Summary: Fenrir Greyback's werewolves live in haphazard communities throughout the metropolitan city of Wolverhampton, stealing and surviving on the margins of an oblivious society. Remus Lupin plunges headfirst into a lifestyle more brutal and vicious than he has ever known, hoping to save the world from his own kind--and from himself.
Categories: General Fics Characters: None
Warnings: Abuse, Violence
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 4
Completed: Yes
Word count: 7989
Read: 11040
Published: 10/28/07
Updated: 12/07/07
Story Notes:
This is a series of character sketches written around Remus Lupin, each one involving some sort of miniature epiphany (a concept I borrowed from James Joyce). The inspiration is the poem 'Preludes' by my favorite poet, T.S. Eliot.
1. Lighting of the Lamps by Pendraegona
2. With the Other Masquerades by Pendraegona
3. The Night Revealing by Pendraegona
4. Infinitely Suffering Thing by Pendraegona
Lighting of the Lamps by Pendraegona
Author's Notes:
Remus Lupin, Fenrir Greyback, Albus Dumbledore, and any other characters you may recognize belong to J.K.; the title and poetry at the beginning of each chapter are taken from T.S. Eliot's poem "Preludes." Consider it as...a prelude to Remus Lupin we see in the sixth Harry Potter book.
And of course a million thanks to my betas, bluemoon13 and CakeorDeath!
Warnings for mild violence/abuse. What did you expect from werewolves?
I. The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
Chapter I. “Lighting of the Lamps”
Six o’clock.
The church bells in the distance echoed through the streets of Wolverhampton, muted by the sleet threatening to drown the city. The sound of them was enough to hasten Remus Lupin’s footsteps. Soon, night would fall. Soon, the moon would rise.
Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes were fixed upon him, alive with concern”concern that always made Remus feel guilty. “Are you quite certain you don’t mind, Remus?”
“I’m the only one who can do it,” he said resolutely. “I know what I am.”
Halfway down Tower Street, he found what he was looking for.
The decrepit old tenements had been built slap-up against the decaying city walls, perhaps to save the expense of constructing one side of it. The brick façade might have once been painted a warm shade of grey, but if so it was impossible to tell for all the layers of grime and graffiti. Some of the shutters were half-hanging off their hinges; the clatter of wood on brick as the wind roared through the narrow streets was a constant reminder of the seemingly eternal storm of winter. Old newspapers and dead leaves clung to the wet pavements, soggy and surreal as the smoke rising from the crooked chimneys that permeated the sleet with fog and an aura of fatigue.
The door was tucked away behind the large generator in the stout alley between the tenements and a neighboring café. Remus wrenched it open and slammed it behind him, making as much noise as possible. In places like this, it was unwise to take anyone by surprise.
Dumbledore hesitated. “They’ll recognize you as one of them, Remus, but…they will also recognize immediately that you are not like them.”
Remus shrugged”a stab at indifference. “I’ll have to be convincing, then.”
The tight hallway opened into a little lounge on the left. A broad desk with a rotting counter had been pushed into a corner, and small bits of plaster littered the couch and armchairs; a plate with a few scraps of raw meat was sitting on the coffee table. A young man with a shock of dark hair was lying across the back of the couch. He sat up when Remus came in, and staring hard at Remus, called “Darkthroat!”
He hardly had time to see the man springing at him over the desk before he was pinioned against the wall, and glowing, black eyes were a foot away from his face, looking intently into his steady chocolate-coloured ones.
After a moment, Darkthroat released him. “You’ll need a room, I suppose, werewolf?” It was more a statement than a question.
Remus nodded. “I suppose.”
Darkthroat vaulted over the desk again with inhuman grace and settled back in his chair. It didn’t take him long to fish a key from one of the drawers, which he tossed underhanded to Remus. “Room 403. Do you have a name, werewolf?”
“Remus,” he said simply.
Darkthroat was already bent over a scroll of parchment, invisible behind the desk as he growled, “Keelan! You know what to do!”
The young man jumped up from the couch. “Darkthroat”"
“Damn you, hurry!”
Keelan dodged the paperweight Darkthroat hurled at him, muttered darkly to Remus, “Come on!” and scampered out of the room. Perplexed, anxious, and determined not to betray himself of either emotion, Remus followed.
“This will be incredibly dangerous, Remus,” Dumbledore reminded him.
“Professor,” Remus interrupted, shaking his head, “You need not worry about me. I will manage as I have always done”the best I can.”
Keelan led him back into the alley and up one of the many fire-escapes (for there were many, many fire-escapes, crisscrossing the building like a pair of malevolent dragons, wings spread wide and spouting flame.) They stopped on a fourth-floor landing outside a pair of full-length, narrow windows. The glass was an inch thick, and someone had fastened a little brass plaque to the right one with the numbers “4-0-3”. The window-latch had been fitted with a key-hole.
“Well, come on, then,” Keelan urged.
Remus wrestled the key into the keyhole, and the window swung open, almost catching him in the face. He lifted away the broken blinds and stepped inside. The room inside was woefully small. The bed was in the corner to his right, the wardrobe to his left, and a table with a few dusty chairs on the far side. The bathroom door faced the table and chairs. Remus tossed his bag onto the tattered rug beside his bed.
