Anonymous

CHAPTER 2

Remus smiled broadly as he walked down the hot, sunny, summer street. Milling all around him were witches and wizards and even kids his age. He had never been around so many people before, being totally sheltered and all. This was only the third time he'd ever been in Diagon Alley, and the other occasions were for shady business reasons brought about by his mother. He had always gone in the dead of night, too, slinking around in the back alleys. To be walking around the bright main street now, surrounded by people just like him (well, maybe not just like him), was overwhelming. He had never felt so happy before.

He'd already gotten his school robes, cloak, hat, and dragon-hide gloves. Julie already had most of the books on the bookshelf; she never read them anymore, but she'd kept them, in accordance with her pack-rat character. He still needed a wand, but Julie said to leave that to last. She'd told him that it would probably take a while to find the wand that chose him.

"Remus," Julie came to a halt next to the Apothecary. "You'll need supplies from here. It may smell funny now, but it truly is a great shop. I was always quite the potion-maker, if I do say so myself."

She winked at him and he nearly bounced into the store, despite the odd, dead, herbal reek. He peered closely into the large barrels of animal and insect parts, noting that the newt toes were the same texture and color of Mr. Rusedor's nose. He wondered vaguely if the pharmacist visited this store often.

Julie walked over to the store counter, and let Remus wander around to the shelves. At the front, there stood an elderly witch, quite short, with the oddest hat Julie had ever seen. It was perfectly conical with an open top and very large flowers sprouting right out of it.

"Good afternoon! How may I help you, Miss?" asked the old lady, kindly.

"I need a Potions Set for a first-year Hogwarts student, please."

"Ah..." The witch turned around and pointed up to a high shelf with her wand. "You're the fifth one this morning." The package floated down like feather and landed with a soft thump on the counter.

"That'll be four galleons and ten sickles." As Julie pulled out her money, Remus walked up next to her and stooped down to get a good look inside the glass counter. There were many, many jars filled with slimy things suspended in colorful fluids, and potted plants with what appeared to be permanent binding charms on them. One delicate-looking flower labeled Striped Demon Flora was flexing its leaves in a very threatening, yet magically restrained way.

Remus smiled, but faltered as he looked to its right. There, in a clear jar, floating in a viscous, silvery fluid was a dark shadowy object. The jar lay on a plush, red pillow and looked as innocent as every other vessel of creature organs in the store. But this one was not so dusty or old, and it had a beautifully hand-scripted label.

"'Heart of a Werewolf - powerful in Strength Potions brewed at the full moon'," he whispered.

"Oh, yes," said the old witch. "That."

She sighed, and with a very defeated look in her eyes, stooped down to the back of the counter. Remus watched as she slid the compartment open and picked the jar off of the pillow. Julie read the label quickly and covered Remus' eyes much too late, horrified.

The jar was set on the countertop with a sharp, glass-on-glass clack. The witch sighed again and shook her head.

"I suppose you'll be commenting on this? Everyone else who's seen it has," the witch said quietly. Julie opened her mouth soundlessly. It was Remus who spoke up.

"How long have you...? I mean, is that-,"

"Fresh? Yes, just came in last week," she said. "But I just want you to know, before you say anything, that I do not approve of this merchandise being sold here."

"Why not?" Julie was shocked. Someone who did not wish ill of werewolves?

"Well," The witch picked up the jar again, and looked deep into its silvery depths. "Because I think it was wrong for the hunters to have done this. They did not just 'kill a beast', as they think they did. They killed a man." She looked sharply up; both Julie and Remus were caught off-guard by the anger in her eyes.

"They killed a dangerous beast at the full moon, yes. A monster. But not today, not now, not for the rest of the month. They did not care that the monster only existed at a certain time. They did not care that at any other moment, this wasn't a raging werewolf, but a man... a brother, a father, and a husband. They believe that they only took the cold heart of a killer. But they also took a heart that was capable of warmth, of loving and feeling."

To their full disgust and horror, the witch unscrewed the cap to the jar and waved her wand. The heart floated out, dripping in the silvery preservative.

"This now," she said fiercely. "Is a human heart."

1 August 1971

Did you know that if you kill a werewolf, and keep a part of its body, you can watch that part transform every full moon? Because it will. I found that out today.

I never realized how much someone could hate me. The witch at the Apothecary said that the Ministry allows the hunting of werewolves at the full moon. Apparently, people like that. She seemed quite angry about it. But people like to feel safe. I guess I don't blame them. But they don't realize that when the moon sets and the sun rises, I'm me again. I'm not the beast anymore. Julie tells me it's not my fault. But nobody else cares that it's not. Nobody cares that there are jars all over the world right now filled with the hearts of people. People. Not just werewolves. Not just potion ingredients. Not monsters. They're people.

Now I'm afraid of going to Hogwarts. What if people find out? What if they hate me? What am I saying? They will hate me. They'll be afraid of me. But I won't hurt them, I promise! I won't hurt anyone. I swear I won't. Maybe I just shouldn't go then.

It's not my fault. Is it?

I swear I won't. I'm not a monster.

