remus j. lupin (themercyseat) wrote in triumphic, @ 2014-04-06 17:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | !backstory, 1991 : 02, greyback fenrir, lupin remus |
backstory log: remus lupin, fenrir greyback
WHO: Remus Lupin and Fenrir Greyback
WHERE: An unremarkable muggle village in Scotland.
WHEN: February 1991
WHAT: Fenrir is back in town, and Remus is not particularly enthused by the idea.
The deep chill of winter stayed longer and clung tighter this far up north, painting the windows with frost and carpeting the gentle swell of hills with white. It certainly shouldn’t have encouraged anyone but the most determined smoker to linger beneath the icicle-lined overhang of local, and certainly not one dressed in but a careworn jacket with obvious mends and hand-sewn patches on the sleeves.
But Remus barely paid attention to the cold, too lost in the lingering memories of what had happened that afternoon. He wouldn’t have even come, post-full moon and exhausted as he was, but the money to just come and see what creature did this had been too tempting to refuse.
But one look at the farmer’s feverish wife, half mangled and with a deep, gaping bite at the juncture of her shoulder and neck, and Remus fervently wished he had stayed away. It wasn’t easy to break the news to the husband, and even less so to their three young daughters.
“Will you find the beast who did this? I’ll pay you. I’ll sell everything I have to pay what you want,” the man had asked. The smouldering embers of what promised to be a blazing and lifelong hatred had shone in his red-rimmed eyes.
Remus had studied him and wondered if the wife would soon join his name amongst the Ministry’s files or if it would be taken care of quietly as it so often was in the smaller villages. Self-defence, maybe. Or an accident. Mercy, Remus thought, and said to the man, “Not really my area.”
He’d left them then, that little ruined family, and had come to town to drink away the memory of their faces and wash away the devastated note in their voices amidst local chatter of which farms plagued by wild animals and which team would play for the Cup. And now it was too late and too cold, and a cigarette in his hand wasn’t doing much anymore.
He glanced around the village with consideration -- it might be a good place to work. But then he thought about that family and snuffed that idea out immediately along with the fag.
There was always the danger that recognition would crease the pasty features of the villagers, that bad memories put to rest would be rekindled, stoked in part by the unnatural violence that had stricken this place, in part by the weathered face of one whose name had once been considered a bad omen. But in the depths of such a winter, in the depths of such tragedy (never had such a thing happened here, this quiet farming community where everyone knew everyone, where the happenings in London were considered so remote as to be irrelevant to the day-to-day lives of the folk here), Fenrir Greyback was afforded the passingly curious glances given to all strangers -- and as he paid for his drinks without issue and seemed to have no intentions of causing trouble, he was left to his own devices.
A passing ornithologist, he'd said when asked, the soft lilt of his accent disguised by the burr of his voice; there was a book and a little pair of binoculars to corroborate his story, to be pulled out from within his coat if asked. The scarf -- wool, its colour long faded into something featurelessly grey -- wound around his neck did much to hide the red welt that circled his skin like the crimson shadow of the thinly wrought silver chain he wore beneath his shirt; the gloves hid the scars littering his knuckles.
Fenrir had been hunting, yes, but not for birds. There was a young werewolf roving these forgotten hills. Not one of his, but missing a pack; missing direction. If the pup -- clearly taken with the taste for blood -- did not settle himself and move on, if the attacks continued as they had in the previous two villages, the Ministry would no doubt descend, and that, for a werewolf lacking any other magical ability (for those who did were rare), would be that.
He'd not expected the first werewolf he found here to be Remus Lupin, nursing a drink and that typically troubled expression on his young and tired face.
The bottle of low-grade vodka placed before him, purchased less than an hour ago and its clear contents now just below the middle point, was tipped, refilling the glass, and he leaned back in his corner seat, curious as to how long it would take for the olfactory centres in the other's brain to override whatever thoughts Remus was currently mulling over.
A dropped glass shattered Remus from his thoughts and landed him back into his present surroundings. The influx of shouts and laughter flooded his ears, the stale smell of ale and sweat permeated the overwarm interior of the pub, sneaking past the traces of charred tobacco and chemicals already deeply embedded in his lungs.
