Parting Ways
by Morgan D.

Moony was famished, parched, frantic. Every muscle of his body burned with harrowing pain, which was nothing compared to the grief devouring his very being, choking his roar into a lacerating howl.

He recognised this place. It was the same dark, cluttered cage of wood and stone where he used to be imprisoned when he had been little more than a cub. The same place from where his pack would come to rescue him, so they could all run to the welcoming Forest and play.

However, his pack wouldn't come tonight. His packmates were gone, all gone, and Moony couldn't go to them, no matter how badly he wanted to be with them again.

Agile Prongs, with his ridiculously thin legs and noisy hooves, guiding them through the forest to where fun awaited them, his mighty antlers and steel-strong will keeping the others — specially Moony himself — from straying away. How could a pack hold on after its leader was lost? Who could possibly replace noble, audacious Prongs?

Tiny Wormtail, quick and resourceful, so shrewdly clever, always the first to sense any lurking danger and alert the pack. Cruel Wormtail, why had he wounded their pack so viciously? Why had he remained silent when the darkest of all dangers had come upon them, sneaking into their midst and setting them apart? Why had he run away and let them all die?

And Padfoot... dearest, beloved Padfoot. No matter where they went, how far they travelled, how tired they grew, Padfoot would always find the way back. He would lash ferociously at any foolish creature that dared to threaten them, would defend the pack to his last strength, and would always lick Moony's wounds better.

Why couldn't Padfoot find his way back now? He had before... he always had. Why wasn't he here to free Moony, to run with him, to chase squirrels with him, to roll in the grass with him, to make this intolerable pain go away?

Moony launched against the barriers of its infernal cage, stumbling on some broken piece of furniture. His head collided brutally on the wall, splinters of rotten wood pierced into his chest and left foreleg. He tried to pull them out, but his fangs could not grasp the minuscule woody fibres, so he gnawed in frustration at the whole limb instead. Syrupy blood filled his mouth, and he wanted more, more, more, so he could quiet his hunger and the wailing hollowness inside him.

His ears quivered as something unexpected brushed their white-bronze fur: the icy lick of a heavy-scented breeze, with promises of freedom and... blood.

Blood, hot blood, still gushing from a hot, living body, where? Where was it coming from, how could the wind dance playfully inside his cage, how did it manage to come calling him out, where was the way out? Moony sprang against the walls, the door, the boarded windows, the floor, bellowing madly in his desperate need to be out, to hunt, to dive into sweetly fragrant blood, where was it? More furniture collapsed under his weight and fury, more splinters cut through his flesh, more blood tinged his fur, but he couldn't be interested in his own crimson fluids now. He had to get out.

He found it at last, of course, of course! The small unlit hole from where his pack used to come to his rescue, the narrow tunnel that led to the beautiful, heavenly Forest. The passage blew its perfumed invitation in Moony's snout, and the wolf did not hesitate. He leapt forward, running as fast as his wounded legs allowed him.

Such a long way, but the smell was getting stronger. And now he could hear... could it be? The sound of hooves on the grass, Prongs! Prongs was here, he had come back, Prongs! Don't go away, wait for Moony, why does the tunnel have to be so long, Prongs wait! Moony is coming, legs don't hurt any more, just please don't go away again, Prongs! Prongs!

He climbed through the hole between the tree roots, barking an eager greeting. The Willow was quiet, its thick branches reaching to the moonlit sky. And waiting for him outside...

Hooves patted the grass elegantly. Large hooves that came from brawny, powerful legs, which supported a massive body of short, golden fur. Moony looked at the hairless chest adorned with saffron-coloured beads and the white-blond head towering over him and growled.

It wasn't Prongs.

How dared it not be Prongs?

"Peace, my wolf friend," said the palomino centaur. "I have been waiting for you."

Moony growled louder. Alone, he could not take down a centaur. And centaurs weren't Moony's prey. Their top half looked like a good meal, but the scent was wrong, and the other half was completely wrong. If he had known the blood he had smelled was from a centaur...

