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But That Would Make You A --


“Where are we going?” Lily asked as Remus led her into the Trophy Room.

“Not much further,” Remus replied. “Make sure the door’s closed, will you?”

Lily pushed the door shut behind them. “What is with all the secrecy? This is mad. Whatever it is you’ve got to tell me, you could just tell me up in the common room, couldn’t you?”

Remus shook his head and walked over to an empty frame. He cleared his throat - this was the first time he had said the password to the passageway - “Beati Pacifici,” he said to the empty portrait.

Lily was just about to ask what he was doing when the frame opened up and revealed the passageway behind it. Her eyes widened and she stared at the darkness. “What - what’s this?” she stammered, surprised. “How did you do that? How’d you know that was there?”

Remus shrugged, not wanting to get James in trouble by citing him as his source. “C’mon.”

“We’re going in there?” Lily demanded, peering at it again, “It looks filthy. What if there are spiders?”

“I’m sure there are,” Remus answered, “But if you want to know the truth then you’ve got to follow me.”

She sighed, “This has got to be breaking several school rules.”

“It probably is,” Remus answered. He held out his palm for her hand.

Lily glanced nervously back over her shoulder, but she took his hand and followed Remus into the mouth of the passageway just the same and they paused to watch the frame slide back into place. It was very dark in there and Lily felt her heart quicken with nerves. “Lumos,” he whispered and his wand lit up the passage with a small ball of light. He led the way along through the dark, carefully pointing out the pits along the way. Lily couldn’t believe she was doing this, following this boy through the dark bowels of Hogwarts. Anything could happen to them. Why was she trusting him so? But she couldn’t bring herself to turn back. She was too desperate to know the truth about Remus Lupin to go back.

Finally, after what had seemed like eons to Lily, Remus pulled her off the little path they’d been following, through a wide crack in the wall and there they were in a little room, like a club house, complete with cushions and pictures hung up on the walls. Lily’s eyes widened as she looked about. “What is this place?” she asked, awestruck.

Remus used his wand to light a couple lanterns ‘round the walls that he, James, Sirius, and Peter had found on one of the occasions they’d come here - which had become somewhat regularly since they’d found it. Remus replied, “Just a place we found.”

“You boys are always into something,” Lily murmured, but it wasn’t in an accusatory tone, it just was a statement of fact - and Remus couldn’t very well deny it. They were always into something. He smiled as she watched Lily look over some of the photographs that Scrimgeour and his mates had stuck onto the walls with permanent sticking charms. She squinted. “Is that McGonagall?” she asked, pointing to one of the photos.

Remus went over and looked. “Blimey, I think it is,” he said, “Wow. I didn’t notice it, but now that you said it -- it’s got to be. Looks exactly like her, doesn’t it?”

Lily laughed, “I can’t picture McGonagall ever having visited this room.” She looked around, feeling as though she were seeing a new side of her head of house. She smiled, “Can you?”

“Not even a bit,” Remus answered with a laugh.

Lily walked ‘round the room a bit more, her fingertips trailing along the wall as she looked at the maps and papers strewn about. Finally, she set herself into a cushion and looked up at Remus with her large green eyes. She raised an eyebrow expectantly and he knew the time had come. She now expected an explanation.

“You can’t tell anybody about this,” he said, eyes desperate. “Please. No matter what. Please swear to me you won’t tell anybody.”

“I swear, Remus,” Lily replied solemnly.

He stepped over and he crouched down in front of her. “When I was a kid, my dad worked for the Ministry for Magic, and he was on the committee that created the Werewolf Restriction Act.”

Lily nodded, “He was the first signature on the treaty. Your da’s famous for it, we learned about it once in History of Magic. And I think Professor Blythe mentioned it once, too, that time when we covered the werewolves in class,” Lily said, wondering what on earth his father signing a bloody document had to do with where Remus was disappearing to all the time. “And of course Slughorn’s said it a hundred times…”

“Well, a lot of people weren’t very happy with my dad for it,” Remus said. “A bunch of people tried to get revenge on him. Including one particular bloke named Fenrir Greyback.” Lily blinked, waiting for Remus to get to the point. He had expected her to recognize the name, but she didn’t. “You dunno who that is, do you?” he asked. Lily shook her head. “He’s the most awful… terrible werewolf there is. He makes a sport of it. He bites just for the sake of biting and purposely gets himself in the worst places possible to turn on the nights of the full moon - just for the fun of the hunt.” Remus felt sick even saying the words. He couldn’t imagine being like that.

Lily’s eyes looked a bit more wary, more afraid. “He sounds wicked,” she said. “But… but Remus, what’s --”

Remus held up his finger, asking her to hold on a moment. “Fenrir Greyback pushed hard to keep the restriction act from going through, threatened all sorts of committee members, but it was my dad who talked them all into signing, regardless of the threats from Greyback. It’d be alright, he promised them, and to show his certainty, he signed the act first and claimed responsibility for it. Fenrir obliged him that.” He tugged at his robes, suddenly finding himself unable to look her in the eyes, “So one night… he came to my house… and he -” Remus stopped again. His throat felt as though it had swelled up about a hundred times its usual size.