And there, just a prickle, so small he would have brushed it off had it not been for the stark visage surfacing from a sea of faces. He would never forget that face, even if time had drawn in a few more lines and sharpened others. It was the face of many of his nightmares, often overlaid on the body of a massive beast, somehow both monster and man.
Whatever residual weariness left in his bones was washed away by a sudden spike of adrenaline, his whole awareness now wrapped around the other in a way that surpassed mere human senses. His skin itched, the jagged scar at the base of his throat, just above his right clavicle, ached slightly. His blood sang.
Moth to flame, he found himself standing up before quite realising it, prowling past others, shoulders, neck, head all angled and propelled inexorably forward. "Why are you here?"
"Careful, Remus. Don't make a scene." The whine of wood scraping against wood as Fenrir kicked out a chair from beneath the table that separated wolf from wolf chased the latter half of his words; a smile, wide and vulgar and all teeth, accompanied the entirety of his greeting.
The younger man had that distinctive post-full look, pale and sharp and bruised in ways humans would never know. The patches on his coat told the tale almost in its entirety. He wondered how long it had been since Remus had had a proper slab of meat.
"Same reason as you, I think. Sit."
After a moment of hesitance, Remus reluctantly did so, unable to suppress the instinct to inhale sulphur, ash, and earth that just smelled too new to be anything of the isle. He had sometimes wondered where Fenrir had gotten off to after he had been able to slink through from the Ministry's net. "Was it one of yours?" Was it you?
"Was it you?" countered Fenrir, as though he had caught Remus' suspicion. Then, a quick shake of his head and the curl of his upper lip, as if there was something foul in the air and he, with a snap of his teeth, could catch and identify it. "-- no, you stink of wolfsbane still. Tell me, Remus, when will you abandon your little fantasy and accept what you are?"
After pouring himself another measure of vodka, he pushed the bottle slowly across the table, not expecting Remus to take him up on the wordless offer, but curious nevertheless. Remus, the eternal denier: of his nature, of his instincts, of him.
"Tell me what you know."
Remus's gaze never wavered from Fenrir's, ignoring the bait--both bottle and word. He was tempted to make some cutting remark about blood being just as off-putting a smell, but they both knew that wasn't true.
"He's young. And new. Maybe six months at most. He's been staying in the area and living off cattle, but he'll flee soon." He would panic, after infecting his first human. He would realise the full extent of what he had become. "What will you do to him?"
"Take him back with me." Back to where, he would not immediately volunteer, preferring to let Remus, who was one of the few with the spine (some would say stupidity) to tell his own maker no, guess at his current haunts.
"If he's as young as you say, then this is the most dangerous time for him. All alone? You know what they say about the solitary wolf."
"If it were a choice between being alone and being with you, he's better off alone." The very thought of another being subjugated to Fenrir (cruel, charismatic) was enough to set his teeth on edge. This is not your problem, he reminded himself, but his growing anger betrayed by his fingers tightening their white-knuckled grip on the table's edge.
Challenging Remus in a deceptively mild tone: “How would you know? You’ve refused pack-life with me since you were a pup, and when you chose your friends...” The word was allowed to drag, then hang heavily in the air as Fenrir swept his tongue across his lower teeth. “At least you don’t smell like wet dog anymore, mm?”
His whole body twitched forward, as if to leap forward and sink teeth into Fenrir's throat. It's what he wanted to do, in that very moment. "I refuse," he choked out, effort nearly visible in calming his trembling body, "I refuse to allow myself to be subjected to some mindless creature. Or to let anyone, least of all some mad wizard who styled himself a dark lord, make me his bitch."
They weren’t attracting stares, not yet, but Fenrir’s gaze cut across the pub regardless, making a lightning-quick assessment of the exits available to him (to them) should the local crowd become hostile. As a foreigner and at large, Fenrir’s wand had never been tagged and would not invite immediate repercussions should he use it, but he had no idea what Remus, tame little werewolf that he was, carried.
“Arrogant little cunt,” was murmured in an undertone; no mistaking the flash of anger in his eyes as he returned his attention to Remus. “That mad wizard promised us a means of ending this pathetic half-life wolves like you live.” He would not be drawn into a debate over how the Dark Lord had abused his half-given loyalty and service, how the freedom from the Ministry’s watchdogs had never come even as he, Fenrir Greyback, packmaster to those who ran with him, horror to those who didn’t, was obliged to obey...
