TWs: Kidnapping, Pain, and Injury Descriptions
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"REEEEEEEEEMUS! REEEEEEEMUS!" A small boy with sunshine hair and sky eyes ran up to him, tackling him into the grass with a peal of laughter that Remus echoed through his own small body. They held hands and ran to the playground, scrambling to race each other to the top of the slide.
"I WON, REMUS!" came a victorious squeal, but he was no longer paying attention to the sunny boy and the bright playground; he was staring into the shadows, where a hand beckoned him. And he inexplicably walked towards it.
Don't do it! He begged himself. He tried to stop walking. He tried to shout out for the little boy or his parents but he was always doomed to make the same mistake.
"Hi there, what's your name?" the shadowy man asked in a low rumbling voice, the shifting dizzying mess of shadows that made up the silhouette of the person towering above him menacingly.
"Remus. Mister, you're bleeding," came his own small voice.
Shout at him. Tell him to go away. Tell him to get away from you, Remus begged himself again, screaming in frustration at the man covered in shadows. But the terrifying creature, who Remus could not identify, did not seem to hear him.
Remus squinted at the shadows until his head hurt. In the back of his head Remus realized that almost all of the large man's features had been determinedly blocked from his mind. Remus felt as if claws were tearing into his chest as the shadow man smiled.
"Well, aren't you a kind boy? And so pretty. Where are your parents?"
Why hadn't he realized? Why hadn't he been creeped out? It wasn't fair!
Run, stupid child, run away! he screamed at himself, as he always did. But the dream wouldn't change. It never did.
"Mister, you should go see a doctor. I'll get my friend's mom. She's super nice and she will take you. Please, there's a lot of blood."
"Woah!"
The boy made of sunshine was standing beside him, gaping at the disheveled, bloody man. Unlike little Remus, already consumed by shadows, the other boy wasn't moved with pity, but fear, as a small boy should have been. Why had he been so stupid?
"Remus come on...Remus, my mom wants us home. Remus...REMUS!"
But he couldn't see his friend anymore; he couldn't see anything but the growing shadows that swallowed him whole. His small self cried in pain but it was too late.
It was always too late.
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Remus woke with a strangled scream, covered in a cold sweat. He kicked away his covers and shakily got off his bed, stumbling to the window. He stared both horrified and transfixed at the nearly whole waxing gibbous moon high above and let bitter tears run down his cheeks.
No one came to check on him when he woke up screaming, not anymore, not since he had driven his mum into the ground. But as he glared at the moon with all the animosity and rage he couldn't take out on the man of shadows, he was struck by a new and confusing thought.
This time when he woke from the dream, a name had been at the edge of his thoughts. It was a name that didn't make sense: Rosey Denhew.
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The next day, the name haunted him. And he tortured himself trying to figure out why he had thought of her, if this had any significance, or if it was just a weird dream thing. After he had been rescued from...from that shadow man, he had to be rushed to the hospital, as he had been bitten and mauled.
It had taken weeks for him to stay conscious long enough to realize he was back with his parents, and for some reason this had made him angry. He had been so angry and had fought the healers so much they eventually banned his parents from staying with him.
After he went home he wouldn't talk to them. Remus didn't remember why and assumed it was probably because he was so scared or something. In an attempt to help him, his mum had forced Remus to go to counseling in the beginning. It was there he was taught how to control his emotions and he also learned about his dreams, until his father yanked him out since Remus had needed to face a more pressing issue by the end of the month.
For example, in counseling, he learned the boy in his dream wasn't a real boy but some weird, metaphorical thing. It was the boy Remus wished he was or something. He didn't understand it and he really didn't get it now either. But he could have sworn when he had been younger, that the boy had been real, that he had been his friend.
"Yes, Remus darling, he was your invisible friend. Don't worry about it, darling, just go back to sleep, it was just a dream," had been his mum's answer every time. But something had been nagging at him ever since Dumbledore mentioned the name Rosey Denhew.
Remus forced himself to refocus on his surroundings as he pulled himself away from the thoughts of the past. Remus knew he wouldn't be able to brood over it long, as like he often did before a full moon he quickly fell ill with a particularly nasty fever and spent what felt like hours clawing his way to the tub to try to cool himself down then back to his bed. Soaking in the cold water had helped a little, but because of the cost of Remus' school supplies, he had refused his father's offer for any Healing Potion for this month, not wanting to cause him any more trouble than he already did.
Knowing his father was gone, he allowed himself to whimper and groan in pain, thrashing around in his bed, each movement bringing more pain and discomfort. As the afternoon stretched into the evening the agony was almost unbearable. Remus' bones felt as if they were breaking already, and for one horrifying second, he thought he had gotten the time of moonrise wrong and was transforming.
