For QLFC, Puddlemere, Captain: Minister and Administration Offices: Write about someone in charge of something/someone.

Word Count: 1,234

nothing ever comes without a cost or consequence (tell me will the stars align)

Remus was six years old and he was only a child. He had done nothing to deserve any of this.

Remus was six years old and — even though unintentionally — his very own father had just completely ruined his life in a way that left absolutely no chance of ever going back to the way things were before.

Remus was six years old and he had just been bitten by the werewolf Fenrir Greyback after his father had angered him. He didn't know what his father had said to get the werewolf so mad, but that wasn't the important part. That was simply the fact that it happened at all.

Remus was six years old and he now had a secret that he could never tell anyone else. Not that he particularly wanted to. He did his best to avoid thinking about it, actually. His father's change in the way he treated Remus made that rather hard, however.

His father stopped talking to him unless he absolutely had to. Gone were the hugs and the bedtime stories. And the look in his father's eyes was far from the loving kindness Remus had grown up with until that point.

It wasn't like it was his fault; it wasn't like he had had a choice. He got nightmares about it all. Of course, he did. What else could possibly happen? The whole thing was scary enough without everything that would follow. Granted, Remus didn't actually all that much — still more than he would like to — but the memory of waiting up in pain and covered in blood horrible as it was. He did not need any other memories of that night, thank you very much.

His parents split up after Remus got bitten. No matter how much his mother assured him that it wasn't his fault, he still couldn't help but think otherwise.

After all, the main reason his mother took him and left was that she was very unhappy with the way his father had treated him after he had been turned.

"He's still a child, Lyall. Your child."

"He's a dangerous beast! You must see sense, Hope."

"One night a month! The rest of the time, he's just the same as he's always been, just a whole lot more traumatized and afraid. If you're not going to help him, then you're not going to be around him anymore."

His mother didn't know that he had overheard the fight — he certainly wasn't meant to — but he did. It was just after the first full moon — the morning after, to be precise — so his senses were still a bit higher than he expected. He sits up in his room, clutching his new stuffed niffler close to himself — his stuffed wolf, Romulus, didn't deserve the way that he was ignoring him, but it hurt too much to look at him right now.

Remus had spent the night outside, attached to their cottage by a chain made out of silver. His father had insisted that it was necessary so that he didn't hurt anyone. Remus believed him — and still did — because he is the one out of his parents that grew up among magic. He knew what he was talking about better than his Mum, surely.

This is why Remus insisted on using a chain even after his mother had taken him and ran away, back to her parents. They had compromised on the fact that this chain wouldn't be made out of silver. And it did make the full moons a bit better, yes, but that doesn't mean the wolf doesn't hurt him.

No matter how much his mother tried to convince him otherwise, he couldn't help but feel that he deserved this. He was a monster, after all. She was just saying this because she was his Mom. It was her job to say things like that.

A few years later, Remus actually gets his Hogwarts letter. He stopped believing in that ever happening when he had been six. The letter was delivered by the Headmaster personally, so he knew that this wasn't a mistake.

"No one else can know," the Headmaster instructed him. As if Remus would actually want that to happen at all. This was his one chance to pretend he was normal and not a monster and he absolutely was not going to ruin that by choice.

The trip to Diagon Alley was mostly unremarkable. They simply went through the list one by one. None of the supplies were really that interesting when compared to the fact that they were getting them at all. Even his wand — ten and a quarter inch length, cypress wood and with a core of unicorn hair — couldn't meet that level of excitement.

His mother tried to prevent him from seeing most of the books related to werewolves while they were getting his books in Flourish and Blotts, but he knew enough of what they say without ever seeing them. That, of course, didn't mean he didn't appreciate the gesture.

The one remarkable thing that happened was that he met a girl by the name of Florence Grahams in Slug and Jiggers Apothecary. He didn't really know how to handle it when the girl started a conversation with him the second she entered the shop that somehow lasted until he left it.

It was nice, that much he knew for sure. He really wasn't around other children all that much until now — his mother and grandparents had been homeschooling him for almost all of his life — but that would change soon, wouldn't it?

Florence and he — mostly Florence — talked about what they were looking forward to the most at Hogwarts and what House they thought they would get into. Potions and Gryffindor in her case, Defense and Ravenclaw in his.

They actually sat on the Hogwarts Express together on September first, which Remus honestly had not expected. The two of them weren't alone in their compartment, but based on their conversation, they might as well have been.

Before they even knew it, it was already time to change into their uniforms and leave the train. While the two of them were walking towards the lake, Florence turned to Remus.

"Well, stay friends even if we end up in different Houses, right?"

"We're… yes, yes, of course."

Not that they had to worry about that in the end. Florence was right with her guess and apparently, the Sorting Hat was convinced that Remus belonged into Gryffindor. He's not quite sure why the Hat would think that.

Somehow, it had not occurred to him until he was in the common room later that evening that he would have to share a dorm with other people. It's an odd concept, truly. After all, the castle seems big enough that surely they had the space for individual rooms.

The thing was, dorms would make it a whole lot harder for him to keep his secret. It would be much harder to keep his monthly disappearances a secret when there would be other people in the room with him, after all.

But Remus would manage it anyway.

He had no other option, certainly not know that he had gotten a taste of what his life would be if he weren't a monster.