Keelan had closed the window-door behind him and locked it while Remus was considering his room, and seized Remus’ arm, dragging him into the bathroom. There was another door by the sink that had the look of a towel closet about it. When Keelan flung it open, there was only a flight of stairs on the other side, so steep it was practically suicidal to descend into the darkness.
Keelan explained quickly, “You can get from your room to the Bur Sceadugenga from here. It will be locked in less than twenty minutes, and Greyback will be angry if we’re not there. We’ll have to run.”
“What?” Remus asked dumbly. “Bersky-what?”
“Run!” said Keelan, and shoved him down the steps.
He slipped halfway and hit the bottom on all fours. He had only just got back up when Keelan came tearing down the stairs, grabbed his arm again, and took off down the tunnels. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness, his feet to the downward slope of the stone beneath his feet, and then the tunnel opened onto a wider one, from which smaller ones branched out. Water leaked from the ceiling, and the blackness was hazy, but Keelan plowed on through, yelling, “fifteen minutes!” His strength and energy reminded Remus strongly of another teenage boy, and he wondered how Harry Potter was doing, if he was okay”
His breath caught in his chest. He knew it wasn’t exhaustion, could feel the venom rising in his throat, knew that they were running out of time, and he lengthened his stride. He could hear the ticking of an imagined clock in sync with the beating of his frantic heart, his muscles tautening as the sun slipped away, as the moon approached…
“Here!” Keelan cried. The tunnel had split in the wall before them, and where the straight-way stopped, there was a steel door several feet thick, and a man standing beside it, wand out, ready to seal it. “Scabior, wait!”
The man paused long enough for Keelan and Remus to dart through, and slammed behind them. Remus could hear the click and snap of many, many locks, and the ‘thud’ of a deadbolt.
Dumbledore rose and vanished the purple armchair with a wave of his wand. His face was grave”not pitying, never pitying”but distressed and gentle as ever. He bowed his head slightly, and whispered, “Then, Remus…good luck.”
It was an enormous room, rimmed with colonnades and strewn with broken furniture. The only source of light in the room was a hole in the ceiling two or three inches squared, and covered with a grate. The shimmering haze of the rising full moon through the sleet made the shadows swim, like reflections of light in moving water. All around them, others were standing, waiting…waiting…
“Bur Sceadugenga,” Remus murmured, suddenly understanding.
“Yes,” Keelan nodded. “Chamber of Nightcrawlers.”
Remus swallowed. “Keelan, is this…”
Keelan grinned. “A werewolf is only a danger to people.”
“You can’t possibly think”no one ever?””
Keelan laughed, but it turned into a growl. “The weak ones sometimes die in the fighting, but we almost never kill each other. It makes us stronger…prepares us for what we’ll do for Greyback, when we’re ready.”
Remus closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He had been a werewolf for almost thirty years”had he ever known what that meant? Had it ever been like this?
Please, he begged silently, please, please, don’t let me hurt anyone”
The full moon broke the horizon and shone radiantly through the sleet. Suddenly the room was lit as though by a thousand lamps, or perhaps by the blackness of a thousand cursed souls. In some corner of the vast chamber, a werewolf raised its head to the distant moon and howled.
With the Other Masquerades by Pendraegona
Author's Notes:
This chapter is a series of disjointed scenes juxtaposing Remus' double lives, his work for the Order of the Phoenix and his time with the werewolves. Leas Feorh is Old English for "False Life" (Remus' masquerade in the werewolf community), and Sceadu Feorh is Old English for "Shadow Life" (Remus' work for the Order). "Aweccan" means "Awaken."
This chapter is dedicated to my two reviewers, who made my day all the brighter, my two amazing and extraordinarily patient betas, bluemoon13 and CakeorDeath, and my two most inspiring literary figures, T.S. Eliot (who owns the poem) and J.K. Rowling (who owns everything else).
II. The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.
Chapter II. “With the Other Masquerades”
L e a s F e o r h
With a growl, Remus sprang at the intruder and pinned him against the wall. The other werewolf was much larger, much younger, and much stronger, but Remus had caught him by surprise, in the very act of going through his things.
His wand was in his hand”he didn’t remember drawing it.
The intruder had gone very still. His dark blue eyes were fixed on the wand, but his lips curled into a derisive sneer. Remus bit back the hundred jinxes that had risen to mind at once. This was not the werewolf way.
He lowered his wand slowly. Then he punched the werewolf in the face.
That was the werewolf way.
S c e a d u F e o r h
It was well after midnight when the deafening silence was broken by the clatter of the lift. The black door at the end of the corridor was almost concealed in the darkness. Remus felt himself shift automatically under the Invisibility Cloak to stand in front of it, ready to defend at all costs the secret that lay vulnerable in the Department of Mysteries beyond…but it was not Voldemort, nor any of his Death Eaters that stepped out from the golden-grated lift. It was Cornelius Fudge.
