This is just a little additional I wrote for the Mugglenet forums explaining how this fic came to be the monster it is. But first, some last replies

Final Reviewer Responses:

aurelie1, animaluvr1, Jello, The Thief Kuronue, Howling-Wolf Liv Naravul- My loyal band of reviewers! Thank you all very, very much for all your nice comments and reviews over the weeks! It's been much appreciated. :)

superpan – Ironically, Britain has had an unusually mild winter this year. Saying that, we had random snow here this morning! Thank you very much for all your comments. :)

CurlsofSerenity – Well he almost did but Remus was wise to him. I have an idea for a sequel but no time to write it; I've also done a short RL/NT piece in my lunch hours based on chapter 37-38 of Oblivious which I'll be posting soon. Thanks for all your reviews:)

JennyJoy4 – Glad you liked it. Thanks for all your reviews:)

Malyficent – Thanks very much. Much appreciated:)

Neoma – Glad you finished term! Thanks ever so for all the nice reviews:)

Neswrin – Thank you very much indeed! I always feel actions and choices should have consequences mainly because that is the way life is. Glad you liked it. :)

ExtremelyMoved, Miss Anonymous hp, … preggyuo– Thank you very much. :)

Unforgettable – Don't feel too sorry for him. In the end it is his own fault. Thanks for your reviews:)

Arcadia-of-the-East – I felt a quiet contemplative last scene was in order after all the chaos. Thanks very much for reviewing:)

Esined – I wondered where you'd gone at FictionAlley. :) I felt given the connection between them that Remus ought to feel something. Glad you've enjoyed it. :)

jasmin-rose – I like Buffy but there was no direct influence, at least not consciously. Glad you liked it. :)

I'd like to say a big thank you to each and every person who has reviewed this fic, especially my regulars, bless your hearts. :) Reading your reviews has been a pleasure and a privilege. :)

Well, for those of you who were curious as to how I got from twelve chapters to the refusing-to-end montrosity you see today ;) I dug up my old notes and I'll attempt to explain how the hell this happened. :)

In the Beginning... there was much less plot. As simple as that really. I think I already said that when I first conceived this fic, it was just the very basic events of the flashback (the raid in Derbyshire, Kane's break-in, the kidnapping and the bite in the woods ) with Kane dying after the attack; but since I didn't want to write an entire OC perspectived fic I added the idea of bookend chapters of Remus being told by Rey what happened and dealing with the aftermath. That version would probably have been no more than a few chapters long.

However, I made the cardinal mistake of wanting to write much more for Remus (bless him :) - got my wish, didn't I?) and began to expand upon my bookends. The first thing I did was resurrect Kane in the present and bring him back into Remus' awareness as an Order threat so as to lead to a peak in his interest and the discovery of who bit him. In the faraway original version, Rey's attack on Kane that beat him away from Remus was fatal for Kane - at this point also, Kane was not related to Rey in any way. He was just hacked off about Hel's death. The whole relations business was something that I came up with only when I had actually started writing - around chapter three, I think. That's when the expansions really took flight - suddenly I had a lot more plot and plot depth to play with...;)

So - The Original Twelve Chapters at the time that I began to write were:

1: The Howling

2: The Pensieve

These are the only two chapters in this fic to be written whilst I still believed the story would be twelve chapters and they remain true to my original intents for them. This was however supposed to be The Howling's one and only appearence in the fic. The later Howling chapters were conceived after writing had begun, firstly because I liked the place so much I wanted to use it again, secondly because my reviewers seemed to like it so much too and thirdly because I had several lines in my head for an exchange between Tonks and Remus in The Howling that were screaming out to be used. I did indeed use them. ;) Early on, believe it or not, Kane was not present in these scenes - it was just Remus being caught in a raid. However I wanted to include another confrontation between the two and to play a bit with the possibility of Remus going feral again, so Kane gained an extra scene that it is now hard to imagine how I ever though I'd write it without him! I also originally intended for the entire events of Tonks and Remus' (admittedly then much easier) escape, through his night in captivity and getting told off by Dumbledore and Moody to be one chapter. But I had fun, so it grew a bit...;)

3: The Tribute

This chapter is now chapters three, four and five. I wanted to do a scene where the twins found out about Mr Moony very much but it went a little over and so I split the chapter in two and then three. A taste of things to come... :p

The later events of this chapter also exist much as was planned, minus the early hints of the dream, which would not have appeared until after the Werewolf Lesson but were moved to pad a bit when I feared this chapter was running short. The Snape scene I added just before posting at the suggestion of my beta and later led me to involve Snape much more than I had intended because I discovered I liked writing the sarky git. ;)

4: The Werewolf Lesson

This chapter appears almost exactly as I meant it to, minus the first dream which I promoted to the chapter before. Most of the early chapters are pretty much unchanged. It's later things got so terribly out of hand. :huh:

5: Hogsmeade

Became "A Walk in Hogsmeade" because it sounded better. ;) In these original notes, Remus survived his encounter with Kane entirely unhurt. In the margin I've scribbled a note to say - could he be injured and be visited by his dad in the Hospital Wing? Then when I wrote the chapter, maybe slightly hurt became grievously injured. Cruel I know, but it just worked and I went with it. Out of the increased seriousness of the situation came the Hospital Wing scenes that followed and the involvement of the Ministry.