A steadying breath, slow through briefly clenched teeth, as the chain around his neck shifted with the movement of his chest.
“I will find the wolf and give him a choice. Help me or stand aside, but don’t think you can stop me.”
"You are the one who stole my life from me!" he growled. "You...you condemned me to this fate. You promised power and acceptance and a good life, but you're nothing now but a fugitive."
It was nearly a lament, he realised belatedly. If his parents had loved him just a little less, it could have been different. How narrow his escape had been, if it had been at all. And he couldn't knowingly let others fall to the same fate. "I've helped others get away from you before. You don't get to have this one, Fenrir."
It was an easy enough thing to lean forward and wrap his hand, scarred-over and hard from countless transformations, around Remus’ wrist as though there was nothing, no table, no distance, no hostility between them. His grip was firm, but not un-gentle, though the promise of violence lingered beneath the press of his palm; it would cost him nothing to wrench Remus across the table. “What will you do?” was quiet. “How will you stop me, little one? Your Ministry hates you -- why subject another to the misery you force yourself to exist in? Don’t be a fool.”
The heat of Fenrir's hand felt like a brand around his wrist. And for all its proprietariness, it made him feel cold all over. To his horror, he found himself nearly wanting to slink down and cower.
"No," he said quietly to himself as much as Fenrir, forcing himself to square his shoulders and look the other man in the eye. "I can keep him out of yours and the Ministry’s hands. And they might hate me, but they hate you more."
Fenrir's laughter was less bark, more growl and the snap of teeth; what he could perceive of Remus' involuntary reaction to his invasion of his personal space only served to thicken the triumphant pleasure he derived from this demonstration of dominance. "I don't care what they think of me." Unlike you, Remus Lupin. "And because you do, you are made weak. Weaker."
Beat before he let Remus' hand thump back against the table, his nails scraping against the grain of wood as he drew himself back. "Make him into you and you condemn him to your pathetic fate."
It was not that Fenrir hadn't said anything he hadn't heard from others or even from himself. But from Fenrir, he could very much believe it, and that, above all things, was why he hated him most of all.
Remus glanced at the bottle between them. With his hand freed, he gripped its neck and drew it to his lips. The burn of the vodka seared his mouth and throat, but he has regularly suffered worse and to much less pleasant effect.
And when the bottle was drained of its contents, he merely twisted it in his fingers, stood up with light feet, and swung it at Fenrir's head.
-- only Fenrir was already moving, leaping up to meet the improvised truncheon -- literally -- head-on, his pleased laughter chased by a chorus of shattering glass and the raised voices of alarm that suddenly resounded across the pub. Blood dripped into his eyes in an alkaline sting, but he, like Remus, had suffered far worse things.
"Did I, as you say, touch a nerve?" In swiftly executed movements, he wrapped his hand around around Remus' collar, only to wrench him down in an attempt to slam his head against the table.
Pub tables were quite solid, an unstoppable object to the unstoppable force that was Fenrir's strength. Remus's nose took the brunt of the impact, head turned at just enough an angle to at least not drive a spike of cartilage straight into his brain.
But he felt the sharp crunch, the pain that spread out across his face like an explosion, and the bright burst of hot, wet blood splatter onto the wood. The world became an assault of iron and rust, and--
--and it made him salivate, it made something within rear up in anticipation as he drove the jagged, broken glass neck of the vodka bottle into Fenrir's hand.
This was so unexpectedly, delightfully vicious -- mild little Remus Lupin, with his patchwork and guilty conscience -- that Fenrir laughed through the sudden sear of nerves assaulted. The crowd’s attention was definitely drawn now, but no matter; what Fenrir was about to do would attract stares anyway, and he was never one to be overly concerned about the shock and notice of humans.
“You think a little glass bothers me, Remus?” was a snarl, almost joyful, pressed into Remus’ ear as he leaned down, his uninjured hand a leaden weight upon the nape of his neck.
And then, swiftly, he Apparated them both out of the building, into the darkened, snow-covered fields.