Fudge made his way slowly down the corridor, arms extended, hissing, “Remus? Are you there?” With a colossal overstep, sprawling trip, and muffled “oh damn!” Fudge’s hair turned a violent shade of pink. Grinning, Remus caught Nymphadora before she hit the floor, and left her (feminine appearance restored) with the Cloak to take the next shift.
L e a s F e o r h
“Cream? Sugar?” the woman at the coffee-stand asked.
Remus dropped a couple of pounds on the counter. “Black, of course. As strong as you’ve got.”
That was the werewolf way.
S c e a d u F e o r h
“I don’t know what he wants them to do, I don’t know, but if they refuse he’ll let Greyback loose on their child”their only son”and he’ll stalk the boy, strike when they aren’t expecting it””
“Who, Remus?” said Dumbledore urgently, for the thousandth time. Dazed with horror, Remus buried his face in his hands and closed his eyes. The kitchen of Grimmauld Place had gone unnaturally quiet, but he could feel Dumbledore and Sirius’ eyes on him, watching...waiting…
When he found his voice again, it trembled with fear for a family he barely knew.
“The MacDonalds.”
L e a s F e o r h
Darkthroat and Duskfire knelt in the colonnade, their heads tilted up to the moon as the light flickered across their faces.
Keelan cried out and dropped to all fours, breathing hard. Gasping a little, Remus retreated into the corner and curled his hands into fists.
The moon had risen.
Tremors wracked his body violently, his fingernails drew blood from his palms, and suddenly he was growing larger. Bur Sceadugenga was a blur of fur and claws and screams that became snarls and yelps. He could feel himself slipping away from his body, almost as if he was watching his conscientious soul walk away from him, taking his humanity with him. It was him angry, livid with fury and burning with hate as he crouched to spring and glared into the black irises of whatever kindred monster bared its fangs at him”
He sprang”
”
Merciless, cruel sunlight beat through the broken window-blinds, illuminating the dingy interior of Room 403 and the bloodied young man lying spread-eagled on the shoddy rug. He reeked of blood, sweat, and stale beer. Perhaps he had been drinking before full moon to dull the pain of transformation, or to force himself to forget whatever horrors he would endure in Bur Sceadugenga. Remus couldn’t blame him.
“You’ve had a rough night, Jared.”
Jared groaned and blinked feebly. His confused eyes fell on Remus, who was sitting back in a chair with his wand laced through his fingers, to Keelan, who was leaning against the wardrobe and examining a bite on his right arm, to Sivey, who was perched on Remus’ bed, her caramel-coloured hair stained with streaks of dirty scarlet”to his own lower torso and arms, wrapped in blood-drenched scraps of torn shirts. “Oh Merlin,” he gasped weakly. “What happened?”
Sivey hopped off the bed and dropped to her knees by Jared. “One of us beat the hell out of you, apparently. Jared, you almost died.”
“Yeah, lucky Remus fixed you up right away!” Keelan shook his head disbelievingly. “Damn it, Jared, you know you can’t hold your own when you drink!”
“He’ll just have to lie low for a while,” Remus said quietly. “No raiding or stealing for a couple of days, that’s all.” Two months had passed since his first full moon with the werewolves, and he still came out of Bur Sceadugenga with a bitter taste in his mouth. He knew the taste well.
It was the bitterness of a guilty conscience.
Even though there was no way of knowing who had hurt Jared the night before, he could not help but blame himself”hate himself”as his eyes traced the long, seeped red lines crisscrossing Jared’s rangy, poorly clad form.
S c e a d u F e o r h
The kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place was poorly lit, but smelled delicious. Remus smiled tiredly at Mad-Eye and Sirius as he sank into a seat by Nymphadora. “This looks lovely, Molly.”
She beamed down at Remus even as she waved her wand, ladling out bowls of stew. “It’s nothing, dear. Soup, anyone? Tonks, dear, would you pass the biscuits around?”
“Of course, Molly,” Nymphadora said brightly. She’d barely taken hold off the basket before she managed to knock her spoon off the table; she dropped the basket to dive for her spoon and cracked her head against Remus’, who had reached for the fallen spoon at the same time. Sirius, laughing, drew his wand out and made the basket fly around to catch the shower of biscuits.
“Sorry, Remus,” Nymphadora said hastily, rubbing her forehead and flushing a deep shade of red. Her hair turned the same violent color to the tips. Remus, who was pressing a hand against his head, could not help but laugh as he laid her spoon in front of her.
L e a s F e or h
The girl was standing in the middle of the shop with a list in her hands, looking lost. “May I help you?” Remus inquired, putting down a stack of bestsellers from an outdated display.
“Oh, yes,” the girl said. “I need some books for my Shakespeare class…Macbeth, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Othello””
“Ah, the tragedies,” Remus nodded. “I prefer Hamlet myself, but they’re all good. Here, we keep them in the back of the store…”
S c e a d u F e o r h
Remus was uncomfortable with the meeting’s sudden change of conversation, but felt obliged to answer Emmeline’s question. Heads turned towards him as he spoke.
“Things haven’t been going well,” he said slowly. “The werewolves don’t even trust each other, but they regard me with more suspicion because at first I was not like them. The older ones are more bitter and too set in their ways, but some of the younger ones seem to enjoy my company, and may be willing to listen…”
Sirius bit his lip. “So, a few of the werewolves might come to our side?”
