To LadyChi. Happy birthday!
SUMMARY: What happened to Remus Lupin after he crossed the veil? Spoilers through the end of Deathly Hallows.
DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter isn't mine. I used the first lines of this story from one of the last chapters of Deathly Hallows, and I'm borrowing Remus, Sirius, and James. I borrowed the song lyrics from Rich Mullins. I'm not making any money from this.
The Howling
by Alicia
In the west I see an evening
This scarlet thread stretched beneath the gathering dark
Red as the blood on the hands of the Savior
And rich as the mercy that flowed from His broken heart
And I can hear the wild wind howling
And I can feel it in my bones
And I know that the howling will take me home
--Rich Mullins
"Right after you'd had your son…Remus, I am so sorry," Harry said.
"I am sorry too," Remus said. "Sorry I will never know him…but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."
In that moment, it seemed possible, that the better world could be created. Remus walked side by side with James and Sirius. With Lily walking before them, her hand on her son's shoulder. They were the Marauders again, and they were going to conquer the world.
Harry stood alone against Voldemort, and Remus felt himself pulled backward through the veil. That's it, he thought. My last task is done.
Being dead was exactly like being alive. Except there was no Voldemort, and no Hogwarts, and no battle chaos.
A cricket chirped in Remus' ear. He swatted it away with a strong blow, and it died without a sound. Crickets chirped from deep in the forest. A rat scurried by Remus' feet, and he swiftly left the cave entrance and followed it. He was hungry.
There were two children in a tent in a clearing. One cried shrilly. As the noise screamed through Remus' brain, he abandoned the rat and went to find the children. Not abandoned. Just alone for the moment, and scared, as their parents scouted the next leg of the trip away from Lord Voldemort.
But Voldemort was dead. Harry Potter had killed him. These children's parents must simply not be aware of the fact, that was all. And they weren't aware they were hunted. There was a gaunt, stumbling grey shape on the far side of their tent from Remus, outlined in the night light.
Remus slipped through the trees and around the clearing. He moved silently, but twigs shuddered up his body as they gave way under his weight. He positioned himself between the werewolf and the children, crouching his entire body in mute challenge. The other sprung, and Remus leapt to knock it out of the air.
"Remus Lupin," the werewolf snarled. His face twisted around the words in as grotesque a grin as a werewolf could give, and then he charged again. His teeth drew blood this time, but Remus pushed him out of the air and aside, hard, into a treetrunk. "Remus Lupin," he said again. "Our kill waits for us."
Remus could taste the children in his throat, but he ignored the sensation, disgusted with himself. It would feel just as good to crush the other wolf's skull. But that would be wrong. This was a person, one without control. An innocent.
The wolf ducked around two of the trees and Remus lost sight for a moment. Then the chidren screamed in unison as a black form dived into the top of their tent. Remus leapt. He used all of his weight to force the other wolf off the tent and back into the trees. Still on top, he bit and clawed, not noticing the blows that he received in turn.
"So glad to know I will finish the job I started when I bit you," it snarled, pulling away from Remus.
Remus pounced, and in one fluid motion, ripped out the wolf's throat.
Then he sprang away from the howling children into the deep woods, and emptied the meager contents of his stomach into a nearby treetrunk. Remus Lupin had killed before. But never with his own teeth. The mingled taste of Fenrir's blood and his own illness remained in his throat. He had to find water. He ran. He lifted his nose to the forest. When he at last found the scent of water, he ran even faster, and plunged his nose into the nearby stream. He would never be able to wash the blood off of his teeth.
Instead, he raised his face to the moon and howled. It went on and on until sunrise transferred a little of his blood to the sky. He looked around for a place to sleep.
The same cave he had been in the previous evening beckoned to him, with its quiet entrance and low tunnels. There was some kind of shimmery black cloth at the far left. Remus curled up in it, and went to sleep.
When he woke, he was famished and the moon was full.
This set the pattern. Remus would wake and set out in search of food. Although the cave was always the same, each time he emerged in a different forest. He would hunt – deer and squirrels – and fish – and eventually he would find a human in danger from a werewolf. Usually Remus managed to scare the werewolf away. He always meant to talk to the wolf, once the moon had set, but somehow there was never time. He'd sleep again, and when he'd wake, he'd be in a different place under a different full moon. Twice, Remus had to kill a werewolf. Both times they were obviously semi-conscious and aware of their kills, as Fenrir had been. Both times Remus made himself ill, then sat under the moon howling away his shame at being the cause of so much death. Even if it was necessary death. It was simper that way, as a wolf.
"The top five signs of a werewolf," said a voice in his dreams. "One, he's sitting in your chair. Two, he's wearing your clothes. Three, he saves the children. Four, he kills those wolves who have to die to keep the children safe. Five, he builds a better world."