He tried to go through the breathing exercises he was taught to stay calm. But these proved useless and he gave up, tossing and turning like a mad man, his fingers digging into the bed and his back arching as his pre-transformation body tortured him.
He didn't even have the state of mind to get himself dressed and down to the living room like he usually could if he left himself enough time. No, instead his father found him in a humiliating position as he thrashed around desperate for some relief from the pain. He was vaguely aware of his father picking him up and cradling him against his chest.
"I'm so sorry, Remus. I'm so sorry, son."
Surely he had imagined those words, and he tried to quiet the pitiful sounds of pain escaping him. Why was it so bad? He remembered being told his emotional state affected his transformations, but other than the nightmare last night, he had been in a rather decent mood considering how upset he could get.
"D...d...dad it hurts," he cried, shamelessly convincing himself his father did care and did love him and wasn't just apologizing because he grew afraid of Remus every month as his uncle speculated.
If his father even had apologized. If it hadn't been all in his head.
He couldn't hear his father's response but felt himself being lowered onto a cold hard floor.
He was in the shed. He hated the shed. The whole thing smelled strongly of blood and urine. It was hardly more room than a cage, his father having to keep the space small in order to successfully cast the necessary silencing and strengthening charms on it.
Remus knew the transformation was close because the pain had subsided into the calm before the storm. It gave him enough time to undress and struggle to his feet, checking on the locks, which made him feel slightly better. Then the pain came back, less frequent, but more intense. He allowed himself to sink to the ground, as his body seized against the pull of the transformation, against the pull of the moon.
Don't fight it. He had been told this over and over again. But the nightmare left a bad taste in his mouth, and he felt a strong irrational need to fight it, fight something, as he often did.
So he wrestled with the wolf. He fought for control, fought to stop the twisting and breaking and aching. His face was elongating and his nakedness was being replaced by a thick coat of fur. He told his mum he didn't remember anything about transforming, but that wasn't true, especially when he fought it like he was doing now.
Surely if he fought it hard enough, one day he could beat the monster that slammed against his subconscious over and over, howling. His rage was the wolf's rage and vice versa. Yes, one day he would win, he'd have to, surely he wouldn't be a monster forever. But that night wasn't tonight. He lost against the wolf, slipping into a daze where rage and blood overtook his mind.
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He was first aware of the blood and fur in his mouth, which he quickly spit out. That was a mistake because the motion sent his whole abdomen aflame with pain. He tried to open his eyes but found them caked closed with blood. He assessed himself best he could, trying to ignore the very strong, almost overpowering, scent of his blood in the room.
His left leg was definitely broken. He felt it bent in a weird way but had learned through trial and error not to attempt to move in his assessment of himself. His head was pounding, and he knew he should let himself fall into unconsciousness, into the blissful nothing it brought, but he couldn't shake the irrational stubbornness that he had to win somehow.
It felt like if he passed out before someone got to him that he had lost a second time to the wolf. He had tried explaining it to his mum once, but she had grown uncharacteristically angry at him and made him promise not to do that.
But promises could be broken. He had also promised not to talk to strangers, hadn't he? Besides, the more logical reason he fought to stay awake was that the dreams that followed his transformation were never good. They typically ended being his most vivid nightmares, all of them of him trapped with that man, that monster.
He let out a sigh that sent more stabs of pain throughout his body as the door to the shed opened. Even though his eyes were closed, the light hurt. Before his father could reach him, he fell unconscious as he always did. Missing once more what would have been a rather confusing reaction Lyall had as he reached his bleeding, broken son. Or perhaps he would have at least felt the tears that fell on him, but as it was, he knew none of this. He only was aware of the horrors of reality had been replaced with the horrors of the mind.
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"Come here, boy." No longer did the man sound kind and gentle. Now his voice was low and grave. He didn't want to come, he wanted to stay under the bed pushed against the wall in the back of the room. He wanted to stay tucked beside the cobwebs and spiders that scuttled across his arms, though were much safer than the monster that lurked outside. He wanted to stay underneath what he considered to be a fortress of sorts where he could stay hidden.
"I'm warning you, boy."
He knew the man meant business, knew it would hurt more if he didn't do what he said. But he couldn't bring himself to move.
"Time's up!"
Remus let out a shriek of horror as the man dropped to his stomach and reached for the boy plastered against the wall. He had lost track of his time here, he had lost track of how many times the man had hurt him. All he knew is that the man said it would be over soon. But the way he said it sounded bad, very bad.