But the centaur wasn't the one bleeding. As the large creature moved aside, Moony saw a boar lying on his side, still kicking weakly in a pool of crimson blood, a long arrow nailed into its body.

Not Moony's chosen prey either. But he was starving! He was aching all over with the need to find shelter and comfort in the feel of raw, juicy flesh snapping between his fangs. And the boar still lived, still whimpered, still longed to escape, which meant its blood would feel so warm and tasty on Moony's tongue.

The centaur offered the dying animal with a friendly gesture. "I expect you to be hungry."

Moony eyed the man-horse being suspiciously. A present? A trap? Centaurs had never tried to hunt Moony before. Which doesn't mean they could be trusted. They were not packmates.

"I'm afraid I cannot provide you the sort of prey your kind likes best," the centaur was grinning. "Humans have this peculiar belief that their lives are more sacred than those of other living beings. Even Albus Dumbledore, who would not object to my hunting boars and clabberts, would in all likelihood banish me if I targeted a human with my arrow. And I don't have anywhere else to go now."

Uninterested in the sounds coming from the centaur's mouth, Moony saw him pull the arrow from the boar's flank; the animal jerked slightly, but it was already too weak to flee. Blood spurted from the open wound. The wolf salivated.

"This will look crude to your human mind later," the centaur sighed, stepping away, "but it's necessary. A dead meal would have blinded you to what you were brought here to see. Please help yourself."

Hunger got the better of Moony. However, he forced himself to wait until the centaur was fairly distant, sitting on his folded legs and watching the skies. Only then did he jump onto his meal.

The boar was still wailing when the werewolf devoured its entrails.

"Hagrid is tending to his brother Grawp. Albus Dumbledore is away and not due to come back before tomorrow night. None of the other humans would risk coming out during the full moon, and the castle is practically empty anyhow." The centaur turned his head to look solemnly at the werewolf. "We shall not be interrupted."

Sleepy after the banquet, Moony followed the centaur toward the lake. He wasn't sated, he wasn't happy... he was out, he was free, the Forest breathed so close, but without his pack... without Padfoot...

Too tired to care about anything, he limped after the man-horse creature, watching the marks the hooves left on the muddy ground surrounding the lakeshore, remembering the times when he had chased Prongs by tracking some very different marks, and how Padfoot would push him from behind, pressing him to walk faster, and Wormtail would run around their legs.

If only Prongs and Padfoot had left a track behind, Moony would have followed them... nothing could have held him back...

The centaur led him to the very rim of the lake and again sat down on his folded legs, the water touching his palomino fur in its tranquil rippling. Moony watched indifferently as he unclasped the string around his neck and let the tiny beads drop into the water, tinting the surface with that dreamy saffron hue.

"My herd would be appalled to see me now," the centaur whispered. "I'm afraid their opinion of werewolves is just slightly higher than their opinion of humans."

Dazzling eyes, the man-horse had, clear and blue. Like Padfoot's...

He was touching the water with his slender fingers, drawing delicate patterns on the surface. "But the time for yet another schism has come and the Lupus constellation, usually so pale and disregarded, is showing its strength this summer."

The centaur's deep voice was making Moony dizzy. He had eaten too much, too fast, his throat was dry. If he could drink some water... Would those beads make it taste funny? They had no smell, and the spiralling colours were pretty to watch...

"Be careful not to get carried away. There might be more than a hundred thousand layers already and they multiply by the hour. You will need to return here in order to fulfil your role."

Moony wished the centaur would stop making so much noise. Limping forward, he crouched in the shallow water. His fur bristled at the chilly contact, his gore-covered wounds stung mildly, but the wolf forgot all about it when he stuck his tongue out and drank the unevenly coloured liquid.

It tasted like water. It smelled like water. It felt like water. Beyond any doubt, it was water.

