Pale Sunlight

Pale Sunlight
by Eilan

You might belong in Gryffindor
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart;
(The Sorting Hat Song 1991)

By Gryffindor, the bravest were
Prized far beyond the rest;
(The Sorting Hat Song 1994)

His first transformation into a werewolf had been filled with pain. More pain than he ever would've thought possible.

All the others after that had been just as bad.

His friends' comforting presence had eased the pain, but it had never ceased to exist entirely.

But back then, when he was still just a child, he thought it would eventually. That one day he would grow accustomed to the process, that he could control it and not wince with pain as soon as the moon was at its most beautiful state.

Fortunately, as soon as the transformation was completed, the pain was just a distant memory from another life, not a part of him. Then, other things were on his mind, more basic and simple thoughts.

Food.

Freedom.

Blood.

Things that were so simple and yet so difficult to get. He could never be free in that one night. If he were, he would be fulfilling his most urgent needs: the need for food and the need for blood.

The first got along with the second. He wanted food and he wanted living food. Something he could not allow himself to get. Not ever. Because he knew that as soon as the night ended, he would return to his human form and with that, it would all come back.

The memories.

The morals.

The values.

The guilt.

Feelings that only affected humans, that made him feel miserable and that he yet embraced with all he could. For they made him feel human. They made him feel that despite everything he did, everything he thought during that night when the moon shone like a pale imitation of the sun, that despite that he was still what he used to be, he was still a human being. It were these feelings that made it possible for him to look in the mirror every morning, able to face himself and able to face a new day.

There were days when he thought about what would be if he hadn't been in the woods that fateful night. If his curiosity hadn't been stronger than his parents' warnings.

But the answer to this question was too painful, so every time he decided to leave the question alone and to just go on living. Living a life that was cursed and wasn't a life at all when the pale sunlight reigned the sky and shone brighter than the stars.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There was no light, as always. And as always he could still see enough. His eyes reflected the moonlight and made them glow gold.

He could hear voices and footsteps. He could smell humans. And he could smell that this wasn't only his friends.

He smelled another human scent. It seemed familiar, but he couldn't connect it to a name or a face.

Slowly they came nearer, and the mumbling tones started to be words and sentences.

"Here it is. Just go in and have a look."

Sirius.

"I will." An emotionless voice. He knew it. It belonged to a pale face, surrounded by black hair.

Severus Snape.

He felt one of the intruders retreating. The other one came nearer.

Don't come near me, he pleaded, but this was just the remaining part of his human mind. A weak part at this state. A far greater and stronger part of him wished him to come near him, could already smell the blood in his veins, pulsing beneath the thin skin, providing its owner with life...

He didn't want to think like that, but the thoughts grew stronger with every passing second, every centimeter they came nearer. The desire for blood became so urgent that soon he couldn't concentrate on anything else except for the feeling of blood nearing. It undermined the last human traces inside of him.

And then the door opened, and with the pale moonlight, something else entered the room - or rather someone.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He woke with a start.

The ground on which he was lying was hard and dirty. Then he remembered where he was and sat up.

Then, the pain came, as always.

Next, the memories came, and he nearly screamed as they resurfaced all at once. He remembered every detail now, even though in the night, everything had been vague, as if seen through glass. Now every movement, every voice was clear in his head, but it didn't make sense at all.

Then from one second to another, it did.

He wished it wouldn't. He wished he could just open his eyes and reawake and find that nothing had happened.

"Here it is. Just go in and have a look."

"I will."

"Sirius, what are you-"

"Oh my God."

"Go away."

"No!"

He had nearly killed. The realization sunk in so fast that he nearly screamed once more, but he restrained himself. It didn't help that he hadn't actually killed, and it certainly didn't help that it had only been Severus Snape, one of the Slytherins that liked to look down at the four of them, the four Gryffindors.

Bravery. Loyalty. Friendship. Peacefulness.

The values Gryffindors were proud of echoed in his head. He felt as if he represented none of them. Never had, and never would. Not with his legacy.

Through his sharpened senses, he could hear someone coming nearer. He knew exactly who it was and didn't want her to come near him. In fact, he didn't want anyone to come near him.

"Mr Lupin? Are you here?" He heard Madame Pomfrey's voice echoing down the corridor. She seemed to be worried. Normally, by now, he would've been at least on his way to the lessons, using the Invisibility Cloak and the Map that James left him right before he had breakfast. He was not sure if it would be lying there now.

James must be thinking I'm some kind of monster. And I am.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He was way too late for Transfiguration, and he didn't even care about it. All he wanted to do was to lie down and either sleep for a long time or die.

Then he remembered who he had to face this next lesson.

Professor McGonagall probably wouldn't mind his lateness too much. She knew what day it was and maybe she wouldn't even deduct too many House points.

But there would also be James, Sirius and Peter.

And Snape.

Once again the realization nearly caused him to cry out. Transfiguration was with the Slytherins, and Severus Snape was one of them.

