Resolution-Part One
Remus sits on the bed, shivering in the cold. His eyes are glued to the window, watching the sun as it makes its steady descent into the horizon, disappearing. Soon it will be gone, replaced by the moon, and Remus Lupin will be gone too, replaced by a monster.
He has learned to time it, the rhythms of his body, can pinpoint almost to the minute when the transformation will begin. Methodically, he bends to remove his shoes, his socks. Straightens and stands up to remove his robes and places them out of harm’s way before he begins to unbutton his shirt. Goosebumps rise on his arms in the cold and he thinks, angrily, that once Dumbledore was providing the Shack for his transformations, he might as well spell it warm as well.
He folds his shirt neatly, unzips his pants and folds those as well, placing them with his other clothes to be worn back to the castle the next day. He sits on the bed, his feet dangling above the floor, feeling stupid. He always feels stupid at this time, the moments just before it happens, just before he will be shoved unceremoniously out of his body and somewhere else while the werewolf controls his body.
He thinks enviously, for a moment, of Sirius’s absolute command of his body. If ever there was a twelve year old completely conscious of the space he took up in this world, it was Sirius Black. Sirius Black who was born and raised an aristocrat of Wizarding society while Remus is just...Remus. A half-blood and a half-breed.
He shivers and he waits. There are only a few more minutes“
The sound of a scuffle reaches his ears. He cocks his head to side, his ears pricking up, the canine in him already awakened. He has not imagined the sound. Someone is here, in the Shack, and they are coming closer.
Voices now, louder, thumping up the steps to the bedroom where he waits. He knows that he ought to do something, at least get himself under the blanket so that whenever whoever has arrived barges in, he won’t be caught nearly naked. He has no interest in having Professor Dumbledore seeing him like this, seeing him now, the old scars slightly brighter with the approach of the new moon, his skin taught and pale. He doesn’t want“
The door is thrown open, the people behind it unheeding to the fact that something might be behind it.
Remus’s world stops.
Three mouths are hanging open, staring at him and it takes a very long moment in the face of this horror to remember that he is wearing practically nothing at all; that sitting the way he is, he would appear to be completely naked.
He yelps and buries under the cover.
He can imagine their mouths working, trying to figure out what to say, what questions to ask. What“
“Remus,” he hears Sirius say, the voice sounding oddly proud. “You and Madam Pomfrey? I’m impressed. And slightly disgusted.”
He shoots out from under the blanket. “Sirius!” he exclaims, scandalized, before he realizes that Sirius is suddenly much closer to the bed and considerably further from the door and burrows under the blanket again. Please make them go away he begs of some unknown and unseen deity. Please. Please just make them“
The weight on the mattress shifts and he is sure that someone, Something, up there is playing some horrible joke on him. Has been for years.
“Remus?” Sirius asks quietly.
“Go away!” he answers, his voice muffled in the bedspread.
“But Remus“” James’s voice.
“No! Go away! You don’t understand!” Remus begs. He will kiss Sirius’s toes, will suck them and massage his dirty, smelly feet if he will only just leave so that he can be left to his miserable curse alone.
Sirius snorts. “Of course we don’t understand. Why in the world would you go sneaking off with Madam Pomfrey once a month?”
Remus stops breathing. “How long have you“do you“”
“This is the fourth time we watched you leave.”
Remus feels some small part of him whither up inside and die.
“Go away,” he says again. He wants them gone when he starts to cry.
“No.” James again. “Not until you explain.”
Remus opens his mouth, and then freezes, his entire body tightening, the chords in his back taut. He waits the torturous moment out, knowing it will pass, the contraction that does nothing to prepare his body for the transformation. It is a tease, really, the werewolf taunting him, letting him know that it is what holds power over the body now.
The cover is thrown back and now he is naked and
vulnerable and cold.
“Should we get Madam Pomfrey?” Sirius asks, his voice quiet. Low.
“No,” Remus answers, the word coming out as a moan as he forces it out. “No. You have to leave now.”
“But“” Peter begins to protest.
“No“” It happens again. The pain lances through him and his hands reach out without any thought to grab the headboard, holding, holding tightly as the beast threatens. It is beginning.
He falls limply into the mattress once it passes. “Now,” he rasps. “You have to go now.”
Remus can feel their eyes boring into his back.
“A werewolf,” James breathes. “You’re a werewolf.”
“Now,” Remus repeats through clenched teeth. It is close. So close now. “If you don’t go I can’t“I won’t“”
The words are stolen from him as he arches off the bed.
“NOW!” he barks, and it is the last word he will say until the sun rises tomorrow.
They run, slamming the door behind them as the monster emerges, legs and arms transforming, torso changing, teeth sharpening and growing longer, muzzle emerging, fur exploding over his skin. He screams and he howls as the pain racks his body and for the first time in his life, he is thankful for the numbness that comes with it, the loss of memory. He will not know for the next few hours that he is friendless in the world.