Book One

Shifting Lines Book One recounts Remus's first year at Hogwarts. The book was first published on July 30th, 2019, and was completed on March 3rd, 2020. It can be read on Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.net, Wordpress, and Wattpad.

## Prologue: Pictures On A Mantelpiece

**Dumbledore checks on the Lupins**

Lyall sends a letter to Professor Dumbledore informing him that Remus wouldn't be attending Hogwarts. Dumbledore pays a visit to find out more. He figures out that Remus is a werewolf, and though the boy's parents are very reluctant to let him go, Dumbledore manages to persuade Remus into considering attending the school.

## Chapter One: Firecracker and Glasses

**Train ride to Hogwarts**

Remus boards the Hogwarts Express, where his hard work to find an empty compartment is quickly all thrown out the window by two rowdy black-haired boys who desire to hide there from a pranked older student's wrath. Remus ends up lying to keep them safe. After an otherwise undisturbed train ride Remus embarks on a boat along with Hagrid and all the other first years and is welcomed to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The chapter ends with all the first years waiting for the Sorting in a small chamber by the entrance hall.

## Chapter Two: In a Hole in the Wall There Lived the Gryffindors

**Sorting, the feast, and the first night in the dorms**

The first year students are Sorted. Remus hardly eats anything during the feast until dessert comes around, and doesn't talk much. The new Gryffindors are given the tour of their tower, Jerroll almost beats Sirius up, and then they head to sleep. Sirius switches beds with Struthers. James and Sirius talk late into the night and make a promise to be friends forever.

## Chapter Three: A Metal Matchstick

**First Transfiguration and History lessons**

James asks Remus whether he remembers the way to the Great Hall. He, Sirius and Peter follow Remus as he successfully navigates the castle, partly thanks to his memory, partly thanks to his nose. The trio sits with Remus though Remus had quietly wished they didn't. With mail comes a Howler for Sirius from his mother. They chat about blood, Remus escapes the Hall early but still manages to receive his schedule. He goes sit and think in a hallway, and when he realizes it is almost time for Transfiguration, he finds a painting to guide him to the class. He gets there in time. Professor McGonagall gives a lecture, turns her desk into a small pony, and gives the students matchsticks to turn into needles. Sirius manages to light his desk on fire. James and Remus both get pretty close with the stick-needle, Remus managing to turn his into metal but not change the shape, while James gets his all pointy and sharp although it remains matchstick-colored. McGonagall assigns an essay, dismisses the class and asks Remus to stay behind. She asks him to meet her at the Hospital Wing after Potions and compliments his performance in class. Remus hurries to History of Magic where he is severely disappointed by Binns. Sirius teases Remus for taking a lot of notes.

## Chapter Four: Onions Don't Go Well With Wolves

**First Potions lesson & meeting Madam Pomfrey**

Remus's first Potions lesson is horrible. He arrives early, as does Snape, and they read their textbooks until Slughorn arrives. Remus is immediately assaulted by the smells of the classroom when he first steps in there. He partners with Lily. Remus offers to get the water but is bad at it because he is small and also has to keep his werewolf strength a secret. Sirius helps him out, flexing his muscles and winking before leaving. Remus is also bad at his next task, which is slicing onions. The potion doesn't turn out great. After class Lily invites him to find the library with her, but he runs off towards the Hospital Wing instead, tripping and injuring himself in the process. Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey are impressed by Remus' moon chart skills and explain him the arrangements regarding his lycanthropy.

## Chapter Five: Vinegar And Paint

**First meeting with Peeves, paint prank gone wrong, first Charms lesson**

He's survived his first day at Hogwarts, Remus thinks, only to realize he's lost. He asks help from Peeves, who calls him baby and throws water balloons filled with vinegar at him. Remus escapes and heads back to dorms, but as he opens the door a bucket of green paint splashes onto him. James and Sirius apologise over and over -- the paint was meant for Spinnet, not Remus -- while Remus goes to a bathroom and locks himself in a stall. Sirius lifts James so James can peer at Remus from over the door, continuing the apologies and explanation, but Remus runs back to the dorm and hides under his bed. James and Sirius look for him for a while, from the library and from the dorm, but when the time comes for supper they go eat still not having found Remus. Remus stays under the bed all evening and eventually falls asleep there.

