(no subject)
Title: Shadow of the Wolf
Author: carnivalgirl
Format & Word Count: Fic, 950 words
Rating: G
Prompt: Prompt 24, Cherokee legend
Warning: I has my angst icon out again...
Summary: A short history of the 'shadow of the wolf'. After the incident at Grimmauld Place, Remus decides it has appeared for the last time.
Author's Note: Forgive Padfoot and Prongs's use of 'cool'. I expect it wasn't around in their day, but it suited the context.
Shadow of the Wolf
The 'shadow' had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. In early childhood it was something his parents were terrified of; the inexcusable sign that their little boy was not like other children. They kept it supressed as much as they could, though in the early days it would emerge even at the slightest of greivances. There was the time when he was six, sat on his grandmother's lap and leaning against her soft shawl listening to nursery rhymes on the wireless when his father strode in and twizzled it to Quidditch. Remus had given him what he thought was a look of childish crossness, but which had made Daddy shrink back and Nanny drop him from her lap, whispering to herself that there was "something of the night about that boy". From then on Remus was not exactly spoilt, but never allowed to get angry. If one of his cousins or some other children bullied him he was persuaded from hitting them with promises of 'sweeties on the way home', by which time he'd usually have calmed down. The shadow of the wolf became a rare entity.
For Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, in their typically unconventional fashion, it had been a great source of amusement. Well, maybe just to Padfoot and Prongs. The first time it appeared was when they were twelve, fortunately after they knew he was a werewolf, when the corner of a hardback book had struck him on the head just as he was trying to go to bed. Peter squealed childishly at his glare while James and Sirius stared at him in wonder.
"That...was...so...cool."
Best friends as they were, they brought out the worst in him. The shadow of the wolf was the most persuasive, most frightening technique they could employ. There were fewer finer moments in Sirius Black's memory when Snape, having got one over on the Marauders one day in seventh year, sneered at them in the library. He met with a fierce amber glower from the werewolf he was still afraid of, and so went staggering back into an already angry Lily Evans, who shouted "For God's sake, Severus!" and walloped him one with her textbook. Remus was delighted to take full responsibility for getting his friends there nearest anyone could be to dying of laughter.
The opportunities for merriment grew less and less, while the times for anger increased. After James and Lily died he moved for a brief while back to his mother's house, but their relationship was strained by his constant misery. After the shadow showed itself in front of his little sister, who had burst into tears, it was mutually agreed, though with no love lost between them, that Remus would move out. Though it ought to have made him angry, this independence began after a year or so to have a calming effect on him, and the shadow of the wolf lay dormant for many years.
That was until yesterday, when he had felt a familiar surge of pain with his anger while the shocked faces of the children...those three young adults...had told him exactly what just happened. It was a sign-apart from the raging argument that was rather impossible to ignore-that his real emotions lay with and literally inside Nymphadora Tonks. Even among the feral werewolves he had kept himself under control. What was it that had brought this side of him out at last? Or perhaps the better question, what had stopped it?
After spending a miserable night awake there, he leaned against a wall in the alleyway and closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep. The words of others surged unbidden through his mind;
"I don't like this...shadow, Remus. It's been coming out far too often for my liking. It cannot be good for you. Have those friends of yours been provoking you?"
Yes, he replied mentally to Madam Pomfrey. They've been provoking me again.
"You still have us, Remus. Your family. We won't leave you, not ever."
You have left me, he responded to his sister's sweet voice. You live in Algeria now with our aunt and uncle. We write ocassionally but you are too frightened to meet up. But I have a new family...
There was a new weight on Remus Lupin's mind now. He was no longer afraid of the wolf, he was not even afraid of the full moon. If his last Boggart was anything to go by, the thing he was frightened of most was the death of his wife at his own hands. And it didn't take anything but knowledge of his own mind to imagine that her 'body' would be accompanied by that of a small baby. There was nothing in his life that he needed more, that was closer to him than her and their baby.
As he got up, he felt an energy in him that was not anger. More words came to his mind now, and though they were of the same theme they somehow seemed more positive;
"You are not a wolf today, Remmy. Look at me and say, I am not a wolf today, I am a boy."
The therapist his parents had employed for a month when he was eight was his only childhood friend. He remembered looking into kind blue eyes and pronouncing his human status with perfect tranquility. Things were slightly different now. To the people he loved, people like Tonks who adored him and like Harry who had always respected him until now, he was not a wolf. And they, like everyone he had loved before them, deserved better than to have him act like one.