And it was also water forming the gigantic wall at the other side of the lake, growing even higher as it ran toward Moony, building a larger-than-life wave that would surely devastate the grounds, the castle, the entire Forest.

There was no sound. The centaur was gone. Moony was alone at the lakeshore, hurt and exhausted, staring at the wave that now bent upon him, ready to smash him with its deadly power. A vague instinct told him to close his eyes. He did not.

The wolf kept his eyes wide open as the wave broke over him, taking with it the world he had once known.

And yet, Moony had stayed. The water came down and quieted, forming a peaceful, lemon-ivory ocean that spread in all directions for as long as the wolf's sight could reach under the moonlight. The stars blinked out. Moony was totally, torturously alone.

Except for the Puppy.

Moony didn't know how he knew, but he knew. It didn't matter that the figure before him was one of the tall, fragile, two-legged creatures that were Moony's chosen prey; the deceptive appearance couldn't fool the wolf's senses. That was indeed the Puppy. Prongs' cub, Prongs' brave fawn, so much like Prongs that it hurt. Padfoot had thought of him as the Puppy, so that was how Moony would think of him too.

Moony barked to call the Puppy's attention, but to his own ears the sounds were slurred and weak, as if dying an inch away from his mouth. And the screams from the frightened Puppy were somehow eloquent in their absolute muteness.

The Puppy was running now, silently yelling for Padfoot, and for a moment Moony thought it was because of the new wave rising at the other side of the lake. But as he turned his head to his right, looking for the object of the Puppy's concern, the wolf found his dearest packmate, also disguised as two-legged prey, falling backwards through a stone archway curtained by a ragged black veil. Desperate, the Puppy tried to reach him, to follow him, anything, and Moony wanted just the same...

...but Moony was there too. Looking nothing like Moony, doing what Moony would never have done, but it was still truly Moony, grabbing the Puppy around the chest and pulling him away from Padfoot. Moony-the-wolf howled in indignation at Moony-the-two-legged-prey, and again his voice died out in the frosty air, an instant before the second wave washed the world away once more.

Moony sat on his hind legs, disconsolate.

Incredible how the water wouldn't splash or shake or rock or do anything that water usually did when thrown around in massive quantities. It just landed in a mighty, soundless crash and lay flat under the wolf and over the endless landscape. If it weren't for the fact that Moony could see it moving under his paws, he'd have taken the placid surface for solid, saffron-coloured ice.

This time the wolf saw immediately that he wasn't alone. There was the Puppy again. And again, the little one wasn't happy. Never, never happy. This time, however, he wasn't sad or frightened, but... angry? Regretful? Again there were no sounds, but Moony didn't need them to understand.

Like any cub, the Puppy had tried to grow up too fast and fight the threats to their pack, taking risks only the adults should have to face. And Padfoot, still in that awful two-legged shape, was growling at the Puppy for his recklessness. A well-deserved scolding, Moony thought, but not very productive, as the Puppy hated to be treated as the puppy he was. So soon the two were roaring at each other, hurting each other with the ugly sounds — the ugly silence? — that came from their mouths, until they were both hurting so much that they couldn't even bear to stay in the same place any more.

But although Padfoot did stupid things sometimes, he had always been able to comprehend what Prongs' fawn was feeling, better than anyone else. So he called Moony-the-two-legged-prey, trusting him to know what to do. Trusting him to make the Puppy understand that Padfoot only wanted their little one to be safe. Trusting him to teach Padfoot how to deal with the Puppy's yearning to prove himself.

The wolf closed his eyes, remembering. That incident had never happened. Nonetheless, it had, and he could recall the scene with every single detail. And he could tell with absolute certainty that Padfoot and the Puppy would still be snarling angrily at each other for quite some time, hackles raised and fangs showing, but that Moony would eventually get them to make up and cuddle, and everything would be all right with the pack again.

And since Moony knew all that already, he didn't mind that a third wave was approaching fast, coming to clear the lake surface again, sweeping those three oblivious figures away from the wolf's sight.

