It was inevitable that there would be comments about the hiring of Remus Lupin as a teacher at Hogwarts. There was no shame or sorrow in that.

But the comments should have been, "Albus! What were you thinking, hiring a Marauder as a teacher? You saw what happened when you made him a prefect!" Laughing complaints. Mock horror.

Not, "Albus! He's a werewolf! What were you thinking? What will the parents say?"

(The staff split on that one. Tensions were high at the Head Table, and McGonagall defended him with words and glares every step of the way.)

Not, "Albus! What if he's helping Black?"

(That rumor had hurt Remus more than any other, and the worst of it was, it was partly because his first instinct was, in fact, to help Black, no matter how reprehensible that made him.)

(Of course, he did end up helping Sirius, and that instinct might have been smarter than he'd given it credit for.)

There were a lot of things that should have been. But instead there were shattered lives and fragile souls more bruised and beaten than his shabby trunk, hearts held together by the thinnest of threads and minds dancing a line they'd once joked they had crossed.

And nothing, nothing at all, was as it should have been.