“I doubt it,” Remus sighed. “My particular brand of reasoned argument isn’t making much head-way against Greyback’s insistence that we should revenge ourselves against normal people. Seeing as Hagrid couldn’t sway any of the giants and the werewolves aren’t looking much better, I hope Dumbledore’s got a back-up plan.”
A w e c c a n
He was always surprised at his own startled face, reflected in the glass of shop windows he passed. He had not worn jeans since he was a teenager. The fitted, plain black t-shirt clung to his lean frame to give him the false appearance of youthful spryness. The grey streaks in his over-long mousy brown hair looked almost artistic when combined with the long, parallel scars on his neck and forearms. Most jarringly, the ghost of his enthusiastic, fifteen-year old self was resurrected in his deep brown eyes when the manager of the Muggle book-store where he worked gave him outdated books for practically nothing. As he trudged back through the muddy, sawdust-strewn streets, the feel of leather spines beneath his tingling fingertips sent a flame of joy blazing in his momentarily contented heart and made his eyes shine brighter than the full moon. He ignored his many faces reflected in all the windows and wrapped his arms tighter around his new acquisitions.
The café next to his apartment building was still open. He shifted Charles Dickens’ The Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and David Copperfield under his arm so he could open the glass door. The bells tied to the door handle clunked dully.
“Evening, Remus,” the young woman behind the counter called. “Usual, I suppose?”
“Thanks, Jess,” he replied, sinking into a window seat and setting the Dickens books on the seat beside him. She had only just brought him soup and coffee when Keelan and Sivey burst through the door of the café and sank, crestfallen, into the seats across from Remus. Sivey put her head in her hands and sighed dramatically.
“Rough day?” Remus asked sympathetically.
“You have no idea,” complained Keelan.
“Enlighten me.”
Sivey sat back in her chair, frustrated to the point of comicality. “You know that big manor we’ve been watching for a week? The one Aidan found, with the white peacocks?”
“You’ve mentioned it,” Remus nodded. “Did you raid today?”
“You wouldn’t know this, because you actually have a job,” Keelan said, resting his forearms on the table, “but before we do a big raid”on a place like this”we have to get it approved by a superior.”
“And Duskfire said you couldn’t raid it,” guessed Remus.
“Right in one!” Sivey shook her head tragically. “I bet the place is full of loot. It was a real find, you know, you don’t stumble on places like that often. Turns out it belongs to the Malfoys”big You-Know-Who supporters, friends of Greybacks”and they’re off-limits.”
“That’s a pity,” said Remus, who’d known it all along. “The Malfoys, though! It’s a good thing Duskfire said no. That place was probably full of Dark Magic.”
Sivey was shaking her head again. “Oh, Remus, you don’t understand. If we’d gotten in there for just ten minutes, we’d be able to retire for the rest of our lives!”
“Even if you stumbled upon that much money, would you stop raiding?” Remus demanded suddenly. Sivey and Keelan exchanged bemused looks; the silence was answer enough.
“It won’t ever change,” Remus murmured, staring out into the deserted street. “Time will only pull us deeper and deeper into this masquerade. We’re trapped in this meaningless existence, stealing to survive, surviving to steal…and we can’t get out, we can’t break free, because we won’t admit we’re trapped. The anger consumes us.”
Sivey and Keelan were watching him with their mouths slightly open.
“It’s true,” he mused, resting his head against one hand. “Tiber nicks hand-bags every day”takes everything of value and sells the bags to a contact in London. The hands that carried those purses”where do you suppose they are now? What do you suppose they are doing? All over Britain, those thousands of hands are turning off lights, raising window-shades, flipping through newspapers, changing telly channels, cooking meals, hugging loved ones. Do you think Tiber’s revenge has diminished their lives in some way? Yet we fight to survive another day”another lowly day.”
“I like listening to you talk, but I have no idea what you just said,” Keelan confessed.
“Yes,” said Remus sadly. “I know.”
”
Remus settled himself on the couch and dropped his bag on the coffee table. Sirius had draped himself over an armchair, and was idly staring up at the ceiling, smiling. They didn’t talk. They didn’t have to. Being there in the sitting room, in the company of an old friend was enough. In the comfortable lull of conversation it was easy to forget that James and Peter weren’t there too”would never be there again.
Sirius looked over when Remus pulled a book from his bag. “What’re you reading, Moony?”
“Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities,” Remus explained, holding it up.
“Would you read it…out loud?”
Remus smiled. Sirius stared back up at the ceiling as Remus opened to the first page and began to read.
“It was the best of times…it was the worst of times…”
The Night Revealing by Pendraegona
Author's Notes:
Disclaimer: If I were J.K., this wouldn't be fanfiction. It would just be fiction.
Thanks to my fantastic betas, CakeorDeath and bluemoon 13, for all their patience and help, and also to my one reviewer, who made Chapter Three worth trying to write. And also to french vanilla cappucinos, to which I owe my sanity.
III. You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.
Chapter III. “The Night Revealing”
The light was the colour of heat.
