Fic: Silver (Rated PG)
The first of two fics. I'm still struggling to finish the one for the Gen ficathon--which is probably going to be late due to something related to Greenwich Mean Time. I know that it's the time over in England, but I don't know if it's four, five or six hours ahead of or behind my location. So I'm just trying to finish it before midnight, Eastern Daylight Time. I know when THAT is.
This story is sort of quietly angsty. Fair warning--it's Remus, post-OotP. And unbeta'ed.
SILVER
By Gehayi
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
***
Silver burns.
Like memory.
Like desire.
Hollywood talks a lot about how silver kills us. They always get it wrong. They blather on about silver bullets to the heart. No one ever mentions how soft a silver bullet would be, or that, until recently, a bullet of any kind piercing the heart was an almost certain cause of death.
Even for those of us who can't die.
There isn't much that can kill my kind. Silver, allegedly, but honestly, that's tripe. It hurts, but it doesn't kill.
Beheading and fire. Those work. It's hard to survive without a head, or with a body burned to ashes.
Silver doesn't kill. It just makes you wish it did.
It's not unpleasant to the touch. Not at first. It's smooth and cool, like a mountain stream of icily flowing metal. I can almost forget, at that moment, what will happen if I hold the silver for more than a few seconds.
What happens is pain.
Abruptly, the sensation changes from that of a cool metal mountain stream to a fire whose flames are coated with acid. Second-degree burns appear where my skin touches the silver; weeping blisters break out around the burns themselves. The flesh swells swiftly, making it almost impossible to remove something like a silver ring or neck chain. I start to itch all over, even in places where the silver hasn't touched me. If my hands have touched silver, I have to be careful not to scratch my face or rub my eyes, or else I'll suffer burns and blisters there as well. If I still haven't let go, a glacial wind sweeps through my bones, burning and freezing me simultaneously. If the symptoms progress that far, I know I won't be able to walk for at least three days. And if I don't let go after that, I become disoriented. Everything I hate and fear comes to life in front of my eyes, and I can't banish it.
This, by the way, is what Healers deem a "medium reaction" to silver. Some werewolves have milder reactions. Some suffer more. I'm better off than some of us. I try to remember that.
The real danger of silver isn't the physical damage it does. Werewolves are peculiarly designed to endure the worst. Our quick healing abilities mend the worst of the damage fairly quickly.
The peril lies in the pain. The searing, unholy, endless pain. We'll do anything to escape it.
That's the danger.
As I said, werewolves are built for survival. We heal swiftly. Our hearts beat at a constant rhythm that can't be broken. We have greater stamina than humans. Even in human form, we're ten times stronger than the strongest human living. We don't get sick, as a rule. The disease of lycanthropy defeats all lesser viruses.
Pain--be it physical or mental--isn't a disease. Our bodies can't triumph over pain.
And the longer the exposure to the cause of pain, the worse it grows.
And we have to endure it. Have to. Death is not an option, even assuming that a werewolf could find a way to commit suicide.
I don't say that because I'm against the idea of suicide. I say it because of the terms of my…condition. A werewolf who never takes a human life has a chance of escaping the second part of the curse, assuming his body is burned at sunrise the day after his death. If the body isn't burned, he becomes a vampire.
If the werewolf does take a human life--including his own, and it doesn't matter what the reason is--he's damned. His soul dies.
I don't think Sirius ever understood what he almost did to me when he sent Snape into the Shack.
James knew. He tried to explain it to Sirius afterward, when I was too angry to speak. But James couldn't communicate what he was saying. Sirius didn't grasp the concepts of "souls" and "damnation"; they were completely outside his frame of reference. It was like trying to explain transfiguration to a goldfish.
It was hard to forgive him, because he never grasped the depth of the wrong he had done. He was deeply sorry for losing his temper, for putting me in jeopardy of execution by the Ministry, for nearly making me a murderer. But he was never sorry that he'd tried to hurt Snape. And he never understood that my fears of soullessness were more than rank superstition.
And now he's gone. Abruptly, pointlessly, stupidly gone. And the same old issues of danger, pain, soullessness and death are cropping up again.
Both the children and most of their Order counterparts seem to feel that any slaughter I visited on Bellatrix Lestrange would be wholly justified. Even Dumbledore, who really should know better, has hinted that should I lose control and tear Bellatrix limb from limb (a most satisfying image, and one on which I dare not dwell for long), he would understand and forgive me.
If I kill Bellatrix, I will become something worse than Bellatrix. That's not ethics talking. It's simple, ugly fact. The quiet, amiable man I've struggled to be all my life would be gone. Gone irrevocably. I'd become a blood-drunk predator in--mostly--human form.
It says something about how angry I am that I'm willing to consider this fate, however briefly.
What stops me is Harry, and the certain knowledge that the damned thing I would become would see him as a target. If I tore Bellatrix's throat out one full moon night, then Harry would be the next one whom I destroyed.
