Wolfsbane (5/6)
Title: Wolfsbane
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG 13
Genre: Drama/Romance
Characters: Remus
Pairings: Remus/OC
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to Warner Bros, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Heyday/1498 films, JK Rowling and Raincoat books. I don't lay any claim to it. However, the character Alexandria Cain does belong to me.
Summary: Post OotP. Two tragic pasts. Two secret identities. One way to kill a wolf.
Wolfsbane
By Spectral Scribe
----------------------------
Chapter Five: Inimicus
Her first instinct was to run. That was always her first instinct. Every time her eyes beheld a creature such as this, she recalled her youth and her salvation by running. So when the beast before her swiveled in a semicircle, its teeth bared and its eyes gleaming against the reflection of moonlight, her mind screamed at her to do one single thing: run.
Her entire body was numb. She barely felt her feet pounding against the pavement, her arms pumping at her sides, her heart hammering in her chest, her breath coming out in sharp gasps… It felt as if her body were flying free, speeding through the air as easily as a knife through butter. The wind whipped her long ringlets of hair against her face, lashing her cheeks every time she moved her head. And while it would have been the most appropriate time for millions of painful questions to be racing through her mind, her head was eerily blank and numb. She just knew that she had to keep running. When one was unarmed against a hungry werewolf, one did not make the fatal mistake of just standing around.
As she ran, a random memory suddenly popped into her head, and she nearly let out a cry of bitter realization when it hit her. She had a list back in her motel room, a list that she had compiled with information from her resources… a list of as many werewolves and their locations as she could find. She now knew why Remus’s name had sounded so familiar upon first hearing it. She clearly recalled passing over one of her many ‘location: unknown’s that had the name written next to it: Remus Lupin.
The footsteps pulsated behind her, shadowing her every move, only slightly narrowing the gap between them with each echoing footfall. Alex watched, detached, as the dark street flew by her in a blur of grays and browns. The dilapidated houses she was passing were beginning to seem familiar. She had taken this road before. And it had ended somewhere between houses eleven and thirteen…
Unable to consider her direction or the familiarity of the passing neighborhood, Alex veered to her left and shot down another street, feeling an uncomfortable sensation puncture the numbness of the back of her upper thigh. Without slowing her pace, she reached back and yanked out something hard, long, and smooth from her back pocket. As her arms pumped, she spotted what was now clutched instinctively in her right fist, arcing closer to her as her right arm pumped forward and swinging back to her peripheral vision as her arm pumped backward. Something instantaneously clicked in her mind.
Her wand.
She had her wand.
Alex stumbled slightly before regaining her footing and racing onward. The numbness of her body from the initial shock was beginning to wear off, and she could now feel the screaming of her leg muscles, the wrenching cramp forming in her side, and the ache of her lungs as they tried to draw in more air than was their capacity. Now there was a new idea drumming against her brain, willing her to break past the numb barrier in her mind and understand.
She had her wand.
At last, the revelation set in, and she realized that she was no longer unarmed and defenseless against the savage beast behind her. She had her wand. She could turn around right now and fire the spell-sure, it would be a close call. She could hear the wolf pounding along behind her, but if the spell stopped the momentum soon enough, she wouldn’t have to worry about dodging out of the way of the barreling beast. She could kill it and be done with it, just like she had countless times before-
No! her mind screamed at her suddenly. What are you thinking, you lunatic? That’s Remus! You can’t kill Remus; you can’t just up and KILL Remus!
Thus, Alex did not stop and turn around despite the dull ache in her feet.
He did lie to me, the other half of her mind pointed out. He lied to me. He never told me the truth about him. He never told me that he’s a werewolf…
And then the truth sunk in.
Remus was a werewolf.
Alex’s heart jerked in agony, and it had nothing to do with the furious pumping of blood through her veins as she sprinted down the street. She blinked, and when her eyes reopened, her vision was frighteningly blurred, her eyes now burning with hot tears. She blinked quickly, but it was no use. The dark, obscured world around her tilted and warped behind a blurred stream of water, and she now felt blind as she ran along, only able to distinguish where she was by the dark blob-like buildings rising up on either side of her.