It was the neon streetlamps glowing into the semi-darkness before the dawn that turned the walls a hazy orange colour. He lay in bed and closed his eyes, trying to force himself into the realm of dreams. It was too hot for June, so very, very hot…
His breath caught in his throat. Blood was burning in his veins, but he was paralyzed with fear. Then he did the first thing that struck him: he ran. It was the wrong thing to do.
The wolf was on him in an instant. The fangs and claws pierced his skin again and again, ripping him with the ease of shredding paper; he was powerless to help himself. The heat was pressing in on him from all sides, the creature’s fiery breath against his flesh, the white-hot pain consuming his body”and his own blood staining the earth, glowing orange in the light of the full moon…
Only then did he remember to scream.
Remus shifted to one side and kicked off the quilt.
It was much too hot to sleep. It was much too hot not to sleep.
“How come you didn’t tell us?” Sirius demanded.
Remus’ worst fears were confirmed: somehow, James and Sirius had found out about his lycanthropy. All he could think was “Oh no, oh no”they must hate me now, and I’ve lost the closest thing I ever had to friends”“ and then he did the first thing that struck him: he ran.
He made it back to the doorway of the dormitory before they caught up with him. James caught him by the shoulder; he yelped in pain and turned fast, and his robes, loose from running, slipped over his right shoulder, revealing the long, deep marks his own claws had made in his skin. There was a horrible silence in which Remus waited for the anger and accusations without finding the courage to look James or Sirius in the face. When he finally dared to look up, impossible, hot tears were gathering in the eyes of both. They weren’t scared of him. They were scared for him.
They would do anything to help him.
It was then he realized that they really were friends”the best friends anyone could ask for”
Remus rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. He could feel the perspiration emanating from his body, as if the heat came from within him, from his boiling blood or pounding heart, and wondered again…wondered if it was all his fault, forever…
“I think you’d better sit down,” Professor McGonagall suggested. Her voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “This may come as a bit of a shock.”
“What’s happened?” Remus said, standing more rigidly than ever.
She gave me a pitying look, and said quietly, “They’re dead, Remus. James and Lily Potter are dead.” He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, his mind was burning with the horrible words…James and Lily Potter, dead…he fought the urge to run by forcing himself down into the offered chair.
“But Sirius”Sirius”“ he stumbled over his own words, not knowing what he was going to say. Sirius what, Remus? He couldn’t have what?
“The Ministry got to him, but your friend Peter got there first…and…it was nasty. Black killed Pettigrew, and thirteen Muggles in the process. He’s going to Azkaban for life…without a trial.”
Gone. Three best friends felled in one stroke. “No,” Remus whispered, his voice barely audible. “I thought”I thought I knew Sirius Black.” He felt the tears burn his eyes, and thought of James”James and Lily Potter, and poor little Peter”and Sirius, who had betrayed them all. “I guess I was wrong.”
Sometimes Remus wished he was normal, like other people. Normal, as in…not a werewolf. Normal, as in…not having to change his way of life every few months. Normal, as in…not having his friends killed or lost, one by one. Normal, as in…someone else.
“But then…” Remus muttered, staring at Sirius so intently it seemed he was trying to read his mind, “…why hasn’t he shown himself before now? Unless””Remus’ eyes suddenly widened, as though he was seeing something beyond Sirius, something none of the rest could see, “”unless he was the one…unless you switched…without telling me?”
Very slowly, his sunken gaze never leaving Remus’ face, Sirius nodded.*
Was he living one life, or a thousand little, different lives? How utterly surreal it all was!
Ten nights past he had been in Bur Sceadugenga fighting for his life. Eight nights past, he had stood guard duty under Moody’s invisibility cloak outside the Department of Mysteries.
Two weeks ago Molly Weasley had cooked a feast in the kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, after the Order meeting, and he had dined with the bravest and best people he knew. Last evening, he had watched the younger werewolves devour a couple of raw chickens Aidan had snitched from a farm near Whitehaven.
A week ago, Sirius had still been alive.
Remus saw Sirius duck Bellatrix’s jet of red light: He was laughing at her. “Come on, you can do better than that!” he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.
The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest.
The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock.
It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall. His body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backward through the ragged veil hanging from the arch…
**
Remus closed his eyes tightly, both willing himself to wake up from the nightmare or doze off to escape it. He could still see the strange orange light through his eyelids. It was so hot, so very hot”
“SIRIUS!” Harry yelled. “SIRIUS!”
Remus seized Harry about the chest, holding him back. “There’s nothing you can do, Harry”“
“Get him, save him, he’s only just gone through!”
“It’s too late, Harry”“
“We can still reach him”“
Harry struggled hard and viciously, but Remus would not let go…
“There’s nothing you can do, Harry…nothing...He’s gone.”**
It was his fault, of course. It was always his fault.
It wasn’t right for Dumbledore”Dumbledore, of all people”to assume the blame for Sirius’ death, and then chide Remus for doing the same. If Remus' own resolve hadn’t failed…if he hadn’t been careless…then why did he feel so guilty?