Hermione keeps insisting that I should go behind the Veil and find Sirius…as if such a thing hadn't occurred to me yet. I snuck back into the Department of Mysteries the day after the battle. Found the Veil. And could not push it aside. Could not. It was like trying to push a mountain made of iron.
Which is logical, if the Veil is, as Dumbledore says, the Veil of Death. Werewolves are, unless slain by beheading or fire, immortal. Small wonder that I can't cross the Veil.
And I cannot slay myself and cross the Veil that way, because if I do, my soul will die--and, once again, I will permanently become something far worse than the wolf.
If I die in battle against Voldemort, and my body isn't burned on the following sunrise, I will become a vampire that night.
Whichever way I look, I see little hope of ever seeing Sirius again.
So, lately, I've taken to doing something that most of the Order would consider crazy. It is. The best thing that I can say about it is that it's better than my other alternatives.
It's quite simple, really.
I've started handling silver.
There's rather a lot of it in Twelve Grimmauld Place.
This isn't about masochism, or about punishing myself for Sirius'...disappearance. Basically, it's an exorcism. I'm trying to force my mind away from Sirius by making myself focus on something else equally unbearable. Replacing one form of agony with another.
It's the only thing I can think of that might help me stay sane.
Well…mostly sane, anyway.
The tricky part is controlling my features so that the pain doesn't register. But then, I have a lifetime of self-control to draw upon.
So I hold silver teacups during tea and dinner. I polish silver candlesticks. I dry heavy silver flatware. Everyone pretends not to notice, because everyone pretends not to know that I'm a werewolf.
I bear the pain of the silver, and I endure. Somehow. I do all the complicated, meaningless work the Order gives me; it fills my hours. I eat, though food tastes like cardboard. I avoid sleep as much as I can, for sleep brings memories in the form of dreams. I smile and quack automatic responses to queries: Yes, I'm fine. No, really, I don't need you to do a thing. What's in the news today? Isn't it fine weather we're having?
I can't inflict silver on myself too often. That's the problem. Once a week, maybe. More than that, and I risk the pain increasing, becoming more than my already-dubious sanity can bear. More than that, and I risk driving myself to do--or to become--what I want to avoid.
The one side effect of the silver-pain is that my body can only take so much agony before fleeing into sleep. And with sleep come dreams. Good dreams, of Sirius and of happier times. I love those dreams.
What makes the dreams intolerable is that I must wake from them. Each time I wake, eager to talk to him about that horrible nightmare about the Potters' murders and his death. I call out to him, thinking he is in the shower or shaving.
And then I remember that he is not here. And then I remember why.
Memory burns.
It burns like silver.
***
This story is sort of quietly angsty. Fair warning--it's Remus, post-OotP. And unbeta'ed.
SILVER
By Gehayi
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
***
Silver burns.
Like memory.
Like desire.
Hollywood talks a lot about how silver kills us. They always get it wrong. They blather on about silver bullets to the heart. No one ever mentions how soft a silver bullet would be, or that, until recently, a bullet of any kind piercing the heart was an almost certain cause of death.
Even for those of us who can't die.
There isn't much that can kill my kind. Silver, allegedly, but honestly, that's tripe. It hurts, but it doesn't kill.
Beheading and fire. Those work. It's hard to survive without a head, or with a body burned to ashes.
Silver doesn't kill. It just makes you wish it did.
It's not unpleasant to the touch. Not at first. It's smooth and cool, like a mountain stream of icily flowing metal. I can almost forget, at that moment, what will happen if I hold the silver for more than a few seconds.
What happens is pain.
Abruptly, the sensation changes from that of a cool metal mountain stream to a fire whose flames are coated with acid. Second-degree burns appear where my skin touches the silver; weeping blisters break out around the burns themselves. The flesh swells swiftly, making it almost impossible to remove something like a silver ring or neck chain. I start to itch all over, even in places where the silver hasn't touched me. If my hands have touched silver, I have to be careful not to scratch my face or rub my eyes, or else I'll suffer burns and blisters there as well. If I still haven't let go, a glacial wind sweeps through my bones, burning and freezing me simultaneously. If the symptoms progress that far, I know I won't be able to walk for at least three days. And if I don't let go after that, I become disoriented. Everything I hate and fear comes to life in front of my eyes, and I can't banish it.
This, by the way, is what Healers deem a "medium reaction" to silver. Some werewolves have milder reactions. Some suffer more. I'm better off than some of us. I try to remember that.
The real danger of silver isn't the physical damage it does. Werewolves are peculiarly designed to endure the worst. Our quick healing abilities mend the worst of the damage fairly quickly.
The peril lies in the pain. The searing, unholy, endless pain. We'll do anything to escape it.
That's the danger.
As I said, werewolves are built for survival. We heal swiftly. Our hearts beat at a constant rhythm that can't be broken. We have greater stamina than humans. Even in human form, we're ten times stronger than the strongest human living. We don't get sick, as a rule. The disease of lycanthropy defeats all lesser viruses.
