Title: Copernicus
Author: AudioAesthetic
Summary: Copernicus discovered that the universe does not revolve around the Earth. Remus Lupin must learn that it also does not revolve around the moon.
Rating: T
A/N: I've been meaning to write something like this for a while, but I couldn't settle on a character, and then on a title I liked, and then on a first chapter. But, here it is. I've decided on Remus. I hope you all like it.
By the way, the almost diary-esque style is blatantly stolen from the story Kindred, which is on my Favorites list. You should definitely check it out, it's fantastic.
Enjoy! Audio.

Chapter One
Halcyon

10 March, 1960

Remus J. Lupin was born

25 December, 1962

Remus's first memory was of his mother passing out presents to his cousins. He got his presents later, in private, because they moved and changed color and did other interesting things. Remus wondered why his cousins' presents didn't.

July, 1964, or thereabouts

Remus stood in the kitchen, eating strawberries and getting them all over his face. Mother clucked her tongue in fond disapproval and with a swish of her wand, his face was clean.

Father watched this with interest, and Remus wondered why he never saw Father with a wand. Perhaps there was something special about Mother.

August, 1965

Father and Mother argued in the kitchen about Remus. They didn't say his name, but he knew it was about him.

"He has to go to school," Father said many times. "How will he learn to read and write and do sums?"

"We'll get him a tutor," Mother announced, "or send him to a nursery school like any normal child - "

"Normal children do not turn their aunt blue when she steps on their favorite toy," Father pointed out, and Remus's ears turned red from where he listened behind the door. "They also go to school. Perhaps it will help him. Perhaps he will..."

"Perhaps then he'll be normal?" Mother wondered in an awkward, high pitched voice. "Perhaps then he won't be a freak?"

"I don't think you or he... Miranda!"

Mother found Remus hiding behind the door when she stalked from the room. She was crying. Remus reached for her to comfort her as she knelt down and grasped him by the shoulders. She looked him in the eye. She always did.

"Would you like to go to school, Remus?" she asked, and he wanted to brush away the tears from her cheeks. "You could meet children, but you would always be... different from them."

Remus had his cousins, but they were older than he, and he had never really known what it was like to be around other children. He knewsomehow that being "different" will be scary, but Father had always been different from Mother, and he still loved Father, didn't he?

"School... might be fun, right?" he asked hopefully, and felt instantly like he'd said the wrong thing.

1st September, 1965

Mother dressed him in what she called "Muggle clothes" with some disgust - corduroy pants and a blue jumper. "I'd like to come see you off," she saidas he tied his shoes all by himself, "but I couldn't feel comfortable in that sort of attire, and I don't want you to begin your first day with all the kids thinking that your mother is some sort of..."

She didn't finish the sentence, but Remus thought, freak before he could stop himself.

"Anyway," Mother shook her head and smiled, "I'll be there when you go to Hogwarts. That will be much better than this, wait and see."

Mother had done nothing but talk about Hogwarts since Remus decided to go to school. It didsound like a wonderful place, but the talk upset Father. Remus could tell. Still, it was nice to hear the stories.

Mother waved from the front door as Father took Remus down the street. Father talked about the benefits of school on a child's psychological developement - Remus thought he understood some of it but might have beed kidding himself.

They reached the school where children were playing in the yard. Some were swinging and some were sliding and still others were playing jacks and hopscotch. None of them were playing Gobstones. None of them had toy broomsticks. None of them were swapping Chocolate Frog Cards (which was just as well, really, as Father wouldn't let Remus bring his along). Remus wasn't sure he knew how to play with these children.

They met the teacher, Miss Bell, and she assured Father with a smile that she would watch out for Remus and make sure the other children wouldn't pick on him. Father told him to have a good day and not get into trouble, and with a nostalgic sort of smile, left the playground.

"Here, Remus, why don't you come play with Terrence and Graham?" Miss Bell said, guiding him to the sandbox. A blond boy and a boy with freckles on his nose looked up as they approached. "Terrence, Graham, this is Remus. Why don't you let him help you make a sand castle?"

She left them alone too, and Remus was beginning to resent adults for leaving him, because Terrence is staring and Graham won't look at him at all.

"Remus is a funny name," Terrence said finally.

