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Visions of Life

by Innermurk

Chapter 1

Lupin stood watching the spot where the owl had disappeared long after it was gone. His insides were in a turmoil, and he didn’t know if he were happy or sad. He knew only that this part of his life was over. The waiting would be done, and he would finally be seeing Harry.

He wasn’t altogether sure he was ready. He had imagined the moment for years. Twelve to be exact. In some of these fantasies, he was a hero being welcomed quite ecstatically. In others he was a monster that was driven away. Hero….maybe not the right word. He guessed friend would be a better description. Friend. The word itself brought mixed feelings to mind.

Lupin had had few friends in his life. He supposed it was only natural, yet he wished it weren’t so. He was human after all. Human. Well, there were those who would argue the opposite, and he supposed they had some point. Yet, his disease was not him. He didn’t know if he could ever truly impress upon others that fact, or how he felt. Even his anonymous book, Hairy Snout, Human Heart hadn’t really gone over too well with most of the wizarding public. Some libraries had even classified it as fiction.

Of course, his being a werewolf hadn’t mattered to James. Or it hadn’t seemed to. In the end his friend hadn’t put much faith in him, or their friendship, after all.

Lupin sighed heavily and turned from the emerging stars to fix some dinner in the kitchen. He knew he hadn’t exactly been eating well, but now he had a good job. One that would last longer than those he’d had this year. He could only hold a job for about two to three months anymore, and his lycanthropy was that much harder to bear when hungry. He was skinny, and truthfully, almost destitute. But more than anything, he was lonely. Lonely for a friend.

He wasn’t delusional and he knew with a grim certainty that this position he’d taken at Hogwarts was likely to bring new torture for him. Harry was there, and he hoped to befriend him, though he’d have to be careful, but he knew that Severus Snape was there as well.

He and Severus had never gotten along while in school, and he knew that Snape still held a grudge against him for the trick that Sirius had played on him while they were there. Lupin thought this distinctly unfair as he’d had little choice or control over the matter, but then again when had his unfortunate sickness ever brought anything but unfairness to his life. He controlled his feelings on the subject as best he could, but there were days when he felt it controlled him.

He shook his head to clear his mind and puttered around the kitchen fixing some bread and cheese. He looked through the cupboards to see what else there was, but came up empty. Looks like I’ll be leaving just in time. He thought. At least Hogwarts food will fatten me up some.

Packing took little time as Lupin had always lived frugally, not so much out of choice as necessity. When your landlord found out you turned into a beast every full moon, he tended to kick you out without much prior notice. It was this that had lead Lupin to come to this small Muggle village in the first place. Now after going south for a month, his job for the botany magazine where he was currently employed, would be finished and he could start anew at Hogwarts.

Despite the fear and suspicion that surrounded his disease, Lupin had a very practical approach to it. He’d had many years to develop this practicality since he’d received the bite as a small child. His strength and violent tendencies grew and waned with the moon, and the hours the moon rose full, he turned into a full blown beast, and everything that entailed. His mind was not his, his actions were those of a monster. It was this more than anything that Lupin hated the most. He was a normally kind and gentle person who took care to be extra sensitive to those around him as he wanted to somehow make up for his actions at other times. Ones he couldn’t help. He was quite used to the painful transformations by now and had long since forgone any lamenting about his predicament, though people’s reactions and the way he was treated could be a bit of a sore spot still.

He had always set aside a room that was easily locked and isolated to spend these few days. Having lived alone for almost eleven years, he was quite used to his routine, and barely thought about it anymore. He had become quite adept at healing the bruising and lacerations he gave himself, and a simple pain-numbing potion helped to keep him calm during the actual transformation, though he was a wild and vicious beast afterwards. The memories he retained were the worst. He often took a forgetfulness potion after he regained his own mind to help him retain his sanity.

His suitcase was soon packed and he gave notice to his landlord whom he’d known for a little over a month. This one wasn’t yet clued in to his sickness and so was quite cordial to him with a smile and a quick handshake as his sendoff. Lupin had walked about ten paces from the isolated country cottage, when he heard "Good luck ter ya. I’ll give a reference if ya need one. Ya were a good tenant, ‘cept fer that one unfortunate occasion when the wild dog got in."

He waved back and smiled ironically to himself. That did describe his dilemma all right. A good tenant except for when the wild dog got in.

Lupin hunched his shoulder against the weight of his battered suitcase and turned his thoughts to Harry as he trudged down the dirt road, towards town, and the bus station.