Remus… a werewolf…
After all those years, Alex had finally allowed herself to get close to someone. She had finally given way and shattered the wall inside of her that refused to trust others. She had finally found someone that she cared for, that she nearly gave up her roaming ways for, and he turned around and stabbed her in the back with the most painful blow he could possibly deal her, the one weapon that could wound her heart so badly that she felt she might actually bleed to death… a werewolf…
It was unthinkable that sweet, gentle Remus was truly a traitorous beast of the same quality that had killed her parents so long ago. The same beast that Alex had sworn revenge against. The same beast that she destroyed again and again, month after month, year after year…
Alex’s chest jerked as she tried to take in steady breaths, but on top of her panting from the run and the guttering sobs she was so desperately trying to hold in, calm breathing evaded her. She could now feel a dull ache in her head that throbbed along with the pulsing of her footsteps on the pavement. She knew the headache was purely from her disbelieving brain trying to process what she had just discovered. It didn’t seem possible. It was overwhelming.
But she had seen it with her own eyes.
Remus was a werewolf.
Alex could feel her energy draining like a damp rag being twisted until all the water dripped out. She could not keep up this dead sprint much longer; she had spent a month lying in a hospital bed and sitting in a coffee shop, and her legs weren’t used to the strain of a long, hard run. But her sheer force of will pumped her screaming legs harder, knowing that if she slowed down for even a moment to catch her breath, Remus would catch up to her.
No. Not Remus.
The werewolf would catch up to her.
And the werewolf would kill her.
Despite this macabre thought that danced through her mind, she felt her muscles tighten up and the cramp in her side send shocks of pain. Unwillingly, she felt her body begin to slow down. But the thumping of paws on the cement pounded at a continuous steady pace, and the sound got louder and louder as it echoed in her head simultaneously with the beating of her heart, throbbing of her head, and slowing shuffle of her own exhausted feet against the road.
At last her body gave way to fatigue, and she tried to stop the inevitable as she fell forward, her body skidding against the road and coming to a stop. The pace of the wolf continued until it was just behind her. Alex rolled over onto her back and looked up, wand pointed in the direction of the oncoming beast. Time slowed to a crawl as the wolf pounced into the dull yellow light of a nearby streetlamp, and the light glinted on its dark eyes. Alex opened her mouth to utter the two words that could destroy this beast-but then she saw that light shining in its eyes. And for a moment she was sure she saw Remus staring back at her, not in control of his actions, pleading with her-and she hesitated.
But she hesitated a moment too long.
Before she knew it, time sped up again, and the wolf pounced through the air in her direction. Not having time to perform the incantation, she rolled to the side and prayed that the wolf would miss her and keep going. The beast landed roughly on the pavement just to her left and quickly redirected its path, its snarling face now pressed up through the darkness by Alex. She could feel the hot breath on her face and see the sharp fangs and wrinkled snout as the wolf bared its teeth and let out a low snarl.
Just as the beast pounced, Alex grabbed a rock about the size of her first and smashed it as hard as she could against the approaching muzzle. The wolf landed on her, the claws digging into her arms as she tried to fend it off by repeatedly banging the rock against its face. At last the wolf gave a whimper and retreated a few steps, giving Alex time to leap to her feet and once again continue her mad dash to whatever safety she could find.
She barely noticed the gashes in her arms until she saw the crimson liquid oozing through her torn sleeves. But she paid that no mind; she was still low on adrenaline, and even at her fastest pace she was certainly not quick enough to escape the creature behind her that had now begun to follow her again. As she ran, she tucked her wand away in her back pocket, nearly admitting defeat. Alex veered around a corner and saw something that made what was left of her heart leap into her throat, causing her to let out a strangled cry. The alley was a dead end! Only the grimy wall of an old building rose up at the end, and only two long walls of brick lined the outside.
