Isolation by liquid_silver
Chapter Notes: This is my very first fic, so please tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is always appreciated!
"I can feel the night beginning, separate me from the living . . ."
-Evanescence, "All That I'm Living For"
Remus Lupin watched the sun set through the tiny window in the attic of the Shrieking Shack. He had discovered the window on his fourth trip to the Shack, four months into his first year at Hogwarts. He was glad to find the window, since looking through its dirty glass at the patchwork quilt that was Hogsmeade village while a breeze from the crack in its upper corner played across his face seemed to soothe his nerves. Ever since, he had waited for the full moon to rise in that spot in the dilapidated attic, his one link to the outside world. Although he realized that there was a reason for his isolation, and that it was dangerous for him to have any means of escaping from the Shrieking Shack once he transformed, the view from the window put his anxiety to rest. And it wasn't as though he wasn't careful. As soon as the moon started to rise, Remus would always quickly leave the room, magically sealing the door behind him, however reluctant he was to do so. All the other windows in the Shack were boarded up, and Remus could only guess as to why that one wasn't. He often passed the time until the moon rose by coming up with highly imaginative stories to explain why Dumbledore had overlooked this window when boarding up all the rest, knowing all the time that it was probably only because it was so small and unnoticeable. Still, guessing helped take his mind off the horrors to come: the awful, painful transformation and — once that was done — the pain he inflicted on himself as a mindless beast isolated from others to bite.
On this night, Remus watched Rosmerta, the pretty young barmaid of the Three Broomsticks, through the lit window of the pub, smiling as he thought about Sirius's justified attraction to her. His smile faded, however, as his thoughts turned to Sirius, James, and Peter's recent discovery of his . . . furry little problem. James and the two other Marauders made light of it, but Remus worried that they didn't understand how dangerous he could be in his wolf form. He had been terrified before that he might break out of the Shrieking Shack and somehow end up attacking one of his friends; now he had something worse to fear: that they might do something incredibly stupid, like sneak up to the Shack to watch him transform, only to meet their certain death. He shook his head, hard, in an unsuccessful attempt to rid it of morbid thoughts.
Well, he thought grimly, that won't be a problem once the moon's up. I won't be able to help but have my thoughts forcibly dispelled from my head. He sighed and closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the cool glass of the attic window. He was so tired. He had been feeling exhausted for the past few days; extreme fatigue was one of his usual pre-full moon complaints. All he wanted to do was sleep . . . .
Remus jerked awake in the rickety chair by the window, banging his head on the low ceiling, but the pain in his head was nothing compared to the pain that had woken him, the agony that seared through his whole body. He moaned, catching a glimpse of his pallid reflection in the moonlit window before hurriedly turning away; he had watched himself transform once before, and he wasn't in a hurry to do so again. Already he could feel his thoughts becoming less coherent, as the pain that shot through his whole body beat back his human mind, replacing it with that of a wolf as his limbs elongated, hair grew all over his body, and the lower half of his face became a snout, saliva dripping from razor-sharp fangs. His last thought before the last vestiges of his mind melted away completely was that he had forgotten to leave the attic, and that the window was in plain sight.
The werewolf looked around the room, its dull animal's mind bemused at the unfamiliar surroundings. It was used to the lower stories of the Shack, and though it had never felt anything but trapped — horribly, maddeningly trapped — in the claustrophobic lower rooms, the new setting threw it off. It had tried every month for the past three years to escape from the old house that imprisoned it, that kept it from humans to bite. Every month, it had feverishly searched for an exit, tried to force its way through the boards blocking the windows, and — when all failed — resorted to demolishing the old house's contents. But even that wasn't enough — it didn't satiate the hunger for human flesh. So the werewolf turned on itself instead, biting its limbs and tearing through its own skin with massive claws. It needed to feel blood run between its jaws, and so profound was that hunger that it was willing to sacrifice its own physical well-being to satisfy it.
But now . . . once the werewolf had recovered from its momentary shock, it registered a sliver of moonlight on the floor in front of it. It turned with astonishing agility for such a huge beast. It slowly approached the window, and slowly — very slowly — the full moon could be seen through the dirty glass. The sight of the moon awoke something within the werewolf, a ferocity unmatched by anything it had felt before, isolated as it was in the old Shack. A terrible snarl started in the back of its throat, and it was seized by a sudden desperation to escape, no matter how badly it was hurt in the process. It needed to hunt; its own flesh could no longer satisfy the bloodlust that demanded a real chase, instilled in the werewolf the need to feel its jaws rip into an actual human being.
With an earsplitting howl, the werewolf hurled itself at the window. It didn't care how much it got hurt, it didn't care even if it was hurt badly enough to kill it, so long as it was able to attack someone before the blackness closed in on it. It was only after several unsuccessful attempts at breaking through the window that it noticed the narrow crack in the upper right pane. Its strength renewed, it thrust its muzzle through the fissure, knocking free several loose shards of glass but cutting its pointed, black nose in the process. Again and again it wrenched large pieces of glass from the pane until it had a hole large enough for it to push itself through, which it did, while the remaining shards of glass ripped out large tufts of its gray fur. It fell to the ground on all fours; though it retained the basic shape of a human when it transformed, it shared enough characteristics with a particularly lithe animal to be able to jump uninjured from the attic of a three-story house. That didn't matter, though, to the werewolf . . . it would have jumped from a cliff if it meant reaching prey.
Snarling, the beast scanned the area for someone — anyone — to attack.
Its gaze fell upon a young woman backing out of the doorway of an empty inn, carrying large bags of trash and humming to herself. Somewhere in the werewolf's savage mind it felt a flicker of recognition, but that was immediately obscured by the overwhelming desire to sink its teeth into that soft flesh.
With a bloodthirsty snarl, it attacked.