Remus kicked out against him violently, desperately. But it did nothing except make the shadow man mad, and Remus screamed loudly at the top of his lungs.
He screamed for his mum and father despite the fact they didn't want him anymore. He screamed for his friend, comforted only by the fact that he was safe right now, as the man roughly dragged him from the security of the bed and threw him on top of it.
"You're lucky I don't chop you up and eat you now. You are lucky I have a use for you and like playing with you, little boy," the man taunted, his cruel deep bellowing laugh appearing as it did anytime someone was in pain.
The faint outline of a large man appeared above him, hunched over him, calloused hands gripping his slender wrists so tight it hurt. As the man leered at him the putrid smell of his breath, that of rotting meat, made Remus' insides curl.
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Remus woke up covered in sweat again.
He tried to scream, but he had howled and screamed himself hoarse last night. He tried to move and then went cold with horror, realizing he couldn't. Tears ran down his cheeks; he hated when they put him in a body bind curse.
Somehow he knew they weren't allowed to do that, because his mum had always cried and said there was no way it was right. Even his father had said that they shouldn't do it, but no one was going to stop them when Remus wasn't even considered a human, but instead a creature.
He fought against the curse with all his might, desperately trying to move, feeling his lungs constricting with panic. The shadow man who took him had done this a lot, and Remus had hated it almost as much as when the man had thrown the occasional Crucio at him.
"Will someone get it to stop squirming? How is it able to break through the curse anyway? Did you do it wrong, Ez?"
"No sir, of course not. It must be a strong werewolf."
"They should all be put down, in my opinion. No use keeping them alive if all they're good for is spreading their disease like bloody animals."
Remus finally stopped moving, assuring himself that he wasn't with the shadow man but at St. Mungos. Of course, this didn't make him feel particularly good. After all, he had been here every month for the past year ever since his mum started getting sick and then died. Every time he returned to St. Mungos his treatment was more or less the same as it had been the previous time, awful.
He knew all the healers were sick of him, and some even purposely made it painful to "stop the mangy mutt from coming in for handouts." He didn't want that to happen this time, so he forced himself to stop moving. At least he wasn't in as much pain, though he still felt very sore and was under the growing suspicion that the healers purposefully diluted his pain potions.
He still couldn't open his eyes and felt gross covered in sweat and blood. He just wanted someone to treat him kindly like his mum had. Even his father was kind compared to this.
He knew his father did his best to heal him after his transformations, but they had been worse lately, and his father hadn't had the energy to do much more magic than was required for his job, and sometimes not even then.
So Remus was forced to spend the whole, agonizingly long day in the Magical Bites and Stings Ward to be prodded and poked. He took all the medicine they gave him orally, not wanting the alternative, and forced himself to be a perfect, compliant patient, even though he wished to be anything but.
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When he finally managed to open his eyes, he was grateful no other werewolves were in the ward, as they were some of the most disheveled and ill-looking people he had ever seen. It always made him terrified for his future. Although, for the first time in probably forever, he realized he believed he might now end up better off than them.
Then again, the man who took him had been a werewolf, apparently a pretty strong one from what Remus could gather. He had also been a wizard; that much Remus knew with certainty, as he had been the victim of more than one hex.
"He was just a bad seed," his mum had assured him, back when he was terrified to be around any other werewolf. She had tried so hard to convince him that the shadow man wasn't what all werewolves were like. His mum had assured him she wouldn't let anything like that happen to him again.
But she wasn't here now, was she? He dreaded the day he was in this ward with other, older werewolves and he didn't have his mum to assure him that the man who took him wasn't amongst them.
"This isn't the last you'll see of me!" the shadow man had shouted before disappearing from the Aurors. Of course, he was probably talking to them, but Remus couldn't help but feel he was talking to him as well, both taunting and threatening him.
"Sit up and take this," Came the curt demand from a smug-looking witch. Having been released from the body binding curse since yesterday, Remus was quick to comply, ignoring the way his body groaned in protest. He had to get out of here quickly. He was leaving for Hogwarts in mere days!
"You know you are pretty well behaved, for a werewolf," the witch remarked matter of factly, sneering at him once he was finished. He blinked a few times, then smiled nervously.
"Thank you," he replied timidly, earning an irritated look from the healer in reply.
That might have been the nicest thing a Healer had ever said to him since the day they knew what he was, anyway. The middle-aged witch scoffed and rolled her eyes before she strode away.
His father slipped in after her, and Remus was sure to hold himself straighter, even if it caused him more pain. He self-consciously pulled the blanket up around him more, remembering how his father had had to carry him to the shed this time. His face grew very hot at the recollection and he ducked his head in shame.