Having nowhere to go but forward, Alex raced toward the dead end, having no clue what she would do when she arrived at the dumpster pressed up against the far wall. The wolf had already turned into the alley behind her. Alex pushed herself forward and threw herself up onto the dumpster, sliding over the gritty surface on her stomach and rolling off the end into the thin crevice between the dumpster and the building behind it. It was just barely thin enough for her to fit through laying lengthwise, so when she tumbled unsuspectingly into the gap, her head and other various body parts were bashed back and forth from the dumpster to the wall.
When she hit the ground, it was with the sharp pain of slamming the back of her head into the wall of the building. Stars danced before her eyes as she heard a scrabbling at the dumpster before turning her bleary eyes to the edge of the dumpster. The wolf’s muzzle was poking inside, snarling and drooling and howling in frustration at not being able to fit its huge, hairy body into the tiny cleft. Alex allowed her heart and mind to slow as she closed her eyes, and the world dissolved around her.
----------------------------
The insides of her eyelids were no longer black-they were an odd orange color, signifying bright light streaming into her field of vision. Alex squeezed her eyes shut in irritation before blinking and opening them fully. Her stomach gave a jolt when she saw a dark olive-colored sheet in front of her that was weathered and chipping. When she turned her head sideways and looked up, she saw fierce golden light shining in her eyes, and she was forced to close them against the brightness. Groggy, disoriented, and aching, Alex began to inch herself forward to get to the edge of the large block in front of her, which would allow her to free herself from this tiny area.
Her head was pounding in aggravation at being moved, and she had to stop a few times and shake it lightly to try and stop the dull ache and clear the fog. At last she had managed to work her way out from behind the block, and when she saw that it was a dumpster, she immediately dropped to her knees and put both hands over her head, images from the previous night swirling through her mind at an alarming rate.
She glanced back over at the dumpster and then saw the wolf snoring peacefully against one of the walls that lined the alley. It was pressed up in the corner, hidden in such a way that it was still completely covered by shadows, the sun not yet having reached that corner yet. But it would soon.
Alex gazed over at the werewolf and realized that it must have tried to get to her, but not being as skinny as she was, it hadn’t succeeded in getting far enough behind the dumpster to reach her immobile form. It had probably given up after a ferocious struggle against the heavy dumpster and then had chosen to take a nap in the corner of the alley. The dumpster was what had kept her alive through the night.
Alex gave out a choked half-sob, half-laugh and blubbered in a fit of hysteria, “Well, I never thought other people’s old trash would save my life!” The laughter turned to crying as tears welled around her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks. This time she didn’t even try to stop them. She watched as the rising sun swallowed up the shadows of the corner and fell onto the wolf’s matted, brown fur. She knelt there on the hard ground, shivering and sniffling, and watching as the wolf’s face shrank back, the fur shedding around it, the talons contracting back into the newly formed fingers. Alex watched as the werewolf transformed into Remus, who awoke and gritted his teeth in pain as his features solidified.
It was a very long moment of silence. Remus was squeezing his eyes shut, his hands clenched into fists, breathing hard. When he opened his eyes, they were full of pain and sorrow. Alex did not know if he remembered what he had done the night prior, and it didn’t matter if he remembered or merely sensed her presence there. For when his eyelids parted, he turned his head weakly and gazed over at her. Their eyes met, and the gaze was held for what felt like an eternity and a fraction of a second all at the same time. Alex could see his anguish, his regret, his guilt, and his lament in his hollow eyes that were lined with dark circles. But her own eyes gave him neither solace nor forgiveness; she could only stare at him with a mixture of horror, pain, disgust, and sadness. They read each other’s eyes and knew that there had been a fracture created between them that could never be repaired.
“Alex…” he whispered softly. But the latter could not respond. She felt as if she had lost her parents and best friend all over again. And Remus could see that in her eyes, and he said nothing further.
When Alex found the strength to stand, she rose shakily to her feet and turned away. She began to walk out of the alley at a slow, dazed pace, but it quickened until she was running as her heart tore, running away from trust and friendship and all the things she had left behind, running away from the man she loved… and the beast she hated.
