Title: An Era of Marauding: Year One
Chapter 1: A Life Less Sought
Author: Mister Moony
Contact: iunasspell@aol.com
Rating: PG
Summary: Ideally, this is a seven piece work detailing the years in which the Marauders attended Hogwarts. It's carried through the eyes of Remus Lupin, and therefore begins on a particularly dull July day at St. Mungo's.


*

St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

        Remus Lupin was eleven years old, and already had every floor, ward, and residing Healer's name in the hospital memorized. He knew every person's name in the "permanent resident" section and was on a first name basis with easily half of the staff and patients. He was even close enough friends with the plump, blue-haired witch that ran the kitchen that he never left the hospital with less than a tight belt at no expense to his measly amount of pocket change.

        Remus, as he looked at it, was not sick. He was average height for his age, bordering on being scrawny (though it was nothing that couldn't be cured with a week's worth of solid meals) with knotty shoulders and knees, but he was neither starved nor stunted. His hair was shaggy and a shade of sandy-blond, shrouding his brow, tops of his ears, and sometimes (when he could avoid the attention of his mother long enough) just long enough to hide a good portion of his gray-blue eyes. His skin was tight on his bones, but aside from the skinny appearance, he seemed to be a perfectly normal, eleven-year-old boy.

        There were two things that made Remus very abnormal, however.

        Remus's parents were the origin of the first abnormality: his mother was a witch and his father was a wizard. They had both attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as children, and were employed at the Ministry of Magic (a governing body in the wizarding world charged with making and enforcing laws, managing standards of magic-use, and finally, hiding the existence of wizards from Muggles -- people who could not perform magic).

        As the son of a practicing witch and wizard, there was little doubt at Remus's birth that he would be a wizard as well, and as his powers began to manifest as a child, his parents began to save and prepare for the year in which Remus would be accepted at Hogwarts and go to learn magic when he became of age; eleven.

        It was the second abnormality that had Remus so familiar with St. Mungo's and that had him certain that he, despite his parent's and his own most sincere wishes, would never attend Hogwarts.

        Remus Lupin was a werewolf.

        He'd been bitten two years prior, and ever since then had been becoming a werewolf the night of the full moon every month like clockwork.

        His parents, distraught and desperate, had been scourging the wizarding world, looking for a cure for Remus's "disease." His mother resigned from the Ministry to dedicate more time to dragging Remus about to every known healer, and Remus' entire savings for school had been poured into costs for cure-alls and different efforts in helping him.

        Two years of hags, healers, nauseating potions, procedures, shots, and every thing else conceivable later, Remus was tired of it.

        Werewolves were feared in the magical community; scorned and outcasted. He had no hope of ever leading a normal life (who would ever hire, teach, marry, or even befriend a werewolf?) and had reserved himself to his bad stroke of fate, something his parents, unfortunately for Remus, refused to do.

        It was his parent's stubborn refusal to accept their son's malady that found Remus stuck at St. Mungo's for the third time in a month on a bright, sunny, July afternoon.

        Madam Higgenwald, the Healer in charge of the ward Remus had been admitted to (First Floor - Creature-induced Injuries), was standing on the far side of the broad, open room. His mother was standing with her, and the two of them were speaking in hushed tones about the properties of the Draught of Lacinta and its tested results on werewolves in the past. Remus kept to himself, settled silently on one of the many beds that lined the room's walls, perched patiently upright with his head turned toward the nearest window. The curtains had been thrown open, but the window was shut fast. Still, warm rays of sunlight were creeping in and warming his cheeks, proving as suitable distraction -- at least for the time being.

        He was not interested in the two witches' conversation or perhaps he might have tried to listen. Instead, he was staring absently out the window, wishing for the freedom to stride out of the hospital and into the beckoning sunlight.

        If he shut his eyes, he could imagine himself in a quiet countryside, lounging beneath the limbs of an old oak tree while he read, untroubled by his malady or with the fact that his parents were broke trying to cure him. If he imagined hard enough, he could even nudge out his increasing lonesomeness and forget his disappointment that he would never be accepted into a school that thought him dangerous.

        Something changed.

        A shadow had passed over Remus's face, and with a slight frown, curiosity getting the best of him, he was forced to let go of his day dream, open his eyes, and focus attention on the window instead.