Harry would be thirteen this year. I wonder how much he knows. Thought Lupin. Dumbledore had explained that Harry had lived with his Muggle relatives and they hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with information about their world. But surely he knows about his past. At least about his father James, if not his father’s friends.

Lupin glanced at the sky noting the gathering clouds as he tried in vain to stop the train of thought that always came next. "Ah…" said a nagging voice in his mind "But I guess you weren’t really his friend now were you….or at least he never considered you one." His eyes hardened and he shook his head slightly as though he could rid himself of that notion.

The truth might never be known. Lupin’s only close friends had all gone away. He had once thought himself the luckiest person alive to be included in James’ group of friends. Indeed he’d even thought the others considered him a close friend as well. They had been inseparable during school after all. James had picked Sirius as best man, but that hadn’t mattered to Lupin. He’d attended their wedding too, along with Peter. Now with Peter and James dead, and Sirius in Azkaban for their murders, he didn’t know what to think. It was obvious that James and Peter had thought he’d been the spy. Sirius as the true spy, even thinking that now Lupin almost couldn’t believe it, had used that to his advantage and helped the Dark Lord to hunt down James and Lily, and in truth, Harry.

Peter had gone after Sirius after hearing of James’ and Lily’s deaths, but he’d been blown to smithereens, along with thirteen unlucky Muggles, in the street he’d confronted Sirius in. Sirius had always been the more powerful of the two. But he’d been caught after that by the Ministry and put into Azkaban without a trial. Lupin was torn between relief and horror at the events of that night and the week that followed. Horror that it’d happened at all, and relief that he’d been absent from making the choice of going after Sirius himself.

He had been transformed in his safe house awaiting the waning of the moon, and hadn’t been present for any kind of action. When he was safe to return to the world, he found both celebration and tragedy awaiting him. He’d been closer to James than to Sirius, but he’d flatly refused to believe the stories flying around that incriminated one of his friends. His first priority was to see Harry, and reassure himself that he was alive and well, but Dumbledore had advised him against it. Not now nor anytime soon, not until Harry was ready.

Lupin implicitly trusted Dumbledore, and though he wouldn’t dare to call him friend, he knew that Dumbledore was one of very few that understood him, and treated him as a human with all human rights. He’d no choice then, but to try and continue his life without the support of his best friends. He had finally come to some sort of terms with Sirius’ betrayal, having gone through the emotions of denial, anger, and finally acceptance, albeit with a lot of grief. He considered Sirius dead to help ease the pain and guilt he felt. He would have liked to go and speak with him, but he knew Sirius’ mind was probably gone now. Most went crazy in Azkaban.

He thought of his upcoming role, and knew he had to resolve this. The students would eat him alive if he showed his fear. More to the point, he feared the guilt would destroy him, though he didn’t actually know what he could’ve done had he been there. He hadn’t suspected Sirius as the spy either. He hadn’t actually suspected anyone. How many times he’d run the events preceding that fateful night he wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t change anything that had happened, and time eventually did dull the memories and the pain.

The bus station loomed ahead covered in the garish colors of the posted advertisements, and Lupin made his way towards the ticket counter. He only needed to get through this month, and then he could go to London and put some of this behind him…see Harry, and start afresh.

He glanced around him at the bustling and jostling crowd and wondered if he’d recognize Harry right away. The muggles around him struggled through the lines and groups of people, always in a hurry to get where they were going, hardly ever looking around them. He found a seat and waited for his ten-o-clock train in the correct gateway. To pass the time and stop these melancholy musings, he pulled out the letter from Dumbledore and read over it again.

Lupin wasn’t exactly sure what the recent events at Azkaban were since he’d been living amongst the muggles recently and hadn’t had the Daily Prophet delivered. He didn’t have long to wait to find out though. The television in the terminal started broadcasting the morning news and they had a breaking story about an escaped prisoner.

Lupin’s eyes bulged as the convict’s picture flashed across the screen. His ears seemed to be ringing and he couldn’t hear what the newscaster was saying. He realized he was holding his breath and let it out with a huge whoosh as the picture faded and the newscaster again dominated the screen.

Sirius Black certainly looked different than the last time he’d seen him, but Lupin recognized his former friend easily. The muggles around him bustled on unconcerned. The newscaster hadn’t said he’d escaped from Azkaban, but suddenly the last lines in Dumbledore’s letter made sense to him.

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