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[alt_alice]

Oh God, we were too late.

Before you all jump to conclusions like the papers have been I have to tell you one thing: Remus did nothing wrong. He did something stupid but not wrong.

There was a child, a Muggleborn child, that had been serving a Pureblood family in Glasgow. They caught him practising his magic secretly in a cupboard under the stairs, he's very talented for being so small. As punishment he was given to the werewolves of a local community and oh God, they were almost totally feral creatures, no contact with the outside, horrible like that Fenrir Greyback Voldemort is so fond of. They were going to bite the little boy and keep him in their ranks.

I couldn't get much out of Remus but from what I understood is that he knew someone in the tribe who alerted him to what was going on and the foolish man hared off to try to stop them. Do you understand me, I said he was trying to stop them from turning the poor thing into - his words - a "monster." He told me no child should ever have to grow up as he did. 

Bugger it all, I'm crying again. Buckets. I'm so tired.

When I arrived with others from the organisation they were already beating Remus senseless, they didn't appreciate his interference. We got him out of there but we couldn't prevent the bite. They bit the child, they bit the child and it was dreadful, blood everywhere and he kept screaming - screaming. We gathered him up and got out of there, Remus barely able to walk - completely wracked with despair that he couldn't save that little boy. He wouldn't stop weeping, and I couldn't tell if it was from pain from his wounds or pain from failure.

The boy is at Sanctuary. They're not amused with having him there but I told them all to just go fuck themselves and take care of the baby. I'm hoping we can get him to a safehouse in a kinder, more humane community on the continent. Remus was another story, one of my operatives took him to Hogwarts because it's the only place we could think to take him. Please, Poppy, please take care of him. He tried so hard and suffered so much.

I've got to go, I want to check on Ian - the boy - and make sure they are treating him well. The bite will take some time to heal. I don't know if it will turn him completely - they weren't transformed werewolves - but it will do something. The poor thing.

Thank you, the little girl who sent Remus to Poppy. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. 

Comments

[alt_hermione]

You're welcome!

[alt_poppy]

I wanted to let you know that Mr Lupin is doing - as well as can be expected, given his condition.

He spent a rather rough night, but he's resting now, and healing.

[alt_molly]

Alice! Never mind Remus for the moment--what can you be thinking, leaving the boy there! Endangering all those children, as well as you and Frank?

Minerva, you absolutely have to overrule this!

[alt_arthur]

Molly, dear, calm yourself. Alice said that they weren't transformed werewolves. It is possible that he won't transform himself, come the new moon.

[alt_molly]

Arthur, have you lost your senses, too?!? Even normal children bite all the time, especially very young ones, just in play! If those ferals could affect him with a bite, even if it's during the dark of the moon, how much more havoc could the boy create in Sanctuary, doing the same thing?!

[alt_arthur]

Molly, stop it, please. Wait. We need some more facts before you work yourself up so.

Alice, how old is the lad? And do you have a secure place to hold him, come the next full moon, just in case? Are there any locking doors in Peel Castle, or are the walls all ruined? If there are any, do you have the keys?

[alt_molly]

I can't believe you would even consider this! This is madness!

[alt_arthur]

Hogwarts has a resident true werewolf, and they manage it well without anyone else being hurt, every full moon.

[alt_molly]

Damn, Remus anyway! This is his fault. If he hadn't--if you weren't so blind--

[alt_alice]

How dare you blame Remus! He didn't ask to be made this way! He was trying to HELP the poor boy! He risked his LIFE to spare that child the same fate he's endured with NO SMALL AMOUNT OF GRACE for almost forty years!

Sometimes I wonder if Voldemort hasn't twisted YOUR mind about certain things, Molly Prewett Weasley.

[alt_arthur]

I've, er . . . confiscated Molly's journal from her for the moment. Don't worry, I'll give it back once she's cooled down, but there's no point in raising unnecessary ill feelings from rash things said in the heat of the moment.

Alice, please don't be angry with Molly. You know that she has never held Remus' condition against him, and once she calms down enough to think it over, I don't think she'd argue that he shouldn't have tried to save the boy. She's simply afraid for the children, but I know that you guard them all fiercely, and you wouldn't let them come to harm. But it may be best in the end to find a different situation for the boy. Although I don't know how you can imagine you can smuggle him out to the Continent, through the Ward--well, but best, I suppose, that I NOT know if you have found a way that it can be done. Do you plan to move him soon, or will you wait, to see what happens with him during the next full moon?

[alt_arthur]

Forgot to add: and we are all immensely relieved that neither you nor the other operatives were hurt.

[alt_alice]

Ian is fine. He's a very small, very frightened little boy. He's staying in his own nursery with one of the healers for the time being - he's too weak to be moved or even to play with other children right now. I want to wait until full moon before we move him; if he does not transform it will better help us decide where he ought to be.

Your wife, Arthur - please remind her that we are all of us equal. Even werewolves. To think otherwise is to be just like the very thing we fight against every day.

Honestly, have you all gone batty? Remus is no traitor. If anything, we are the traitors. To him.

[alt_sirius]

We never told anyone this, but once when we were in our fourth year, Remus and James were roughhousing and Remus's teeth scraped over James's arm. He didn't mean to, and he didn't bite down, but after James sat up, he saw that the skin was broken.

We discussed it at the time, and decided not to say anything. It was a tense couple of weeks to the full moon, let me tell you! But we agreed that if James changed, nothing we'd done earlier would have helped, and if he didn't ... no one ever needed to be told about it. We didn't want Remus reported to the Werewolf Support Office, d'you see, or to force Dumbledore to reveal him to the other students.

Obviously, nothing happened. That's in the lad's favour, anyway.

As to the rest, though ... Alice, listen, I don't doubt that Remus doesn't want any other children made into werewolves. But that goal doesn't absolve him of his past actions. And until I have proof, I hate to say it, but he likely betrayed us first - and James, Lily and Peter died as a result. Now, if I know Moony, I'm sure he regrets that! But regret doesn't undo what was done. And if he was brought to it once, it could happen again. Would you rather risk exposing the whole Order, and all your innocent children, to the mercies of Death Eaters and their minions?