Now he had a more heart-warming scene to watch. Padfoot was lying on his back, pretending to sleep. Moony and the Puppy were sitting beside him, remembering dark things, but feeling good for being there and for being in a pack. When the Puppy got up to play with that flying wooden stick of his, Padfoot opened his eyes and got closer to Moony. There was sadness there, mixed with deep guilt and unspoken recriminations, with the ancient ache of scars badly healed. However, their little pack — what had been left of it — was together, and that was how it should be. From the pack they would draw strength, courage, forgiveness, comfort. Within the pack, they would live on.

Only... Padfoot was being so... affectionate. He cuddled up to Moony in a different way, and the two started grabbing at each other... It was hard to judge what exactly they were doing, what they meant with all that fumbling and fondling of their slender limbs, but it looked suspiciously like the mandatory dancing and playing just before... mating. As in, coming together to conceive cubs. Which was an odd thought, considering that usually a female would be necessary for the task. And why would they want cubs? Prongs' fawn was already quite a handful of joy and trouble...

While the fourth wave approached, the wolf couldn't help noticing that Moony and Padfoot looked... well... good like that, snuggling lovingly, even in those ugly, shorn, awkward two-legged shapes. So although that was another thing that had never happened, he was glad that it had, and that he had the memories of it all.

When the water lay flat again, Moony and Padfoot were nowhere to be seen. As the wolf gazed around in search for them, his body was assailed by a surge of horror and desolation, powerful enough to make him gasp and convulse. Moony and Padfoot had been here once, the wolf could tell, but they had been taken away amidst pain and deep sorrow, a long time ago, leaving the Puppy to fend for himself.

And there he was. Not a cub any more, but the brave adult they all had hoped he would become, his frame still a tad small, his face marked with grief, the strength within undeniable. However, he was not alone.

Saliva dripped from the wolf's jaws. He recognised the Dark Ugly Prey, the black-furred, glittering-eyed, venomous-voiced quarry that so long ago Padfoot had offered him, and that Prongs had denied him. Moony could sense the Dark Ugly Prey's tempting smell, just as appetising as it had been that first time in the tunnel between the cage and the Willow. The wolf's stomach was full, but it didn't matter. It never mattered, but it certainly didn't matter when it concerned the Dark Ugly Prey. Moony wanted to feel that haughty flesh between his fangs, to taste that conceited blood bathing his tongue, to see those noxious eyes contracting in fear, and hunger had nothing to do with it. He had waited so long for that.

The wolf stood unstable on his four paws, ignoring the soreness of his wounds, measuring the distance and how fast he could make it before the Dark Ugly Prey noticed the attack. Those two thin legs shouldn't be able to outrun him, wouldn't have outrun him back then if Prongs hadn't chosen that most inconvenient time to show up, wanting to play. There was no Prongs now though. It was only them, the wolf and the Prey.

And the Puppy. With bad timing worthy of his sire, the fawn stood between Moony and his game, resting his head against the Prey's chest, allowing the Prey's upper limbs to coil around his torso in a comforting cuddle.

Again the gush of brand-new remembrances erupted in the wolf's mind. The adults of the pack had been utterly slaughtered, all of them. But alone no one can really survive, and the Puppy had had to find his own way and form another pack.

With the Dark Ugly Prey.

The wolf lowered his head, turning his eyes from that scene. It was absurd and it was understandable. It was abominable and it was a relief. The Puppy would be okay, wasn't that all that mattered?

Still, Moony wholeheartedly welcomed the fifth wave that came to erase that scenario.

There were no signs of sadness or solitude in the newest landscape shaped after the quieting of the lemony-white water. On the contrary, strange and funny creatures crowded the place, running, hopping, dancing, floating, soaring, laughing.

