Remus Lupin is on the prowl (_mr_moony) wrote in lockdown, @ 2012-03-30 18:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! march 1980, ! npc, remus lupin |
Who: Remus Lupin & Fenrir Greyback (NPC'd by the lovely Penny)
When: 28 March (Wednesday)
What: Amongst all of his searching, Remus meets his Maker (literally).
Where: East Kilbride, Scotland
Remus had been surprised at the ease of which he had been able to find abandoned buildings in Scotland. He had spent a day at the library, researching various Post-WWII buildings and asking around about interesting places he might be able to visit. Some had been too damaged, and some still had a populous of people surrounding them... but he had found a few fairly intact buildings in desolate locations.
Following James’s advice, Remus had been staying at Mr. Potter’s estate on the Loch Maree islands north of Scotland. It had been a rather pleasant environment, and while Remus wasn’t quite at ease with house-elves being his only other companions, it had made for a rather relaxing environment that had lulled him into a perhaps false sense of security. He could spend an entire day scouting, and make it back to the estate around sundown, have a hearty meal, and then spend the rest of the evening with a good book.
Once or twice he’d stayed out much longer than anticipated. It wasn’t necessarily simple to get back to the Islands, and so he had spent a night or two in a tavern or inn. Tonight he had taken particularly long, having found himself practically lost in the cellar of Calderwood Castle. Most of the castle itself had been destroyed, but the remaining basements were almost perfectly intact, providing more than ample space away from civilization.
Remus had been alarmed when he climbed out of the cellar to find that it was pitch black outside. Armed with only the light of his wand, he began to walk back towards the main roads as quickly as his feet could carry him.
Fenrir had been watching the little lone wolf on his for days. He’d never got too close, not wanting to give himself away before he was ready, but he’d stumbled across the boy’s tracks while he and a few of the others were out hunting, and the scent -- well, Fenrir never forgot a target, even after so long, and wasn’t it really about time he got reacquainted with someone whose life he had changed so drastically?
He’d sent his wolves back to the pack camp, instructing them to keep their heads down for the night, and had followed the tracks to an old castle, barely more than wreckage these days. What could the boy be after in a place like that? It piqued Fenrir’s curiosity, and so he waited on a crumbling wall while the light dimmed, listening for the boy.
He let Lupin pass him by, and then began to follow, not bothering to stay as quiet as he would have if he’d wanted to be unnoticed. He wanted the boy to realise he was being followed, and his woodcraft was far better than Lupin’s.
After a few more paces down the narrow path, Remus stopped. Had he heard something? Were his ears playing tricks on him? He held up his wand, looking around into the darkness. Stubborn as he was, he tried to convince himself that he was not being followed. Perhaps someone was upset that he was trespassing on the abandoned property?
Fenrir chuckled when the boy looked around. Observant, at least; he’d have been disgusted if one of his wolves hadn’t been at least a little aware of his surroundings. He moved out of the darkness and into the shadows at the edge of the light, enough for Lupin to get a glimpse of him without getting too many details.
“It’s been a long time,” he said quietly. “What is someone like you doing all the way out here, puppy?”
Remus felt his blood run cold, and he stopped, completely still, in his tracks. He could not make out the man’s face, but it was not hard to assume. His heart started to race. Why now? Why here?
“Bit of research,” Remus murmured, his eyes straining to see in the dark. He wanted to get a good look at the man who had bitten him as a child.
“A studious puppy,” Fenrir noted, raising his eyebrows. “That’s an interesting change.”
Most of the werewolves he’d made tended towards the wilder end of things, after all. Most of them had taken it as inevitable that they weren’t going to be allowed to fit into society, and hadn’t bothered to try; the ones that had tried had been chewed up and spat out by a system that didn’t care about anything but containing them. Perfect for his little army. But perhaps he’d been right in not pursuing Lupin until now. Perhaps.
“I’m not a puppy,” Remus felt himself growl a bit, his fist clenched tightly at his side. His breathing was slow and deliberate as he watched the other man -no, monster- for sudden movements. “What do you want from me?” he hissed between his teeth.
“You can’t blame me for being curious, can you?” Fenrir grinned, starting to circle Lupin. “After all, you are practically family. And when I scented you in the area, well. I just had to see what you were up to.”
Remus sucked in a sharp breath of air. Even though he’d known, the other man’s words confirmed it. Fenrir Greyback. After all these years, Remus had never imagined meeting him face to face like this. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.
Tensed, Remus followed the man carefully as he moved about him. “Family is not the word I would use,” he snarled. His spine felt rigid and he was gripping his wand so hard that his knuckles ached.