Lily leaned forward, “He what?”

Remus didn’t have the words. He didn’t know how to say it. So he sat up straighter and he reached up and undid the buttons on his robes and pushed the neck of his shirt over his shoulder so that the scar from where Fenrir Greyback’s teeth had sunk into his flesh showed. Half moon bites from Greyback’s wolfish jaw gleamed silver against Remus’s skin.

Lily gasped. “Is that a… a bite?” she whispered.

Remus nodded.

“But - but that would - that would make you a -” She stammered, staring at him, horrified.

Remus’s voice was weak, “Yes.”

Lily felt dizzy. “No,” she whispered.

Remus repeated again, “Yes.”

Lily shook her head. “No… no I don’t believe you. You’re just trying to scare me. Why would you do that?” She struggled to try to stand up, pushing him out of the way and walking, wobbly kneed, away from where he was crouching still. He stared up at her as she walked, “It’s not very nice,” she said, her voice strained and shaking, “Trying to scare a little girl like that. Taking me down here in this tunnel to tell me ghost stories…”

“I’m not lying, Lily,” Remus replied. “This isn’t a ghost story, it’s not meant to scare you. I’m just telling you the truth.” He stood up, too, and started toward her, “I’m a werewolf,” he said plainly.

Lily backed up against the wall as he came toward her, her eyes wide and a fleck of terror dancing just behind all of that brilliant green-ness.

Something about the way she looked - about the way she leaned into the wall, the way her hands shook and her lower lip quivered - made Remus remember. Flashbacks for the next several days after being a wolf was quite common. The memories took a little bit of time to come, but they always came. Usually they were rather just pains and aches and breaking things, flashes of his own blood. But this time… he saw Sirius. Sirius Black, cowering in fear, crying even. Sirius Black, backing away.

”Please! Remember who you are, Rey!”

”Good - good doggy… Good doggy…”

And blood. Sirius’s blood. Gnashing teeth, scraping claws… the slamming of the trap door…

It rushed back in a tidal wave of images and anger and self-loathing that weakened Remus and sent him to the floor - to his knees. “Oh God,” he choked, twisting so that he turned away from Lily, “Oh God. What am I doing? What have I done?” He covered his face with his hands in anguish.

Lily stood against the wall, her palms pressed to the cool stone, and felt her heart beating off her lungs and her ribs, fast and afraid, and watched as Remus knelt before her. She didn’t dare to move, the idea of him being a werewolf still coursing through her veins. When he fell, she’d started to move forward but a voice inside her head told her to stop - ”He’s a freak!” the voice said.

And then Remus started to cry. Great sobs that shook his body and echoed through the little room and the passageway beyond.

Lily realized that the little voice was Petunia’s voice, not her own little voice. It was her sister’s voice who had shunned every broken person they’d ever met - every person who was different, who just needed empathy and mercy shown to them, she’d called freak. People like Severus Snape. People like her, Lily, her own sister.

She moved forward, still jelly-kneed, and knelt down beside Remus, wrapping her arms ‘round his shoulders. “Rey,” she whispered. “Remus… I’m sorry. I reacted poorly. Don’t cry.”

Remus was trembling so hard. “Did I kill him?” he was crying so hard that his whole face was soaked wet when he looked up at her to ask, all red and blotchy and great, huge tears tracking down his cheeks and falling from his jaw. “Did I?”

“Did you kill who?” Lily’s voice shook over the words.

“Sirius,” Remus moaned.

Lily shook her head, “No… No, of course you didn’t. James said he would be alright. His hand just had some bandages was all. He went home on the Hogwarts Express today, he didn’t even have to go to a proper hospital - Madam Pomfrey fixed him up right good, James said.” She softly rubbed Remus’s back, along his spine, trying not to think about the diagram in their Defense Against the Dark Arts book, which had detailed how the spine changes in a werewolf during the full moon, how the vertebrae rearrange themselves and snap and pop… She tried not to imagine the fur that would have sprouted out of that back, the fangs that would’ve grown out of his mouth… She tried to see just Remus, the boy, and not Remus, the wolf.

Remus hugged his knees as she stroked his back, trying to regain composure. He loathed himself in that moment. She was putting on a brave face now, suppressing her fears… but - well, of course she was! She was Lily Evans, the kindest person he’d ever met, with a heart the size of the planet. Here she was, petting the back of a werewolf as he cried about attacking his mate.

“What happened, Remus?” she asked gently. “Tell me what happened. It’ll help you feel better if you tell me.” Her eyes were so soft, so pretty and not an ounce of judgement rested in them, only the promise of understanding and a listening ear.

“It was the full moon,” he said.

Lily nodded, her fingers still stroking his back softly.