And it was moonrise again, and there were two feral wolves hunting one dimwitted wizard who hadn't the sense to leave his wand where it was until morning, and Remus' tasks began again.
The nights began not to be uninterrupted. The first time Remus woke halfway through his sleep, still wrapped in that shimmery black cloth, he thought that either he was dreaming then or he had dreamed his previous life. But he sat in his old wizard's robes, with the wand Voldemort had broken with that last killing curse in pieces at his feet, and he could see in his mind's eye the most beautiful witch…the most beautiful woman ever created. She was holding his son out, and beckoning to him to come be with them, but there was an invisible barrier in his way.
Remus ran out the cave entrance and loped under and over trees until he found a clearing where he could see the moon. And then he howled as he never had before. Howled for all the time Tonks should have had with him, howled because he missed her so very much and he was so selfish to feel that way, but he wanted her beside him.
He didn't stop until a werewolf jumped out of one of the far trees and snarled a challenge, and the chase began anew.
The second time Remus shifted form, he stayed curled up right where he was in the black cloth. But he couldn't go back to sleep. He remembered. He remembered the night Lily and James died. He remembered being reunited with Sirius. He remembered helplessly watching Sirius fall through the veil, how he had to hold Harry back and never voice a word of the indescribable agony of losing his oldest friend, again.
Again Remus ran outside. And again he howled. He howled loudly enough to wake Hogsmeade…which in turn kept all the people safe as Remus ran off two full-grown feral werewolves. He had to kill them both, in the woods at the end of the chase, when they too spoke to him. Remus howled in triumph as he finished. He leapt high over the wolves he had killed, then fought his exhaustion well into the day, taking time to leap over every fallen tree in the vicinity. The sun came up, and he remained as he was, in wolf form.
The outlines of two figures awaited Remus in the cave when he returned at last. One was handsome and scowling, the other had unruly hair. Remus turned to leave the cave. They could not see him like this.
"Dumber than we remembered, isn't he, mate?" the handsome one drawled conversationally.
Remus froze in his tracks. He'd known who the men were before this, of course, but the voice called to something inside him that he'd forgotten existed.
"I've been watching him, mate. He's not stupid. He's never shifted form, the way we did," said the first.
"Oy, Remus! Remember our Animagus lessons?"
I'm a werewolf, stupid, Remus wanted to say. I can't shift form on command. It hurts to become the wolf, and I have no control.
"Remus, listen to me," said James Potter. "You're nothing more than another animagus. The charm is 'Imagio,' and you've done it before."
Imagio, Remus thought desperately, and he pictured himself curled in the shimmery black material, remembering the worst moments of his life. His nose slowly withdrew into his face.
"Nice outfit, mate," James said.
Remus still had the same torn robes and broken wand from the Battle of Hogwarts.
"Well, come on," said Sirius. "Wouldn't do to miss your own welcome back party."
Come on?
"You've been sleeping on the veil. It only works when you're in human form." Sirius said impatiently. "Remus, are you sure dying didn't make you dumber?"
"It may well have," Remus said, marveling at the sound of his own voice. He took a step on human legs, nearly fell, took another one, and walked straight. The veil stayed in place on the floor, but there was then an indistinct black form above the place where he had slept. He walked into it as if it would burn him, with his hands held in front of his face.
Sirius' hand, warm and solid, pulled him the rest of the way through. And kept pulling. Remus tripped, did a forward somersault, and landed in wolf form. Sirius transformed into the black dog, all the while batting Remus with his hands which became paws. Remus batted back.
"Oy! You want Nymphadora to see you like this?"
"Tonks, James," Remus said, shifting back. "Tonks Lupin. She never liked her name."
"Well, she does now," James said.
Remus dropped back to walk beside James. After a moment Sirius followed suit.
"How long has it been?" Remus said.
James was silent.
"Long enough," Sirius finally said. "Everyone is here, Remus. Nymphadora and Teddy, Albus, Molly and Arthur, Frank and Alice, Harry and Ginny."
"You took long enough out in the world," James drawled.
"He was insanely proud of you," Sirius added. "Watched you every month, yelling to everyone who'd listen how you were doing your part to make the world better."
"Better. As a werewolf," Remus said, the words tasting strange in his mouth.
"Race you to the party," Sirius said, shifting into Padfoot in midstride and loping into the distance.
As one, James and Remus followed suit.
Fly away, cry away
Let the tearfall drench your skin
Fly away, all the pain
That your heart got stranded in
Fly away, cry away
Let the tearfall drench your skin
Fly away, all the pain
Of the winter that you're in.
--Echoing Green