Pain--be it physical or mental--isn't a disease. Our bodies can't triumph over pain.
And the longer the exposure to the cause of pain, the worse it grows.
And we have to endure it. Have to. Death is not an option, even assuming that a werewolf could find a way to commit suicide.
I don't say that because I'm against the idea of suicide. I say it because of the terms of my…condition. A werewolf who never takes a human life has a chance of escaping the second part of the curse, assuming his body is burned at sunrise the day after his death. If the body isn't burned, he becomes a vampire.
If the werewolf does take a human life--including his own, and it doesn't matter what the reason is--he's damned. His soul dies.
I don't think Sirius ever understood what he almost did to me when he sent Snape into the Shack.
James knew. He tried to explain it to Sirius afterward, when I was too angry to speak. But James couldn't communicate what he was saying. Sirius didn't grasp the concepts of "souls" and "damnation"; they were completely outside his frame of reference. It was like trying to explain transfiguration to a goldfish.
It was hard to forgive him, because he never grasped the depth of the wrong he had done. He was deeply sorry for losing his temper, for putting me in jeopardy of execution by the Ministry, for nearly making me a murderer. But he was never sorry that he'd tried to hurt Snape. And he never understood that my fears of soullessness were more than rank superstition.
And now he's gone. Abruptly, pointlessly, stupidly gone. And the same old issues of danger, pain, soullessness and death are cropping up again.
Both the children and most of their Order counterparts seem to feel that any slaughter I visited on Bellatrix Lestrange would be wholly justified. Even Dumbledore, who really should know better, has hinted that should I lose control and tear Bellatrix limb from limb (a most satisfying image, and one on which I dare not dwell for long), he would understand and forgive me.
If I kill Bellatrix, I will become something worse than Bellatrix. That's not ethics talking. It's simple, ugly fact. The quiet, amiable man I've struggled to be all my life would be gone. Gone irrevocably. I'd become a blood-drunk predator in--mostly--human form.
It says something about how angry I am that I'm willing to consider this fate, however briefly.
What stops me is Harry, and the certain knowledge that the damned thing I would become would see him as a target. If I tore Bellatrix's throat out one full moon night, then Harry would be the next one whom I destroyed.
Hermione keeps insisting that I should go behind the Veil and find Sirius…as if such a thing hadn't occurred to me yet. I snuck back into the Department of Mysteries the day after the battle. Found the Veil. And could not push it aside. Could not. It was like trying to push a mountain made of iron.
Which is logical, if the Veil is, as Dumbledore says, the Veil of Death. Werewolves are, unless slain by beheading or fire, immortal. Small wonder that I can't cross the Veil.
And I cannot slay myself and cross the Veil that way, because if I do, my soul will die--and, once again, I will permanently become something far worse than the wolf.
If I die in battle against Voldemort, and my body isn't burned on the following sunrise, I will become a vampire that night.
Whichever way I look, I see little hope of ever seeing Sirius again.
So, lately, I've taken to doing something that most of the Order would consider crazy. It is. The best thing that I can say about it is that it's better than my other alternatives.
It's quite simple, really.
I've started handling silver.
There's rather a lot of it in Twelve Grimmauld Place.
This isn't about masochism, or about punishing myself for Sirius'...disappearance. Basically, it's an exorcism. I'm trying to force my mind away from Sirius by making myself focus on something else equally unbearable. Replacing one form of agony with another.
It's the only thing I can think of that might help me stay sane.
Well…mostly sane, anyway.
The tricky part is controlling my features so that the pain doesn't register. But then, I have a lifetime of self-control to draw upon.
So I hold silver teacups during tea and dinner. I polish silver candlesticks. I dry heavy silver flatware. Everyone pretends not to notice, because everyone pretends not to know that I'm a werewolf.
I bear the pain of the silver, and I endure. Somehow. I do all the complicated, meaningless work the Order gives me; it fills my hours. I eat, though food tastes like cardboard. I avoid sleep as much as I can, for sleep brings memories in the form of dreams. I smile and quack automatic responses to queries: Yes, I'm fine. No, really, I don't need you to do a thing. What's in the news today? Isn't it fine weather we're having?
I can't inflict silver on myself too often. That's the problem. Once a week, maybe. More than that, and I risk the pain increasing, becoming more than my already-dubious sanity can bear. More than that, and I risk driving myself to do--or to become--what I want to avoid.
The one side effect of the silver-pain is that my body can only take so much agony before fleeing into sleep. And with sleep come dreams. Good dreams, of Sirius and of happier times. I love those dreams.
What makes the dreams intolerable is that I must wake from them. Each time I wake, eager to talk to him about that horrible nightmare about the Potters' murders and his death. I call out to him, thinking he is in the shower or shaving.
And then I remember that he is not here. And then I remember why.
Memory burns.
It burns like silver.
***