," he said heartily, "we'll just fix that! I'll hold the book so that we both can read it, and you read it; then if you have trouble with something, I can read for a while. Is that all right?"

It was, and they spent the rest of the day doing it that way. It was much more fun than having Mrs. Soltiz read. For one thing, he got to actually do something other than just hold the book. For another, Mr. Soltiz was very funny about it. Not a page went by without laughter on one or both their parts, usually at the dry and dusty books. In fact, it took them both rather by surprise when they looked up and it was time to go.

It was only as Mr. Soltiz was walking out the door that Andre dared ask where Mrs. Soltiz was. When he did, he immediately wished he hadn't. A thundercloud scowl appeared on Mr. Soltiz bear-like face, and he obviously made a great effort to control his temper. "Well, she's talking to some people about you; she's trying to figure out some things she and you don't know. She'll probably be back tomorrow." Andre stared at him as he fiddled with the buttons on his coat. Why was he so angry?

"Who's she talking to?" Mr. Soltiz muttered something into his collar. "What? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you."

"I said she's talking to the Mastersons! The people who used to be your parents!" He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, child. I'm don't like saying it, but giving up your child for something like this... well, I just don't go with that!"

Andre gave him the steady look that he had given the doctor. "I don't mind." His mind screamed liar! and his eyes stung. "I not human any more; it wouldn't be reasonable for them to love me, would it?"

Mr. Soltiz looked up sharply. It was then that Andre saw what was beneath the fuzzy gaze and large bones; Mr. Soltiz had a heart of pure gold. It took him two strides to cross the room, and in less than a second Andre was wrapped in a rib-creaking hug. To his utter astonishment and embarrassment, he found he was crying again. He tried to apologize, but for some reason Mr. Soltiz didn't want to hear it. He just held him until the moment he would have to let go or mortify Andre, and then he did let go. He chucked Andre under the chin, and walked out.

Three days later, Mrs. Soltiz came late. Very late. When she finally came in, three hours after she normally did, she was followed by two men in DRCMC dress robes, with clipboards of parchments. She seemed rather flustered.

"I'm sorry, dear, but I couldn't get them to put it off any more. They're insisting you settle it today! I told them you weren't ready yet, but they just kept saying..."

"Settle what?" asked Andre, looking up from the book spread on his legs. He had taken to reading everything he could, even if he didn't know some words. His next transformation was eleven days away, and he still didn't know what he was facing. (Mrs. Soltiz had asked, but no werewolf was willing to come talk to Andre.) As a result, there were usually three or four books near his bed at all times.

"They are insisting," she gave them a very dirty look, as if they were harming him just by being there, "that you decide now on a name if you wish to change yours."

"Well, I can't wait forever, can I?" He hadn't planned on deciding yet, though. He had no idea what he wanted to be called. Certainly nothing like what he had... "Andre Masterson" was just to domesticated for a werewolf, he felt. He looked down at the page for inspiration and the two words jumped at him, like frogs that had been resting on lily pads. "Remus Lupin."

Mrs. Soltiz gasped, and said, "But... but you can't do that! Those are just words for wolf!"

"I am a wolf."

"No! You're not a wolf, not at the times when anybody would be calling you by name!"

Andre, or Remus, rather, looked at her with his trademark steady gaze. "I'm changing my name because I'm not part of the Masterson family anymore, and I'm not part of the family because I'm a wolf. It's appropriate. Besides," he added, swallowing hard, "other people should be warned."

Mrs. Soltiz was very distressed about it, but she gave in eventually. It helped that the DRCMC people felt that this was very appropriate. It also helped, although Remus didn't learn of this until later, that when Mrs. Soltiz mentioned it to her husband, he laughed out loud. "Fits him better anyway," he said, "I like it!"

Remus Lupin never, ever forgot that first transformation. He was removed from the room where he had spent all his time and taken to a cell somewhere in the DRCMC headquarters. He was locked in for the night in a place that was dark, with absolutely no furniture, in very old robes because everyone was sure that whatever he wore wouldn't survive the transformation. He was not fed dinner. In fact, the only thing that could be said for his room and board that night was that everything, everything was spotlessly, fanatically clean.

They didn't want him to get infected when, not if, he hurt himself.

It was the most terrifying memory of his life for many, many years. He sat there, feeling both frightened and bored, and then his bones started to hurt. They ached, and then felt almost pinched, and he felt a panic rise in his throat. His eyes ached from rolling back in his head, and his jaw ached from the cramping of the taut tendons. And then panic took over completely, and he was desperate, and he tore around the room trying to get whatever was in his body out--

By the time the wolf collapsed from pain and exhaustion, it was no longer night, but nearly early morning.