"How are you feeling?" his father asked rather gently, taking his customary seat a good distance away from the bed he was in.
"Fine."
"Remus Lupin, don't you lie to me!" he exclaimed sternly. Remus' gaze darted to his father, whose eyes seemed sunken, made worse by the deep dark bags circling them. His father shifted in his seat, as uncomfortable as always to be in the same room as a monster.
"I'm feeling better than before." His words came out harsher and cooler than he had meant and he struggled to reign in the anger that would surface at random times. The dangerous anger that came from reflecting on how unfair everything was for him.
He was surprised when his father didn't get angry at his tone but flinched as if Remus had hit him. Again there was that strange expression that Remus had seen often, his whole life, and yet for the life of him couldn't identify what it was.
"It's because he's so ashamed of you, Remus. After all, would you really call a werewolf your son with pride?" He hung his head, recalling what his uncle had said, unable to face what must be shame in his father's dull eyes.
"I...I'll leave."
His father's voice sounded thick, probably because he was choking back his disgust.
At least he tried to hide it, Remus supposed it's all he could ask for. But ever since he had witnessed the way Dumbledore had so swiftly and completely accepted him, his resentment of his father had been building little by little. Then again, Dumbledore didn't have to raise him, didn't have to cart his grotesque form to the hospital, didn't have to clean up after the mess the wolf made of the boy.
So he said nothing, nor could he ever imagine confronting his father about his fear. Instead, he let his father leave without a word, tears stinging in his eyes. He figured this was the end of his visitors, but after an hour of restless sleep, Remus was woken again by someone entering his room. He knew immediately it wasn't a Healer since they only came when absolutely necessary, and sometimes not even then.
He also knew it wasn't his father, who had a skinny stature, not at all like the muscular man standing in the doorway. For one wild second, Remus thought the shadow man had come for him again, and he nearly screamed loudly for help, but when the man took another step recognition settled in at last.
It wasn't as terrible as the shadow man nor was it a particularly good visitor, for it was his uncle who stood back and regarded him with unveiled disdain.
"I heard you got into Hogwarts."
There was no congratulatory manner, no pride. If anything his uncle sounded furious about it. Remus winced and tried to find his voice, always feeling like a dumb, small child around his uncle.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, I've come to make sure you don't make a fool out of yourself!"
His uncle drew up a chair, closer to the door than Remus' bed, and he knew he was in for a long lecture.
"Your father is too soft with you. If I was your father there is no way I'd trust you enough not to run rampant at that school. You better be on your best behavior and you better stay away from everyone, you hear?"
This took Remus by surprise, as he had been looking forward to getting to know students who were, at least somewhat, more like him since they would be children who knew about magic. He figured he wouldn't be popular, but he assured himself he at least wouldn't be bullied and he would probably be able to make a friend or two.
The weight of his uncle's words sunk in as the man launched into a long lecture about the danger of having friends. To sum it up, by the end Remus was convinced that a monster like him didn't deserve friends and that if he had for a short time believed such a thing was possible, he was wrong. He was too dangerous and his sole focus besides studies should be, had to be, making sure no one found out what he was.
"They would hate you and probably hurt you if they found out. While I think a good beating is what you need more times than not, I certainly don't want your peers to kill you any more than I want you to kill one of them. Your father would be devastated either way, so you better not think you having friends is possible. No one could possibly want to be friends with someone like you and don't you forget it. Understand?" his uncle asked, in the usual imposing way he did after the end of his sharp lectures. Remus had wanted to withdraw under his blanket and cry a good half hour into the lecture, but he hadn't, so he nodded, unable to find words.
Luckily this time his uncle took it as enough of a response.
"Keep your nose down and follow all the rules. Don't think they won't jump on the opportunity to kick you out if you give them a reason. This is an opportunity you don't deserve, so you better not mess it up." His uncle finished in a slightly softer tone, which was still a rather harsh one. Then he put the chair back and looked Remus over once more with the air of someone realizing he'd be rid of a problem.
He nodded to himself and turned and left without another word. Remus wasn't able to do anything but dwell on his uncle's words, realizing how right his uncle was. He was grateful his uncle had taken the time out of his busy schedule to talk to him, otherwise, Remus would no doubt have been stupid enough to attempt to make a friend.
He wished he could prove to his father and uncle that he respected and listened to them. He
was determined to do so, even if it meant his school year had just got a lot dimmer and lonelier.
It took him a while to lay back down, not having dared to do so while his uncle was yelling at him. Once he did, he soon drifted off into a thankfully dreamless sleep.