Title: The Magician's Curse

Author: Better in Red

Rating: PG-13

Category: Romance/General

A/N: This is an AU , SLASH story, with a not-so-accurate take on characters and a totally cliché, overly used, worn out storyline. But I loiffs it ;

Chapter One: The Cursed One

"But-"

"I'm sorry, but you're father has already summoned him. He'll be arriving tomorrow morning. Please, dearest, try to give him a chance. A liaison between the Kingdoms is desperately needed now. It is not a time to stand alone when one is threatened by darkness, even if one is an entire Kingdom."

"So have Petunia marry him."

"Lily, you know full and well that your sister is already engaged."

The redhead sighed, before falling defeated onto her bed. Her mother was still looking at her with anxious brown eyes.

"Fine," she mumbled, causing a smile to spread upon her mother's face. "I'll meet this stupid prince. But you tell daddy I'm still mad at him for arranging this whole marriage. And I swear I'll feed this Sirius fellow to the dogs if he turns out to be an ass like the last one."

"Lily!" the queen scolded her daughter. "Such language is not proper for someone of your stature."

Queen Rose watched with well practiced patience as her eighteen year old daughter rolled her emerald green eyes.

"Yes, mother."

"Now, I must be going," Rose stated, bending down to give her daughter a quick kiss on the forehead, before leaving the room.

Lily quickly pushed herself up and off her bed. She rushed over to her bedroom window and slid it open. Poking her head out, her eyes fell upon a tawny haired young man, standing on a small alcove just below the window and holding very tightly to a thick vine that twined upward from the ground.

"Fancy meeting you here," she said casually, crossing her arms on the window sill and grinning down at him.

The young man scowled up at her, before reaching a hand up to grab the window ledge. Still smiling, Lily helped him up through the window and into her room, quickly moving to lock her bedroom door before saying anything else.

"Sorry about that, Remus," Lily said, turning to face her friend again. "We need to find a better place for you to hide when mother pop's in unexpectedly."

"It's okay," he said, taking a seat on one of the chairs near a small tea table. Lily pulled the one opposite him out and joined him. "What did the Queen want?"

Lily huffed and crossed her arms, earning her an inquisitive raise of the eyebrow from her friend.

"A Prince Sirius is coming to visit tomorrow," she explained.

"Another suitor," he stated, gold-brown eyes alight with understanding.

"Yeah." She sighed softly.

"Maybe you'll actually like this one," Remus offered with a small shrug.

"Or maybe I could runaway! And I could become a merchant, or a pirate. I'd bring you with me of course," Lily said excitedly, with a strange glint to her eyes. "We could leave tonight!"

"Not one of your better ideas, your highness," he said with an apologetic look.

"I suppose it would be difficult to transform on a ship with an entire crew aboard," Lily said dejectedly.

"Aye." Remus stared down at the table, the same defeated tone in his voice.

Lily studied his face and the closed look in his eyes; she worried for her friend; he seemed to get weaker and more withdrawn with every transformation.

"We'll find a way to break the curse," Lily said suddenly with determination she didn't know she had felt. "One day, we'll find this Marvolo fellow and make him fix what he's done." And she meant it.

Remus didn't say anything and simply stared out the window until he felt Lily's hand upon his own, giving him a gentle yet comforting squeeze.

"The sun'll be setting soon. I should get going," he said, standing up.

"Alright, let me just grab my cloak."

"You're still coming?" he asked, a bit surprised.

"Of course, don't I always?" She said offhandedly.

"Well… I mean… I thought… don't you have to be here in the morning for when the Prince comes?"

"I'm always back before anyone knows I'm gone. And if he arrives that early, you know as well as I that Dumbledore always covers for us. Shall we then?" Lily asked, shrugging the cloak on so that it concealed her identity.

Remus smiled.

"Thanks, Lils," he said, offering her his hand and helping her out first onto the vine that clung thickly to the castle wall.

"So, when do you have to leave?" James asked his friend. Sirius raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"We leave bright and early tomorrow morning," the young prince replied.

"We?" James queried.

"Yes. We: You, me and Peter."

"I was rather hoping you'd say it was just you and your uncle."

"You aren't scared of a little princess are you?" Sirius asked with a grin.

"She's a mean, vile, and probably ugly old witch who has scared three former suitors into celibacy. Yes, I'm a little frightened."

"And you're supposed to be my brave and loyal knight! Rumors, Jamie. That's all they are."

James snorted. "And I'm to believe you didn't try to back out of the arrangement? Considering the, um, type of company you keep? Or are you trying to be a proper Prince now, so that no one finds out?"

Sirius scowled, but James could still detect the slight pink coloring on his cheeks. He smirked triumphantly, earning him a death glare from his friend who decided to play it off.

Sirius seemed to regain himself. "Even with my preferences as they are, I see this as a challenge. And I, Sirius Orion Black, heir to Sir King Alphard's throne, am not scared of a challenge or anyone. Let alone, some prissy princess."

James' smirk widened.

"So you did try to get out of it, but your uncle said you had to go."

"Beg and pleaded with me to let him stay," another voice chuckled as an older man joined the two younger ones in the room.

"Your highness," James said quickly, giving a bow and losing his carefree manner almost instantly while Sirius huffed in indignation.

"Honestly you two! The way you talk, it's like I'm sending him off to his death," Alphard said, eyeing his nephew. "Don't you even remember when she came to visit? She didn't seem all that bad to me."

Sirius tried to think back. "Not that bad?! She was bloody awful! She kept snooping about my room! And her face bore a striking resemblance to that of a horse."

The king scowled at the prince while the knight did his best to reign in a chuckle.

"No. That was her sister," Alphard said as if speaking to a small child. "Lily was the redhead."

