Shades of Gray

Remus sat in a chair, staring out the window. It wasn't quite dawn yet, but there was enough light to see that it was raining heavily outside. Clouds covered the dark sky, and the world was quiet except for the steady, lulling, patter of rain on the roof of the cottage.

Remus sighed, closing his eyes. He was exhausted and really should still be in bed - the full moon had only been a few days ago, and it had left its toll on the young boy. But something nagged at him, a splinter in his mind that wouldn't leave him any rest. It was already August, and his Hogwarts letter still hadn't come. I knew it was foolish to expect one, Remus told himself silently. They wouldn't want a monster like me around. But I had hoped that this new Headmaster, whatever his name is, could help...

The boy sighed again. Foolish, to hope. He'd thought his past experiences would have taught him better. Nobody wanted a werewolf, least of all the oh-so-good-and-righteous Gryffindors. He angrily blinked away tears that had been gathering at the corners of his eyes, brushing his light brown hair out of his face. Anybody watching would never have guessed that he belonged to one of the most feared types of monster, Remus thought bitterly. If anything, they would've remarked that he was too small, too thin, that he looked pale and drawn, as if recovering from an illness. Perhaps the more perceptive would have noticed the sad look in his strange green-gold eyes or the scars on his hands and face - most were covered in bandages at the moment. His last transformation had not been pleasant, he'd been too worried about Hogwarts.

Remus felt the tears he'd been fighting against leak out and trace their way down his cheeks as he remembered a time when he hadn't dreaded the full moon, a time when he'd happily played with his family. And then, everything changed...

* * * * *

(Five years earlier)

Remus ran through the forest, panting slightly. He'd been over at his friend John's house, and had stayed longer than he'd meant to. The sun had already gone down, and the moon hung in the sky like a large silver pearl. I hope Mum and Dad aren't angry, he thought frantically. He'd really meant to go home before dusk, but he'd hadn't been paying attention. Anyway, what did it matter? This little stretch of woods wasn't dangerous. He and his twin brother had almost completely explored it, they knew every nook and cranny. Over there was the large oak that had been split by lightning last year, next to it the small birch sapling that was hardly taller than Remus. During the day, it would have been familiar, even boring. Yet somehow the moonlight cast strange shadows, making the well-known surroundings seem strange and alien. Hostile. Remus ran faster, he knew home was just around the next bend.

Suddenly he froze. Was that just his imagination, or had he heard something from behind that tree? Hardly daring to breathe, he concentrated on his ears until he thought he could hear his heartbeat thrum. There. Something had snapped. Remus didn't wait a moment longer and dashed down the path, eyes wide open in terror as he heard a long, drawn-out howl behind him. He couldn't stop himself from looking behind him - what was that thing? The full moon illuminated the scene and Remus felt his breath catch in his lungs.

A large wolf was running after him, fur gleaming silvery in the starlight, golden eyes glowing with hatred and bloodlust. Its mouth was wide open showing inch-long white fangs. Remus tried to scream, but something seemed to be clutching his throat, preventing him from making a sound. All he could do was keep his feet moving as quickly as he could. He knew he must be nearly home.

There. The dirt under his feet was smoother, firmer, packed to the ground as the path widened. He must be nearly in the garden now, only a short distance and his mother would get him. She would drive the wolf away, she would make everything all right. Remus had nearly reached his home when he tripped.

Later he would curse himself, he knew this place like the back of his hand, after all! He knew that there was a root right there! But now Remus could only sob in terror as he sprawled onto the ground. He squeezed his eyes shut... Make it go away. Make it go away, please, someone! For a moment nothing happened, and the young boy felt a brief glimmer of hope - had someone answered his desperate plea?

Then he heard a snarling sound, and a terrible pain erupted in his shoulder. The choking feeling that had prevented him from shouting out earlier was gone, he let out a high, petrified scream.

Remus was dimly aware of shouting, his father waving a stick around, a bright red light, something heavy falling onto his back, his mother turning him over. "Oh, Remus..." she whispered. That was the last thing he heard before losing consciousness.

When he came to again, he was aware of lying on a bed. The pain in his shoulder had gotten worse and he felt as if he was burning up. He could hear voices somewhere above him...

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Lupin. There's nothing we can do."

"No, no. There must be something, some cure..."

"I'm afraid we've tried everything. He's been infected with lycanthropy."

