Marauders - Always - Part One

CLXV: Broken Glass

But Remus hadn't lifted his stare from Storm, awaiting his response. When several silent moments had passed by, Remus finally cleared his throat. "Storm?" he asked.

Storm shook his head and stayed quiet.

Remus could feel Stewie's gaze on him and he didn't dare to look at his old friend, afraid to meet his eye wrong and end up laughing. Instead, he looked around the table. "Have any of the other families been approached?"

Various heads shook.

"It's early yet, the rumors have only just begun... stay alert, be wary of any advances or visits you may receive. Keep a special eye on your young." He glanced at Mrs. Vane and her baby. Remus folded his fingers together and looked around at them over the peak. "Have any of you heard from the family in Blackburn?"

An uncomfortable shift went through the leaders, then, and Remus sat forward, glancing at Stewie, who shrugged and shook his head, clearly not aware of something that the others at the table knew. "What?" Remus asked, and when nobody volunteered to speak up, he leaned forward again, eyes narrowing, and stared very meaningfully around, making eye contact with each of them for a moment. Each one - even Storm (maybe even especially Storm) - looked away quickly, not wanting to hold his eye contact. Remus finally picked himself. "Nic?" he said, turning to a youngish man about Remus's own age whose family came from Blackpool, and he knew had, at one point, been a part of the Blackburn family before splitting apart.

Nic shook his head.

Remus took a deep breath. "Someone tell me what isn't being said at this table. Now."

Brixton cleared his throat, still staring resolutely down at the table, and he murmured, "They been bitin' again."

Silence. Heavy and uncomfortable silence. Remus's spine shivered and he had to contain his own nervousness and fear at this.

"How many?"

Brixton glanced at Nic.

"Two, sir," Nic murmured.

Remus's eyebrows raised, pressing for more information.

"One was a child."

Remus set his jaw, trying to gain control over the nausea that had suddenly taken over him. He had to look away from the table, his eyes went to the arm of the chair he sat in, and he studied the carved texture of the wood resolutely.

Flashbacks filled his mind. Flashbacks of a quiet autumn evening in the garden of the house in York. Flashbacks of creaky gates and Greyback's wolf - of searing pain and the nightmarish cracking of bones... the blur and agony of the transformation through the eyes of a child that he remembered too well, even after so many years of changing as an adult - those first few scars and mendings lingered somewhere in his subconscious and haunted him. He could still remember the way his mouth sang for blood those early years and how terrifying that was when you do not understand, and no one was there to explain to you what it meant...

The way the only conclusion was to believe you were a monster.

"In hostility or to grow their family?" Remus asked quietly.

Nic murmured, "I'm unsure honestly."

"But you suspect...?"

"Sport," Brixton interjected.

Remus nodded, closing his eyes. He murmured to Stewie, "We shall go to Blackburn before the next moon."

Stewie nodded.

"You'll not be wanting to go alone," advised Nic. "You'll be wanting a delegation."

"I volunteer," Storm said from the end of the table where he sat.