June Challenge FIC: High Hopes. Remus Lupin, original characters, rated PG-15.

Title: High Hopes
Author: rian219
Rating: PG-15
Length: 2219 words.
Characters: Remus Lupin, several OC's. A cameo appearance by Sirius Black.
Warnings: Possible disturbing imagery, (original) character death.
Summary: Working for Werewolf Support Services might have been one step up from being a werewolf yourself, but Alastair Finch wouldn't have wanted to work anywhere else.
Author's note/Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. They are the property of JK Rowling and her associated people. Thanks to irreparable and suzene for the extremely speedy beta. For omniocular's "All in a Day's Work" Challenge. A tiny little bit late, in my time zone at least. Apologies.


~*~

Alastair Finch had an uncle, his mother's brother. His uncle was a fair bit younger than his mother, but was still old enough to mind Alastair when his parents went out. Alastair liked being minded by his uncle; he was cool, in his Muggle clothes, with his Muggle cigarettes and Muggle music, bringing Alastair sweets and chocolate and telling him good stories and playing fun games with him. Alastair liked his uncle a lot.

But then one day something happened, Alastair didn't know what, all he knew was that his mum was crying, and his father was grim as he comforted her. When his parents went out after that, he was minded by old Mrs O'Malley down the street, who wasn't anywhere near as fun as his uncle. Whenever he tried to bring his uncle up he was told to be quiet, that he'd upset his mother. He didn't want to do that, so eventually he stopped asking, but he never stopped wondering what had happened that was so bad.

Months later, there was a knock on the door one afternoon, and he ran to answer it, curious to see who it was, since they didn't seem to get many visitors anymore. What he saw on the front step when he opened the door made him gape: his uncle, but not his uncle how Alastair remembered him. He was skinny, so skinny, and filthy dirty, his hair matted, his skin and clothes stained with mud. His clothes were ragged too, worn, and Alastair could see scars through some of the rips in his uncle's shirt, on his chest and on his arms when he lifted the cigarette he held to his mouth and took a puff. He blew the smoke out and smiled at Alastair, but he didn't look happy. He asked if Alastair's mother was home, but before Alastair could call for her, she was there, pushing him back away from the door and towards the kitchen, moving out onto the steps and pulling the door closed behind her.

Alastair loitered in the kitchen trying to hear what they were saying, but with the door closed he couldn't. They talked for a long time, but when Alastair's mother came back in his uncle wasn't with her, and she looked like she'd been crying. Alastair ran to the window to watch his uncle walk out their garden gate and down the street, watching for as long as he could see his ragged form from the window.

Alastair locked himself in his room after that. When his father got home from work, he and his mother had a row, about his uncle -- that much was clear, even if they were trying to whisper so he wouldn't hear. Alastair ate his dinner by himself while his father read the Daily Prophet in the sitting room, and his mother cried in the kitchen while she was doing the dishes. After dinner Alastair went back to his room and got out some of the games his uncle had given him, trying to play them by himself until finally going to bed.

He hardly slept a wink. There was a dog outside, loose in the streets, and it wouldn't stop howling. It howled and howled, and Alastair put his pillow over his head to try to block out the sound, as well as the sound of his mother crying again and his father murmuring spells at every door and window of the house. Alastair pretended to be asleep when his father came into his room, and his father didn't speak to him as he stood at the window and whispered spells at it, his wand in his hand, as the dog outside howled again and again.

He must have fallen asleep eventually, because he was woken by his mother's screams. Heart pounding, he scrambled out of bed and ran to his window, that looked out into their backyard. He couldn't open it, because of whatever his father had done to it the night before, but he could still see out of it. He could see his mother and father, and also his uncle, lying on the grass naked, his body twisted unnaturally and absolutely ripped to shreds, his sightless eyes staring up at the sky. When Alastair was a bit older, he'd know that the word he was looking for to describe what his uncle looked like was "flayed", but all he knew when he was little was that his uncle had looked as if he'd been chewed up and spat out by some enormous monster, and that he was dead. Alastair had never seen so much blood in his life, and it covered his mother's chest and neck as she cradled his uncle in her arms and screamed while his father tried to pull her away.

They never talked about it, not once, and it wasn't until Alastair had finished his healer training that he put two and two together, after his mother had died suddenly and he'd been helping his father clear out her things. He'd found an envelope, full of newspaper clippings, from Muggle and Wizarding papers. The Wizarding ones talked of werewolves on the loose in the suburbs near his childhood home, and warned people to keep inside on full moon nights. The Muggle ones had been dated a few days later, and had reported dog attacks, night time dog attacks, and sometimes killings. Each article had printed with it a picture of the person who'd been attacked or killed, and Alastair leafed through them until he found the one he'd known would be there from the minute he'd read the Wizarding clippings.

His uncle had been a werewolf.

~*~

Alastair had heard the whispers, about how working for Werewolf Support Services was only one step up from being one yourself, how it was career suicide, and if not that, then surely it was suicide of the social sort.

Alastair disagreed. He did his job the best he could, ignoring the whispers of his workmates and the steadily growing piles of files concerning werewolves he'd tried to help marked "deceased" or "missing". He knew that if he could just save one of them, just one, then it would be worth it. So he was their shoulder to cry on, a friendly face, a sounding board, whatever they needed him to be. He gave sweets to the little ones and coffee to the big ones, whiskey sometimes too if they needed it, and the morning after every full moon he was down in the Ministry's containment facility, cleaning and dressing wounds, doling out blankets and hot soup to whoever was fit enough to take it.

