From Lupin's point of view
Title: From Lupin's point of view, Pt 1 Rating: Well, it's awfully violent. I'd say R for that. Summary: I had posted another fic on the cliche theme "full moon/prison/no wolfsbane", told from Snape's POV, and some thoughtful commenter remarked that she wondered what Lupin was thinking. This is it. It turns out that Lupin was thinking quite a lot, and is a much less economical storyteller than Snape, so it's a bit long.
Note: I imagine that there will be three or possibly four parts. I've got the whole draft done, but I'm not sure how much it will grow or shrink in rewrite. And if anyone has any actual title suggestions...I can't seem to think of a thing.
I was half asleep in the old armchair, even though it was only late afternoon. Lucky sleep, I'd thought, after a little--a very little--bad gin to dull my thoughts down. I was so close to the moon...I wished for anyone, for Sirius or Jamie or Peter as he'd been before--
And the wards blew in.
The windows shattered in a burst of green light. I was on my feet, hot with fear and staring foolishly, when MacNair kicked the door off its hinges. There were six of them, and we all knew they were too many for me.
How had they found me? Who had known? Albus, the children--did they have one of the children? I couldn't be near them, not now, they wouldn't begin to know what to do--
I'd told myself often enough that I had to make them kill me rather than take me. I tried, I think I tried. I don't know now; I've always been afraid that I wouldn't want badly enough to die.
They were careful, though, and prepared. They had a netting spell which stilled me, and something that took all the breath out of my lungs so that my vision clouded over. I had bloodied one of the young men and knocked MacNair down, but nothing more. MacNair took my wand. I saw him think about snapping it in front of me, but he put it in his pocket and then hit me very hard in the face. While my head was still spinning he bodybound me tightly.
And we were gone.
***
The woods were all in spring flower and the air smelled of rain--somewhere in the south of England, somewhere lovely and expensive, Kent perhaps. The force of apparition knocked me down. With my arms bound I couldn't catch myself and I fell full length on the turf.
Rabastan laughed. "Upsy-daisy," he said, and pulled me painfully to my feet. "Only a little ways now, ducks."
Macnair kicked me. "Walk, damn you, or I swear I'll drag you face down," he said. Anger and panic. If only it were later, or if I could delay them until the moon... I walked on dizzy and blinded. The wolf, the wolf would come--
The wolf was so strong in me already, making my heart race and clouding my thoughts. Still so strong, but weaker now that it had been. The potion and safety had half-way tamed it. It wasn't so urgent or so angry now; my strongest memories of the change were of fear and solitude, not pain. Wolves are social creatures.
We stepped out of the wood. Across a wide rolled lawn was a beautiful house, as unreal as a house in a story, a gently crumbling house of old mauve brick overgrown with vines. The last sun gilded the apricot tree which sprawled gracefully over a low wall. A house as still and strangely sinister as a beautiful corpse. My head felt full of blood.
The door was open. The dim chill of the interior closed round me.
They walked me down a long corridor made silent by a an elegantly faded red persian rug. Around a corner, down three steps, through a little windowless room and a low door. The white room to which they took me was very bad. There was water mixed with blood on the floor, I could smell it. A bucket, a heap of wet rags, a chair. Boards and wet rope. There was blood--there was blood on the ceiling, a fine maroon spray.
MacNair saw me look up. "I could cut your throat," he said, one hand reaching in his pocket. He was afraid of me and I saw the knife he held. But they wouldn't have brought me here only to kill me. A knife might be the best thing--
"But that's not what you're for!" said Rabastan. "There, there, Mac." He took a step toward me and I pulled back. "No, no," he said, and shook his head at me. "I'd tell you to turn out your pockets, but I suppose you can't." He took the galleon and knuts I'd had, and my watch, and my reading glasses. "You won't need those anymore," he said.
MacNair took them from his hand and dropped them on the floor, then ground his heel on one of the lenses. I heard it go to powder. "You won't need those where we'll put you," he said.
The grave, I thought.
***
They left me in that room for a little while, two of the young men standing guard. The wall was deeply cold where I leaned against it. There was so much blood. My blood in my mouth made it hard to concentrate; blood brought the wolf to the surface. I could hear voices outside the door; they were talking about what to do with me. "--so fucking slow about it," said MacNair angrily over his shoulder as he came back into the room.
He gripped my arm tightly, twisting it back until I cried out without meaning to. He made a satisfied sound and pushed me forward, marching me rapidly along a narrow whitewashed passage. For a moment I thought he'd throw me down the dark stairway at its end, but he slowed enough that I could stumble down the steps.
Underground. The smell of earth was strong. Ahead was a splintery door with boards nailed across it for reinforcement. Rabastan stepped delicately ahead of me and unlocked it. Then MacNair shoved me hard into the shadowed, cold room beyond.
I staggered against a stone wall. The blood in my mouth tasted strong and metallic, and I couldn't seem to get any air. There was a smell, a faint smell--there were dead bodies here. Had they left me with a corpse? What was that? Was I alone? Something on the floor, someone, a familiar smell and so much blood--
Severus. There was blood around his mouth. He stood up, shakily. Not one of the children but almost as bad, tall and thin and weak. The wolf wouldn't be afraid; he couldn't fight me. I would kill--I would kill him and wake in the morning, I'd go mad, I'd...terrible pictures rose before me. I backed away from him. I don't know what I said.
He was swaying on his feet, ghastly pale. "Don't grizzle, Lupin," he said. "At least you won't live to regret it." And the light was fading by the minute; his eyes were in shadow.
I'd kill him and they'd kill me. I couldn't keep my feet.
"How badly did they hurt you?" Severus asked me. He was leaning over me as if he could see in the last light, or as if he could help.
"They hit me a bit," I said.
"I told them where to find you," said Severus in a low voice.
Better him than Harry or Hermione. "They had you in that room upstairs."
He nodded. His blood in the water, then. "They found that they couldn't trust me after all."
"But they--"
"Spies everwhere, I suppose," he said, and grimaced. I saw him look at the tiny window.
He took a few steps backward until he was against the opposite wall, then sank down. He was in shadow but I could see that he put his face in his hands, and that his shoulders shook.