Remus had no idea what had hit him in the back of the head. In a few seconds, two people behind him had forced him onto his knees. He felt a sharp piece of rock dig into his kneecap and when he looked back up, he saw Fenrir Greyback's face illuminated by a nearby campfire. "Leave us." Flick. He had drawn his wand and pointed it at him. "Incarcerous" Remus felt his limbs bind together with cords. His body was shaking violently. He watched as the man before him changed in a wolf-like creature. Remus could barely observe himself transforming when he saw the grotesque figure hurl itself at him.
Then Remus awoke in a cold sweat. Indistinctively, being plunged into pure nothingness, he grabbed at his face. Nine days in a row. Thank Merlin he had bandages protecting his eyes from his poking and prodding fingers. The healers had to use what were called (muggle, of course) "stitches" to hold the deep lacerations around his eyes together. Don't worry, they said. They'll absorb. He regained his bearings, gasping for air. Slowly, he arose from the bed and ever so cautiously made his way to the bathroom. There was bumping and rustling in the room next to him. He fumbled around for the light, but it did no good on, especially with the bandages.
Sirius was supposed to help him, but he was still asleep upstairs (or must have been, Remus assumed.) Having no bearing on time, Remus had to peel off the bandages and stare blankly at the window in hopes of having some vision of sunlight until the grandfather clock downstairs chimed. 7 o'clock. Finally. One day this week he actually woke up at a reasonable time... He blinked his eyes open and turned on the lights. It was getting easier to apply the dittany and he was now less likely to burn his eyeballs and whatever the delicate pink parts around them were called with it. It still amazed him the first time he burned them with dittany and he felt as tears formed and rolled down the sides of his face. It was an awful and torturous experience, but in a way, was enlightening. He didn't bother with the bandages, deciding it was likely better if the wounds didn't fester and become infected under the hot cotton.
There was no one around in the big empty house. Not even Kretcher was lurking in a corner, watching, and mumbling something about Remus's condition. There was nothing to do, either. Frankly, he wasn't sure if he trusted the food, being unsure of how many weeks it had resided there since Sirius's coming. Remus felt awkward, standing in the middle of the doorway, but as far as he knew, he was the only one awake. Awkwardness and embarassment seemed to be the only things he felt lately, besides the surpressed frustrations and the terror he nearly constantly had to battle.
He cautiously reached out to grab the doorway. A large splinter scratched his finger. The clock had yet to chime since he got up, but he was sure that it wasn close to eight o'clock, and he was already frustrated with existing. Sirius was likely still asleep with no feasible way to reach him and wake him up without posing a threat to himself, and no one else was residing in the house yet, as Dumbledore had said they would soon. Buckbeak was upstairs but that was less than helpful to him.
He had been standing there for long enough that he was fairly certain he was still facing the hallway and not the dining room. He took a slow, hesitant step forward. Had he gone quicker, he found, and the corner of a table sitting in the hallway would have likely painfully jabbed him in the leg. Remus guided his body around it to avoid it. His hands brushed over the top of the table. It felt like some sort of dresser. It was definitely a dresser, by the knobs on the side. He must've been too close to the wall when he stumbled over the giant, obscurely shaped troll foot. Did he look like a mad man as he was feeling up the furniture? Probably. But the dresser and the umbrella stand meant the stairs had to be to his right, he thought. He took a few steps forward and made a sharp left, knocking himself straight into the wall.
"Damn!" He said in a low voice. The surprise of hitting the wall was disorienting to say the least. Finding the stairs was a bit tricky, as he had to remind himself not to break the vase that sat beside them (Sirius had promised to move it, but it had yet to be done). Getting up the stairs was the easy part, as stairs were often the same in most places and from his memory, he knew how to get up them. The creaking was still annoying, however.
To the best of his understanding, Remus was under the impression the Grimmauld place was very much is disrepair. He had been whisked away from the hospital with his few belonging to stay there. He would've ended up in the same place any way, whether or not the full moon would have happened. What distraught him more was never getting to see Sirius or Harry again.
He was much too frightened to go barefoot for fear a nail or a piece of wood might puncture his foot, but in socks, he could tell that the tile on the ground floor was peeling up and missing large pieces. Feeling the walls led to him to believe that the wallpaper was doing the same. On his best guess, there was no such thing as a bright colour inside the entire house. He knew there were gas lights somewhere, because during the daytime and sometimes in the evenings, a faint smell of gas could be found. Remus was sure Sirius knew, but he strongly warned him against lighting any open flames until it was looked into. Nothing bad had happened yet, at least. Then there were the oddly shaped, somewhat cylindrical glass cases that lined the wall against the stairwell. Remus had asked Sirius what they were to which he replied, "Don't worry about it."