He had been a danger to the people he loved”the few, precious people who loved him! They were dead, dead because of him. He deserved to be alone. He deserved to be in this hole with monsters like him. He deserved no one’s love.
He couldn’t lie still: he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands. In his mind, he could see a vision of the street outside, and himself walking slowly down it, alone, looking at no one. He saw himself growing bitter, quitting his job and slipping into their lifestyle of stealing, slowly losing his humanity. He saw the older werewolves turn away from him, as they turned away from each other, because he was no different.
Then he remembered Dumbledore, and his grave, compassionate face, and twinkling blue eyes, and the vision of his other self, the monster, faded away...
The morning was fast approaching, the flighty sun peeking into run-down streets with fleeting, golden timidity. A few twittering birds had begun their early morning rounds of the rooftops. He would be opening the book-shop in downtown Wolverhampton in two hours, and he had not slept at all.
*Rowling, J.K. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." Scholastic. New York, 1999. page 344.
**Rowling, J.K. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Scholastic. New York, 2003. pages 805-806.
Infinitely Suffering Thing by Pendraegona
Author's Notes:
I'm not J.K., and the poem is from T.S. Eliot's "Preludes."
Most stories have plots, with accompanying charater development. The plot of this story IS character development. It's like James Joyce's novel, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", in which the protagonist (for Joyce, it's Stephen Dedalus; for me, Remus Lupin) has an epiphany about himself, or about the world, in each chapter. Stephen's journey doesn't end with the last chapter of 'Portait', and Remus' doesn't end here, but you all know the rest of Remus' story.
Thanks to my amazing betas, bluemoon13 and CakeorDeath, who put up with all my writing experiments, to CinderellaAngelina, who has reviewed all the chapters and been wonderfully encouraging, and to all of you, for reading! Here it is.
IV. His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
This conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
Chapter IV “Infinitely Suffering”
Remus shouldered his bag and stepped out of the book-shop.
The bells on the door tinkled in unison with the distant gong of the church bells. He paused on the sidewalk, tilted his head up to the sky, and breathed in the world. For the first time since Sirius had died, some small part of him was glad to be alive.
Four o’clock.
Tower Street was always busy in the late afternoon. The background racket of roaring car engines and slamming car doors was only slightly surpassed by the classic rock music trickling out of the café on the corner. The gentleman who ran the bakery across the street would sometimes hum along when he went out to stuff and smoke his pipe. On both sides of the street, the preoccupied pedestrians were little planets trapped in perfectly elusive orbits, faceless behind raised newspapers, train schedules, and letters from strangers. Occasionally, one newspaper-reader would recognize another, and call out across two lanes of stopped traffic, “Good afternoon, my friend, good afternoon!”
Remus was walking up Tower Street and opening his book, when a resounding “crack!” rang through the din and a disheveled young man Apparated in front of him.
“Remus! Bloody hell, Remus, you’ve got to come!”
One Thousand and One Nights was suddenly tugged from his fingers. Remus looked up into Jared’s pale, frantic face and said, alarmed, “Jared, what’s wrong?”
“Sivey and Aidan are trapped!” he cried, wringing the book distractedly in his hands. “They’re in this Muggle house”and there’s this thing””
Remus frowned. “All right. Take me there.”
Jared’s fingers curled tightly around his forearm. The darkness pressed in on them for a few seconds, smothering out Tower Street like an extinguished candle-flame, but when the daylight exploded around them again, they were standing on a garden path half-way between a run-down cottage and a large manor.
“Where are we?”
“Little Hangleton,” Keelan called, running up from behind them. “Where the bloody hell’ve you been? How long did you expect they were gonna hold out against a vampire?”
As Jared opened his mouth to retort indignantly, a stifled scream echoed from within the house, like an opera crescendo in the ears of passerby two streets away. Remus drew his wand. “Where are they?”
“Second floor, I think,” Jared said breathlessly.
“Keelan”Jared”lie low here for now. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, go home and forget that we ever existed, all right?”
Keelan paled. “Remus, you can’t”” he began, but was already sprinting up the garden path alone.
Inside, the house was dead.
The late afternoon could not penetrate the filthy windows; hazy, grey light swam on the dusty, rotting floorboards and sheeted furniture. A damp, musty smell clung to the peeling brown wall-paper, and a thick layer of grime and cobwebs coated the back stairs.
When he reached the second floor landing, Remus whispered “Lumos!” and angled his lit wand into the shadows of the hall. The last door on the right was closed. It trembled in its frame as the ‘thud’ of a body hitting the floor made the stale yellow walls shudder convulsively. Remus blasted it open as he ran at it, yelling, “Sivey? Aidan?”
Just as the vampire sprang, Aidan and Sivey bolted for the opposite corner of the room. The vampire whirled, snarling, and Remus froze in horror.
He was well over six feet tall, with shoulder-length black hair and gleaming scarlet eyes sunken into his wan, skeletal face. He swept back his cloak and advanced on the pair, clicking his tongue mockingly and baring long, white fangs. He reeked of blood-lust.
Aidan’s brown curls were lank with sweat, and his dark blue eyes widened in terror; he crouched reflexively, prepared to run again, werewolf muscles rippling beneath taut skin…as the vampire stepped nearer, he rolled to one side.