“No, I imagine not,” Fenrir crooned. “You grew up more civilized than most of us get the chance to. It’s coloured the way you think. Still, it’s made you stronger in other ways. Some of my pups can barely read, let alone go off on their own to do research in old, abandoned, middle-of-nowhere castles.”
Remus ached to think about other, less fortunate werewolves. There had been a time when he’d pitied Greyback, until he’d learned about how the man would position himself close to his victims, and of his goals to spread lycanthropy as far and wide as he could. He knew he had been fortunate, growing up with a family that had continued to love and support him, and a school that had accepted him despite his condition.
“The mind is a powerful tool,” he insisted. “It would be a shame to let it go to waste.”
“True enough,” Fenrir agreed. “Although you could argue that a mind being used for the wrong ends is just as much a waste as a mind not being used at all, couldn’t you? But then you’d get into all sorts of moralistic arguments about means and ends and justification, and that could go on forever.”
Listening to Greyback speak, Remus couldn’t help but wonder what the other man was getting at. “This is why you found me?” Remus wondered. “To talk of philosophy?” He sneered a bit. “If you wanted a date, I would have preferred something a little more romantic.” It surprised him how Sirius-like his last comment had been.
Fenrir laughed, honestly amused. “And he barks! Charming. No, puppy, I found you simply because I was curious. It’s been such a long time since I took time to take a look at how you were doing. Dumbledore keeps that school of his locked tight, you know, and you’ve been difficult to track down since you finished there. Always surrounded by people. It’s no way for a proper wolf to live.”
“I wouldn’t be a wolf if it weren’t for you,” Remus pointed out. It chilled him to realize that the other man had kept such close tabs on him, to know that he had followed his education at Hogwarts, to know what sort of people he surrounded himself with now. And why? Remus had always assumed that Greyback had forgotten him once he’d bitten.
“Very few people would be,” Fenrir countered. He was responsible for a lot of the werewolves in Britain in the past ten years, after all, and he wasn’t ashamed of that fact. The more of them there were, the less wizards would be able to just dismiss them as someone else’s problem.
That thought sickened Remus. Did he not understand the pain and misery he was shackling to innocent people? How could he possibly justify his actions? “You disgust me,” Remus said, rather boldly. “You ruin lives, and for what?”
Fenrir laughed softly, shaking his head. “And there’s the downside to that education of yours. My wolves know what it’s like to be free, truly free, without the shackles that bind so many wizards. Not just wizards, either; I’ve got Squibs in my pack who got thrown away by the wizarding world. Muggles who caught the wrong end of a spell, who got fucked with by Obliviators.” He grinned, watching Lupin. “A whole host of people who have every reason to hate that little Ministry and everything it stands for. I’m giving them a voice they wouldn’t otherwise have.”
“Not every educated wizard supports the Ministry,” Remus tried to sound assertive. He certainly did not support the Ministry, especially given how difficult they had made it for him to get a job. And admittedly, Remus did agree that everyone should have a voice. “I am not opposed every aspect of your point of view,” he took a deep breath. “Only the part that involves attacking innocent people.”
“Well, then.” Fenrir grinned, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Seems like something we should discuss more, if you want to show me the light, puppy. Or you could let me walk back into the shadows, into the dark, and know I’ll always be out there. I marked you as one of mine a long time ago and I don’t give up my claims easily.”
“I don’t belong to you,” he said, firmly. The longer Greyback talked, the easier it was for Remus to let his fear ebb away. “You may have changed my life forever, but I will never be someone that you can lay claim on.”
But there was something that nagged at him. He doubted that Greyback would ever really listen... if the opportunity was there, should Remus try to take it?
“We’ll see,” Fenrir said softly. He could press the point tonight, but where would be the fun in that? There was so much more he could do, given time and the right opportunities. He’d broken puppies like Lupin before; it never took very much, and the game was always fun while it lasted. Letting himself fade back into the shadows a little more, he added, “Enjoy your research, puppy.”
It suddenly occurred to him that if Fenrir Greyback had been keeping tabs on him this entire time, it completely compromised every location he had scouted. It wouldn’t do to have someone that was not a member of the Order very aware of each location Remus had visited.
“Wait,” he found his voice coming out of his mouth before he knew what he wanted to say.
Fenrir stopped, looking at Lupin with an almost quizzical expression.
“Yes?”
“How long have you been following me?” he wondered. His brain was racing, considering ways to explain his need to ask that that wouldn’t alert the other man that this ‘research’ was something related to the Order. Why had he even said that? What a terrible explanation.
Fenrir laughed, looking Lupin up and down. That made him uncomfortable, didn’t it? The idea of having been watched. Which made Fenrir wonder what exactly the younger man had been doing all the way out here.
“What do I get if I tell you?”