In the morning, when he crawls out, James and Sirius see him and apologise yet again. Remus waits until they've gone to breakfast to avoid sitting with them, succeeds, and drops his fork as Lily joins him instead. They chat about classes. Then it's time for Charms, where Remus gives a speech on the Lumos spell and how magic words work.

## Chapter Six: Liability?

**First Herbology and Defense lessons, writing home, first time in the library**

After Professor Flitwick dismisses class Remus ignores everyone until at Herbology Sirius pokes him in the ribs. After class James tries to drag Remus to lunch with them but Remus manages to escape. In Defense Dedenne lectures (about what dark magic is, then imps and pixies), and at the end of the lesson she asks Remus to stay behind. She tells him he's a liability and she's not going to make any accommodations for her.

Remus writes home. He tells how he's doing, focusing on how cool the classes are, and attaches to the letter a drawing of an imp he drew in Defense. He also says he's nervous about the full moon.

Sir Nicholas shows Remus the way to the owlery. After Remus sends the letter, he goes to the library. He loves it.

## Chapter Seven: Not Gonna Bite

**The first full moon**

A Slytherin Prefect takes points away from Remus for running in the hallways and being outside the Gryffindor Tower after curfew. Remus keeps running and gets to the Fat Lady before the curfew hits. He grumbles about the unfairness of this all when he's in the dorm, thinking he's alone, but then Sirius makes his presence known by agreeing with him and they have a one-sided conversation.

Remus sees nightmares and wakes up screaming. Everyone stares at him. Spinnet isn't happy.

Saturday evening Peter catches Remus packing a bag. Remus panics, claims he isn't doing anything and escapes to the Hospital Wing. Pomfrey leads Remus to the Whomping Willow, accompanies him to the Shrieking Shack and shows him around the house. Remus is shocked it is a house. She leaves and he explores and waits until the wolf takes over.

## Chapter Eight: What Kind Of Healer Kicks A Broken Leg?

More of the full moon. James and Sirius try to come see Remus in the Hospital Wing, and when Pomfrey refuses, James causes a scene claiming his leg is broken -- to which Pomfrey answers by kicking/nudging it to prove it's fine. Remus thinks he should be left at the Shack instead of being brought back to Hogwarts between full moon nights, but Pomfrey strongly disagrees. She also strongly disagrees with Remus's need to clean the Shack in the mornings.

When Remus gets out of the hospital wing, James and Sirius express joy at seeing him again as well as concern over how sickly he still looks.

## Chapter Nine: Chocolate Is A Great Cure

Remus wakes up under his bed to mostly healed wounds and a chocolate frog from Peter. A letter from Hope arrives. At breakfast Lily is happy to find Remus is no longer in the Hospital Wing, and she invites him to Study Group. In Defense Dedenne teaches the class about the classifications of "being" and "beast". In the evening Remus helps James win a game of chess against Sirius. Remus does well in Astronomy, answering many questions.

## Chapter Ten: A Wolf In Lion's Clothing

On the way down from the Astronomy tower, Raven Craft asks Remus why he isn't in Ravenclaw. Spinnet says Sirius should be in Slytherin and it is revealed that Sirius has said something to Struthers that angered Spinnet though Sirius has apologized for it. A fight breaks out (Remus throws a spell as well) but Professor Spring appears and stops it. James, Sirius and Peter are impressed by Remus's magic.

Remus goes to Transfiguration early and asks McGonagall if he's going to be expelled for attacking another student. She says no and lets him stay in the classroom while they wait for the lesson to start. Remus gets good marks on homework. James invites him to rig up firecrackers in some toilets but Remus refuses.

Lyall sends Remus a newspaper clipping about a lycanthrope having been captured by the Werewolf Capture Unit. She had been living near children, like Remus is.

Sirius plays around in the Potions class and gets sent to the Hospital Wing for injuring his hands. He doesn't remember the way and Slughorn doesn't trust him with James so Remus is sent with him.

