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Moony

James’s laughing potion lasted until the boys were heading out of the castle for their Herbology class in the greenhouses across the grounds. They were at the door of the entrance hall, Peter already two steps outside, when Professor McGonagall called Remus back. “Mr. Lupin!” she called out. The boys all stopped, but Remus waved the other three on and turned back to see what it was that Professor McGonagall wanted. She approached swiftly and said, “Professor Dumbledore has requested a moment to speak with you in his office before you go to your next class. He says that it is most urgent.”

Remus nodded and followed Professor McGonagall upstairs and down several twisting corridors until they reached the stone gargoyles where he’d met the headmaster earlier in the week. “Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum!” said Professor McGonagall in a ringing voice and the gargoyle leaped away to reveal a stone doorway with a spiraling staircase beyond. “Up you go, Mr. Lupin,” McGonagall said, shooing him in the doorway. “Just knock when you get to the top and the headmaster will let you in.”

“You aren’t coming with me?” Remus asked as he stepped inside.

“Professor Dumbledore has requested a private word,” she explained and she stepped back and the stone gargoyle jumped back in front of the doorway.

Remus looked up the spiraling staircase. It seemed to go on forever. It seemed an awfully long way up for an old man like Dumbledore to be climbing so many stairs. But the moment Remus took a step onto the stairwell he discovered that it magically came to life and the stairs began to move upward, carrying him without a single mite of effort from his part. He just stared up, watching the landing far above him slowly come closer and closer… At the very top, he stepped off onto a landing and the stairs ground to a halt behind him.

There wasn’t much to the landing. There was a big wooden door before him, with a welcome mat on the stone floor just outside of it and a purple umbrella with golden stars all over it leaned against the wall beside a pair of lemon yellow galoshes. Remus walked up to the door and hesitated, then raised his fist, which seemed comparably tiny, and knocked on the door.

For a moment, nothing but silence followed the echoing sound of the knock, and Remus had raised his fist up to knock again when the door was flung open wide to reveal Album Dumbledore. “Welcome,” Dumbledore greeted him, ushering him inside.

The office was brightly lit by the afternoon sunlight coming in through the window, giving it that warm, comfortable feeling. A gold and red plumed bird sat on a stand by the window - a phoenix, Remus recognized it from his copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. There was a heavy mahogany desk and behind it a wall full of portraits of old headmasters with ornate frames and tiny brass plates that read their names and the dates of their appointment at Hogwarts. Dumbledore smiled benignly, giving Remus a few minutes to inspect some silver instruments lining the bookshelves and then he said, “Tonight is the night of the full moon.”

Remus looked around at him in surprise. He hadn’t ever forgotten the night of the full moon before, but he’d been so caught up in his new friends and classes that he had this time. He looked at Dumbledore in surprise.

“I understand,” Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling, “There are so many new things to experience that the time has snuck upon you. I must ask you to go to the shrieking shack for the safety of your new friends, though, Remus, and return once you’ve recovered from the change. I’ve had some of the house elves deliver your dinner to the shack.” He sat down in a heavy chair behind the desk, motioning for Remus to sit in the chairs opposite him. Remus sat. “I am very sorry that the cycle is this close to the beginning of the school year, but I’ve sent a note to Professor Viridi letting her know that it is I who have kept you from your first Herbology class so that you are excused and I’m afraid you may miss your first Defense Against the Dark Arts as well… but if you do, I shall inform Professor Tutman as well.”

Remus nodded, though he was disappointed. All of the boys had been looking forward to Defense Against the Dark Arts. Bilius Weasley had told them at the lunch table, amongst James’s potion-induced laughter, that he’d had his first Defense Against the Dark Arts and had adored every moment of it, claiming that Tutman was “a bloody genius” and his new favorite teacher.

Dumbledore smiled sadly at Remus, as though he’d read the boy’s mind, and said, “Don’t you worry, there will be many other Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons to attend before your career here is through.”

“I know,” Remus answered.

“You remember how to get into the passage beneath the Whomping Willow, Remus?” Dumbledore asked.

Remus nodded.

“Splendid.” Dumbledore stood up and walked around the desk and stood before Remus. He put his hand on his shoulder and they gazed at each other’s eyes for a moment, a very serious look on Dumbledore’s face. “I want you to know that your being here at Hogwarts is an act of extreme bravery, far above that which is usually exhibited by young men your age.”