Padfoot, finally free of that dreadful disguise, was playfully chasing a rabbit-like critter that had a long canine tail, and an aqua gem encrusted in its brow — and it was clear that Padfoot had a better chance of turning into a flowering bush than of ever catching the dashing animal. Moony was surrounded by a group of very young prey-cubs with big, scintillating eyes, wearing the most horrifyingly garish colours and mutely blabbering about the faraway land they had come from. The Puppy was petting the ears of a lion with golden wings and feeding him chocolate frogs. A round blushing face giggled from the top of a small cloud, which was raining mercilessly over the snarling figure of the Dark Ugly Prey.

The wolf wanted to join them, breathe the same air of fun and wonder they breathed, teach silly Padfoot how to make a proper chase, challenge the lion to a mock-fight, lick the Puppy's unruly fur, bark at the impish cloud and pee on the Prey's paws, making the prey-cubs laugh louder — for the wolf knew those were not to be hunted and eaten, but played with, like a second pack. Things were simpler there, amusing and innocent.

But the waves didn't seem to care in one way or the other: this peaceful scenario was about to be washed away just as all the previous ones.

Uneasy and slightly bored, the wolf stepped forward, crossing the mighty liquid wall before it broke. On and on he strode, ignoring the row of waves that now came faster and faster. Behind each of them he found more Moonies and Padfoots and Puppies, plus a few Dark Ugly Preys and some other strange apparitions. But this time he paid them no mind and went on walking, the pain on his paws gradually giving in with every step.

Wave after wave came to meet him, entice him with glimpses of happiness, anguish, excitement, torpor, terror, serenity... The wolf shrugged them off. He limped resolutely toward the opposite shore, to the source of those cryptic surges.

His paws never found the land across the lake. However, Moony could tell he had got to the other side when the waves started forming at his back and he saw himself standing on the centre of a five-pointed figure drawn on the water's surface. A different object wafted a few inches above each point, glowing in different colours. Moony gazed lengthily at each of them; only three were somewhat familiar, but he knew where all five could be found — the objects were telling him where, graciously inviting him to look for them. The wolf wagged his tail, thankful.

Already used to the immaculate silence involving the lake, he almost jumped when the humming began. Moony more sensed than heard it as it vibrated just below his paws, creating an irregular rippling in the water. Curious, he took a deep breath and plunged his head under the surface, eyes wide open.

It was hard to see. To his surprise, the water was now murky and thicker; hot and cold currents alternated randomly to tease his furry skin. The humming grew stronger, less melodious, more like chaotic hubbub, not exactly pleasant but not entirely repulsive either. No scents reached his nostrils. He stuck the tip of his tongue out, tasted the ethereal sweetness of the water. Good.

His paws started to sink.

Unworried, Moony stared at the bottom of the lake, where hazy shadows began to coalesce into solid shapes. Amidst the humming, a new voice whispered into the wolf's long ears, telling him the names of the forms before his eyes.

Brick wall. Archway. Veil.

Maze. Portraits.

Alcoves. Marionettes.

Wardrobe. Hangers.

Sirius Black.

Source.

Parting ways.

Moony saw the very instant when a fissure ripped the lake floor and a brand new wave bloomed from the narrow cleft, sending a warm, rainbow-coloured gush soaring toward the surface. As the powerful flood hit his body, Moony closed his eyes, longing to be taken with it. His mind emerged to the crest, while his paws were mercilessly pulled downward, threatening to rip him apart...

...until a much more tangible force grabbed him by the tail and pulled him completely out of the water.

There was land beneath him. Stars above him. The familiar scents and sounds of the Forest nearby, and a smirking centaur at his side. "I told you not to get carried away."

The wolf growled moodily, somewhat surprised at being able to hear himself again. He yanked his sensitive tail away from the centaur's hand and lay down on the muddy ground, his jaws opening for an unexpected yawn.

His eyes were drawn to the setting moon, but a second later he was fast asleep.

When consciousness returned to Remus Lupin, he feared for the worst. He seldom managed to sleep through the Change. Every time it had happened, it had meant that he had lost so much blood through his self-inflicted wounds that not even the excruciating pain as his body regained its human features had managed to awaken him. So it took him now quite a while to gather enough courage to open his eyes and see what was left of his limbs.

