Chapter Text
It was very late at night. As such, it was puzzling to the old man why there would be a dog roving around in his pub. “Shoo,” he warned as he slowly took out what looked like a short tree branch in the dark, slimy bar. The dog persisted. “Get out!” Finally, the dog headed out. However, the old man was still seething; the dog was carrying four bottles of Butterbeer out. This was the last straw. He would have never done this to an innocent animal but this was no good boy. “Stupefy!” cried the old man. With a look of horror, the dog ran in a zigzag pattern, narrowly avoiding the red bolts shooting out of the old man’s wand, not wanting to be hit by the old wizard’s spells. Finally, the dog, with the four bottles in his mouth, ran towards the patch of light which was the door, and made a sudden turn to the left.
In front of him was an empty grass patch. He dropped the bottles and howled as if there was something there. There was. A skinny, grey wolf emerged from behind. On his right was a magnificent stag with tall, handsome horns and a marking around his eyes rather like glasses. The dog then felt something ticklish scuttle up his swishing tail onto his back. “It’s just the rat,” he smugly thought. Just then, the stag got up on his two hind legs and put them together, in an odd way like applauding. To the untrained ear, the stag merely grunted. In reality, however, the stag was communicating with the dog.
“Nice one. Here’s two galleons, Sirius,” he said as he flung two golden coins over to the dog.
“Two galleons isn’t enough for soap, James! This goat stench is gonna be on me for weeks!” The dog would have said.
Half an hour later, after utterly destroying their sandy yellow teeth to remove the caps from the Butterbeer bottles, they sat against a tall shack. Unfamiliar with drinking without his fingers, the stag made a futile attempt to clutch a bottle between his hooves. The bottle fired across the patch like a rocket, landing with a loud thud to rub in the stag’s failure. The dog, who had cleverly tipped over the bottle and lapped the floor, guffawed, “Bravo! But not as fun as watching your broom smack Lily’s face!”
“That was an accident. Come on.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure dear Lily will forgive you and that handsome mug of yours.” Lily Evans, however, was not a fellow deer. She was a beautiful human girl with fiery red hair. Her most distinguishing characteristic was having eyes “Green as a freshly pickled toad,” the dog howled with laughter as he recited the poem James wrote for her in third year.
Then again, none of these creatures were really animals. You see, James Potter and his crew, the Marauders, are Animagi, human wizards who could transform into animals. It was then no surprise, Remus, the wolf, could feel the human emotion of sadness. “I’ll get James’s bottle,” he dejectedly declared. More alone time with his thoughts. Remus Lupin was not like the others in that he was not an Animagus, but a genuine werewolf.
His tall stature loomed over the grass, casting darkness onto a patch of the ground, just as the bright moon had stolen the light in his life. The moon. The damned moon had the audacity to shine on him, even though this is all his fault. Every full-moon cycle since he was bitten by a wolf, the normally-human Remus would mutate into a beastly wolf. A demonic canine with fangs, Remus would say. A monster that cares for no one, nothing at all. A dangerous creature that can never be tamed. No matter what Remus does, no matter who he is, he can never deny his identity as a werewolf.
“You were talking to your friends, yes?” A voice in him nagged. He was right. Remus will never be a true monster because his friends love him, and he will never forget that no matter how bright the moon is.
As Remus bent down to pick up the glass bottle, he instinctively turned his head towards the bar. He smelt something. That warm goat stench. Remus wondered how the barman of the Hog’s Head could be permitted to keep something so unhygenic. Something so furry. Something so meaty. Something so delicious.
“Snap out of it!” Remus reprimanded himself. He had done it again. His claws were out and his mouth was gushing with saliva again. Why had the accursed moon forced him to do so? While another side effect of being an animal is that you inherit the primal instinct as part of the package, why could he not control his urges like James and Sirius? Why must he be the one stuck with the appetite for murder?
As he strolled back to the shack, he closed his eyes. To deal with his thoughts, Remus needed concentration. He needed silence, to ignore the howling wind. To ignore the soft swoosh of the grass under his heavy feet. To ignore Sirius’ laughing as he vividly recounted James’s first date with Lily. But that was the one thing he could not ignore.
Many would dream to be a dark and mysterious animal like the wolf, but only Remus has lived that nightmare. The only thing he ever remembers about being a werewolf is something from his days as a human. It is to live as a human, but everyone only sees a wolf hiding behind a human costume. After all, no one could ever love something that would rip out their liver for a hunger pang. Love. It was something talked about so blatantly in front of him between James and Sirius, yet like an alien language to him. How could it feel to let your guard around someone? To have them promise no matter what you do, they will always be there for you? To find love was already difficult one for a normal 16 year old boy, but for someone who could grow fur and sharp teeth? “They’d have to be a pink-haired freak to want to be my girlfriend,” Remus chuckled darkly to himself. Yet even though it seemed impossible, Remus could not laugh off love as a joke like Sirius. It was a miracle cure that could be the light in Remus’s life, an escape from the monster he was. But now was not the time to dwell on that. Now was the time to let loose and have fun with James, Sirius, and Peter, the rat, in the Forbidden Forest.