Title: Loyal to a Werewolf
Author: Naatz
Beta-reader: Hota. Thanks!
Rating: PG.
Disclaimer: I wish I could make some witty comment about Harry Potter not being mine, but the bottom line is still "Harry Potter is not mine".
Summary: Discovered as a werewolf by his friends, Remus is abandoned by those he thought he could trust. Werewolves are not to be trusted, not even by those they thought were true friends . . . until Lily shows up and makes the other three Marauders see what a true friend is.
Author's notes: I watched the third movie yesterday, and a thing Remus said in the movie about Lily struck me as odd. Then I wrote it; then I reread the third book and rewrote this.
"How could you?!" A shrill scream sounded in the Gryffindor common-room.
Sirius looked up sharply from his conversation with James; Peter sat nearby, doing his homework. The entire house that was present looked up at her and got back into what its occupants were doing earlier; Lily Evans' fiery mood was widely known through previous outbursts, although she was only a second year.
"What are you talking about, Evans?" Sirius demanded.
Lily fumed and marched towards him. She grabbed hold of James and Sirius and dragged them to a private and obscure spot in the common-room. Sirius freed his hand from her grasp briskly and walked off with her by himself, quietly mulling over something. James followed his suit and freed himself a bit slower; Peter followed them, curiousity written all over his face.
Good, Lily thought. She got them all.
"How could you do that to him, Black?" She hissed. "He's your friend!"
Sirius' eyes narrowed considerably. "Was, Evans. That's a much better term."
"Why? Just because you find out some secret he left out because he knew you'd react like that you run away from the best friend you can possibly have?!" Lily's voice never sounded more venomous than it had now.
James looked at her, annoyance clear on his features. "And why do you stick by him? He can bite you anytime!"
"Because I'm his friend," she emphasised, "and I stick with friends. A thing you don't do."
"We aren't friends with things that can kill us," Sirius said dangerously.
Peter chimed in then, "And you shouldn't be either!"
Lily looked at the three boys in front of her with desperation. Remus was their friend until they discovered what he was, and stayed away from him. She'd overheard them speaking among themselves, and went straight to speak with Remus. She was his friend. That's what friends do. After all, Remus was always a werewolf, and Remus never hurt her.
"You're pathetic," Lily said finally. "You stay away from your friend because you're afraid of him, instead of helping him to get better, like you should be doing! You're the worst kind of friends a person can have!"
James lost it after this. "And what do you suggest that we'll do, Evans? There's no treatment for a werewolf bite! If we're bitten we can't go back to normal, and if we're killed, it's even worse. So what are you suggesting that we do? Cuddle him every full moon?"
"No!" She persisted. "But you can comfort him after the full moon. You know how he is during those times," she hinted. Lily knew about the scars he bore on himself, the ones he's given himself in the Shrieking Shack. "Professor Dumbledore trusts him, and made an arrangement! But you wouldn't know, because you haven't spoken to him at all, have you?"
Sirius and James thought about this, apparently, because they didn't speak for a while. However, Peter had just thought about a thing to say throughout this argument: "No, and we won't. We can value our own necks."
Lily looked at him with disgust and walked away.
Remus sat almost dejectedly by his desk, staring off at space and trying to co-work with Lily, his partner. The only one of those he had once called friends who stuck by his side. He looked sidelong at the other Marauders. He never was very close to them, but he did the best he could while keeping a huge secret of being a werewolf from them. He knew they'd react like that; they all did.
Lily was the one that surprised him. No one had told her, she'd overheard the others talking . . . so she came to talk to him. It deeply touched him, that gesture. It deeply touched him now, that she trusted him enough to be with him in class, sit next to him, speak to him.
She told him that she meant to speak with Sirius, Peter and James yesterday. He supposed she did, but it didn't make anything better that night when he went to sleep. Peter especially was looking daggers at him. He lowered his head and went straight to bed, distressed.
Remus knew the teachers noticed the distance he'd developed, in the past week. Other Gryffindors had, as well, as some people of other houses had too. Outwardly, the group of the four second-year boys could not be seperated. They did not know about the inner politics of the group. They did not know that he just tagged along. Lily was his best friend, the one he felt safest to confide in. Sirius, Peter and James were there to have fun with. They couldn't possibly understand. . . . They couldn't possibly understand what it was like to be a werewolf. They couldn't possibly understand what it was like to be rejected by society. They couldn't understand what it was like to be Remus Lupin, who had always been a werewolf.
The three cornered him a week afterwards, faces grave. He saw Lily nodding with satisfaction. Remus sent her a pleading look before she disappeared from view, leaving him alone with three serious classmates.
"We're sorry, Remus," Peter started. "We really are. We were just -- it took us some time. . . ."
Remus was speechless. They were there to apologise? It only made sense that Peter was the one apologising; Sirius and James had too much pride in them to do it. He wouldn't be surprised if they bullied Peter into agreeing to this. Peter gave into things much too easily than he should've.
"We want to be your friends," James added. Again, Remus thought. Friends again. You stopped being my friends but now you want to have me again with you. It doesn't work this way.
"We miss you," finally, it was Sirius. His line was much less laboured than the other two's, because he was the last and he was much less nervous. He wouldn't lose so much pride --
But Remus' pride was hurt. They drove him away, and now they wanted him back. Like a kicked puppy. He studied them for a long moment, and said finally, "And you aren't afraid of me?"
James said, "We are."
Remus winced.
"But," he continued, "if we weren't, we'd be insane. When you're a werewolf you're dangerous. . . ." His voice trailed off.
Peter continued his sentence: "But when you're not a werewolf, you're Remus. When you're Remus, you're our friend."
"We want to help you," James continued again. "but we don't know how."
Sirius looked very uncomfortable during all of this; "We were hoping you'd tell us how to help you," he confessed.
Remus found his voice at the spoken words. "Funny to hear it from you, after you told me I was a freak of nature and you wanted nothing to do with me anymore." The words just escaped him, he hadn't meant to voice his thoughts.
Sirius shrank a little and looked around him, evading Remus' eyes. "I wasn't thinking right," he said at last. "I hoped you'd forgive me."
"You meant those words," Remus accused him.
Sirius looked straight at him, his face hard and unreadable. "I did. And now I mean the words 'I'm sorry'."
The werewolf felt relieved. It'd take some work . . . but he had his friends with him. They promised to help him, and he hoped they would.
In years, the memory of that conversation followed him like a bittersweet aftertaste, as Sirius went into Azkaban for being responsible for James' death and killing Peter and twelve other muggles, and he was alone.
But Remus then discovered how it is to be accepted by people who didn't feel obliged to accept him -- like his parents, the headmaster and the nurse.
Having friends with you was so much different.