To his immense relief, however, not only he was still very much in one piece, but also every one of his injuries had been carefully swathed with many layers of gossamer, herb-perfumed bandages. The muscles in his legs, arms, neck and shoulders were slightly sore with fatigue, but other than that, he felt no pain.

"Awake already?" said a soft voice to his left, gentle and approving. "You are far stronger than your physique suggests."

The piercing blue eyes, the long white-blond hair and the palomino fur were familiar, but Remus took a moment to connect a name to the figure sitting beside him. "Firenze?"

The centaur nodded gravely. "Do you remember?"

Remus' eyes immediately turned to the opposite shore of the lake. Nothing there but tall, lush trees stretching their branches of bright summer leaves over the clear, calmly rippling waters. But inside his mind... "Yes."

"Do you understand?"

The werewolf frowned. Recollections of lives he had never lived rushed through his brain, spiralling gracefully to compose exquisite mosaics that spread their patterns across infinity... "Yes."

"And do you know to which of the waves you belong?"

"To the first one," Remus said easily, reliving the moment when he ran after Harry, holding him tight as the boy cried for Sirius, who had just vanished behind the veil... That one memory spoke louder to him than any of the others. "But..."

"That is not correct," Firenze noted. "The dwellers of the first wave do not know what you know now. They cannot see what you saw tonight. They don't know about the others."

Firenze was right. Remus felt a deeper connection with the first wave than with the others, and was mostly sure that the memory of the Department of Mysteries, unlike the others, had been with him before the plunge in the vision. However, he also sensed that tonight's experience had taken him to a different path already.

"We live many lives, walk many roads," Firenze sighed. "But very few of us are aware of that, and even fewer can see beyond the confinement of the one wave we dwell on. Resignation is all that is left to those who can't see it, resignation to accept whatever falls upon them, to renounce any wish for change. But you..." The centaur grinned. "...I imagine your time for resignation has passed."

Remus' hands were trembling. "Yes."

The sun was about to rise.

"Why did you decide to show it to me?"

"Your friend asked me to do it," said Firenze. "As a favour."

"My friend?"

"Severus Snape."

Who else? Remus wondered wryly. He must have had a purpose to Portkey him here.

"He made the request almost three years ago, but then I refused. My herd would not have approved... and moreover, I didn't judge it necessary. Obviously, I had a change of heart."

"Why now? And why me?"

"Would it have mattered if you had been shown this before?"

"I've faced losses before. Horrible losses." When James and Lily had died... and Sirius had been arrested... and Peter... "If I had known this then..."

"But then you found your strength on your own, didn't you?" Firenze asked. "You must have held tightly to what you still had..."

"I had nothing!" Remus growled. "I had nothing left!"

"Yes, you had. Or you wouldn't have made it so far. You held on to your self. That made of you what you are, and made the echoes you just saw through the waves to be as they are." Firenze shook his head sadly. "But now... even that is gone."

"Why do you say so?"

"Much has happened this past year. Fate in the first wave has been rather unkind to too many of us. Along the way some have perished, some have faded amid the crowd, and some have lost everything that made them what they were. Had you been one of the few fortunate ones who came out unscathed, the potential the waves represent would have meant little for you. And that is what your friend was hoping you would see... and use."

"Why would he have wanted me to see this anyway?" Remus wondered aloud. "What am I supposed to do with this knowledge?"

"Before you asked, 'why now' and 'why you'. What do you want to do with this knowledge now?"

Remus closed his eyes, some scrupulous part of him trying to deny what he had known the moment he had emerged from the vision, trying to convince himself that mystical revelations were a divine blessing that necessarily led to selfless acts for the sake of all sentient and non-sentient beings... "I'd feel much better about myself if I could tell you that what I want to do now is eliminate the hunger in the entire world."