He wanted to say that Greyback didn’t deserve anything, but knew that would only guarantee no answers. “What do you want?” Remus asked, simply. He took a step back, trying to appear more relaxed. His wand was already in his hand, and Remus hoped that it appeared that he was not planning to use it for anything other than the light it was emitting.
Fenrir’s smile widened. Bargaining. That was an interesting development.
“Why don’t we say you’ll owe me a favour?”
“What sort of favour?” Remus wanted to know. This worried him. The last thing he wanted to do was back himself into a corner with Fenrir Greyback. The wrong sort of favor could cause some innocent person a lot of pain. And knowing Greyback’s tastes, it would probably be someone Remus cared about.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Fenrir said, grinning wolfishly. “You’ll just have to decide what’s worth more to you: knowledge, or the favour.”
He had started to tense again, his confidence slipping a bit. “I don’t think so,” Remus frowned. “A favour is an awful lot to owe for a simple answer, especially without knowing what sort of favour you are looking for.” But Remus couldn’t think of a good offer. What would Greyback want, besides causing pain to a friend of Remus’s?
Fenrir shrugged, taking another step back into the shadows. “If the information isn’t that important to you, we don’t have to barter,” he said lazily.
A flick of his wand and Remus had hit Fenrir in shoulder with a jolt. It wasn’t enough to knock him back, but a sharp pain that would show the other man that he meant business. “Tell me,” he demanded.
Fenrir laughed at the pain, although it certainly hurt. Not as much as he’d hurt before, though, and barely with the same bite. It was almost cute that Lupin thought he could fight that way.
“I don’t think so, puppy.”
Again, Remus used the same spell, but with more force. “Tell me how long you’ve been following me,” he demanded. “I don’t like being toyed with.”
Fenrir’s laugh turned a little rougher, and he gathered his strength, lunging at the boy and tackling him to the ground, wrapping his hand around Lupin’s wand-hand’s wrist and forcing it up beside his head, the tip of the wand pressed against his temple.
“Go ahead,” he growled, letting a more bestial note slip into his voice for the first time. “Try that little trick again, puppy.”
The weight of Greyback on top of Remus as his back hit the ground all but knocked the wind out of him. Gasping to catch his breath, Remus reacted instinctively rather than logically, and spit in the werewolf’s face.
Fenrir let out a wild roar of a laugh, going on instinct as much as the boy had, bending his head and setting his teeth to flesh at the spot where Lupin’s neck met his shoulder. Not a dangerous spot, not one where the veins and arteries were close enough to risk him bleeding out, but a painful one, especially as he bit down and tossed his head to tear at the flesh.
Remus grit his teeth, but could not stop himself from crying out. Intense pain tore through his body, his head spinning as the reality of the situation started to weigh down on him. Remus yanked at his wand hand, which was still pinned to the ground, and with his took a handful of Greyback’s hair, trying desperately to yank the other man’s mouth away from his body.
Fenrir pulled back, spitting Lupin’s blood in his face and laughing.
“Don’t presume to threaten me, puppy,” he snarled. “I can take you quicker than you can think.”
Remus coughed a bit, the metalic taste of his own blood made his stomach churn. He moved his fingers around his wand, thankful that he could still feel them despite the agonizing pain just above his shoulder.
With the distraction of the biting, Remus had managed to twist his arm just a bit to get the tip of his wand away from his face. With a deep breath and half a prayer, Remus fired off a stunning spell, poorly aimed, but it was the best he could do from his pinned position.
The curse glanced off, but it was enough to stun Fenrir for a moment, making him fall back and shake his head sharply to try to clear it, giving Lupin more freedom of movement for the moment.
Remus scrambled to his feet, backing away and putting space between him and Greyback. Raising his wand he fired off another stunning spell, followed by a blasting curse. He wasn’t about to let Greyback have the upper hand again.
Fenrir didn’t bother with duelling; he was a more physical fighter. He dodged the stunner and dived into the shadows, letting his superior knowledge of woodcraft help him blend into the darkness.
Following Greyback with his wand, Remus sent a blasting curse in the general direction. The darkness had obscured his opponent from his vision, but Remus wasn’t about to stand around waiting to see if the other man returned.
Fenrir laughed, sinking further back into the darkness. Let Lupin go, for now. Fenrir had more plans for him later.
After a few moments, it became apparent that the wolf had run. “Coward!” Remus yelled into the darkness. Damn. He had no idea how long Greyback had been following him, nor did he know what the other man thought of what he’d called ‘research.’ He’d have to be more careful in his next search.
With a groan he shuddered, sinking to his knees a moment. He lit his wand to try to get a look at his injury, tearing his shirt away. Greyback had bitten deep, and he knew that the injury would not heal properly. At the very least, it would lead a nasty scar.
Sirius was going to kill him.