Sirius' eyes lit up in recognition and an impish smirk crossed his features. "Ah, yes, the ever-so-lovely Tiger Lily. I remember her now. Don't you James?"

James felt his cheeks flush.

"What was it you said back then?" Sirius continued, egged on by his friend's new likeness to a tomato. "Ah, yes. I think I remember. I believe you said that – OW!"

Sirius rubbed his head as a rather smug looking James whistled innocently.

King Alphard turned a calculating gaze upon the young knight who suddenly seemed to find the long crack in the far wall rather interesting.

"She's pretty and all, but she spent the entire time she was here with that skinny guy that she claimed was 'just her friend'," Sirius said, returning all their attentions to the matter at hand and hopefully saving his friend from having to answer any embarrassing questions the King may have asked.

"Lupin? That was the Duke's son," The king said softly. "She won't be spending time with him anymore. He disappeared about a year ago, when the Dark Mage made his appearance. This alliance is more than a marriage. It will strengthen and pull our two Kingdoms together before we all fall to the darkness. The only way to ensure the union of our people is to establish one first."

Sirius nodded, but he looked even less happy than before, something James sympathized with a great deal.

"Don't worry," Alphard said, trying to sound reassuring as he gave his nephew a pat on the shoulder. "We should be able to take care of this Dark Mage threat before it gets out of hand. You'll be fine. I promise. I'll be joining you in a month's time to arrange the actual details of the marriage."

"That soon?' Sirius asked, suddenly forgetting about the Dark Mage or any of the threats he posed. "Can't it wait a year, or two, or ten?" James also looked a bit put out by this news.

"King Acanthus is already receiving word that the Dark Mage is recruiting many loyal followers. Rumor has it, when you're asked, you either join him or you suffer a fate worse than death."

Sirius and James both paled a bit.

"We've still got time, but that is why we must act fast. The darkness will only spread if we let it."

"How about we just don't mess with it? It can't be such a good idea for you to send your only heir off to such a place."

"Sirius, where, exactly, do you think the darkness will go once it has achieved its goal of taking over King Ancanthus' kingdom?"

"Maybe it'll just stay there?"

"We should be so lucky."

"Maybe I'll just stay here."

"You should be so lucky!" Alphard said as he stood up. "You boys had better get packed. Will Peter be joining you?"

Sirius nodded and Alphard smiled before leaving the room.

"Are you alright, your highness?"

Lily looked up as a soft voice spoke and a young woman took a seat across from her at the table. She tried to smile.

"I'm fine, Alice."

The other woman didn't look as if she believed that but kept quiet. It was silent for a few moments before Frank, Alice's husband, came through the back door of the small house.

"I don't know how many more full moons that hovel will last," Frank said, giving his wife's shoulder a quick squeeze before sitting down at the table as well.

"I'll do what I can to help you fix it back up, reinforce it, whatever," Lily said softly.

Frank nodded with a tight smile. Lily tried to return it, but she found herself looking down into her glass of water instead.

"Princess, there's nothing you can do. He hates it when you worry over him."

"That's Remus, always thinking of everyone else before himself," Alice said with a small smile.

"Thank you both, for helping us… for helping him and for keeping his secret… and not turning him, or me in."

"We-" Alice started, but was cut off by a small cry that came from behind their house. Three sets of eyes turned to the small window facing the tiny shack-like building just inside the forest.

"They've been starting sooner and sooner haven't they?" Lily asked.

"The transformations seem to be getting worse too, more painful. He wakes up in such a state, and he doesn't seem to recover as quickly anymore," Alice agreed.

"He's always so tired," Lily commented.

"He was out three days last time… and it took almost 2 weeks for his wounds to heal. Every time he finally gets over one transformation, the next one's coming up.

"A fate worse than death: eternal pain," Alice said.

"I don't think it's meant to be eternal…" Frank quipped sadly. Each moon it got worse, it was only a matter of time until the lad didn't make it through one of them.

Lily sighed. "He doesn't deserve this."

Silence reigned again for a few moments.

"Has there been any more news on the Dark Mage front?" Frank asked, finally.

If Lily had any news, it died on her lips the moment a second scream filtered through the window, this time a heart-shattering one filled with pain.

Remus clutched his sides, falling to his knees doubled over in pain, as a scream was ripped from his throat.

'Stay focused,' he pleaded with himself. 'Please, stay focused for just a bit longer.'

He could feel the wolf's mind creeping into the back of his brain, like a poison, like the pain that was seeping into his body. Sharp, knife-like tendrils of pain laced themselves around every bone in his body, snapping them, breaking them into a whole new shape; skin, stretching and splitting, as it too was molded into a wolf's body.

His throat was already raw and ragged from screaming and trying to hold onto to his sanity, his humanity, for as long as possible. Remus tried to concentrate on something. Anything. He tried to focus his thoughts on his friends. Lily. Alice. Frank. However, try as he might, he couldn't keep focused and was quickly losing the fight to the wolf.

Already thick, unnaturally white, thick, coarse fur was breaking the skin. He could feel his senses heightening. Vision blurred before becoming that of the wolf, peering at the room around him through cold, red eyes where beautiful golden brown ones had once been; sharp claws sprouted from hands that were rapidly morphing into massive paws.

There was nothing in his mind anymore save for the pain. No longer did 'Remus the boy' live as the battle of wills was lost in favor of something darker, more menacing. A void seemed to engulf him as nothing but the scent of three humans not to far off filled his senses.

Blood.

That's all he wanted now. All he thought. All he knew.

Several long leaps, none from running starts as the small structure didn't allow room enough for that, shook the walls. Unsteady though they seemed, they held. And eventually the wolf realized the futileness of its effort, as it always did. And, having no other venue to quench the thirst, the very need for blood, it turned its teeth upon itself, staining the snowy white fur crimson.

TBC