Continue...
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG 13
Genre: Drama/Romance
Characters: Remus
Pairings: Remus/OC
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to Warner Bros, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Heyday/1498 films, JK Rowling and Raincoat books. I don't lay any claim to it. However, the character Alexandria Cain does belong to me.
Summary: Post OotP. Two tragic pasts. Two secret identities. One way to kill a wolf.
Wolfsbane
By Spectral Scribe
----------------------------
Chapter Five: Inimicus
Her first instinct was to run. That was always her first instinct. Every time her eyes beheld a creature such as this, she recalled her youth and her salvation by running. So when the beast before her swiveled in a semicircle, its teeth bared and its eyes gleaming against the reflection of moonlight, her mind screamed at her to do one single thing: run.
Her entire body was numb. She barely felt her feet pounding against the pavement, her arms pumping at her sides, her heart hammering in her chest, her breath coming out in sharp gasps… It felt as if her body were flying free, speeding through the air as easily as a knife through butter. The wind whipped her long ringlets of hair against her face, lashing her cheeks every time she moved her head. And while it would have been the most appropriate time for millions of painful questions to be racing through her mind, her head was eerily blank and numb. She just knew that she had to keep running. When one was unarmed against a hungry werewolf, one did not make the fatal mistake of just standing around.
As she ran, a random memory suddenly popped into her head, and she nearly let out a cry of bitter realization when it hit her. She had a list back in her motel room, a list that she had compiled with information from her resources… a list of as many werewolves and their locations as she could find. She now knew why Remus’s name had sounded so familiar upon first hearing it. She clearly recalled passing over one of her many ‘location: unknown’s that had the name written next to it: Remus Lupin.
The footsteps pulsated behind her, shadowing her every move, only slightly narrowing the gap between them with each echoing footfall. Alex watched, detached, as the dark street flew by her in a blur of grays and browns. The dilapidated houses she was passing were beginning to seem familiar. She had taken this road before. And it had ended somewhere between houses eleven and thirteen…
Unable to consider her direction or the familiarity of the passing neighborhood, Alex veered to her left and shot down another street, feeling an uncomfortable sensation puncture the numbness of the back of her upper thigh. Without slowing her pace, she reached back and yanked out something hard, long, and smooth from her back pocket. As her arms pumped, she spotted what was now clutched instinctively in her right fist, arcing closer to her as her right arm pumped forward and swinging back to her peripheral vision as her arm pumped backward. Something instantaneously clicked in her mind.
Her wand.
She had her wand.
Alex stumbled slightly before regaining her footing and racing onward. The numbness of her body from the initial shock was beginning to wear off, and she could now feel the screaming of her leg muscles, the wrenching cramp forming in her side, and the ache of her lungs as they tried to draw in more air than was their capacity. Now there was a new idea drumming against her brain, willing her to break past the numb barrier in her mind and understand.
She had her wand.
At last, the revelation set in, and she realized that she was no longer unarmed and defenseless against the savage beast behind her. She had her wand. She could turn around right now and fire the spell-sure, it would be a close call. She could hear the wolf pounding along behind her, but if the spell stopped the momentum soon enough, she wouldn’t have to worry about dodging out of the way of the barreling beast. She could kill it and be done with it, just like she had countless times before-
No! her mind screamed at her suddenly. What are you thinking, you lunatic? That’s Remus! You can’t kill Remus; you can’t just up and KILL Remus!
Thus, Alex did not stop and turn around despite the dull ache in her feet.
He did lie to me, the other half of her mind pointed out. He lied to me. He never told me the truth about him. He never told me that he’s a werewolf…
And then the truth sunk in.
Remus was a werewolf.
Alex’s heart jerked in agony, and it had nothing to do with the furious pumping of blood through her veins as she sprinted down the street. She blinked, and when her eyes reopened, her vision was frighteningly blurred, her eyes now burning with hot tears. She blinked quickly, but it was no use. The dark, obscured world around her tilted and warped behind a blurred stream of water, and she now felt blind as she ran along, only able to distinguish where she was by the dark blob-like buildings rising up on either side of her.