"You mean he's a werewolf?"

"Yes..."

"No, not Remus, please not Remus..."

The voices faded into blackness again.

* * * * *

His next few memories were confused, Lupin guessed that the werewolf bite had made him become very ill. He could remember his parents crying, his twin brother sitting next to his bed. He remembered trying to grasp Romulus' hand - he'd never been separated from his twin before. Whatever they did, they did together, whatever happened to one of them, happened to the other. Until now. Romulus pulled his hand away. A few images were still very clear in his mind...

* * * * *

His father stood next to a strange woman, his mother hovered in the background. "Yes, that's perfectly all right," he said. "We'll donate... just take him..." Remus couldn't understand the rest. "Dad?" he asked weakly.

Mr. Lupin stared at him. "Don't call me that."

"But Dad-"

"Stop it. You're not my son, my son is dead. You're a monster. Be thankful that we're even letting you live, it's more than you deserve." Mr. Lupin turned away from Remus. His mother gave her son a look full of disgust and did the same.

"Mum! Dad!" Remus' parents didn't let their son's shouts stop them. Tears welling in his eyes, he stared as Mr. and Mrs. Lupin left through a door in the back. Sniffing, Remus realized his twin was in the room. "Romulus?"

Romulus walked up to the bed, an expression of hatred on his face. "You heard what Dad said. You're not my brother. Leave me alone, werewolf." He walked away after his father, not heeding his identical twin's anguished outcry.

The woman Mr. Lupin had been speaking to walked forward nervously. "I'm sorry, my name is Katherine Anderson. I'm from the Werewolf Support Services... it looks like you need a new home."

* * * * *

Home. Remus curled his lip at the thought. Sure, home. Someone - he couldn't remember who - had once said "home is where the heart is", and Remus' heart had shattered after hearing what his family said.

Remus had been taken to a home for abandoned magical creatures. He'd been one of the only intelligent creatures there - as far as he knew, there might have been no others - as he was obviously too dangerous to be put into a normal orphanage. The owner of the establishment hadn't known what to do with a werewolf, and had let Remus mainly do what he pleased. The young boy - only six years old at the time - had tried to forget his anguish and sense of betrayal, burying himself in books. The old man - Remus couldn't even remember his name - still had quite a library, mostly about magical creatures, of course. The abandoned child had devoured tales of vampires, phoenixes, dragons, hippogriffs, basilisks... werewolves. There were other books, of course, but these didn't interest him nearly as much. Who cared which wizard had done what a hundred years ago? Yet, lacking other things to do, Remus had read those as well.

Of course, there were the transformations. Remus remembered those all too well. The old caretaker had had a small cellar. The door had been reinforced, a Silencing charm cast on the room, and come full moon Remus had been locked inside.

* * * * *

Remus looked around the small room. There was nothing inside, not even a chair or a table. Just blank stone. Light filtered in from a small barred window, the sun had just set.

The young werewolf whimpered. Nobody had bothered to explain what was going to happen to him, he'd had to browse through his books to figure out what was going on. The sections on werewolves had been... enlightening, but none of them had anything from the werewolf's point of view. When I'm grown up, I'm going to change that, Remus vowed silently. He had so many questions - did changing hurt? What would he do? There were so many stories of werewolves hurting people, killing them, what would happen if he broke out of the cellar? Maybe this was all a mistake, Remus thought wildly. Maybe nothing was going to happen. Maybe he wasn't a werewolf at all. Maybe...

Remus suddenly realized that he was shaking, convulsing slightly. Then not so slightly. He collapsed to the ground, whimpering, then...

PAIN!

He let out a scream as every cell in his body seemed to shriek in agony. His bones elongated, hair sprouted, his teeth grew, his clothes disappeared,...

The wolf cub snarled, looking around with bright gold eyes. Human! Everything smelled of human! It lunged at the door, trying to escape, trying to hunt down the human. It had to attack the human! Realizing it was trapped, it let out a loud howl. The smell of human only added to its bloodlust. It had to rip, tear, kill... the cub howled again and slashed at its leg. It hurt, but the craving for blood overrode the pain. The cub bit and scratched at itself, revelling in the pain, the blood...

When the moon set, the old man quietly opened the door, wincing at the sight that awaited him - a young boy covered in bruises, bites and scratches, lying in a pool of his own blood. Mumbling about the strangeness of magical creatures, he gently dressed the lad's wounds, picked him up and brought him to his bed.

