Remus POV
It was a clear night in late July. The ocean glistened with stars and lay flat without a breath of wind in the air. The near-full moon shone through the crack in Remus' window onto his bed where he lay wide awake, his mind spinning.
Remus Lupin was tall for an eleven year old - also rather skinny. He had amber eyes and sandy hair that he always had to brush out of his eyes. Remus remembered bitterly how his mother used to complain about his hair when she couldn't see his face, that stopped the night everything normal in his life had stopped: the night he became a werewolf. Who was he kidding? There's no way he was falling asleep.
Mumbling something like 'far too restless,' Remus tentatively climbed off of his bed and made his way out of his bedroom, avoiding the floorboards he knew that creaked, and crept down the rickety ladder to the kitchen. To his surprise, there was already someone sitting at the kitchen table. She was small and looked rather frail and had the same sandy hair as Remus though it was streaked with grey. She looked round at him with unmistakably sad, blue eyes,
"Remus?"
"Hello mum," Remus croaked, still rather taken aback by the abrupt end to his solitude.
"Are you alright? You must be in pain with the moon tomorrow," said Hope Lupin.
As she set down her mug on the wooden table, there was a knock at the front door, causing both Hope and Remus to start. Who could it be so early in the morning? Perhaps Remus' father, Lyall? No, he had returned home from the ministry little more that an hour ago... who could it be?
As the stranger knocked again, Hope seemed to come back to earth and made towards the door, sliding the lock across and nervously creaking the door open.
"Dumbledore," she gasped as the stranger stepped across the threshold of the cottage.
"Hello Hope," said Albus Dumbledore, rather cheerily considering the hour, "I presume Lyall told you I would be popping around?" He smiled questioningly at Hope's shocked face.
"I imagine it slipped his mind, he got home little over an hour ago and went straight to bed" said Hope, still looking rather unsubtly incredulous at Dumbledore.
So this was Dumbledore, Remus had heard many a description of him as his father worked at the ministry of magic. To his surprise, Dumbledore then asked,
"I was wondering if I could have a quick word with Remus, is he awake?" Me, thought Remus, this was most peculiar. He'd never even met the man before and now he was knocking on Remus' door at a most ungodly hour asking so speak to him; nobody ever wanted to speak to Remus, especially given his uh, condition.
"Ah," exclaimed Dumbledore as he noticed Remus standing by the stairs. "Remus. I was wondering if I could have a quick word?"
***
2 years later
Remus lay awake in the Gryffindor dormitories, still deep in thought about this particular memory. He had been so sure that he was broken, not human, a monster even; he had the scars as proof for everyone to see. The equivalent of having 'I have a secret that I'm keeping from you' written across his face.
When Dumbledore had come to his house 2 years previously to ask Remus to attend Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, he had had a thoroughly thought-out plan to conceal the fact that Remus was a werewolf from the rest of the students and most of the staff. So, upon his arrival, Remus was determined to keep his secret, seeking acceptance - something he'd never properly got from his family. If only, he now thought, looking at the moon through the gap in the curtains on his four-poster bed. If only it were that easy.
