Tap, tap, tap.
Remus Lupin woke with a start, reawakening the heavy, dull pain that had settled in his bones. The book that he had been reading before he had fallen asleep lay open on his chest.
Tap, tap, tap.
Each sound stabbed at Remus’ aching brain. He registered the noise this time and, with a groan of fatigue, hauled himself out of bed. Remus wrenched open the window, wincing at the sharp pain in his wrist, to let in a large, handsome barn owl that he recognized as the Potters’ family owl, Persephone. Persephone dropped a small, sealed roll of parchment into Remus’ outstretched hand before swooping upwards to land neatly on top of the wardrobe.
Remus sank wearily back onto his bed, opening the letter.
Padfoot is at my place - he's staying with us until we go back to school. He's left home after a fight with Regulus - long story - we'll explain when we see you. As you'd expect, he's come out of it with another eight Official Ministry Warnings to his name. But that's not all; he's been given a Disciplinary Hearing on the 26th and they say they're "considering his expulsion from Hogwarts.” He's laughing about it now, but you should've seen his face when he read the letters. He only did minor spells; two Shield Charms, a Summoning Charm, a Stinging Hex, an Impedimenta Jinx and a Stunning Spell - but he Apparated. Twice. Once into the middle of a busy road, the pillock, and the second time into my kitchen.
What the Hell do we do?
The Disciplinary Hearing; My Dad's mentioned something about having one of those before and he said you need a defense and a witness and everything. And then he's still got to try and justify what he did. Somehow, I don't think that the truth of him firing random Hexes in the middle of the street because he was mad at his brother, and Apparating over 12.7 miles to run away from home, is going to go down too well with the Wizengamot. Any ideas?
Sorry about the timing of this letter, Moony, but I thought you ought to know sooner rather than later.
Hope you're as well as possible,
Prongs
And Padfoot
Remus read the letter four times before it fully sunk in. Sirius had fought with Regulus; Sirius had run away from home; Sirius was in serious trouble with the Ministry. And all this time Remus hadn't sent a single letter to him.
Remus looked from the small pile of letters from Sirius stacked on his desk to the scrawled signature of "Padfoot" on James' letter and felt hot, sickening guilt pour over him.
He grabbed a quill and began to write.
Sorry I haven't written to you in so long - I'm guessing that you know that I've written to Prongs, so I'd just like to apologize for not writing back to you. I just didn't want to cause you any more trouble.
I've just got the letter from Prongs - and you.
Eight letters in one night? That's got to be a record, even for you.
I'll get straight to the Hearing. That magic's not that much of a big deal really; you didn't do anything too serious - although they might annoy you about the Stunner. It's the Apparition that's the major offence. If I'm completely honest with you, I don't know how to justify that one just yet, but there's bound to be a way. I'll do some research for you. Prongs said in the letter that his Dad's had a Hearing before. From what he's said to me over the years, it sounds like his Dad's been in more than one tight spot with the Ministry in his time, so he'll probably have heard of - or been involved in - an illegal Apparition case.
I'll get back to you as soon as I can, but that might not be for a few days, seeing as it's full moon tonight.
Don't panic about the Hearing - it'll be fine. You always manage to find some sort of loophole in rules to get yourself off.
Hope you're both okay,
I'll be in touch soon,
Moony
Remus rolled up the parchment and sealed it with a few drops of melted wax from the candle burning on his desk.
"Sephy," He called James' owl down from the wardrobe. "Can you take this to Sirius for me, Seph?" he asked her. The owl hooted softly. Remus, taking that to be a 'yes', handed her the letter to clamp in her beak and took her back over to the open window for her to fly out. He stood there for a while leaning on the sill, exhausted by the aching in his limbs, watching her become smaller and smaller against the evening sky.
There was a knock on the door.
"Remus?" It was his father. Remus called him inside, but his father simply hung awkwardly in the doorway.
"Remus, you'd better get downstairs," he said stiffly. A hot, sickening feeling of panic filled Remus’ stomach. He glanced at his watch.
"It's just gone eight o'clock, Dad. I've got at least another hour before it gets dark."
"I'm not going to take any risks, Remus," his father replied firmly. "You know the rules, so stop trying to bend them."
"I'm not!" Remus protested, "It's just that it's only eight o'clock, Dad. It doesn't get dark till nine, and even then it's almost ten o'clock by the time the moon's up -"
"Remus!" his father snapped, "You're going down later and later each month. You're going to put us all in danger if you stay up here any longer. Now get downstairs."
Remus hesitated for a moment, debating whether or not to argue back, but thought better of it. Instead, he reluctantly closed the window and pulled off his shirt; he had only bought it a few weeks ago and was sick of ripping his decent clothes every month.
"That's better," said his father, standing back to allow Remus to pass though the doorway.
Remus walked unsteadily to the doorway, seizing the frame to prevent his legs from collapsing from underneath him. Remus’ mother was standing on the landing, looking sympathetic yet largely ineffectual against the dominant form of his father.
Remus staggered down the stairs, feeling his father's prudent eyes burning into his back. He reached the bottom of the stairs and led the way into the hallway, stopping to face a large stone door. Remus could feel the magic buzzing in the air around him: the twelve soundproofing spells, the sixty-eight reinforcing charms, and the fifty-seven magical locking mechanisms. Remus had learnt them all by heart.
Remus’ father took out his wand and ran the tip of it around the parameter of the door. There was a series of loud mechanical clicks and rattles, and the door swung open.