* * * * *

Remus winced slightly at the memory. He never escaped a full moon completely unscathed, but some were worse than others - generally depending on Remus' emotional state before transforming. That first one had been one of the worst.

He'd lived with the old man for a while, surrounded by all kinds of strange creatures. Then, one day, shortly after his seventh transformation...

* * * * *

Remus looked up from his book listlessly as a woman entered the house. Visitors weren't exactly common, but every now and then a person came along, generally wanting to buy a magic creature. The old man didn't part with them easily, though - he seemed very attached to most of his pets. True, he didn't exactly know what to do with Remus, but that was hardly his fault. A magical zoo was hardly the place for a child to grow up, and Remus had been dumped on him without any warning.

The woman now standing inside was like no one the young werewolf had ever seen, though. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, Remus guessed, and quite beautiful, with a long mane of silky black hair. More, there was a set to her jaw and a glint in her gray eyes that spoke of pride and independence. She seemed strangely defiant, standing there with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"... so you do not have any..."

"very sorry, Miss..."

Remus strained to hear snatches of the conversation, to no avail. He was just too far away. Sighing, he got up, cursing his curiosity. He'd gotten a bad bite on his left leg during the last full moon, and still walked with a limp - he should probably not be standing, but somehow this woman intrigued him. Luckily werewolves healed fast and their wounds didn't often scar, Remus thought. Otherwise his life would be really painful.

The woman broke off the conversation when she heard Remus' approach. She raised an eyebrow at the old man. "I thought you didn't have a family?" she asked sweetly.

He grunted. "So I don't, Miss. He's not family, he belongs here."

The woman looked Remus over. "Magic creature, eh? Werewolf?" She smiled at his surprised expression. "Not much else you could be. And the bandages, ill look and golden tint to the eyes give it away - only if you know what to look for, of course."

The man nodded. "Yep, werewolf. Parents abandoned him after he got bitten, Werewolf Support Services put him here. Couldn't go to an orphanage, apparently, and them at the WSS were too softhearted to put him out of his misery." He snorted. "So was I - don't see the problems everyone has with werewolves nowadays. Sure, they're not human, but they should at least have some rights."

"I agree completely, it's simply disgraceful, the treatment some creatures have in today's society. What's your name, boy?"

Remus felt somewhat annoyed at them for discussing him as if he wasn't there, but he answered softly. "Remus Lupin."

The woman choked. "Not... Aeneas Lupin's son?" Seeing Remus' nod, she went on. "Poor child... bitten by a werewolf, and his father is the Head of the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. I'm surprised he let you live."

"He didn't want to. The lady from the WSS convinced him, I think." Remus' voice was hoarse. The betrayal still hurt.

"Damned snobs. Wouldn't have expected anything else from a Gryffindor." The woman frowned in contempt. "So... what do you do here? It must get awfully boring."

Remus grinned at the chance to talk about the things he'd read with someone else, the first time he'd smiled in weeks. The old man could never be bothered to talk with the young werewolf. "Well, there are quite a few old books here..."

The boy chatted excitedly, glad to have found an appreciative audience. He was interrupted only when the old man scowled and said that speaking with "the lady" was all very well, but the full moon had only been a few days ago and he should really go to bed now. Remus nodded, quiet again, and said goodbye to the nice woman, trudging to his tiny room - the bed took up most of the space, and books the rest. A werewolf's hearing was good, and he managed to overhear some of what she was saying before falling asleep - "Would it be possible to adopt young Remus?"