“How?” Remus asked, looking up. “I’m just going to school.”

“But most werewolves do not bother with education,” Dumbledore said. “They don’t fight the urges that come to them naturally. You are among the first to fight it.”

Remus took a deep breath. “To not fight it --” he shook his head, the images in his mind too horrible to complete the sentence. All of his friends and family torn to shreds… him to blame…

“That is precisely why you are brave, Remus,” Dumbledore said. He glanced out the window, where the sun was beginning to turn to gold and pink. “I think it is time that you should be on your way, my boy.”

Remus glanced at the pink sky and nodded, “Thank you, Professor.”

“You are most welcome,” Dumbledore said.

Remus left Dumbledore’s office feeling better about himself than he’d felt in ages. Dumbledore thought he was brave! It wasn’t just the sorting hat that thought so. Honestly, he’d questioned the hat’s choice of sending him to Gryffindor, but the moment the hat had been put on his head it had exclaimed that he was extremely bold and brave for being there.

He dropped his book bag into the trunk at the foot of his bed and shut it up tight. He wondered, as he raced back through the corridors and down the moving staircases, what the other boys would think when they came back to the Gryffindor common room and the dormitory and didn’t see Remus for the next few days. He glanced in the direction of the greenhouses and could see the shadows of his classmates through the foggy glass, working with the plants within.

The Whomping Willow was around the side of the castle where hardly anyone would have reason to be at this hour of the day, but Remus approached it slowly, looking around so as not to be caught. He wished he’d asked Dumbledore if there was an easy way to get close enough to hit the knot with a rock without being spotted by other students. Deciding that the coast was clear, Remus sprinted over to the place where Dumbledore had stood with him before and snatched a rock from among the grass, turning to look at the knot. The tree was waving about in the late afternoon light, as though dancing merrily, and not paying much attention to anything going on at it’s trunk. But still. Remus didn’t much fancy being pummelled by tree branches. He’d never been very good at sports of any kind - muggle or wizarding - and it took him a few shots with the rocks before he finally hit the knot, freezing the whomping willow’s branches, and he ran forward and slipped into the gap at the root.

The passageway was even darker and more lonesome now than it had felt with Dumbledore present.

“Lumos,” Remus muttered, lighting up his wand tip. The tunnel stretched on and on forever into the darkness. Behind him, the door in the roots of the tree was closing up and daylight was gone, the only illumination now his wand. He began running down the passageway, only just barely short enough that he didn’t have to hunch over.

As he ran, he realized that this all felt a bit like a grand adventure. It was much more exciting than the old bomb shelter in the backyard of his parents’ home, where he usually spent the nights of the full moon, completely alone. His time as a wolf was blurred in his mind, just flashing memories of losing himself in a bloodthirst that seemed to consume him fully. He always came to after the moon had passed, naked and alone on the floor of the shelter, surrounded by the evidence that he’d torn apart anything he could get his claws onto - furniture, shelves of tinned foods, pillows…

Remus emerged in the Shrieking Shack an hour later, his heart racing from having run most of the way down the tunnel, and he closed the trap door behind him with a heavy ker-thunk. He looked around the little shack. It was dark, other than his wand tip, but as a wolf he would prefer that anyway. He used the wand to find his way to the kitchen and on the table there was one of the Hogwarts plates - gold with the crest on it’s face, and a goblet. The plate and goblet were empty. Remus walked over and sat at the table and reached for the plate, pulling it closer to inspect it. The moment his fingers touched it, warm food appeared and he gasped in surprise, then eagerly began to eat.

After he ate, he wandered around the shrieking shack, exploring until the effects of the moon changed him, and he found his way upstairs to a bedroom with a four poster bed just like he had back at the castle. On the wall hung a moon chart for the entire term, with dates and phases of the moon listed so that he could see exactly when the full moon had become the waxing gibbous and would be safe to venture forth back to Hogwarts.

He smiled. Dumbledore had really thought of everything.

That was when he noticed the window. This one window had been barred instead of boarded, affording him a view of the dark castle off in the distance over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest. He smiled - it was already a sort of home to him - and he walked toward the window, the floorboards creaking as he went, wanting a closer look and it was there, in the room, in front of the window, as a cloud shifted that the moonlight struck him and with a shuddering cry - which turned from the shout of a boy to the howl of a wolf - that Remus Lupin changed.