The sudden change of surroundings left Remus wrong-footed and stumbling a few steps into the snow before recovering his balance and steeling himself against the near irresistible urge to vomit. A wild glance around him assured him they haven’t gone far, but at least it’s far enough to not risk any more collateral damage.
He spat out a mouthful of thick blood and eyed Fenrir warily, stance wide and tense. The shock of cold had, at least, cleared much of the immediate bloodlust and mindless rage from his mind. With the soundtrack of pub banter replaced by only the gasping winter wind, his own rapidly beating pulse pounded in his ears, his iron-flavoured breaths shuddering wetly from his mouth.
“You’re wrong about one thing, Fenrir. I don’t care what they think of me anymore. I have very little else left to lose.”
Fenrir, in sharp contrast to Remus, appeared at ease. The copses which dotted the brow of the low-sloping hills offered them temporary shelter from prying eyes, and this snow? This was nothing compared to his beloved Norwegian terrain. Britain, as ever, was a stopover, and this one would be brief indeed.
Still, the instinctive need to let the rage overwhelm until the stubborn werewolf before him accepted his dominance required reining in, and with a deep inhale, Fenrir crouched down, letting his fingers, slick with his own blood, claw into the frozen ground.
“So run with me,” he simply said.
As he watched the white snow gradually darken with crimson around Fenrir’s hand with parted lips, tongue stuck behind teeth and heavy with words, he could not lie to himself. He wanted it. More so than ever, because he had tasted it once, that sense of belonging and unconditional acceptance, and he’d never forgotten what it felt like.
And after, loneliness became lonelier and emptiness became almost unbearable.
But if Remus were slave to loneliness and longings, he’d have ended it all long ago. The core of his self, perhaps brittle and worn thin now, still remained: his distaste for harming others was still stronger than his hatred of himself.
“You hurt innocent people, and I don’t want to be a part of that.”
“What is innocence?” It was not a question to be answered tonight -- perhaps ever -- and Fenrir did not pause, pressing on with a blunt, “There are humans and there are lycanthropes, Remus. You can’t be both. Run by yourself if you want -- it will be miserable, I promise you -- but stop trying to fool yourself into thinking you’re something you’re not.” His tone became wistful, almost: “In the Old Norse, the greatest of the berserkr were the ulfheðnir, those who wore wolf-coats and were transformed into something magnificent to behold. I gave you a gift, Lupin.”
“Your beloved ulfheðnir are only ever considered the heroes in battle. And didn’t you hear? The war’s been over for a long time now.” And if that had come out more bitter than intended, so be it. Most wizards and witches had been able to salvage what had been left of their lives and returned more or less peacefully back to them. Meanwhile, his whole sodding story had continued to play out in increasingly salacious newspaper articles and on the radio for months -- years -- following Black’s trial and eventual early release. All with the predictable commemorative piece written on each anniversary hence. He was, by turns, a villain by his very lycanthrope nature, had planned the whole thing with Sirius, had been jealous, had framed Sirius, was James’s, Lily’s, and/or Sirius’s spurned lover, was their poor duped and foolish friend, or was in league with Voldemort himself. He was anything but the hero. “I don’t take sides anymore. And I won’t allow you to coerce that boy into taking one either.”
The cold stuffed against his palm was a comfort, even against skin that, as a lycanthropic rule, tended to heal that much faster. “Which war?” was a gentle challenge to Remus’ words, a pale brow raised in question as he watched whatever it was that played across the younger man’s face. Bitterness, sadness, disgust; weak emotions, these. “Because I argue it continues. The war is against our kind, and it goes on. Us and them -- do not talk to me of blood, but of human and wolf. That boy will be worse off than you if you leave him to fend for himself, or if you invite your Ministry to assist him.”
“A choice. He deserves that much.” Because no matter what this boy would choose, he’d be having very little control over his life from now on. Because Remus couldn’t deny the truth of Fenrir’s words. Swallowing the iron-tinged bitterness that had lodged itself in his throat, “And if he chooses you, I won’t interfere.”
"Very well. A choice." And with that, Fenrir pulled his hand from the snow and straightened to his full height, a broad smile that concealed nothing directed at Remus. He would not offer Remus the same promise, but he would play along for now.
"Let's go find our young wolf."