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.
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…”