After James and Lily went back to Godric Hollow and the crowd dispersed, Remus and Sirius walked to the main road together, where they parted.

Remus Apparated outside his house and alarms wailed. Before Remus could realize, he found himself surrounded.

"Remus Lupin..." said the nearest man.

"Who are you?" demanded Remus, starting to move his hand discretely towards his pocket where his wand was.

"Why, we're your brothers, Lupin!" cackled another.

"What?" said Remus, slightly faintly.

"They are working for me, Remus." The evident leader came up to the front. Remus began to feel sick as his hand froze. He had nightmares about this face sometimes.

"So we meet again, Remus," said Fenrir Greyback. "And I have an offer for you."

"I am not going to accept any offer of yours!"

"You belong with us, Remus. Fellow werewolves," said the most brutal werewolf of all times, waving his hand at his minions. "Come and join us. The Dark Lord has much to offer to us."

"You are working for Voldemort?" said Remus.

"Of course, what did you expect? He gives us a fair share of his victims to savage, you know, especially pretty girls—"

Remus stared at him in horror.

"Maybe he'll let you have one of your friends? Mrs. Potter, Mrs. Longbottom or Miss McKinnon?"

"You haven't—you haven't caught any of them?"

"Not yet, but we will," said Greyback reassuringly. "You will join us, Remus Lupin, because whether you like it or not, you are one of us."

"I'm not!" shouted Remus, glaring at him, snatching out his wand. Instantly two of the crowd grabbed his arm.

"Come on, Remus—what have the wizards ever given us? Perhaps you care about Mr. Potter and Mr. Black. But are they worth betraying your own race and dying for?"

"They are," said Remus, through gritted teeth, as one of his captors dug his nails into his arms, drawing blood.

"You will call the Potters to save you now," ordered Greyback, waving his hand and making a screen appear, giving view into the living room of Godric Hollow, where James and Lily were talking.

"No!"

"Do it. Otherwise they both die," said Greyback, taking his hand toward the screen.

"James, Lily!" shouted Remus. "They are coming to take you!"

As the two of them looked up in shock, a werewolf came forward and pressed a wand against Remus' arm. Remus cried out and collapsed as electricity shot through his arm. Through his blurred vision, he saw James and Lily standing up, looking horrified.

"Don't come," croaked Remus. "It's a trap..." But he knew his friends couldn't hear him.

"Where are you?" cried Lily.

Greyback grinned at her. "You'll find us in Bluebell Woods."

"No—Lily—" cried Remus, but Greyback waved his wand, and the screen disappeared.

--------------------

Later James and Lily realized that that they had been foolish to go there alone, but they had been so worried about Remus that they hadn't thought it out. The group of Death Eaters left there captured them at once and took them to a dilapidated building.

"What have you done to Remus?" asked James furiously, looking around.

"He is safe here," said one from group herding them along.

"REMUS! REMUS!" shouted James.

"JAMES!" came Remus' answering voice from inside a locked room. James tried to fight himself out of his captor's grip with renewed strength.

"REMUS—DON'T—" he began. Then suddenly his voice stopped. The horrifying voice in his mind began to give him instructions.

"You lured us here, Remus?" asked James. "You have sided with these people? Your lot?"

James tried to fight his own voice as hard as he could, but it was no good.

"You are a monster just like them, Remus," said Lily, her normally sweet voice sounding unnaturally cruel.

Inside the room, Remus froze with shock and horror.

Lily and James turned and saw Voldemort himself standing behind them. Lily stared at the man with revulsion. James wanted to warn her to stop the eye contact, but his voice wouldn't work.

"Do you know the one thing I really feared at Hogwarts, Remus?" asked Lily, walking towards the door. "It was my nightly patrols with you when we were Prefects. I was frightened of you. I am sure all the others were too."

"Of course we were," said James. "Who wouldn't fear a savage monster like all of you here?"

