And Here's What you Missed at: Hogwarts
Remus could feel the tug of a blackout, and begged himself not to faint. A concussion wasn't his worst problem. He had heard the ominous snap in his back pocket as he had been shoved to the ground.
His wand was broken.
......................
Okay, now Remus was panicking.
Night was starting to pull it's heavy blanket over the village (that he still hadn't learned the name of) and the stars were blurred and hazy in the pollution from the almost-full moon. If he didn't find Helia before tomorrow night, there was a real possibility of him wolfing out in the middle of a muggle-inhabited area. He groaned.
Fortunately, his wand could be easily fixed with a simple reparo charm. Unfortunately, in order to perform the reparo charm, one must have a working wand. For the first time, Remus felt a spike of indignation dart through him at the wizarding community; what was the point in having motherfucking magic when you had to aim it through a twig?
A twist of nausea rolled his stomach over, battling with a throbbing brain for dominance over Remus's nervous system. Yep. Okay. He definitely had a concussion.
He stumbled over to an abandoned-looking house, front garden overflowing with weeds and nettles. Bending over, Remus emptied the contents of his stomach onto the unfortunate plants. He really hoped that no one lived here.
He dragged himself along the fence until he reached a wall, sliding down the chipped bricks until he was sat with his knees pulled against his chest. His head leaned back against the wall.
Just a few minutes of sleep wouldn't hurt anyone.
.............................................
"Look who it is, boys!"
The students at the Slytherin table visibly retracted from Bella as if she had some kind of disease. She clenched her hands beneath the long sleeves in her cloak and breathed steadily through her nose. Just one breakfast. That's all she had to get through.
She suddenly wished that she hadn't told Jade to go and help the search for Helia, even though Bella had seen the stomach-tearing panic on Jade's face that morning. But without her girlfriend, Bella would be expected to sit at the Slytherin table. Most of the Slytherins had some sort of problem with her; whether it was the fact that she didn't identify as the gender on her birth certificate, or how her girlfriend was a Ravenclaw, or that tiny detail that one of the same girlfriend's best friends had turned the whole of Slytherin house into red and gold advocates for their mortal rivals.
She sat, trying to ignore the vicious taunts from further up the table. The girl next to her was pretty, with long, dark eyelashes and a daintily pointed face. Bella was pretty sure her name rhymed with 'Lawley'. Something Lawley. The girl met her eyes and then darted them away.
"Hi." Something Lawley said tightly, observing her omelette with slightly too much interest.
"Um..." Bella got the sense that Something Lawley really didn't want to be seen with her, but at least she didn't stare as if she had the plague. "Hey."
Bella's hand was shaking as she reached for a sausage and she glared at it, letting it fall back to her side.
"Hey, Fawley!" The voice from the end of the table came again. Oh, Bella thought, Fawley. Of course. "You and him doing it now? I didn't think you were into that sort of thing!"
Him. Bella's nails dug into her palms, leaving little half moon marks.
Something Fawley's eyes widened in horror and a little bit of fear. Bella felt her heart twist a little as the other girl edged away from her.
"Hey, Bella!"
Bella almost cried with relief at the sound of Lin's voice. She turned around to see the other girl grinning at her, completely ignoring the dirty looks that she was getting from the rest of Slytherin house. An orange pygmy puff was bouncing contentedly on her shoulder, doing flips every time it noticed someone watching it.
"Hi." She said, and wondered if her voice sounded as desperate as she felt.
"You wanna have breakfast with me?" Lin asked, grinning. Bella practically leapt to her feet and joined her at the Hufflepuff table. "I don't know what we'll do without those damn Ravenclaws." Lin shook her head, still smiling.
"Yeah." Bella agreed, slightly unsure what to say.
As if she had been summoned by the powers of the occult (which were actually really fun. Bella's grandma showed her a few satanic rituals once. They had sacrificed Jelly Babies and talked to a demon who liked Def Leopard), Jade charged into the Great Hall, shoving past people without a thought for their health and barrelling over to Lin and Bella. Jade bent over double, hands on knees, gasping for breath.
"Lin," she managed. "Lin, I did something bad. Helia... But I didn't know what to do... And I woke up this morning... And they say Lupin is gone too."
Lin and Jade, Bella observed, clearly had some sort of mind meld thing going on. This random string of sentence was seemingly all Lin needed before she leapt onto the nearby Ravenclaw bench and yelled. "Out the way, nerds!"
Bella watched in amazement as an entire row of Ravenclaws dived sideways like they were participating in some form of synchronized swimming to avoid the slightly insane looking Hufflepuff as she ran down the bench, Jade following behind. Bella had no choice but to elbow her way through the crowds, some of which parted ways for her to get through, and try to keep up with Helia Blacksmith's best friends.
....................................................
A boy with sandy blonde hair and a gamer tee was walking down the street, his warm smile at odds with the steady stream of curse words flowing through his head as he silently prayed for every single brick in this damn village to spontaneously combust.
He hated the cracked pavements.
He hated the twisted kids on them.
He hated his own reflection like a dancing shadow at the corner of his eye when he passed the barbers.
He hated the newsagents that hadn't been open in years, with the kid slumped ag-
Wait a second.
The boy blinked. No, there was definitely a kid- sixteen or seventeen, he guessed- with his eyes closed, head lolling against his shoulder as a steady stream of blood crawled down his face from a gash on his forehead. The boy was by the kid's side in seconds, and he found himself reaching for a pulse. There- faint, but definitely there. The kid was ice cold; had he been sitting out here all night?