Sivey hadn’t followed.
The vampire leered, eyes narrowing”then with a startlingly loud “crack!” turned into…Fenrir Greyback, half-wolf, half-man. Remus saw the open trunk lying amongst the boxes and understood at once.
Sivey was backing into the wall, tears streaming silently down her cheeks. She raised her arms protectively over her face as Greyback lunged”
Remus vaulted over the boxes and hurled himself between them.
Crack!
The sun rises and sets over the field, but it never lingers, and there is always the moon in one horizon or the other, waxing closer and closer to that which will make him into a monster again. The brown grass scratches his bare, calloused feet until they bleed. The tears on his cheeks taste of salt, and vinegar. At his feet lie the broken pieces of a stone. He runs his fingers over the cool, impassable surface, feeling the letters beneath his fingers.
Albus Wolfric Percival Brian Dumbledore.
There are other stones in this field. Gravestones. Cracked markers, dispersed in the dead grass.
Broken stones. Broken people.
Every familiar name is a knife in his heart. They are all here, all of them, under these stones…
Remus stared at the image of himself suspended in the room. Feeling the lump rise in his throat, he quickly shouted,
“Riddikulus!” The image exploded into red and gold fireworks, and he forced the boggart back into the trunk.
Sivey had slumped to the floor, hiding her face. The way she had wrapped her arms around herself as she cried and rocked back and forth gave Remus the impression that she was trying to pull herself back together. Remus turned to Aidan. “Aidan, I need you to go down to the cottage and find Keelan and Jared. Tell them everything is all right, and wait for us down there.”
Aidan’s eyes flickered to Sivey. He nodded slowly, and then left.
Remus knelt and pulled the young werewolf’s hands away from her face. Cerulean eyes met his, no longer laced with fear, but with anguish and shame. “Greyback’s the one,” Remus said quietly. “He’s the one that changed you.”
Sivey wiped fiercely at her cheeks and glanced towards the trunk. “That wasn’t Greyback.”
“No,” Remus agreed gently. “It was a boggart”a shape shifter who turns into whatever you most fear. For Aidan, it was the vampire. For you, it was Greyback.”
Cold impatience flickered across her face. She sat back on her heels and crossed her arms over her chest. “Remus, I don’t blame him for what he did to me, and I sure as hell don’t need your pity.”
“Pity, Sivey, pity? No, you want empathy. Why else would you wish the horror you suffered on innocent children, if not to force people to understand what this is like, being shunned”being a monster?” His vehemence took her aback, but provoked her anger as well.
“Damn right I do. The world’s slipping by us, Remus, and I’m not going to wait for some Ministry pricks to wake up one morning and remember that werewolves are human beings, too.”
He paused, staring down at her with profound sadness. The disappointment and quiet, resolved martyrdom in his face made her flush inexplicably, but she understood at least the unspoken disbelief in his silence. At last he said softly, “I just want you to know that there is another way.”
A lone tear streaked down her cheek. She muttered, “We’d better go down. They’ll be waiting for us.” He helped her to her feet and they started out the door.
Half-way down the stairs, she asked suddenly, “Remus, what was your boggart?”
He frowned. “I don’t know. It’s always been the full moon before; I don’t understand why it’s changed.”
“Oh,” she said meekly. They didn’t speak again until they had pushed through the creaking back door and stumbled onto the gloriously alive, sun-lit lawns outside the manor house. Keelan, Jared, and Aidan were hovering near the door, all trying not to look too anxious or upset.
“Hey,” said Keelan, draping an arm over her shoulders, “We made bets about if one of you had to die, whether it’d be you or Aidan. I put my money on you.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly.
“No, thank Remus,” Keelan corrected. Four heads swiveled around to stare at Remus, who pretended not to notice.
Gratitude was awkward, weak”not the werewolf way. Remus could only feign ignorance of theirs until Aidan opened his mouth. “Don’t,” Remus shrugged. “It was nothing.”
“Okay,” Aidan agreed, relieved.
“Will you return to Wolverhampton now?”
Sivey grinned conspiratorially. “Actually, the four of us were planning on picking up a couple of chickens for dinner and spending the night in the country. Care to join us, Remus?”
“Ah…no,” said Remus honestly. “Would it do any good if I were to say ‘try and stay out of trouble’?”
“No,” Aidan and Jared said together.
“Well, you know where to find me if you need me.” Remus turned to go, then called over his shoulder almost as an afterthought, “And Jared! Next time, don’t Apparate when there are Muggles around!” With good-natured laughter ringing in his ears, he concentrated on the alley between the café and the tenements, and slipped through tight darkness back into downtown Wolverhampton.
The church bells were ringing again, striking the hour with resolute apathy.
Five o’clock.
The rusty stairs of the fire escape creaked familiarly under his feet. He fished in his pockets for the key as he climbed, but when he reached the fourth floor, the door to Room 403 was already slightly ajar.
Closing one hand around the end of his wand, Remus slowly pushed the door open and stepped into the room.
He almost didn’t recognize the witch sitting on his bed.