When he couldn't save them he made sure he gave them a fitting send off, helping their families if they had one that cared, or doing it himself if they didn't. It was the least he could do.

He flattered himself that he treated them all equally, but of course he had favourites. One of those was a little boy named Remus, who had been coming to see him for a good few years, having been bitten when he was a tiny lad of five. Most children bitten that young didn't survive, their little bodies unable to withstand the ravages of the change, and often their parents couldn't cope with seeing the effects of it every month if they did; but Remus' parents were different. He was a good, brave boy, and they loved him. It made Alastair all tight in the chest every time he saw it written all over their faces. Remus was a skinny little thing, scrawny, and Alastair always made sure he left his office with a few extra sweets, to tide him over until next time.

Alastair had been seeing young Remus for about six years the day the boy came into his office practically bursting at the seams. Alastair thought he'd never seen him so excited, and while he usually let his clients tell him whatever they chose to, he couldn't help but do a little prodding in this case.

"You look happy today, young Remus."

That was all it took. A Cheshire cat grin split the boy's face in two, and in the most animated voice Alastair had ever heard from him, he said, "I'm a Wizard! I'm going to Hogwarts!"

Alastair smiled brightly in his turn, even while wondering how in Merlin's name that had happened. "Is that right? That'd be about right, with you being eleven now and all. You've got lots of preparing to do. What House do you think you'll be in, then?"

Remus shrugged, still beaming, and reached for the sweets bowl Alastair kept on his desk, crunching a humbug noisily between his teeth as he kicked the legs of his chair with his feet. "I don't know," he said with his mouth full, "My dad was in Hufflepuff, so maybe I'll be in that one."

Alastair smiled again as Remus shoved some more sweets in his mouth and started chewing them enthusiastically. "Maybe you will be. I was in Ravenclaw myself."

Remus' eyes grew as round as saucers, and Alastair had to stifle a laugh at how comical he looked. "You were?" Remus' voice was awed as his hand went towards his mouth with the last of his sweets in it. "Maybe I'll be in Ravenclaw then."

Alastair did laugh then, he couldn't help it. "Maybe you will be. There's no telling, really, until that Sorting Hat is on your head."

"Yeah." Remus nodded, then smiled brightly again. "It doesn't matter anyway, because wherever I am, I'll get to learn magic!"

Alastair laughed again. "Yes, you certainly will."

~*~

Alastair saw Remus regularly even after he started school, and so he kept abreast of the goings on at Hogwarts. Remus was doing well in his schoolwork, so he said, although as time went on Alastair heard less and less about schoolwork and more and more about Remus' friends: Sirius, James and Peter. Alastair was glad of it; if Remus didn't always look well, he at least looked happy, something that Alastair didn't often see in his line of work. Twice only did Remus break down in front of him after he started at Hogwarts: once after he'd had his Careers talk with Professor McGonagall, his Head of House, and discovered how limited his options really were because of what he was, and then again the year after that, although he refused that time to tell Alastair what the matter was.

Alastair gave him tissues and career advice the first time, and tissues and sympathy the second time, which was all he could really do, knowing from past experience that Remus would pretend it never happened afterwards, and would go on quite as normal. Which was exactly what happened both times; Remus composed himself, said thank you, and left, snagging a handful of sweets on his way out and never speaking of either incident again.

~*~

Alastair had been seeing Remus Lupin twice a year for twelve years by the time the lad bounced into his office again, all smiles. He was seventeen now, finished school, a fully-fledged wizard with good NEWTS and a license to Apparate to match. He was moving to London too, he said, moving in with Sirius, and he was going to get a good job, earn money, and have fun. Alastair grinned and nodded, saying yes, that's right, that's exactly what you're going to do, and Remus grinned back, standing up to leave and dipping his hand into the sweets as he did so.

Alastair followed Remus to the door of his office, congratulating him again before letting him out. When Remus walked out into the waiting room, there was a young man there, someone that Alastair hadn't seen before. He knew he hadn't seen him before, because he had a good head for faces, and if he'd seen someone that handsome, he definitely would have remembered. In any case, it had to be either Sirius, James or Peter, it had to be. Perhaps it was Sirius, and perhaps he was here because they were going looking for a London flat, so they could move in, get good jobs, earn money and have fun.

The handsome boy who might have been Sirius jumped up when Remus came into the room, and grinned at him, and Remus got him to hold out his hand so he could drop half the sweets he held in his own hand into it. They made to leave the waiting room, but just before they did, Remus turned around and waved.

"Bye, Alastair."

The handsome boy turned around and waved too, smiling again as he echoed Remus. "Bye, Alastair!" he said, then turned back around, putting his hand on the back of Remus' neck and propelling him out of the room, turning him left to go down the hallway toward the lifts.

Alastair watched them until they were out of sight, then shook his head, chuckling as he went back into his office and shut the door behind him. Remus Lupin was still a favourite, after all these years, and Alastair had high hopes for his future. Very high hopes. That boy was going to make something of himself, Alastair was certain of it.