Remus… a werewolf…
After all those years, Alex had finally allowed herself to get close to someone. She had finally given way and shattered the wall inside of her that refused to trust others. She had finally found someone that she cared for, that she nearly gave up her roaming ways for, and he turned around and stabbed her in the back with the most painful blow he could possibly deal her, the one weapon that could wound her heart so badly that she felt she might actually bleed to death… a werewolf…
It was unthinkable that sweet, gentle Remus was truly a traitorous beast of the same quality that had killed her parents so long ago. The same beast that Alex had sworn revenge against. The same beast that she destroyed again and again, month after month, year after year…
Alex’s chest jerked as she tried to take in steady breaths, but on top of her panting from the run and the guttering sobs she was so desperately trying to hold in, calm breathing evaded her. She could now feel a dull ache in her head that throbbed along with the pulsing of her footsteps on the pavement. She knew the headache was purely from her disbelieving brain trying to process what she had just discovered. It didn’t seem possible. It was overwhelming.
But she had seen it with her own eyes.
Remus was a werewolf.
Alex could feel her energy draining like a damp rag being twisted until all the water dripped out. She could not keep up this dead sprint much longer; she had spent a month lying in a hospital bed and sitting in a coffee shop, and her legs weren’t used to the strain of a long, hard run. But her sheer force of will pumped her screaming legs harder, knowing that if she slowed down for even a moment to catch her breath, Remus would catch up to her.
No. Not Remus.
The werewolf would catch up to her.
And the werewolf would kill her.
Despite this macabre thought that danced through her mind, she felt her muscles tighten up and the cramp in her side send shocks of pain. Unwillingly, she felt her body begin to slow down. But the thumping of paws on the cement pounded at a continuous steady pace, and the sound got louder and louder as it echoed in her head simultaneously with the beating of her heart, throbbing of her head, and slowing shuffle of her own exhausted feet against the road.
At last her body gave way to fatigue, and she tried to stop the inevitable as she fell forward, her body skidding against the road and coming to a stop. The pace of the wolf continued until it was just behind her. Alex rolled over onto her back and looked up, wand pointed in the direction of the oncoming beast. Time slowed to a crawl as the wolf pounced into the dull yellow light of a nearby streetlamp, and the light glinted on its dark eyes. Alex opened her mouth to utter the two words that could destroy this beast-but then she saw that light shining in its eyes. And for a moment she was sure she saw Remus staring back at her, not in control of his actions, pleading with her-and she hesitated.
But she hesitated a moment too long.
Before she knew it, time sped up again, and the wolf pounced through the air in her direction. Not having time to perform the incantation, she rolled to the side and prayed that the wolf would miss her and keep going. The beast landed roughly on the pavement just to her left and quickly redirected its path, its snarling face now pressed up through the darkness by Alex. She could feel the hot breath on her face and see the sharp fangs and wrinkled snout as the wolf bared its teeth and let out a low snarl.
Just as the beast pounced, Alex grabbed a rock about the size of her first and smashed it as hard as she could against the approaching muzzle. The wolf landed on her, the claws digging into her arms as she tried to fend it off by repeatedly banging the rock against its face. At last the wolf gave a whimper and retreated a few steps, giving Alex time to leap to her feet and once again continue her mad dash to whatever safety she could find.
She barely noticed the gashes in her arms until she saw the crimson liquid oozing through her torn sleeves. But she paid that no mind; she was still low on adrenaline, and even at her fastest pace she was certainly not quick enough to escape the creature behind her that had now begun to follow her again. As she ran, she tucked her wand away in her back pocket, nearly admitting defeat. Alex veered around a corner and saw something that made what was left of her heart leap into her throat, causing her to let out a strangled cry. The alley was a dead end! Only the grimy wall of an old building rose up at the end, and only two long walls of brick lined the outside.