Author: carnivalgirl
Format & Word Count: Fic, 950 words
Rating: G
Prompt: Prompt 24, Cherokee legend
Warning: I has my angst icon out again...
Summary: A short history of the 'shadow of the wolf'. After the incident at Grimmauld Place, Remus decides it has appeared for the last time.
Author's Note: Forgive Padfoot and Prongs's use of 'cool'. I expect it wasn't around in their day, but it suited the context.
Shadow of the Wolf
The 'shadow' had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. In early childhood it was something his parents were terrified of; the inexcusable sign that their little boy was not like other children. They kept it supressed as much as they could, though in the early days it would emerge even at the slightest of greivances. There was the time when he was six, sat on his grandmother's lap and leaning against her soft shawl listening to nursery rhymes on the wireless when his father strode in and twizzled it to Quidditch. Remus had given him what he thought was a look of childish crossness, but which had made Daddy shrink back and Nanny drop him from her lap, whispering to herself that there was "something of the night about that boy". From then on Remus was not exactly spoilt, but never allowed to get angry. If one of his cousins or some other children bullied him he was persuaded from hitting them with promises of 'sweeties on the way home', by which time he'd usually have calmed down. The shadow of the wolf became a rare entity.
For Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, in their typically unconventional fashion, it had been a great source of amusement. Well, maybe just to Padfoot and Prongs. The first time it appeared was when they were twelve, fortunately after they knew he was a werewolf, when the corner of a hardback book had struck him on the head just as he was trying to go to bed. Peter squealed childishly at his glare while James and Sirius stared at him in wonder.
"That...was...so...cool."
Best friends as they were, they brought out the worst in him. The shadow of the wolf was the most persuasive, most frightening technique they could employ. There were fewer finer moments in Sirius Black's memory when Snape, having got one over on the Marauders one day in seventh year, sneered at them in the library. He met with a fierce amber glower from the werewolf he was still afraid of, and so went staggering back into an already angry Lily Evans, who shouted "For God's sake, Severus!" and walloped him one with her textbook. Remus was delighted to take full responsibility for getting his friends there nearest anyone could be to dying of laughter.
The opportunities for merriment grew less and less, while the times for anger increased. After James and Lily died he moved for a brief while back to his mother's house, but their relationship was strained by his constant misery. After the shadow showed itself in front of his little sister, who had burst into tears, it was mutually agreed, though with no love lost between them, that Remus would move out. Though it ought to have made him angry, this independence began after a year or so to have a calming effect on him, and the shadow of the wolf lay dormant for many years.
That was until yesterday, when he had felt a familiar surge of pain with his anger while the shocked faces of the children...those three young adults...had told him exactly what just happened. It was a sign-apart from the raging argument that was rather impossible to ignore-that his real emotions lay with and literally inside Nymphadora Tonks. Even among the feral werewolves he had kept himself under control. What was it that had brought this side of him out at last? Or perhaps the better question, what had stopped it?
After spending a miserable night awake there, he leaned against a wall in the alleyway and closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep. The words of others surged unbidden through his mind;
"I don't like this...shadow, Remus. It's been coming out far too often for my liking. It cannot be good for you. Have those friends of yours been provoking you?"
Yes, he replied mentally to Madam Pomfrey. They've been provoking me again.
"You still have us, Remus. Your family. We won't leave you, not ever."
You have left me, he responded to his sister's sweet voice. You live in Algeria now with our aunt and uncle. We write ocassionally but you are too frightened to meet up. But I have a new family...
There was a new weight on Remus Lupin's mind now. He was no longer afraid of the wolf, he was not even afraid of the full moon. If his last Boggart was anything to go by, the thing he was frightened of most was the death of his wife at his own hands. And it didn't take anything but knowledge of his own mind to imagine that her 'body' would be accompanied by that of a small baby. There was nothing in his life that he needed more, that was closer to him than her and their baby.
As he got up, he felt an energy in him that was not anger. More words came to his mind now, and though they were of the same theme they somehow seemed more positive;
"You are not a wolf today, Remmy. Look at me and say, I am not a wolf today, I am a boy."
The therapist his parents had employed for a month when he was eight was his only childhood friend. He remembered looking into kind blue eyes and pronouncing his human status with perfect tranquility. Things were slightly different now. To the people he loved, people like Tonks who adored him and like Harry who had always respected him until now, he was not a wolf. And they, like everyone he had loved before them, deserved better than to have him act like one.