## Chapter Eleven: A Griffin-Door

Remus writes to his parents while James, Sirius and Peter mess up a hair growth spell. In a separate incident the three boys let Transfiguration animals loose in the Gryffindor common room. Remus goes to the dorm and tries to read but the others are there as well. They start listening to music and playing card games and sharing jokes, and once Remus laughs at one the others start telling him puns.

Remus goes to Study Group for the first time. They have a discussion about Emeric the Evil and Egbert the Egregious.

Flying class doesn't go well for Remus and Peter, but James has a great time.

## Chapter Twelve: Bats Are Supposed To Be Furry Anyway

Remus spots Peter being bothered by Mulciber and Avery and makes the Slytherins' nose hair grow and wriggle so Peter can run off. Peter tells Sirius and James and they're all very impressed. Remus says the key to his skills is books. The others aren't too excited about reading so instead they ask Remus to do some research for them. The next day they come with Remus when he heads to the library though he'd wished they'd forgotten about the whole thing. Remus copies a page from a book and the others get thrown out of the library for being too noisy.

## Chapter Thirteen: Jeers and Tears

Mulciber, Avery and Bulstrode attack Remus and take him to a bathroom, where Moaning Myrtle appears, scaring the Slytherins away. Remus cries and talks with her, and promises to come back sometime.

McGonagall gives Remus the wand and bag he left behind when fleeing the Slytherins and asks what happened. Remus keeps lying. McGonagall lets in Sirius and James, who had been eavesdropping, and asks them if they know anything (they don't). She lets them go but as the other boys continue questioning Remus he storms away to the library.

There he meets Aegis Silverlocke, who wishes to join the Study Group. Lily welcomes him when she gets there. Craft questions letting a Slytherin join the group.

## Chapter Fourteen: Sawdust Doesn't Make Good Candy

Remus has a noisy nightmare. Spinnet is angry about it. In flying class James shows off again. Hooch is angry about that. Remus chats with Sir Nicholas before going to see Dumbledore in his office. Dumbledore asks how he's been doing, offers him chocolate and tells Remus it'd be okay, if not even good for him to make friends. Remus disagrees. Dumbledore also tells him about legilimency and asks Remus if he'd like training in occlumency. Remus accepts.

## Chapter Fifteen: A Couple Very Bad Days

Sirius, James, Peter and Lily ask about why Remus was asked to go to Dumbledore's office, once Remus told them a lie about how he was going to visit his mother Sirius, James and Peter start singing a wizarding version of the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song. Remus gets angry at them, calls them 'Poisonous Bunch-Backed Toads' and wrote a letter to his parents. When he went up to the dorm at midnight, Sirius apologised to him and asked him what the insult meant. Remus didn't accept the apology. Later there was a Dedenne lesson, while no one else was able to do the Vermindilous spell, Dedenne only got annoyed at Remus. Finally Remus managed to make his wand glow green but even though no one else could do nothing, she still chided him. Then Remus managed to get the spell right but she was talking to James and didn't notice. Remus tried again and did it very well but Dedenne got annoyed at him for 'attacking when her back was turned' and sent him out of the class.

## Chapter Sixteen: A New Teacher

Remus is in the bathroom and is getting annoyed at how he was sent out, he thinks of sending Myrtle to haunt Dedenne but comes to the conclusion that Dedenne should be commended for putting up with him as much as she does. Lily is angry at Dedenne for doing that but he says that he deserves what he got and was wrong to do that. He writes a letter to his parents saying that he wants to come home but there were no owls who would let him near them in the owlery so he went back into the dorm where Spinnet teased him about Evans. When he left to take a shower he heard them arguing about him and even James, who was defending him said it wasn't his fault that he wasn't normal. The next day, no one talked to him, he missed study group and in Defence, Dedenne got angry at him for 'scaring Pettigrew with his green sparks' and made him sit in the corner, redoing his essay. Instead of going to supper, he spent more time with the Fat Friar. When he found out Remus wasn't going to supper, he directed him to the kitchens and the house elves gave him food.