Having nowhere to go but forward, Alex raced toward the dead end, having no clue what she would do when she arrived at the dumpster pressed up against the far wall. The wolf had already turned into the alley behind her. Alex pushed herself forward and threw herself up onto the dumpster, sliding over the gritty surface on her stomach and rolling off the end into the thin crevice between the dumpster and the building behind it. It was just barely thin enough for her to fit through laying lengthwise, so when she tumbled unsuspectingly into the gap, her head and other various body parts were bashed back and forth from the dumpster to the wall.
When she hit the ground, it was with the sharp pain of slamming the back of her head into the wall of the building. Stars danced before her eyes as she heard a scrabbling at the dumpster before turning her bleary eyes to the edge of the dumpster. The wolf’s muzzle was poking inside, snarling and drooling and howling in frustration at not being able to fit its huge, hairy body into the tiny cleft. Alex allowed her heart and mind to slow as she closed her eyes, and the world dissolved around her.
----------------------------
The insides of her eyelids were no longer black-they were an odd orange color, signifying bright light streaming into her field of vision. Alex squeezed her eyes shut in irritation before blinking and opening them fully. Her stomach gave a jolt when she saw a dark olive-colored sheet in front of her that was weathered and chipping. When she turned her head sideways and looked up, she saw fierce golden light shining in her eyes, and she was forced to close them against the brightness. Groggy, disoriented, and aching, Alex began to inch herself forward to get to the edge of the large block in front of her, which would allow her to free herself from this tiny area.
Her head was pounding in aggravation at being moved, and she had to stop a few times and shake it lightly to try and stop the dull ache and clear the fog. At last she had managed to work her way out from behind the block, and when she saw that it was a dumpster, she immediately dropped to her knees and put both hands over her head, images from the previous night swirling through her mind at an alarming rate.
She glanced back over at the dumpster and then saw the wolf snoring peacefully against one of the walls that lined the alley. It was pressed up in the corner, hidden in such a way that it was still completely covered by shadows, the sun not yet having reached that corner yet. But it would soon.
Alex gazed over at the werewolf and realized that it must have tried to get to her, but not being as skinny as she was, it hadn’t succeeded in getting far enough behind the dumpster to reach her immobile form. It had probably given up after a ferocious struggle against the heavy dumpster and then had chosen to take a nap in the corner of the alley. The dumpster was what had kept her alive through the night.
Alex gave out a choked half-sob, half-laugh and blubbered in a fit of hysteria, “Well, I never thought other people’s old trash would save my life!” The laughter turned to crying as tears welled around her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks. This time she didn’t even try to stop them. She watched as the rising sun swallowed up the shadows of the corner and fell onto the wolf’s matted, brown fur. She knelt there on the hard ground, shivering and sniffling, and watching as the wolf’s face shrank back, the fur shedding around it, the talons contracting back into the newly formed fingers. Alex watched as the werewolf transformed into Remus, who awoke and gritted his teeth in pain as his features solidified.
It was a very long moment of silence. Remus was squeezing his eyes shut, his hands clenched into fists, breathing hard. When he opened his eyes, they were full of pain and sorrow. Alex did not know if he remembered what he had done the night prior, and it didn’t matter if he remembered or merely sensed her presence there. For when his eyelids parted, he turned his head weakly and gazed over at her. Their eyes met, and the gaze was held for what felt like an eternity and a fraction of a second all at the same time. Alex could see his anguish, his regret, his guilt, and his lament in his hollow eyes that were lined with dark circles. But her own eyes gave him neither solace nor forgiveness; she could only stare at him with a mixture of horror, pain, disgust, and sadness. They read each other’s eyes and knew that there had been a fracture created between them that could never be repaired.
“Alex…” he whispered softly. But the latter could not respond. She felt as if she had lost her parents and best friend all over again. And Remus could see that in her eyes, and he said nothing further.
When Alex found the strength to stand, she rose shakily to her feet and turned away. She began to walk out of the alley at a slow, dazed pace, but it quickened until she was running as her heart tore, running away from trust and friendship and all the things she had left behind, running away from the man she loved… and the beast she hated.
Continue...