He briefly wondered whether McGonagall knew about last night. If she didn't know by now, she would as soon as Snape got a chance to talk to her. He wondered if he then would finally be expelled from school. It wouldn't be a surprise for him. Hell, if he were Dumbledore, he wouldn't have let a werewolf near the school grounds at all.

So, this would be the day he was expelled. Great.

Hesitantly, he knocked on the door of the Transfiguration classroom. Running away would get him nowhere, and if he were to be expelled, he could at least receive it with some dignity. He was, after all, a Gryffindor, even if he didn't feel like one right now.

A muffled "Enter" could be heard, and he took the last bravery he could find inside him and opened the door.

He expected... he didn't know what he had expected to happen when he opened the door, certainly not what he experienced during the next minutes.

McGonagall just looked at him disapprovingly, told him he should sit down, and took five points off Gryffindor. None of the students said anything that indicated he had been the topic of school discussion this morning. No one seemed to care about him more than usually.

The only changes were in how his best friends and Severus reacted to him.

James and Peter smiled at him encouragingly. Sirius didn't meet his eyes and looked down at his notes. Severus Snape stared at him; Remus half suspected that he would stand up and yell "He's a werewolf, he tried to kill me!" any time now, but surprisingly, he didn't.

In fact, the whole lesson passed as nearly every other lesson for the past five years had passed. Still, everything seemed to be wrong. Sirius didn't pull his usual pranks every time McGonagall's back was turned, James didn't whisper to Lily who sat beside him and Snape had no sharp comments left for the Gryffindors. It was odd and disturbing.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After the lesson, however, McGonagall stopped the students before they could go.

"Mr. Potter, Black, Pettigrew, Lupin and Snape, if I could talk to you for a minute?"

Oh, so she just wants to spare me the embarrassment of being expelled in front of half of the students in my Year, Remus thought. That was okay with him, he knew it was all he could ask of her.

"Please sit down," McGonagall asked them after the last student had left the classroom. They did as she said, James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus sitting down on one side, Severus on the other side of the room. The Gryffindor - Slytherin rivalry was still firmly in place, as Remus noticed.

"Mister Lupin, as you're certainly not aware yet, I already know about the events of last night. At least what happened according to Mister Potter, Mister Black, and Mister Snape." He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. "No, Mister Lupin, at the moment I don't want to hear anything from either you or the other 'witnesses'. I've already talked with the Headmaster about this incident." Remus gasped at her choice of words. Out of the corner of an eye he saw Snape doing the same. "Since he can't be here today, I am effectively in charge of Hogwarts and have therefore decided on the following course of action: Mister Black will receive two months detention, and if you ever do something like this again," her eyes glared at him as he had never seen it before, "you will directly be expelled. There is nothing funny about this, Mister Snape could've been killed.

"Mister Potter, since you had at least the courage to save Mister Snape's life," Remus saw Severus flinch a bit, "you will only serve two weeks detention for being off school grounds after dark. The same goes for Mister Pettigrew here." Peter and James just nodded, otherwise unaffected by her words.

"Mister Snape, you were also off school grounds after dark. One week detention for you, too."

"But..."

"No buts. Mister Lupin, you will serve no detention whatsoever. You did everything you could to prevent a situation like this from happening."

What? Had he just heard right? Not only would he be allowed to stay at Hogwarts, but while his friends would have to serve detention, he wouldn't? That couldn't be right.

"But Professor, I mean, I nearly..." His voice broke. There would be no punishment whatsoever for him? None? It was not fair, but he just couldn't bring himself to protest against it. What good would it do anyway? By the end of the day, the whole school would know of his little 'illness', parents would owl the Headmaster and he would be expelled. He had no illusions about that.

All McGonagall did was give him a stern look, and then she turned to Snape. "I trust you, Severus, that you won't tell anyone about what you saw last night. No one should know about this, am I making myself clear?"

Remus could see Snape stare at McGonagall in shock, opening his mouth as if to protest. Then he suddenly shut it and nodded. Remus himself hadn't yet realised what McGonagall's decision meant for him.

"You can now leave." The Head of Gryffindor House dismissed them. She turned away from them and packed her books into her bag.

Sirius and Peter grabbed Remus by the shoulders and more or less dragged him out of the classroom where he sunk against a wall. Realisation hit him yet again. There would be no consequences for his actions. He looked up. Sirius now stood right in front of him and he noticed that he was saying something to him.

"Look, Remus... em,... look, I'm really sorry and..."

"Can it, Sirius. We can talk about this later, okay? Right now all I want to do is eat something."

Yeah, just like you almost ate something tonight -- or someone, a voice in his head remarked, but he didn't listen to it. Life would go on and even though he was still disgusted by what nearly had happened, he believed that someday he was going to come to terms with it.

Sirius, James and Peter had already turned to leave for the kitchens to get something to eat for him before the lesson when he felt someone staring at him.

As he spun around he saw Severus Snape standing just one metre away from him, a look in his eyes Remus had never seen before. Snape's eyes had always held an expression of disgust, hate and anger, but now it was different.

There was no expression, no life in them.

As if something inside him had just died, and his body was just an empty shell without any humanity left inside him.

Not being able to look at Snape any longer, Remus quickly followed his friends.