Later, Remus gets a letter from his mum (and cookies), a letter from McGonagall about detention and a letter from Dumbledore telling him to come to his office. While he was finishing his essays outside, he wonders what it's like to be a normal boy, he also contemplate why society won't find a Cure to Lycanthropy because a silver axe is already a good enough cure for most of society. Remus gets into an argument with James about playing with them, Remus says it's because of pity and James asks what kind of friends he had before and he answers that he had none.

He runs off and hides in various spare rooms until it's time to go to Dumbledore's office and meets Fawley for the first time. She explains that she has nothing against werewolves and that she'll teach him Occlumency.

## Chapter 17: Come On Baby Do The Locomotion

**Detention with Hagrid & learning the Locomotor spell**

Filch takes Remus to Hagrid for the detention. James and Sirius are at Hagrid's when they arrive, and before they leave, they assure Remus Hagrid is the coolest person to have detention with, as well as wish Remus good luck. Hagrid has Remus search the pumpkin patch for flesh-eating slugs. Remus thinks the detention wasn't too bad, but he still doesn't want for it to happen again.

In Charms the class is introduced to the locomotor spell. Flitwick pairs Remus with Sirius. Remus accidentally sends his feather up Flitwick's nose, for which Flitwick awards him five points. Sirius compliments Remus, then blows up the new feather. Remus helps him learn the spell.

In the Great Hall James tries to use the spell to make a glass fall over in the Slytherin table. Sirius tries to assist him like Remus did, and eventually Remus puts aside his book and helps too. The others convince Remus to do the spell for them and he does, sending all four boys into giggles.

## Chapter 18: Broom Troubles

**Study group, Flying, first occlumency lesson**

Remus tries and fails to be distant with James, Sirius and Peter. When he goes to study group, James and Sirius come to the library too and make fireworks go off. Other study group members ask Remus about this, as they think Remus is friends with them, but Remus tells them they're only dormmates.

Remus returns to the dorm and questions the two. They explain they were trying out timer spells, which turned out to be too advanced. James tells Remus they're now banned from the library until November, among other punishments, none of which they seem bothered about. Remus silently questions their sanity.

On Tuesday's Flying lesson Hooch has the students pair up and toss Quaffles back and fort while balancing on brooms. Remus ends up with Silverlocke, which Sirius seems bummed about. Mulciber and Avery mock Remus for being bad at flying. James yeets a Quaffle at Avery's head. Silverlocke and some members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team think James is talented.

After supper Remus goes to his first occlumency lesson. They talk theory, then Fawley goes into Remus's head multiple times until Remus's head hurts too much and they stop. Fawley instructs him to practise emptying his mind and tells him he is lucky to have such caring parents before she lets him go.

## Chapter 19: But Pettigrew Could Have Gotten Him

**Potions, bonding with not-friends**

Remus thinks about his first full moon.

In Potions they are using silver knives. An ingredient is making students giggly, including Remus. Peter starts hyperventilating and is escorted to the Hospital Wing by Remus, James and Sirius.

Remus tries the rosadorus spell but only manages to sneeze rose petals. Then he helps Sirius, James and Peter with homework. The next day he plays cards with them, and the next day he spends time with them too. They convince him to help with a prank.

## Chapter 20: Nobody Pays Attention In History Anyway

**Filching from Filch, full moon**

Myrtle helps distract Filch so James can set up dung bombs in his office and Sirius can filch confiscated goods. The four boys go play cards. Remus tells them his mother is ill and he must go see her before leaving for the Hospital wing.

Most of the first night is spent waiting, the wolf only coming out for a few hours. Remus sleeps the day and is a wolf again for the next night. He writes a letter to Dumbledore asking to stay in the house during the days too. The next morning he wakes up in bad shape but goes to class after lunch anyway. James, Sirius, Peter and Lily are glad to see he's back and offer him notes from the classes he missed.

## Chapter 21: Foot Meet Mouth

**Remus distances himself from the other Marauders**

Remus takes a nap and has nightmares. He overhears the others wondering if it wasn't only his mother but him too who was ill. Him, Sirius, James and Peter eat supper together in the dorm.