Remus shruged and shuffled his feet. "My mum gave it to me."

"Well, of course, dummy," said Terrence. "Who else woulda done it?"

Remus was stumped with that one. Graham now caught his eye, and Remus blushed. He was thinking about changing his mind and running back home and telling his mother that school was definitely not the right place for him, when Graham finally spoke.

"Wanna build a sand castle?" Graham offered. Terrence pouted.

"Him?" he said, "but he's got a stupid name."

"Well, I think Terrence is a stupid name," Graham countered. "It sounds like a snail's name. Or a frog. And I want to build a sandcastle, and I betchoo frogs would make horrible sandcastles, so I want to build it with Remus."

Remus blinked and Terrence scowled.

"Fine, then," he said, "I hope sand gets in your underpants!"

He stalked away. Remus smiled at Graham appreciatively. "Thanks," he said.

"No problem. Now, come on, grab a shovel before we have to go inside."

The sandcastles kids built at the park Mother takes him too were much more elaborate, and occasionally, if the child had enchanted toys, there were moving sand figures inside them. They were more like sand dollhouses than castles sometimes. But Graham directed Remus very well in their undertaking, and Remus would say it didn't turn out half bad.

Graham was in first grade, not kindergarten, so he left Remus to go to his classroom, and Terrence glared at him throughout the morning, but by the end of the day Remus was feeling pretty good about going to school.

10 March, 1966

For his sixth birthday, Father gave Remus books about someone named Dick and Jane and attempted to teach him to read. Remus liked his mother's gifts better - a Screaming Yo-Yo and an issue of a new comic series, Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle.

The last one caused Mother and Father to have a row.

"It's offensive!" Father shouted. "He'll grow up thinking we're all blundering idiots!"

"He won't!" Mother yelled back. Remus wondered if they knew he didn't have to hide behind the door to hear them anymore. "He's around them all day, every day. If anything he'll grow up not knowing who he really is, having no connection to the wizarding world, and feeling completely out of place in his own home!"

"This is his home!" Father's anger scared Remus. "I am part of his home! Whether you like it or not, half of him isn't magical. Half of who he is is exactly like me!"

Remus couldn't listen anymore. He ran outside, into the woods in their yard and sat in a tree and tried very hard to think about sandcastles and Graham, instead of who he was.

8 June, 1966

Remus missed school, but found summer oddly liberating. Mother let him ride a toy broomstick around the back yard when Father was at work, where the neighbors couldn't see. She took him to the park, and made him lemonade, and in the evening, he ran around catching fireflies for her.

She waved her wand at them absently, and they began a sychronized sort of dance. Remus watched in amazement.

"When can I learn to do that?" he asked in awe.

"When you go to Hogwarts," Mother replied, placing him on the porch swing beside her. She closed her eyes and put an arm around his shoulders. Remus began to watch her eyelashes flutter slightly, instead of the fireflies. "Oh, Remus. You'll love it there. You'll learn to control magic, and by controlling magic, you can control everything."

Remus wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. Father didn't seem to like being controlled, and he obviously couldn't do magic like Mother can. Remus had never seen him so much as touch a wand.

"Why isn't Father a wizard?" Remus wondered. Mother sighed.

"Because that's the way the world works sometimes, dear," she answered, seeming fatigued. "I met your father after I graduated Hogwarts and began travelling around England for a while. I fell in love with him before I knew he was a Muggle. He was very handsome, your father."

She giggleed a little, and sounded like the girls at school. Remus wasn't sure he appreciated it.

"It didn't really matter for a while," she continued, "that he wasn't a wizard, but after we had you... But that's not the point, is it? The point is, you're a wizard, whether or not your father is, as much a wizard as anybody else, and don't you ever let anybody tell you otherwise, promise?"

Remus nodded, then realized that her eyes were still closed. "I promise," he said out loud, and felt something like... well, a lot like magic float between them when he said it.

They passed the rest of the evening until Father got home talking about Hogwarts and the Houses and how exciting it would be if Remus was in Slytherin like his mother had been. She would love him anyway, she said, even if he was in Gryffindor, though she might have to stop writing for a while if they won the House Cup.

She laughed as she said this, and Remus laughed along with her, and it felt good to be alive.