"And what would be the point of that? You can't change what already is. You can only help building something else. The abundant food of one wave can't feed the hungry foals of another." Firenze wagged his tail lazily, brushing his fingers on the grass tips. "Furthermore, when a charitable saviour is required, one shall find the way to this truth."

Instead, the vision had been granted to him, Remus Lupin, who could rationally think of a hundred ways to form a better world out of it, but only one that truly called to his heart.

By bringing Padfoot back.

"That can't be what Severus wants me to do," he murmured to himself. "That might be the last thing he'd want..."

"I don't know about your plans or his expectations," admitted the centaur. "However, I can tell you this: when I last talked to your friend, I had the distinct impression that he thought of your intervention as a... a necessary evil."

"That sounds more like him," Remus mused with a grin. "It's still puzzling though."

"Severus Snape has his own methods — rather unhealthy ones, if I may say so — of seeing through the waves. With the aid of his potions, he managed but a brief glimpse of what you've just seen, and came to talk to me. Eventually, he convinced me that there could be benefit to all of us if I guided you here." Firenze turned to look deeply into Remus' eyes, causing a chill to run down the werewolf's spine. "He sees only one way to bring the desired schism: through you, and the choice you will make."

"Have made," Remus corrected with a shaky grin.

"A risky choice, if I have guessed it accurately. One that only you and Harry Potter would be interested in, I suspect. I would have gladly shown the Potter boy the waves, but he wouldn't have understood, just as Severus Snape did not comprehend the whole array of ramifications. This is not for the human mind, my wolf friend."

Remus nodded, his breath quickening at the powerful assault of memories of what he had seen and sensed. He felt the new knowledge inside him, heating his heart with passionate comfort, with feverish calm. But if he were to put that knowledge into words, he was painfully aware that he would fail miserably.

However... if this mattered only to him and Harry... if no one else could have been bothered — and Remus felt a mighty surge of sorrow as he realised that this was probably true — why had Severus got himself involved?

"Firenze, you said Severus' potions allowed him only a glimpse of the waves?"

"That was my understanding, yes."

Remus stared at the blazing reflections of the rising sun in the lake's ruffling surface, wondering what exactly Severus had seen and how deep he had gone. Despite the broadness the message implied, Remus' own vision itself had been rather subjective, focusing mainly on how the waves affected his life and of those dear to him.

"Lupus has gone already." Firenze pointed to a section of the sky not too high above the horizon. "You should do the same."

Remus gazed at the few stars still defying the dawn, arching an eyebrow. "I thought Lupus was the representation of the wolf being killed by the spear of Centaurus."

Firenze laughed. "Lucky for you, one symbol is bound to have many interpretations."

"I shall remember that," Remus smiled.

"You also shall remember that the past cannot be changed," said the centaur, standing up on his four brawny legs. "But it can be rebuilt."

That Remus could comprehend such a statement with the most absolute clarity was a mystery not even he would have been able to explain.

Firenze had to help the weary werewolf to his feet, an exertion that brought Remus a rather belated realisation. "I'm... naked."

Of course, he had to be. He wasn't an Animagus; his clothes didn't vanish and reappeared along with his transformations. Even if he had his robes on during the Change, the wolf would rip them to shreds to free itself.

Back in his school days, that meant waking up starkers in front of James, Sirius, Peter and Madam Pomfrey, but the former were his closest friends, and the latter a nurse who thought nothing of it. Firenze, on the other hand, was little more than a stranger.

The centaur examined him from head to toe. "Are you cold?"

"No, not cold. Just terribly embarrassed." And the observant gaze wasn't improving things at all.

"If you would care to notice, I am naked as well," Firenze snorted.

Remus blinked, his face reddening as he tried not to verify the other's statement. Not an easy task, considering the centaur was over two feet taller than him. "Erm. Yes. So you are."

"I'm afraid you are much more sensible as a wolf," the centaur remarked, clearly amused.

Now that was something Remus didn't hear every day.