Remus couldn't see their faces, but he could imagine them. He closed his eyes and shrank back towards the window.

A cloud parted to reveal the full moon.

--------------------

The howl from Remus' room broke the trance outside.

"REMUS!" shouted James, wanting more than anything else to tell his best friend that it wasn't them speaking.

Voldemort flicked his wand and James and Lily were slammed into the room opposite to Remus'. The door was closed and locked. Then Voldemort gave his instruction to Greyback and vanished.

Greyback had also transformed. He pushed Remus' door open and entered, maybe to have a werewolf-to-werewolf chat.

But Remus was ready.

For the first time in his life, Remus and the monster inside him worked in harmony and they attacked Greyback savagely. The monster had been subdued for 15 years without attacking anyone, and today it came out in all its fury.

Within moments, ­­­­­Greyback was lying on the floor, unconscious. Moony barged out of the room and brought down every single werewolf in the house single-handedly.

James and Lily heard the terrifying howls and growls echoing in the house and they huddled together, praying desperately that Remus was all right.

After nearly an hour, the sounds died out. Moony went out of the house and flopped down in the nearby woods, waiting for the moon to set—the monster having quenched its thirst at last.

--------------------

Sirius always made it a point to visit Remus on the mornings after full moon because the latter would be too tired to do anything. That morning, Sirius found Remus' house empty. A sense of foreboding rising in him, he Apparated to Godric Hollow, where, much to his consternation, he found that James and Lily were not present either.

There were two half empty cups of coffee on the centre table of the living room—evidently James and Lily had left in a hurry.

Sirius suddenly noticed the tape recorder Remus had gifted them last evening lying on the table

Maybe they wanted to record the memories of their first conversations after marriage as Remus' father and Muggle mother had done, thought Sirius, grinning, as he rewinded the recorder. By fast forwarding and rewinding repeatedly, he finally heard the name Bluebell Woods.

The next minute, he was there. He noticed the dilapidated house standing silently beside the forest. As he started exploring, he abruptly came across Remus lying under a tree, with his eyes closed.

Sirius knelt beside him and shook him. "Remus—wake up!"

Apparently Remus had been only asleep, because he opened his eyes quickly. "Padfoot?" he asked groggily.

"Remus! What happened? Where are James and Lily?"

On hearing their names, Remus sat up hastily. Sirius abruptly noticed the blood on his arms.

"Are you hurt?" he asked anxiously.

Remus leaned against the tree, suddenly feeling dreadfully ashamed. "No."

"Did you hurt someone?" asked Sirius. "Not James or Lily?"

"No, not them," said Remus, his eyes filling with tears. Sirius gave an alarmed glance at him and took charge of the situation.

"Wait. Just tell me what I ask you, Moony," said Sirius calmly. "D'you know where Prongs is?"

"Last time I saw...in that house...I guess." There were a fair number of Death Eaters guarding the house. Sirius and Remus were hidden from their view.

"Ok. Don't worry." Sirius produced a Patronus and sent a message to the Headquarters giving the details briefly.

"There doesn't seem to be anyone in that house yet," said Sirius, standing up.

Moody's Patronus came back, saying that they were sending members of the Order. "You and Remus stay where you are," it said.

"That's quite right. We can't take on them alone," said Sirius, sitting down again, "Now tell me, Moony— what's wrong?"

Remus broke down and told Sirius everything that had happened last night, especially James and Lily's words.

"Of course it was the Imperius Curse, you idiot!" said Sirius, shaking his head. "How can you think for a moment that Prongs would say something like that?"

"Because they are true," said Remus.

"Don't give me that nonsense, Moony."

"Are you afraid of me, Padfoot?" asked Remus tentatively.

Sirius turned and studied his face.

"Sorry, I'm not," he said, slinging his arm around Remus' shoulders. "You could be many things, but you could never be scary."

The familiar high pitched laughter they had come to recognize as the Dark Lord's suddenly rang out from the deserted mansion.