“Dumbledore had a - a secret passage made for me, for when I… turn. And it goes from under the Whomping Willow all the way to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade.”

“That old haunted house?” Lily asked, her nose scrunching in distaste.

“He’s bewitched it,” Remus explained, “So that when I howl during the full moon nobody will notice because it’s just a creepy old haunted house and it makes crazy noises all the time. He had Viridi put the whomping willow over the passage so nobody will come and so I can’t get out once I turn. The tree is vicious, but when you’re conscious about it - which I wouldn’t be as a wolf - there’s ways to stop it, ways to… to sort of pause it, I suppose. But I’m a tosser, Lily, because I showed the lads how to get in there once, when James wanted an adventure. We went out to the shack and they had a look about and I regretted it - I felt so ashamed, it’s so terrible out there… But Sirius, Sirius always has been so good to me about all this, he figured me out first - last year. He was the first to accept me, and I’ll never forget that. He stood up for me when Peter wanted to go to Dumbledore when he found out. Not that Dumbledore didn’t already know, but Peter took the longest to accept me.” He felt a lump rising up in his throat as he spoke, remembering Peter’s terrified eyes as he’d ducked behind his bed, hiding from Remus as an initial reaction… He’d been terrifying his friends for years.

“But he accepts you now, doesn’t he?” Lily said softly.

“As much as he ever will, I reckon,” Remus said. “I think he just pushes the thought out of his head. He hasn’t really got much of a choice, who else would he be friends with, if not us?” Remus shrugged. “There aren’t any other Gryffindor boys in our year.”

Lily nodded.

“But Sirius - he doesn’t give a damn I’m a wolf. He takes care of me. When I first come back from the full moon, it’s… it’s hard. I’m always so… weak. I never feel well. I have cuts and bruises -” he held up his hands to show his newest ones and he realized it was residual from the trap door slamming on his paws when he’d tried to get through to get to Sirius the night before, where Sirius had had to literally close him in the door to escape him… His stomach clenched at the thought of it, glad Sirius hadn’t hesitated to do it or else he’d be dead or worse. “I attack myself when there’s nobody else there,” he explained. “But last night… Sirius, he tried to bring me blankets.” The details were coming back, rushing in like a freed dam now. “He wouldn’t have known how to get there if I hadn’t shown him. He’s never believed me that I’m not myself in my wolf form.”

Lily’s hand had slowed in it’s stroking, but had not left him. “Did you… bite him?” she asked.

Remus trembled. “No,” he said, thankful that the words hadn’t brought up a memory that he didn’t want to have. He shook his head, more confident now, “No. Just a scratch. A deep scratch, but just a scratch.”

“Scratches don’t make people werewolves, do they?” Lily asked.

“No,” Remus replied.

“Well, that’s good, then, isn’t it?” Lily asked, a hopeful note in her voice now. “See? Everything’s alright, then, isn’t it?” She smiled encouragingly. “And… and he brought you blankets, yeah? That was lovely of him. He’s a good mate to you.”

“The best mate,” Remus said solemnly. “He shouldn’t have done that, though, he shouldn’t have come anywhere near that shack during the full moon. I’m not myself when I’ve turned,” he explained, “You forget everything you are, everything you love. You’d kill your best mate if given the chance, just because you can smell his lifeblood. I could’ve killed Sirius… He shouldn’t have come.”

“If he brought you blankets, he just was worried about you… It was really cold last night. I imagine he just wanted to be sure you were warm out there,” Lily said. “He cares about you, that’s all.”

Remus looked at her with pleading eyes, “Swear to me you won’t ever come near the shack during the full moon? Or at all, rather. I’d be so ashamed if you ever saw --”

“I swear I won’t, Remus. If you don’t want me to, I won’t. I swear it,” Lily said. She ran her hand up into his hair, and it felt so good, he leaned into her, his cheek against her collarbone, and closed his eyes, letting her make him feel better. He laced his arms around her. She smelled so good, like honey and strawberries, and she hugged him, her hands on his arm, her perfect, freckled skin a contrast to the pink scars and purple bruises on him. “It’s alright, Rey,” she said.

“You don’t think differently of me?” he asked shakily, scared of the answer.

“No,” Lily replied. “I don’t. You’re the very same Remus you were before, just… now I know you’re so much more, too.” She pulled back and held him by his shoulders at arm’s length so she could look at him in the eyes. He tried to look away, ashamed of who he was and not able to accept the words she was saying without feeling a bit guilty, but she ducked to keep her eyes locked with his and drew him back up. “You’re the bravest person I know,” she said, “Just for being you.” She smiled, “I’ll bet the sorting hat didn’t have even the littlest hesitation with putting you in Gryffindor, did it?”

Remus smiled, “It thought fleetingly of Ravenclaw, actually,” he admitted.

“It did on me, too,” Lily said. “But I think it made the best choice. You really do belong in Gryffindor, where dwell the mighty brave.” She smiled.

“So do you, Lily Evans,” Remus replied, “So do you.”