His foot always caught on the landing. Life around him was always moving too quick and he was moving in slow motion amongst an alien planet's rough terrain, where literally everything was out to murder him. Sirius had at least offered him one of the three bedrooms on the first floor, preventing him from having to navigate up three other staircases. Remus could faintly hear a rustling in one of the nearby rooms. His bedroom was placed next to what had used to be Walburga Black's bedroom, now void of furniture and housing a full sized Hippogriff. Under normal circumstances, this may have fascinated or intrigued Remus, but now, in all his vulnerability, he was utterly terrified for accidentally opening the door one night on his way back from the bathroom and getting swiftly kicked in the chest because Hippogriffs don't understand subjectivity, Sirius, and it's not like he's going to see me and suddenly feel compassionate.
Until the other Order members came, actually, this implied that there were still (to Remus's best guess) three bedroom on each of three separate floors, the two that occupied the top floors, closets, wardrobes, bathrooms, and all the other various nooks and crannies filled with decades of dust and small angry pests. He didn't dare sit in an armchair that he didn't recognize or reach into a closet besides his own or even use a bathroom he didn't know because the last thing he needed right now was to be bitten by a rogue pixie or trampled by some now sentient bureau (and he definitely did not start reaching his hands in cabinets he did not recognize).
He was perfectly fine occupying his particular usual spot on the particular sofa in front of the fireplace. That was something he missed in particular. He had tried sitting in front of a lit fireplace only once when he became completely overwhelmed by the bright, raging fire. It was something he had never seen nor felt before. In a single instant, everything he knew had become a threat to him.
"People... get used to it, you know? I mean, they must." Sirius had said. "You've just got to... sort of get over it, mate."
St. Mungo's was probably not supposed to let him leave, Remus had thought over and over. Actually, under the laws that protected patients from being denied care, they definitely were not allowed to let him leave. But with one look at him, knowing he was a werewolf and that his wounds were practically untreatable, they handed him a bottle of dittany for his wounds and let him go. They watched as he left, clinging to the arm of Molly Weasley, hopelessly confused with barely a sense of what had happened or what was wrong with him.
The silence was maddening. Everytime Remus could feel himself doze off back to a dreamless sleep, hunched over on his arm, a small noise somewhere bothered him. Chances are, if he was taking in more than just the void in front of him, the small noises wouldn't have bothered him. But those small noises could be mice or pixies or any other small creature that knew he wasn't a threat to them.
Heavy footsteps trudged down from one of the upstairs room. "Remus, are you in here?" A male voice yawned.
Remus aggressively blinked his eyes several times. "I'm still here."
"I thought you could see the light." Sirius murmured. "You're sitting in the dark."
"It's not completely dark-"
"You know what I meant."
"Well, perhaps if your light fixtures weren't a fire hazard as it is." Remus sighed. "I've just been wandering. Trying to learn this place."
"I can still turn the light on for you." Sirius said softly. Remus could tell by his voice that he was approaching him. "How long have you been up for?"
"Since a little before seven, I think."
"You took your bandages off by yourself."
"It's not thathard, really. It's more, you know, the stairs... not having anything to do, really." Remus suddenly felt bad for bringing it up. "It's not like you have to entertain me all the time."
Sirius sighed. Remus assumed he was either scratching his arm or making a disappointed gesture and rubbing his face by the sound of it. "I'm really shit at this. I'm sorry." Remus couldn't make out his figure, but could see the dark void that he occupied when he was in front of him, with the light behind him. The couch cushion beside him sunk in. "The Order's meeting today. Have you showered yet?"
"No."
"Molly said she'd look at you, maybe figure out how to get those sutures out of your face. She thinks it's been long enough that they should start falling out or just... you know, dissolving." Sirius was gesturing with his hands until it dawned on him what he was doing
"Good." Remus nodded.
"I know that it might be... weird," Sirius said uncomfortably. "I mean, I know you're grown and capable of bathing and dressing yourself and all, but I'd rather you not have to get more stitches."
"Doesn't bother me."
"Are you feeling alright?"
"Yes?"
"You're being blunt like you're angry at me or something."
"No?"
"Are you angry at me?"
"I'm sorry... It's a bit difficult to keep from being awkward, I suppose."
There was a pause. "It's just me, you know."
"I do know. I just have to get used to talking without seeing, you know? There's no expression, no emotion. Talking is just... words."
"It gets better." Sirius assured. "I know you must be about to hit me across the face for saying it, but it's true. Things are going to get better, you'll figure it out."
"I feel like any second now, something could jump out and kill me." Remus confessed. "I mean, honestly, I'm jumping at the bloody shadows."
"Maybe I shouldn't tell you about the death eaters across the street, then." Sirius chuckled.
"The what?"
"Sorry, thought you should hear it from me. The wards up around the house are incredibly sturdy. They can't see the house, much less get close without the password."
"Oh great. So basically, no one can go outside?"
"That sounds... about right, yeah. I guess I'm sort of on house arrest and you're stuck here with me now."
"Lovely." Remus sighed. "Just... lovely."