        Remus blinked.

        The window blinked back.

        Giving a start, he realized it was not the window that had blinked but a feathery, round head instead. A large, tawny, barn owl was perched outside the window, a yellow-brown envelope clutched in its beak in a way that let its face be read.

        Printed neatly in green handwriting, the front read:

        Mr. Remus Lupin

        St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

        First Floor; eighth window

        Remus had received post by owl his entire life, so there really was no shock in seeing the large bird with a letter for him.

        It was the peculiar way in which the letter was addressed that caused alarm for Remus. Usually, just the name "Remus Lupin" was sufficient for any intelligent owl to find him, and in the case of family owls, only the name "Remus" was necessary.

        Whoever sent the letter, however, had felt it necessary to write out the entire address to insure it was carried to him (nevermind how whoever it was knew where he was down to the last window -- the entire thing was odd).

        A hesitant glance was cast backward towards his mom and the Healer before, pushing to his feet, he strode to the window, unfastened its latch, and opened it. The owl hooted in an indignant manner, holding its large head slowly outward so that Remus could take the letter. He'd no sooner done so than the bird spread its great wings and took off again.

        Casting an estranged look down on the foreign handwriting that scrawled across the envelope's face, he carefully tilted the envelope over. His heart and stomach promptly did a synchronized back flip. A purple, wax seal held the envelope closed, marked by a lion, a serpent, a badger, and an eagle, all guarding a large letter "H."

        Sliding a finger beneath the flap, the seal was broken and the envelope's contents revealed; two sheets of the same heavy paper that the envelope was made of, written on by the same, green text. Fumbling with his haste, the first of the letters was tugged free and unfolded, allowing for Remus' reading.

        HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

        Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

        (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

        Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

        Dear Mr. Lupin,

        We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

        Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

        Yours sincerely,

        Minerva McGonagall

        Deputy Headmistress

        P.S. Due to your condition, a meeting with Headmaster Dumbledore will be required prior to the beginning of term. Please send a meeting time and place that would be acceptable for you with your owl if you plan on attending.

        Remus couldn't believe it. His heart was skipping joyously, lodged somewhere up between the walls of his esophagus, and he read the letter through two more times before lurching from bed, feeling the happiest and healthiest he'd felt in two years.

        "Mum!" he cried as he righted himself, eagerly waving the letter as he moved in haste toward her and Madam Higgenwald.

        Both witches jumped slightly at the outcry and sudden movement from the boy who, characteristically, rarely spoke, and even more rarely moved at a speed greater than that of a sloth.

        "What is it, Remus, dear?" His mother responded in her best patronizing tone. She'd learned it in the first year of Remus' being a werewolf, as then, he'd been prone to sudden outcries of why he had to be so unlucky.

        Managing up alongside the two with a faint furrow of his brow at the patronizing tone to his mother's voice, the letter was waved furiously in front of her. "It's from Hogwarts! I was accepted!"

        Madam Higgenwald was the first to come out of the dazed silence the two women had both fallen into at such an exclamation. "...no, honey, you know that you're a werewolf and that no school has ever admitted one. I'm sorry..."

        Cutting the witch off -- again a very uncharacteristic thing for Remus to do -- he shook his head slightly in emphasis, shoving the letter into his disbelieving mother's hands. "They know I'm a werewolf. They even mention it in the letter -- it just says that I have to talk to Headmaster Dumbledore before term starts and everything should be okay..."

        Reflexively, his mother's fingers tightened around the parchment, bringing it upward so that she could read it for herself. Madam Higgenwald leaned aside to read over his mother's shoulder, and a few seconds of agonizing silence followed as the two read the letter.

        Remus watched with a pounding heart, praying that he hadn't somehow read the letter incorrectly. It was true, no school in the history of wizardry had ever accepted a werewolf, as they were considered dangerous to other students, but Hogwarts had accepted him. Albus Dumbledore seemed to be the first and only person in Remus' short life willing to give him a chance.

        Remus' mother's hands were trembling as she finished the letter, and when she lowered it, tears of pride brimming in her eyes, he knew that he had read the letter right.

        He was going to Hogwarts.

TBC