Unabashedly laughing at the werewolf's perplexity, Firenze stepped into the lake, rubbing the mud off his palomino legs. "Humans are so very amusing in that sense. Because they don't have enough fur to protect them, they cover themselves with the fur from other creatures and the material extracted from plants and insects. And instead of being humble about their dependency of others, they flaunt their artificial hide as a sign of superiority, mocking those who don't wear them and making up weird laws associating nudity with depravity." He sniffed with scorn. "And they wonder why centaurs want nothing to do with their governments and laws..."

Looking down at himself, Remus noticed the patches of drying mud crusted on his skin. "Will it be a problem if the bandages get wet?"

"Not at all."

So Remus squatted in the shallow water, wishing for once that he looked more like a savage beast as he bathed in the lake beside an austere centaur. The setting and the company made him feel slightly undignified, with his pale, thin limbs and scarce body hair. "I forgot to thank you for taking care of my wounds."

"No thanks are necessary," Firenze assured him. "The schism you're about to produce serves my personal interests as well."

"Why?"

"More than a hundred thousand waves... and just a few of them offer me anything. Maybe yours will be different. Maybe yours will remember me." With a final splash of his tail in the water, Firenze returned to the shore. "I must leave you now. I would advise you to act quickly. Albus Dumbledore is unlikely to be your ally in your enterprise."

"Why?"

"He can't see the waves, but is aware of their existence. And he resents them. None of the other waves are as favourable to him as the first."

"Did you... did you tell me Dumbledore won't be back until tonight?" Remus didn't usually remember the events of a full moon night too clearly unless he had taken the Wolfsbane Potion properly. This time, the vision through the waves was clear, but the rest of the night... Merlin, had he really eaten a living boar?!...

"Yes. He has gone to visit Hagrid's chosen female in Beauxbatons."

"Madame Maxime?"

"That's her name, I believe; we were never properly introduced. I do not know the precise hour of his return, of course."

"That's all right. I know what to do."

Firenze bowed his head curtly. "I wish you the best of luck, my wolf friend."

"Thank you."

Remus saw the centaur trotting toward the castle, surprisingly graceful despite his massive size. He mused if the day would ever come when the Ministry of Magic, with all its human bias, would force those magnificent creatures into pants. That would certainly be a rather strange sight.

He let himself laugh at the image, before concentrating on the problem at hand. His robes should be back in the Shack, in rags. So would be his wand, in a hidden pocket. Hopefully Remus would be able to use it to patch enough fabric back together so no Muggle or wizard authority associating lack of clothes with depravity would decide to arrest him for public offence.

Still he had to cross the grounds past Hagrid's hut and all the way back to the Whomping Willow, fairly visible under the pale light of dawn to anyone in the castle that decided to take a look out the window.

A tendril of memory tugged at Remus' mind. A waning moon night at the end of his seventh year, when he, James, Sirius and Peter had gone skinny-dipping to celebrate the end of their NEWTs. Sirius had fallen asleep on the lakeshore, and the other three had run away with his clothes and hung them on the branches of the elm just outside one of the greenhouses, leaving a note glued to the sleeping beauty's chest to let him know where he would find them. And Remus, James and Peter had been inside the greenhouse, along with their entire year of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, to watch through the glass walls when a very calm and stark naked Sirius Black showed up to retrieve his robes and make an immodest show of putting them back on. Their Herbology teacher, with her back to the spectacle, had fussed worriedly over her students — all showing symptoms of feverish blushing and hysterical choking —, wondering at the odds of all her students being allergic to Klamath Weed.

Had that really happened? Or had the wolf seen that through the waves?

That hardly mattered, did it?

Remus started his walk to the Whomping Willow with a slow, carefree pace, deciding to be generous to his exhausted body and just as immodest as the young Sirius Black of the legends. A peculiar quote from a Muggle comic book he had read years before was whispering softly to his feather-light mind now, with all the gentleness of a mother's lullaby: "Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot."

Now Remus only had to find a way to explain that concept to a certain fifteen-year-old kid.