Drabblefic #2: Remus and Greyback, "Introductions"

[gilpins_tales]

Title: Introductions
Genre: General; angst
Ratings & Warnings: PG-13 Mild language and unsavory implications.
Word Count: 1885
Summary: The way it was described, it was a positive paradise for werewolves, one where magic was rarely used or talked about. But has Remus any idea what he’s up against? Set during HBP.
Author's Note: For duck_or_rabbit, who

Comments

[mrstater]

Ooh, now this is an interesting take on Remus' introduction into the werewolf camp! I really like how you've drawn Remus out of the magical world not by taking him into a strange werewolfy environment (what would that be, anyway?) but into something very Muggle, where Remus is confronted with poverty and the despair that brings -- which I think must be the biggest obstacle he has with Tonks. You've effectively used little hints of the otherness of these people -- the farmers expecting sheep and goats to go missing occasionally -- but saved the real horror for Greyback himself, who is absolutely inhuman. The bags of crisps where inspired -- such an innocuous, human thing in the hands of someone so obviously monstrous. Even the details of Remus wanting salt and vinegar and Greyback giving him chicken were just perfect.

Well done!

[gilpin25]

Apologies for the delay in replying, doesn't time fly by when it's in March?! But, grovelling apart, thank you for the kind words about this. I've long had lots of ideas about the psychological toll Remus' mission would take on him, and in order to be really mean and have him completely off balance from the word go, I wanted him not only in a werewolf world he should be familiar with but very definitely isn't, and also in a completely out-of-the-way Muggle world, where it's literally back to basics and living off the land. In effect, there's nothing he can rely on as familiar or reassuring out here, and he's cut himself off from Tonks, the one thing he can

[sspring92]

"Showing those yellow teeth, which Remus suddenly thought looked like a row of uneven tombstones caught in the moonlight."

Wow what a great line! Remus can see death, and his binding to the moon in the mouth that transformed him. ::shiver::

[gilpin25]

Sorry for the delay in replying - I made a note to do so after my holiday and here I finally am!

Anyway, thank you so much, as always, for leaving such a nice comment. I think I may have got a bit obsessed by teeth in this (who'd be a werewolf dentist?;)), but I'm pleased you liked the last line.

Thanks again! :)

[duck_or_rabbit]

Where are all your reviews? :(

Well, I loved this, and thank you. I recc'd it on my journal and can't thank you enough for writing this side of Remus and introducing me to his band of Welsh werewolves and Greyback. It's interesting because visualizing Greyback is always difficult for me. Not that it has anything to do with your writing - far from that - but because the details you do add to him create him as monster as much as man even when he's untransformed. The chicken bit was brilliant. And I like where it was placed in the story because it pulled me back to the raided flocks that you mention earlier. Believe me, I love all that because I'm attracted in a perverse way to the werewolf gore. Maybe because I'm curious how Remus reacts to the adversity he finds at the camps? Anyway, thank you for giving me a slice of that here. :D

[gilpin25]

Profound apologies for the delay in replying to this: I made a note to do so immediately after my holiday, but unfortunately didn't make a note to remember the note. ;)

Am thrilled you enjoyed this as, odd though it sounds, I get a real kick out of writing these two play cat and mouse werewolf and werewolf creator. I find it fascinating to wonder just what psychological toll this whole mission takes on Remus and how much the lines between good and evil get blurred as time goes on. Here, I thought I'd put them back to the very beginning, and have Remus all fired up with how he's going to introduce change to this world - and, hopefully, hint that Greyback has a few plans himself.

Believe me, I love all that because I'm attracted in a perverse way to the werewolf gore.Glad you liked that as one of the ideas I have is that Remus is quite fastidious (in the way of careful and meticulous) and quite 'gentlemanly' in the books, certainly in PoA, with his tea drinking etc. (Though that's so much a Brit thing, anyway, lol.) While Bill may

[hrymfaxe]

So - I have no idea why I haven't commented on this piece yet! I know I have read it..

And I love it! I'm so happy Duckie asked for you to write more about Remus with the werewolves, because you do it so immensely well. I like how out of his depth Remus is here - far from everything, his best friend taken from him and himself taken from his woman. And he on unsteady ground with regards to his own feelings as well - thinking it wuld be black and white and easy, but finding more shades of grey I think. This especially rocked my socks:
“It has gradually dawned on me that being a good little Ministry werewolf is never going to be enough for them.” Remus hesitated, wondering just where lies became truth. “Or me.”There are a lot of teeth in this, and I like that as well. The signal value of bearing your teeth to the enemy in fake smiles showing a mouthful of tombstones... It scares me! I also like that Silas' teeth surprise Remus, though I don't know exactly why

[gilpin25]

Thanks for the great comments!

"Out of his depth" and cut-off from everything familiar, is definitely how I imagined him here. Of course, part of that is his own fault with regards to Tonks, but then I'm not sure if the knowledge of that being the case wouldn't make it even worse as time goes on.

“It has gradually dawned on me that being a good little Ministry werewolf is never going to be enough for them.” Remus hesitated, wondering just where lies became truth. “Or me.”

We don't see Remus' loyalty to Dumbledore etc falter in the books, but the way he's obviously bitterly spoken about Umbridge to Sirius in OotP makes me think there's got to be a lot of resentment going on there. And seeing how the Ministry end up so anti-werewolf in DH, he was right. All of which, I think, must lend more doubts to the wisdom of a mission where he's supposed to be upholding a better way of life - but is it, really?

There are a lot of teeth in this, and I like that as well. I also like that Silas' teeth surprise Remus, though I don't know