Topgallant : HP : Monster

Fenrir/Remus, by request, for

melieltathariel. 890 words.

Monster.

Remus remembers very clearly the moment he understood that the thing inside him was a monster. He was twelve, and the urges were still new, still young enough to make him feel more like a cub than a predator. The low-lying harvest moon had called him, and from the confines of the Shrieking Shack he had answered. He had wanted to get out, had ransacked the house with more desperation than anger; the pull in him was for freedom and not destruction.

The answering call of the wolf was the first he had ever heard in that state. He had heard wolves howl before, had caught their plaintive cries on the wind. But he had never been one of them before; he had never heard the response to his call as he struggled for dominance over his captivity. Suddenly the howl thrown back to him from the forests was a language, translated to him in one unforgettable moment in which he stopped thrashing against the windows of the shack and listened. It spoke of desire for freedom, but more—of hunger, of power, of unstoppable force and bloodlust. It sank into his soul as he listened, heated his veins for the rest of the night.

When he woke the next morning after the moon had fled, Remus felt empty and older. Aware. The thing inside of him was dark and insatiable. It snarled in his stomach, growled through his fingertips and carried his feet toward the forests without his direction. He could never give in to it or it would devour him whole.

When he sees Fenrir Greyback for the first time the other werewolf is lying on his side, asleep on a low bench in a small hut whose dim candlelight unflatteringly reveals the dirty mat of his hair against his neck, the grunge beneath his fingernails, the sharp, bitter twist of his lips. He has his eyes closed, but he is smiling.

Remus has heard of him, but not expected to know him by sight. Something is twinging in his memory, pulling him forward where nothing save duty should compel him to go; Greyback opens his eyes, sits up in one motion and holds out his hand. “You’re one of us,” he says, his nostrils flaring as if he can smell the truth in the air, smell it on Remus’s body.

No, Remus thinks, and takes Fenrir’s hand. “Remus Lupin,” he says.

Greyback stands, still holding Remus’s hand. He is a bit taller than Remus, made out of muscle and a casual, raw arrogance that reminds Remus of Sirius before Azkaban. Pain shoots through him, and he avoids it by looking calmly into Greyback’s face. Greyback leans close, very close, and yes, he is definitely sniffing the air between them. Remus knows if he closes his eyes, if he concentrates, he can smell it too, lingering there in the back of his conscious, the place where will and instinct collide and remain submerged for as long as Remus can keep them there: the smell of lust and death and blood, filling the air around them, coming between them, a red sea of hunger.

“I know your type,” Greyback says. His voice is rough and faintly metallic like the wrong side of a knife. Remus feels the beast twisting and uncurling in his stomach. Greyback places his hand on Remus’s cheek. “You’re the civilized kind,” he says gently, the words dropping too gracefully from his thin lips. “The kind that thinks they can eradicate what they are. The best part of themselves.” His fingers trace Remus’s jaw line, and Remus shivers, wills himself not to recoil. “But I know you,” he said. “Your kind always falls harder than the rest of us.”

Remus swallows. “Well, that’s why I’m here,” he says. “The Ministry has not treated me with kindness… ever since I was driven out of Hogwarts I—”

“Shh.” Greyback puts his lips against Remus’s ear. ‘The point,” he says, and then he drops his voice so that Remus’s hearing suddenly is over-sensitized, as if his ears are actually pricking up. Remus feels suddenly animal all over, and he leans into the fingertips still tracing his face, if only to keep hold of the human touch. Greyback drags his long nails down to the pulse point of Remus’s throat and encircles his neck lightly, right where Remus can feel his own blood rushing hot and intemperate against his skin. “The point,” he says again, “is not to look back. Not to explain.”

He smiles.

“The point is to live,” he says. “To live fully, to experience our truest, strongest natures.” His lips part even further, and then he snarls rather than laughs: a meaty, harsh sound that Remus can feel through the fingertips clasping against his throat. And suddenly, Remus remembers the howl—the feeling welling in his ribcage and flowing through him like vibrato. He remembers the power pouring straight from the diaphragm and out into the night, remembers the way the sound turned his nerves on edge like metal scraping against metal, the way it submerged him, took him over, gave him freedom.

He breathes in, too quickly, and Greyback’s eyes spark with interest. With recognition.

Remus steadies his hands on Fenrir’s shoulders, and asks:

“When do we feast?”