Remus closed his journal, and fell into his blankets face first, hoping that they weren't too thin to soak up his tears.

***

15 August 1971

Julie says that if I ask her one more time if I can hide in the attic on September the first, she'll lock me in there forever.

I'm not sure if she's joking or not.

She wants me to go to Hogwarts. Badly. I'm not sure why. I told her that I could just stay here and when I get a little older, I can become a bartender or whatever here. But she says she doesn't want me around 'her work friends'. I don't exactly know why. But I did hear her mumbling behind my back about how good-looking she thinks I'm supposed to get when I 'grow up'. What's that got anything to do with her work friends? I rarely ever see them anyway. They're always locked in some room or another with a smelly wizard. All they do in there is scream at each other anyway. Mum said so, although, sometimes, it's sort of hard to tell whether or not they're angry. Julie screams all the time, but she says she gets paid for it, so I don't ask many questions. That'd be sort of a cool job, huh? Just get paid to scream at someone all night. It'd be hard work, but I'm sure that I would be really good at it. And I'd make all the money I'd need. In fact, I'd do it twice a night if I really felt up to it!

I told Julie that and she fainted.

***

The next week...

The wet, damp smell of smoke and trash was something Remus would forever associate with his transformations. Even after years and years of full moons in other places, Remus would always find himself very suddenly depressed whenever he came near garbage bags sitting on the street or near dumpsters when someone had recently smoked a cigarette nearby.

Now, it filled his nose as Julie took him down to the basement of the bar at sunset. She led him to the area that even the owner had never visited in all the years he'd owned the place. In the dark, unlit corner, there was a dusty, ashy, unused fireplace; Julie had magicked bars and padlock on it years ago, and they used it every month, reinforcing it every couple of transformations, just to be sure.

Julie averted her eyes when she locked him in, as she always did. It was this part that scared her the most. Not when there was a bloodthirsty beast clawing for her, or in the morning when Remus lay naked and unconscious, but now she was the most scared. He was healthy now, an untainted boy - soon to grow to be a young man.

He removed his clothes quietly, and handed them to Julie through the bars. She stepped back and he swallowed hard.

"Here it comes."

A soundproofing charm hid the sounds of unchained anguish. Nobody, not even Julie, who was running up the steps now, heard his cries. He screamed the pain of ten years. He screamed the pain that could not be wept away. He screamed the pain that he knew he would be afraid to scream in a month's time.

He knew it would be worse than this pain if someone found out about him. He knew that the warping of his body would be nothing compared to the possibility of hurting someone else when he got to Hogwarts.

A week after that...

On the morning of September the first, Remus sprung out of bed at the first light of dawn, unable to pretend that he was sleeping any longer. He set his cold, bare feet upon the flat, rough rug and reached out to his clothes, laid out perfectly the night before.

He dressed carefully and as slowly as he could, taking time to make sure that each sock was unwrinkled. He put on his best pair of slacks, "best" meaning that he just rarely ever wore them because he was afraid to dirty them as much as he had his other ones. He pulled on a simple shirt and stuck his feet into the only pair of shoes he owed, old leather loafers worn soft.

Remus had never felt like this before. It was as if he'd give anything to be able to crawl under the covers and never have to face Hogwarts. He didn't want to go through it all. At the same time, though, he wanted to be on the train right then, if only he wouldn't have to wait over five hours! He felt like he knew that by the end of it all, he would want it to last forever.

"Now if only I could get my thoughts to be actual sentences, I could write it all down in my journal," he mumbled.

He nervously sat down on the bed and started to rub the mud off of his shoes the best he could.

That was where Julie found him an hour later, still trying to beat the grime out his shoes and failing miserably.

"Remus," Julie smiled. "You know those are naturally brown, right?"

He looked up. "I just want them to look nice. I mean, everyone else on the train-,"

"Will be just as nervous as you are."

"But they won't all be like me."

"No one will ever be like you." She paused and brushed his hair away from his eyes fondly. "Do you realize that it's not yet seven o' clock in the morning?"

He sighed. "I know I'm up early, but-,"

"No worries, dear. Now that I think of it, I'm late actually-,"

"We're late?" He started to panic.

"No, no, I just meant that I wanted to get up earlier." She leaned in. "Let's go for breakfast."

After about fifteen more minutes, after Julie had combed down Remus' hair and helped him check over his final list of Hogwarts supplies, they set off down the street from the quiet doors of the bar.

Remus looked back when he was half a block away and thought, 'I hope I never come back.'

10:45 am...

Remus followed bashfully behind Julie through the entrance to King's Cross Station. She had his trunk in her hand, and was walking through the crowded station with an air of business and confidence. Remus kept his face to the ground and made sure he didn't look too obvious or suspicious to the Muggles.

"Here we are," she said, stopping in front of a solid brick beam. "This is the entrance to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. I know you've been looking forward to this, dear."

She held her hand out to him and Remus took it firmly, mostly because he felt like he was going to trip over his feet. She was a good balance.

They walked right at it, and didn't stop.

Remus suddenly remembered something his mother once told him. 'Sometimes you just have to go for things, and never stop until you get it.'

'I'm going for it, mum.'