Disclaimer: Harry Potter is sadly not mine.

Rating: Nothing bad here.

Summary: The night Remus Lupin's life changed forever.

A/N: It's been ages! Just a little drabble bunny that bit me. And then bit Remus. Reviews are love! I kinda have a full plot in my mind for this.

June 1965.

Remus Lupin lies in his bed and thinks: Something is about to happen.

It's a warm midweek night in late June. Wisps of cloud scud across the bright full moon. It bathes the Lupin household in ghostly light, shining through Remus' bedroom window and lighting upon the toys and books stacked in neat piles on shelves and desk, making them shine pale colours. He watches the silvery light move slowly across the room, clutching his bed sheets tight in small fingers. He is five years old.

His mother and father are still awake, despite the late hour. He can hear them. Nothing specific, just the muffled tone of raised voices on the floor below. Shouts. His mother shouts, then his father shouts, then his mother shouts. Over and over. He wishes they wouldn't.

They are angry. Worried. He doesn't know what about, but he can tell. Everything in daylight is tense, tight like a wire waiting to snap. In daylight though, he can run away, run to the bottom of the garden and hide himself in sunshine and strong tree limbs and the safety of his favourite book. The comforting arms of familiar characters pull him in and he can forget that mummy and daddy won't stop yelling or filling the air with that awful thick silence which is somehow even worse than the noise.

At night-time there is no getting away. At night-time he lies in his single dark bed with the covers pulled up to his chin, paper airplanes twisted onto wire mobiles above his head, turning in slow circles. He wonders what they're shouting about. Is it him? He doesn't want to know. He wishes he had the courage to get up and turn on the bedroom light, or to tiptoe across the landing and listen.

All this patters like raindrops across the unmoveable knowledge inside his head: Something is about to happen.

He can feel it right down in his little-boy bones. A presence coming closer. A sense of foreboding, like the distant rumble of a thunderstorm. He felt it the moment daddy put out his light and closed the door behind him with a quiet click, leaving Remus alone with the shadows and the silvery moonlight. Something. The dark presses in around him, every noise heightened, every slide of moonlight brighter than bright.

And suddenly a noise from outside cuts through the silence like a gunshot.

It's a rustle, a quiet thundering, a thudthudthud like his own heartbeat. It's stealth and power and mass cutting through the night, quick as lightning. It's something. Something happening, just like he knew it would. He knew.

He sits up painfully slowly, peeling the dark faded quilt away, setting his bare feet on the carpet, not making a sound. He's afraid to look out the window. He has to look.

Pushing himself up onto his toes, five-year-old Remus Lupin grips the window ledge and does something he will regret for the rest of his life. He looks out through the glass.