* * * * *

The woman's name turned out to be Ziana Syrent. The Syrents were a very old wizarding family, distant relations of the Malfoys, and they were as tied to the Slytherin House as their cousins. However, Ziana sneered upon these connections. The Malfoys were weak, she said, preferring to serve another rather than live on their own. A true Slytherin should not wait on some master, a true Slytherin should use their talents to achieve their ends. Independence and pride ruled Ziana's life. She was contemptuous of most of the other Slytherins - weak, she said. However, she despised Gryffindor House almost as much as the Malfoys - "Righteous fools, thinking that the whole world can be divided into black and white. They are the good ones, we are the evil ones - they're blind to the shades of gray in the world. You saw what that attitude leads to in your family. Arrogant idiots." She frowned on Hufflepuffs, sharing the commonly held view that they were bumbling fools. "Everyone who isn't cunning enough for Slytherin, idiotically brave and self-righteous enough for Gryffindor or intelligent enough for Ravenclaw gets put into Hufflepuff - the dregs of the Sorting." Ziana didn't have that much against the Ravenclaws. "I suppose there are quite a few nice ones, but there are more than enough know-it-alls who show off their overwhelming intelligence and brilliant mind. Brains isn't all, you know. And it's possible to be wrong even if you are a Ravenclaw." Strangely enough, she hardly minded Muggle-borns - "They're ignorant and will never be up to normal wizard standard, but they learn quickly. If we didn't recruit Muggles, we'd die out. After a few generations, you hardly notice the difference anyway." This was a typical Syrent viewpoint, a reason why the family had an ongoing feud with almost every other wizarding family in existence - and why they were nearly extinct.

Ziana Syrent was relatively poor, and lived in a cottage near a wizarding village. Most of the people there avoided the "crazy lady Syrent", but once news had gotten around that she'd adopted a child the inhabitants showed more interest. Actually, Remus hadn't been adopted - werewolves apparently counted as beasts and not people. However, the others didn't need to know that, and after a few months, Remus - although he was quite shy - had made several good friends, and more than a few acquaintances of his age. He was very happy, now no longer studying nearly as much and spending far more time outside playing. A smile came easily to his face nowadays, and he'd even laugh sometimes. Until...

* * * * *

Remus ran down the street, back to the cottage where he and Miss Ziana lived. He gasped for breath between sobs, tears running down his face.

"Monster! Freak!" Remus didn't know how they'd learned about his secret, where he went every month. Maybe someone had noticed when he'd been over to Felix's house a few days ago and had burnt himself on the silverware. Or maybe one of the boys had followed him when he'd gone to that shack on full moon, it hardly mattered now.

His friends - ex-friends, Remus reminded himself - followed him, yelling names. "Werewolf! Dark creature! Evil monster!" Remus ducked as a stone sailed over his head, then winced as one struck him in the arm. The mob was picking up everything they could, hurling it at him. Nearly there... Remus dashed up the cottage steps, sobbing. He ran inside and slammed the door shut after him, but the yells of the mob were still quite audible.

"Get your things together. We're leaving." Ziana was standing in a corner of the hallway, face unreadable. Remus sniffed, the hurt obvious on his face.

"Arrogant Gryffindors. That's all they were. Arrogant Gryffindors, stupid Hufflepuffs and know-it-all Ravenclaws. Don't let them bother you." Miss Ziana sure has a strange way of comforting people, Remus thought bitterly, but he nodded and went to get his things. That evening, they'd left the village far behind - travelling by Floo in order to avoid the mob.

* * * * *

"The story of my life," Remus whispered softly. Wherever they were, soon, someone would find out about his secret, and they'd have to leave. In the end, Remus simply stopped making friends. He'd discovered that it hurt far too much to have them turn against you in the end. Ziana gave up shortly afterwards, as well. Their new home was deep in the forest, far away from anyone else, with plenty of privacy for Remus' transformations. They'd spent more time here already than they had anywhere else.

Remus spent most of his time reading, as hungry for books now as before. Ziana was a very distant person, and although Remus was sure she cared for him in some way, she wasn't one for shows of affection, or even spending much time with him. They hardly spoke more than a few words to each other every day. She spent most of her time outside, growing magical herbs and selling them for a bit of money.

Life had become quiet and monotonous, with only the agony of his transformations to mark the passage of time. However, somehow Remus had nurtured the small hope of going to Hogwarts. He knew it was impossible, that he was a monster - after all the Magical Creature books he'd read, after all the people who'd told him the same, the words no longer sounded strange. He knew that it was too dangerous, that he might hurt someone. But somehow, he'd hoped. He'd spent hours reading Hogwarts, A History, he'd thought about what House he'd like to be in. Not Gryffindor, not Hufflepuff. He wasn't sure if Slytherin was right for him, probably not. Ravenclaw didn't seem too bad though. All that hoping, thinking, reading... for nothing.

Remus sighed and turned away from the window. He should really get back to bed. Or, maybe, go downstairs and make breakfast since he couldn't sleep. Yes, that was a good idea.

As Remus walked downstairs, he missed the flash of white outside.