When Remus woke the next morning, every single cubic inch of his body hurt. He was returned to the hospital, and was diagnosed with massive concussion, as well as three broken bones and the excessive exhaustion that came with the transformation. (This was caused by both the transformation taking the magical energy from his body and the panic and ferocity that accompanied it taking a psychological toll.) He slept for a full day, waking only to use the toilet. He then ate hugely and went back to bed.

He surprised everyone, though, when he was conscious the next day. They had noticed that Remus wasn't eating or sleeping much at all for the days before his transformation, and as a result thought that he would need more sleep and food afterwards. They were impressed, and Mrs. Soltiz said so.

Three transformations later, Remus was causing quite a stir. Everyone agreed that a home must be found for the boy, but nobody seemed to know how to go about doing it. It had early on been decided that a foster home was out, simply based on lack of way to control the wolf. The Ministry couldn't take care of him forever; there weren't enough people. And obviously, no one had showed up on the steps of the Ministry saying, "Do you have a young werewolf cub? I've always wanted one."

The problem was that they couldn't think of a way to ask someone to take Remus in without it becoming general knowledge that he was a werewolf. While everyone agreed that as a werewolf he was a danger, most people who had met and spoken with Remus said it wasn't fair for his condition to be popular knowledge, due to the greater levels of harassment that he would receive once he was out in the world. Mrs. Soltiz said that she thought it might even be earlier than that; she had hopes that Remus would make it into Hogwarts. She was, however, the only one; everyone said that there was no way Dippet would do something like that.

Eventually, it was Mrs. Soltiz herself who took Remus in. She gave several sound logical reasons for this, including that it greatly reduced the effort required for her job and might even enable her to take another case; however, everyone knew that the real reason was her fondness for Remus.

She always said that she took herself by surprise with that decision. Although she and Mr. Soltiz had been discussing it since he came and read to Remus that first time, she never thought until she said it to her superior that she actually meant it. (Mr. Soltiz, on the other hand, said that he knew very well that she was going to do it, and that he wondered why it took her so long to do it. Remus was the only one who ever believed both of these stories.)

For his part, Remus adored both of his foster parents. He thought Mrs. Soltiz was a cozy presence, and Mr. Soltiz was like a well-loved comfort blanket. Despite rather mundane exteriors, they were exactly what a bright young boy in a terrible time needed: comfort, solid comfort, and nothing too exotic. (Mrs. Soltiz once commented that there was a tellie-spell on that dungeon where he first transformed, and that her first words on seeing the wolf were, "Oh, how adorable! Oh, Gabriel, don't you just wish you could scritch his ears?") They were a sort of home that really was where his heart was.

Remus never changed his name to Soltiz. He wore "Lupin" like a badge of honor, and seemed to feel that his honor would be called into question should he change it. He also never called his adoptive parents "Mum" or "Dad"; this upset Mrs. Soltiz deeply until Mr. Soltiz explained it.

Remus felt that to call them that, when that was what he had called his birth parents, would be an insult to both couples; the Mastersons because the Soltizes were not in fact his birth parents, and the Soltizes because the people he had called "Mum and Dad" had rejected him, which the Soltizes, he knew, would never do. He also felt that that was not, in fact, the relationship between Remus and the Soltizes. They were his guardians, and he loved them very much, but they were not his parents.

Mrs. Soltiz was a very good worker for the DRCMC: not only had she taken Remus in, but she also kept tabs on two other, adult werewolves. This didn't take much; a biweekly report on what accommodations they were using was all that was necesary. One of them she occasionally checked on.

She had another job, as well, one in which Remus was a key player: when muggle-born children were sent to Hogwarts, she volunteered to alert them that this was not, in fact, a prank, and to guide them through the process of getting supplies, and getting onto the Hogwarts Express. When she did this, she would take her solemn, sober-faced child with her. No one, adult or child, ever suspected that this boy would participate in a prank: he looked like he barely knew how to laugh. (He did have a sense of humor, but it was quiet, adult, refined, and frequently sarcastic. He would prank people, but only in a way that was soaked with irony.)

Then, barely two days before Mrs. Soltiz sent the owl of acceptance to the one American school that had accepted Remus (Catskill School of Young Wizards), the owl from Hogwarts flew through the kitchen window to land in front of Remus. At that moment, anyone who thought this boy could not smile was very, very wrong.