Remus stood frozen for a moment, staring into the blackness, until he felt the sharp jab of his father's wand in his back and he stumbled down the seven stone steps into the basement. The basement was huge: it was the size of the entire floor-span of his house, but the fact that it had no windows and was made out of a dark, harsh stone made it look a hundred times smaller. Something glittered in the far corner, caught in the harsh beam of light from the open doorway. It was the shackles. Four heavy, iron-wrought shackles, their inch-thick chains bolted three feet underground, set out at the four points of a square, about a meter apart. Remus forced back the urge to throw up and walked towards them. He felt a second nudge from his father and reluctantly dropped onto all fours, kneeling in the centre of the four shackles. Remus’ father tapped each one with the tip of his wand. The chains glowed icy blue for a moment and then lengthened, snaking across the floor, to clamp their shackles around Remus’ wrists and ankles. He shivered. His father tapped each shackle once more and they retracted back into the ground, dragging his limbs with them. Each chain halted when it was half a foot long so as to allow Remus a little give to adjust his position, but not enough to allow his hands or feet to touch. He was, once more, a caged animal.
"We'll come for you in the morning, son," said his father.
His mother nodded silently from the doorway. They had given up trying to speak words of comfort to him long ago; it had only made him feel worse.
The two of them left the basement, closing the door with a bang. Remus heard the sickening mechanical rattles, and raised his head to look at the door. Fifty-seven locks, chains and bolts were sliding back into place. Then a heavy metal panel slid down from the ceiling, hitting the floor with a sickening thud, blocking the door from view - and from reach. Every wall glowed icy blue for a moment, then faded back to their original black as eighty different enchantments were reinstated. He was locked in.
Remus slumped uncomfortably on the floor. He waited. He knew he must try to stay calm, so as to keep his mind as docile as possible as a wolf, but frenzied thoughts were racing through his head. Sirius; the Hearing; expulsion; illegal Apparition, Remus couldn't even make sense of it all. He couldn't settle. It would have been so much better if they had all been there with him: Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail. But he was alone. He was alone to deal with the helpless panic engulfing his mind. He was alone as his mind and body mutated into that of a monster.
A sudden pain stabbed at Remus’ brain. His joints felt like they were on fire, burning beneath his flesh. Remus scrambled painfully up onto all fours, pulling himself into a position that would, with luck, stop him wrenching his joints out of their sockets as he transformed. He waited. His insides felt painfully hot, then horribly cold. Remus closed his eyes as his limbs began to shake.
* * *
Boom.
"Remus?"
Boom.
Someone was knocking at the door.
"Remus, are you awake?"
The words seemed to take forever to travel from Remus’ ears to his brain. He automatically moved to sit up, but collapsed back onto the floor with a yell of pain as the shackles dug further into the deep cuts on his wrists.
"Remus? Did you say something?"
They could hear him. That must mean it was morning; Remus’ father always disabled the soundproofing charms at eight o'clock in the morning so that he could hear if Remus was awake.
It was morning; it was almost over. Remus’ memory played on fast-forward; the letter - Sirius - the Hearing - the basement - the wolf. He threw up.
"Remus? Are you alright?"
"I'm up," he croaked, raising his head to watch as the metal panel rose back into the ceiling and the many locks, bolts and chains slid inwards. The door swung open.
Remus recoiled, wincing at the sudden blast of light. He tried to haul himself up into a more dignified position but it was hopeless; his limbs collapsed painfully beneath him. His entire left arm was immobile, heavy with an aching pain. His mother ran towards him, dropping to her knees in front of him.
"He's pulled his shoulder out again," she muttered, tapping the shackles with her wand so that they released Remus, slithering back into the ground. His father tapped Remus’ shoulder sharply with his wand and it became wonderfully numb, but Remus still felt his bones shudder horribly as his father shoved the joint back into place. He retched again.
"You look terrible, Remus," his mother murmured, brushing Remus’ hair out of his eyes. Remus grimaced.
"Not one of my better nights," he muttered. Every noise penetrated his skull in short, sharp stabs of pain.
"What were you thinking about?" asked his father, "Did you clear your mind?"
Remus hesitated.
"No," he admitted, "I couldn't."
"Why not?," his father demanded.
"I don't know," Remus groaned. He had little energy left to waste arguing. "I didn't have much time -"
"Didn't have much time? Of course you didn't have much time! Maybe now you'll listen to me about not leaving it too late," his father spat, "Look what's happened this time!"
"It's not like I can control it, Dad," Remus said heavily, "There's nothing I can do about it if I have a bad night -"
"You're not even trying!" his father shouted.
"You bloody try it!" Remus yelled, twisting around painfully to face his father, "Do you think this is easy? Do you think this is fun?"
"I'm not - you know I - you're being -" his father stammered, backing away a few paces, making Remus feel horribly like the wild animal he had been only a few hours ago. "I can't do this right now." Remus’ father stormed form the room, slamming the door behind him.
Remus tried to get up - to follow him - to yell at him - to force him to understand, but he collapsed again in an agonizing heap, groaning and cursing at the pain that seared through his bones.
"I'm sorry, Remus, darling," his mother murmured, pulling Remus into a hug, "Your dad's just worried about you. We both are…"
She patted him sympathetically on the back, holding him close to her. Remus didn't have the heart - or the energy - to tell her that she was hurting him.