Remus copies Lily's notes, since the boys' weren't very good. After Transfiguration McGonagall talks to him about his wish to stay at the house. After History Remus complains to Lily about Binns ignoring him, and they discuss school, blood politics, and friendship. Sirius and James overhear Remus saying he doesn't need them. Remus feels bad, then starts avoiding them and feels bad about that too. Sirius keeps trying to befriend him to his and James's bafflement.

## Chapter 22: What Black Said

**Discussing the house with Dumbledore, saving the not-friends, loud nightmares, we find out Sirius called Struthers a Mudblood**

Older students discuss the Shrieking Shack and Remus learns the house is in Hogsmeade. He goes to Dumbledore. Dumbledore tells him it's possible to have friends and keep the secret at the same time, and explains he has the house scream all month instead of just Remus's regularly scheduled wolf time. He also says that putting Remus in a dark cement room underground would be child abuse, which Remus disagrees with.

Third year boys didn't like what James, Sirius and Peter did to their dorm while they were away. Remus comes to the rescue by lying and saying that the three were with him most of the day, giving them an alibi.

Remus has a nightmare. Spinnet is angry. Peter, Sirius and James defend Remus and make sure he's okay.

Struthers asks Remus if he wants to hang out sometime. Remus refuses because he dislikes Spinnet. He finds out Sirius has called Struthers a Mudblood.

## Chapter 23: I Ain't Been Dropping No Eaves

**Eavesdropping x2, occlumency, arguing with Sirius**

Remus angrily ignores Sirius. Sirius, James and Peter observe this and go ask McGonagall if Remus is okay. Remus eavesdrops on the conversation. McGonagall tells them that if Remus wants to keep something private he can.

Remus has occlumency. He's upset he isn't any good yet, and that Fawley saw him naked in a memory, and that she ends the lesson early when his head starts to hurt too much.

Sirius brings Remus dessert since he missed it, but Remus doesn't accept it. He leaves the dorm to shower but eavesdrops instead. James thinks Remus is weird and they should stop trying to make friends with him. Sirius decides to try extra hard instead.

Sirius follows Remus everywhere and keeps pestering him. He accidentally breaks Remus's ink bottle and wants to replace it but Remus won't let him. Lily asks Remus what's going on and they agree that Sirius is an idiot. Remus starts calling Lily by her firsts name and wonders if maybe he could be friends with her.

## Chapter 24: What Black Meant

**Arguments, Sirius hadn't meant what he said, McGonagall finds that Remus is an unusual student indeed**

Sirius keeps pestering Remus. Peter tells Remus that everyone needs friends, and that Remus doesn't know the whole story about the Mudblood incident.

Sirius explains to Remus that he didn't know Mudblood was a slur. Remus believes him and apologizes but they still end up arguing and they end up accidentally breaking Remus's bag. Farrow throws Remus out of the library as there were books and ink in the bag and Farrow was upset by their treatment. Remus is really angry at Sirius and rosoduruses him.

Remus goes to McGonagall to tell what he did. Sirius had lied so she is surprised to hear it was Remus who did it. She wants to know the reason Remus hexed him, and when he refuses to tell her, she threatens him with inadequate punishment. Remus, who insists he deserves detention, tells her he doesn't have any friends and Sirius has been trying to change that. McGonagall gives him the detention.

## Chapter 25: Pinky Promise

**Lily and Remus become friends, Remus says he has a blood disease, 5v5 fight with Slytherins**

Sirius gives Remus ink and says if he doesn't accept them he's going to hex *him.* Remus is too tired to argue.

At night Remus finds Lily crying in the common room. She tells him about Petunia and he comforts her. Lily asks about the whole deal between him and Sirius, and asks if she is bothering Remus (she is not). Lily and Remus become pinky promised friends.

Remus gets a letter from Hope and tells Lily he and Hope have a genetic blood disease.

A bunch of Slytherins jump on Remus and Lily in a corridor. James, Sirius and Peter appear and join the fight. Lily hurts her leg so afterwards they all go to the Hospital Wing. Lily lies to Pomfrey and says she fell.