At that moment, the boy's attention was drawn to the kid's peculiar outfit choice: A cloak. He wondered if the kid was auditioning for a play or something. He certainly wasn't familiar. And everyone was familiar around here. His eyes skidded to a halt on the logo stitched lovingly onto the front of the black fabric. It itched a memory at the back of his mind. A badger rearing up on hind legs, a lion mimicking it, a snake poised to strike and a raven, spreading it's wings against a blue background, ready to soar upwards.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
The boy looked down at the kid and sighed. Well, he couldn't leave him here. As the boy pulled the kid into his arms, he had only one thought in his mind:
Goddammit, Hel. You have a lot of explaining to do.
.....................................
Remus groaned as light punched through his vision.
His head was pounding, and his whole body ached as if he had been sleeping against concrete. Soft cushions buoyed his head and the world around him seemed comfortable.
"Up and at 'em, Posh. Danger'rous ter sleep on a concussion." An unfamiliar Yorkshire accent from his left broke through his haze. Remus turned his head to see a boy thrown across an armchair, watching him with an expression that was half amused and half something else.
"What?" He stumbled out. His throat was dry, voice raspy.
The boy had brown eyes, the colour of the lightest streak in a piece of mahogany. Something about them told Remus a tale of loss, but he hardly supposed he was in a position to cite himself as a potential therapist.
"Thought we were gonna lose ya there, Posh." the boy said, passing him an ice pack and gesturing for him to place it on his head. Remus did so gingerly, and couldn't help the small gasp of relief that fled through him as the throbbing in his forehead retreated. The boy grinned.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" Remus asked, suddenly aware of the fact that he was lying on a muggle stranger's sofa in the middle of North Yorkshire with no recollection of how he had gotten there. "Where am I? Who are you?" A sense of dread stole it's way into him suddenly, and his last question was whispered out. "What day is it?"
The boy laughed. He looked about the same age as Helia's brother, same type of outfit choices as well. This one consisted of jeans and a black shirt with a glowing ball with wings in the centre, and the words 'HEY, LISTEN!' in white type. This was the sort of person that Remus would have guessed was friends with Dean Blacksmith.
"For a kid who barely made it through t' night, you got a lot of questions." The boy said. He raised his hands, palm up, as Remus opened his mouth to ask again. "S'okay." The boy stretched his arms wide, gesturing the space about him in a sarcastic parody of a grandiose introduction. "Welcome to Little Linton, t' capital shithole of earth." the harshness of his words surprised Remus, though he wasn't sure why. "You are too posh for these parts and today is Sunday the twenty first of June. That good enough for ya?"
The twenty first of June.
Also known as the night of the full moon.
Remus was screwed.
"Um..." Remus cleared his throat. He had gone pale. The boy had turned his back during his short silence and was tapping furiously on his phone. "I don't suppose you could help me find someone?"
He did sound incredibly posh, he had to admit it. But Helia was the same, and she came from here too.
The boy leaned against the arm of the sofa, face filled with the same something emotion he had seen before. "An' who might tha' be?"
"Do you know who Helia Blacksmith is?" Remus asked, cautiously. Something about the boy's expression told him to be cautious.
"Why?" The boy's voice had turned tight and suspicious.
"I just..." How do you say I need her to transport me away to a place where I can turn into a man-eating beast in muggle terms? "I need her help."
"Look." The boy crouched in front of Remus's sofa. "You seem like an alright kid, and you got beat up pretty bad there, but we all 'eard the rumours. Some o' your lo' came messin' about, lookin' for our Hel, an' then... then..." The boy's voice broke, and he looked away from Remus, pausing for a second to collect himself. "You get outta here, an' I won' let Will's lot know you're about, okay?"
"That's the thing..." Remus said, unsure how to proceed. "I physically can't leave without her. It's a long story."
"I got the time." the boy said. Remus sensed his fierce protectiveness.
"Well, I don't." Remus said shortly.
The curtains flickered open, giving Remus a view of the sunset, pastel oranges and pinks and yellows lit up the sky, saving the world from failing sunlight.
Wait.
Failing sunlight.
"Shit. Shit." Remus mumbled. He threw himself off the sofa, scrambling for an exit. "I'm sorry. I'll go. I'm going. I've just got to get out of here."
Remus didn't wait for a reply. He was out the door in seconds, sprinting towards the forest that lay out in front of him. Maybe he could put enough distance between himself and the village.
He managed about half an hour of running, too terrified to stop for breath, the soft pounding of his own feet on earth and ragged inhales torn from his throat as his only rhythm, before the change overtook him. Pain arched his back and bent his spine. Claws ripped through his skin, he fell forwards onto what was now his paws. He let out what was intended as a scream of agony, but was released as a howl, long and so, so hungry.
His senses lit up.
A rabbit in the bushes seven feet away, a fox on the prowl, a... human. A growl of approval left his throat at the scent of the dog walkers. He followed the enhanced smell of walking-shop clothes and too many dog biscuits, not bothering to keep low to the ground. He knew that just under that was the smell of something else, something so worth it: Blood.
A snarl built in his throat as he prepared to spring. He leapt through the air and then BANG! Remus was blasted sideways. He could feel his vision fading to nothing, succumbing to the vicious pain tearing through his shoulder.
Finally he looked up, and his last, hazy view of the world was a pair of blue eyes hovering over him, lit up by hellfire.
................
A/N
Um... Oops?
What's Loopy Lupin got himself into now? Damn those optimal-for-the-story timed concussions.
Mischief Managed,
BecauseBecky