She had fallen asleep leaning against the wall, but even while dreaming, her expression was troubled. Lines of fatigue crossed her wan, heart-shaped face, and lank, mousy-brown hair was falling into her eyes.
“Nymphadora.” Remus touched her shoulder gently.
Without opening her eyes, she murmured, “Don’t call me Nymphadora.” He laughed. The sound of it seemed to rouse her, because her eyes flew open and she tumbled off the bed, taking the thin quilt with her. “Aren’t you going to ask me a security question?” she demanded in a vain attempt to distract him from the indignity of her position as she struggled to untangle her feet from the bedspread.
“What is the shape of the umbrella stand at headquarters that you always knock over?”
Tonks wrinkled her nose in disgust. “It’s a troll’s leg, and I don’t
always trip over it!”
“All right, all right,” said Remus, chuckling as he knelt to disentangle her and replacing the quilt on the bed. “Did Dumbledore send you?’
“No, it’s nothing like that…I just wondered if we could talk.”
For the second time, Remus was struck by how exhausted and anxious she seemed to be. He considered her for a moment, and then said quietly, “I think I’d better make a pot of tea.”
He felt her intrigued eyes on his back as he put the kettle on the stove, conjured a pair of mugs, and fished behind a pile of books for a tin of tea. “Werewolves here drink strong, black coffee religiously,” Remus explained, gesturing at his secret stash. “Personally, I need my creature comforts.”
She smiled at the pun, and then remarked, “You heat water the Muggle way…like my dad.”
“Old habits are hard to break.” He poured her a cup and sat down on the other side of the table. “So, is something bothering you, Nymphadora?”
She didn’t remind him to call her Tonks, nor did she meet his eyes. Her hands curled tightly around the hot mug. “I don’t know how to say this, Remus, but…I worry about you. A lot.”
Remus raised an eyebrow skeptically. “I’m perfectly all right, thanks.”
“You haven’t been the same since Sirius””
It was Remus who was staring at his hands now. His face was impassive, but his voice broke as he murmured, “Of course I haven’t. No one has.” Both seemed to be imploring the other to understand, somehow, as they watched each other, not speaking. Remus hadn’t touched his tea, and after a few minutes of hesitant, uneasy silence, the vapor rising from the hot tea vanished and the mug grew cold.
“I don’t want you to be unhappy,” Tonks whispered, her eyes wet with stubbornly withheld tears. “I want both of us to be happy, together.” She reached across the table and slipped her hand in his. “I think…I think I’m in love with you.”
Years may well have passed in the deafening silence.
Crash!
Remus’ mug hit the floor and smashed, drenching them both in tea. “No.” His head came up sharply, and he pulled his hand away. Her anxiety, her mousy-brown hair, the way she sometimes looked at him”everything assumed a different meaning in a mere moment. “Nymphadora, I’m sorry if you were under the impression I wanted to be more than friends. Perhaps it would be best if we kept out of each other’s company, until…”
“You think by avoiding me, you can make me fall out of love with you?” Tonks said angrily, jumping to her feet.
“Perhaps! Try and be reasonable, Nymphadora!” Remus pleaded, also rising. “I’m a werewolf, I’m poor, I’m a social outcast, I’m much too old for you””
“I don’t care!”
“But I do!”
She opened her mouth to yell back, and then froze. “You care?”
“Yes,” he said, scowling. “And if I’m going to suffer, I’ll do it alone. I’m not going to let you ruin your life for me, Nymphadora. You deserve better.”
She shook her head defiantly. “I think we need to talk more about this.”
Remus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, the bitter words were lost in the infinite gentleness of his voice. “I think we have nothing more to say to each other.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I have to go,” she whispered, bowing her head so he wouldn’t see the impossible tears welling up in her eyes. “See you around, Remus.” With a surreally loud
Crack!, she Disapparated.
He did not know how long he stood in the shards of broken china and cold tea. A numb, burning ache had lit in his chest and was rapidly consuming him, like the searing agony of standing on a leg that has gone to sleep, but multiplied a thousand times for the guilt and fear that had caught up with his alarm at Tonks’ declaration.
He started out of his reverie and knelt to collect the pieces of the mug. Broken and lusterless in his hands, they reminded him of something…
He was standing in a dry, dead field of broken stones…familiar, broken people.
The boggart. His worst fear.
It was being alone. That was it. More than anything, he feared that everyone he loved would be taken away from him, and that he would be alone…alone forever.
“If I have to suffer, I’m going to suffer alone.”
He said it aloud again, to stiffen his resolve. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and laughed, laughed because he was trapped, laughed because he couldn’t stop the world, laughed because he was no longer foolish enough to try. Then he pulled out his wand to clean up the mess.
By the time he had cleaned out the mugs, the throb of the church bells in the street was seeping into the windows, reminding him again of the hour.
Six o’clock.
A/N: If you're put out with me for the ending, do let me know. I probably deserve your wrath.
If you ever empathized with Remus, or imagined yourself in Wolverhampton, or believed that somewhere in the Potterverse there really were werewolves named Keelan and Sivey and Darkthroat, do let me know as well. It means I'm doing something right, and that doesn't happen very often.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.