FICLET | Transitional (Remus, PG-13)
1 I am alive, contrary to popular belief; just incredibly busy with school and occupied with various other unimportant things. In fact, the only reason I actually finished a piece of writing is because I've been sick at home for most of the week with nothing to do (which is a little bit sad, in many ways, now that I reflect on it). So, ah, I bring you a repost of something I wrote for darkening_days, a comm you should all be watching if you aren't already.
title: Transitional
pairing: Gen
characters: Remus, Lily, werewolves.
rating: PG-13
words: 400
summary: There exist some things that no one wants to see.
notes: Written for the darkening_days prompt becoming. Crossposted. The idea is one that's been rattling around inside my mind since I started plotting this a long piece of Remus + werewolves genfic, and the prompt made me itch to write this snippet out.
It isn't the grime-streaked walls he notices first, cement stained with blood and ash and age; not the windows, painted over with fading black and sealed tight against light and air; not the all-too-familiar scent of death and decay and pain, intermingling into a scent which makes his stomach roil.
It's the cages.
They're the only thing in this place which isn't decomposing: steel reinforced with a crackle of powerful magic, and as he steps closer in the gloom, he realises why, because there's the vague outline of a body, in one of them.
Remus shuts the door behind him, whispers "Lumos," and regrets it the moment feeble wandlight illuminates the first of the waist-high structures. He steps into the room, circles the cage, and tries to hold back the bile.
The man lies spread-eagled on his back, obviously dead, but no: he isn't a man, he's a werewolf, or a wolf -- no, not that, either -- a caricature of a werewolf.
He is twisted, halfway through a transformation, half fur and half bloodied flesh, expression and limbs frozen in a rictus of pain, face lupine and bones so warped that the human skeletal structure is barely recognisable. Remus doesn't look closer, and so he doesn't see the way the bones of the arched spine protrude from the skin, piercing it, shredding it. (Moonlight, anguish, the wolf howls and his back is a curve of pain.)
It's been two weeks since the full moon, but the blood is fresh, and there's been no decay.
This is where Lily finds him, crouched on the dank cement in the half-shadows, staring. "The Order's finished out front," she says as she edges open the door, wand at the ready, "they caught the bastard who -- what the hell is that?"
Remus swallows, dust and rot. "It was a human, once."
"What happened to it -- to him?" Lily hesitates half a moment, he notices, before whipping her wand at angles through the air to set up visual recording spell. He doesn't blame her: there exist some things that no one wants to see.
Looking down at the floorboards, Remus traces patterns in grime; he would rather avoid the wide-eyed horror reflected in her eyes (the pity). "They volunteer," he says finally, voice pitched barely above a whisper, "the Ministry -- bans werewolf testing of any sort, they'd rather a silver bullet than wasting time on a cure --" he barks out a laugh "-- and there's no time to waste, not in war."
"Remus, don't."
He silences her by meeting her gaze. "And so -- they come to places like this. They offer their bodies up to... experimentation, to find answers, and instead they find back-alley pipe dreams, death in a cage." He breathes in deep and wipes his hands on his trousers, beginning to straighten.
Lily offers him a hand, mouth set in a hard line. "Dumbledore's never told us about any of that."
"No." Remus smiles, but it's an ironic twist of a thing. "He hasn't."
end.
title: Transitional
pairing: Gen
characters: Remus, Lily, werewolves.
rating: PG-13
words: 400
summary: There exist some things that no one wants to see.
notes: Written for the darkening_days prompt becoming. Crossposted. The idea is one that's been rattling around inside my mind since I started plotting this a long piece of Remus + werewolves genfic, and the prompt made me itch to write this snippet out.
It isn't the grime-streaked walls he notices first, cement stained with blood and ash and age; not the windows, painted over with fading black and sealed tight against light and air; not the all-too-familiar scent of death and decay and pain, intermingling into a scent which makes his stomach roil.
It's the cages.
They're the only thing in this place which isn't decomposing: steel reinforced with a crackle of powerful magic, and as he steps closer in the gloom, he realises why, because there's the vague outline of a body, in one of them.
Remus shuts the door behind him, whispers "Lumos," and regrets it the moment feeble wandlight illuminates the first of the waist-high structures. He steps into the room, circles the cage, and tries to hold back the bile.
The man lies spread-eagled on his back, obviously dead, but no: he isn't a man, he's a werewolf, or a wolf -- no, not that, either -- a caricature of a werewolf.
He is twisted, halfway through a transformation, half fur and half bloodied flesh, expression and limbs frozen in a rictus of pain, face lupine and bones so warped that the human skeletal structure is barely recognisable. Remus doesn't look closer, and so he doesn't see the way the bones of the arched spine protrude from the skin, piercing it, shredding it. (Moonlight, anguish, the wolf howls and his back is a curve of pain.)
It's been two weeks since the full moon, but the blood is fresh, and there's been no decay.
This is where Lily finds him, crouched on the dank cement in the half-shadows, staring. "The Order's finished out front," she says as she edges open the door, wand at the ready, "they caught the bastard who -- what the hell is that?"
Remus swallows, dust and rot. "It was a human, once."
"What happened to it -- to him?" Lily hesitates half a moment, he notices, before whipping her wand at angles through the air to set up visual recording spell. He doesn't blame her: there exist some things that no one wants to see.
Looking down at the floorboards, Remus traces patterns in grime; he would rather avoid the wide-eyed horror reflected in her eyes (the pity). "They volunteer," he says finally, voice pitched barely above a whisper, "the Ministry -- bans werewolf testing of any sort, they'd rather a silver bullet than wasting time on a cure --" he barks out a laugh "-- and there's no time to waste, not in war."
"Remus, don't."
He silences her by meeting her gaze. "And so -- they come to places like this. They offer their bodies up to... experimentation, to find answers, and instead they find back-alley pipe dreams, death in a cage." He breathes in deep and wipes his hands on his trousers, beginning to straighten.
Lily offers him a hand, mouth set in a hard line. "Dumbledore's never told us about any of that."
"No." Remus smiles, but it's an ironic twist of a thing. "He hasn't."
end.