6: The Dream

Way back when, this chapter would have been simply Remus, shocked after his encounter with Kane, having the dream about his bite and going to Winter Hollow to talk to his dad about it. Even after I considered hurting him, I had still intended him to travel the next day. But when I wrote the previous chapter and injured him so severely, I changed plans on the hop and decided that dad would be coming to him. I then decided to include the Tonks interview scene because I felt someone ought to have interviewed him and it might as well be Tonks. Strange to say considering the depth of her involvement now but when I started, Tonks' one and only appearance in this fic was at the Weasley Dinner right at the start. But I wrote the interview scene, found I liked writing Tonks very much too and decided to throw her into the mix when I came up with plans to revisit The Howling. The rest is history...:) All this meant of course this quick precursor chat with Tonks before the nitty-gritty of the dream and talking to Rey lengthened and resulted in a three way chapter split.

7: Kane

The first flashback chapter. Including the events of the death of Hel, Kane's break in at the Lupin's and the kidnapping of Remus. Okay, that sounds over optimistic now. But bear in mind there was no family talk to have back then, nor family history to be covered. When the family history idea developed, I turned this chapter into two "A Challenging Case" and "By Moonlight" (later "Into the Woods" - I swapped the two titles when I realised the events of By Moonlight took place before moonrise!) "A Challenging Case" then expanded to include "The Chase" when my explanation of the family history took longer than expected. The short precursor to what became the Rey-Kane confrontation chapter "Into the Woods" grew into "Family Ties" parts one and two in the writing.

8:The Bite

Now the chapters called "By Moonlight""The Wall" and "Waiting" - covering Remus being bitten through to Obliviate! They wrote much as I intended only a bit longer...;) The chapter with Rey and Diana watching over Remus in the aftermath was a later idea.

9: A Matter of Blame

The aftermath chat - Remus coming to terms etc. Originally there was a huge amount for him to come to terms with, since when I started Kane wasn't a relation only a bloody menace. At this early stage, Diana had also died of natural causes. I changed her death to more suspicious as I wrote chapter 3 in order to give myself options to expand upon here if I ran out of things to write and later used it as a catalyst for the new ideas for The Howling and the fresh importance of Remus' potential renewed ferality which was an idea that only came about when I decided to revive The Howling and make Kane a presence there.

10: Too Close to Home

This was originally the events of "The Draw of the Moon" and the chapter that still bears this name. Note the large gap here - I jumped straight from flashback to finale! ;) In my original plans (which I scrapped when I realised they were frankly daft and Hogwarts teachers weren't that gullible) Kane, polyjuiced as Hagrid entered the Great Hall and told a story about a FAKE attack at Hogsmeade that drew the teachers out so he could wreak havoc. This was a plan fraught with more holes than a Swiss cheese. The teachers would have soon realised there was no attack and returned, Kane would have had to impersonate Hagrid's accent, Remus would have sensed Kane's presence (for a while, he wasn't even going to be there - I considered writing this chapter from Harry's POV, an idea quickly discarded as inconsistent) and I just couldn't reconcile it in any way that would work. So I decided the attack would have to be real, Hagrid would have to be knocked out later (leading to my infamous plugged plot hole... ) and Remus would have to be present. But how to avoid him sensing Kane? Well, what if he wasn't feeling very well anyway...? The Wolfsbane subplot, including the chapter "The Aconite Maelstrom" was born. ;) The Marauder's Map cliffie is the only part of that entire sorry mess of irreconcilable bad planning that remained almost exactly as intended. :)

11: Werewolf in Hogwarts

Changed to "The Alpha of Hogwarts" which sounded much cooler. The events of the chapters "Liber Emitto" and Alpha of course - Liber was only supposed to be a quick intro but the Nick idea came as I wrote and lengthened it to chapter standards. Alpha was originally a straight fight in the entrance hall (I was worried the chapter would be too short!) but the ideas such as saving Snape and the secret passage came later. The chandelier was in from the start, but who would drop it was not decided until after writing The Werewolf Lesson. Originally, Remus was going to bite through a rope and drop it himself but that really seemed a bit silly in hindsight...;)

Epilogue: A Quiet Word

Ummm...I should probably admit - originally Remus survived the fight unhurt and all the consequences of his being hurt that I wrote for weeks and couldn't seem to finish off didn't exist. Rey did not feature in the fic again, there was no Rita Skeeter, no kids, no scenes in the Hospital Wing, no drink with Tonks or talk with Snape and no big decision. Remus simply went to the cell and talked to Kane (who was due for execution, not the Kiss at this point). This chapter however is an idea that came right from the very beginning – I always intended that Remus and Kane's final and conclusive battle would be one of words and emotions not physical brawn. The epilogue that followed – the quiet moment between Remus and Rey – was a later idea that emerged when I decided that ending after the talk seemed a little abrupt and that Rey needed a payoff.

Well, that's it. A full explanation on how this monster came to be. I hope that makes it clearer (and shows yet again how inconcise I am :p )

Again thank you all very much and I hope to see you all again. :)