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-- Don't own it. If I did I wouldn't be writing fanfic
Ok yeah I probably would --
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Fear My Knight
By Penelope Jones
Chapter One: Under the Willow Tree
The house was quiet. I quietly crept past the living room where my parents sat watching TV.
"He really likes children" my father was saying quietly.
"I'm sure it's fine. He should be used to rejection by now" mum replied as I snuck past. Slowly I made my way to the backdoor and opened it silently.
Everyday I played outside under the watchful eye of my mother. Today however was the only time I'd left my beloved teddy bear Ted in the yard. I began to slowly search the backyard ignoring the setting sun and slowly growing darkness. I know I'd left him out here; it was the last place I'd seen him and after turning my room upside down in search of him he would surely be here. I never went anywhere without him and right now had no intention of stopping that tradition. I spotted him sitting beside the large willow tree that sat by my house.
I leapt nearly a foot in the air when a tall thin man stepped out from behind the tree and picked him up.
"Is this yours?" he asked kindly. I nodded slowly, remembering it was not ok to talk to strangers. Nodding was surely acceptable.
He handed it to me with a bright smile on his face.
"Thank you" I said taking it from him.
"You work with my dad don't you?" I asked knowing if he said yes he wasn't really a stranger and if he said no I could walk back inside Ted safely in my arms.
"I do" he said
"Oh… would you like me to get him?" I asked
"Not just yet. Remus isn't it?"
"Mm-hmm" I said nodding. He grinned
"You have pointy teeth" I observed
"I eat a lot of meat" he said nodding.
"I like chicken" I said he gave me a small smile.
"It's almost night time. Why aren't you in bed?" he asked
"Had to get Ted" I said indicating to the teddy bear in my arms.
"He means a lot to you huh?"
"Mm-hmm. What's your name?" I asked
"Fenrir Greyback" he said sitting down in front of me and offering me his hand. I shook it politely and he smiled.
"Fen-ry-rus…" I muttered he laughed.
"It's all right, most people can't say it right" he said
"Sorry… my names hard too" I said
"Remus? It's a good name, a good strong name" he said I shrugged
"But no one can say it right"
"I can" he pointed out then smiled. "It's pretty dark now huh Remus?"
"Yeah" I said glancing around and realising it had indeed become a lot darker then what I was used to.
"I've never been out this late before" I whispered to him.
"We can keep each other company" he said
"I think I should go back inside"
"Why?"
I didn't know how to answer his question. So I figured as he was an adult I knew my parents wouldn't really mind.
I sat down on the grass and watched as the red slowly left the sky to be replaced by a soft blue that soon became a black. The moon slowly followed the black and sat positioned high in the sky glowing full and bright. I turned around Fenrir Greyback was gone; I stood up and headed for the front door. I had Ted and my parents might not even find out I went out without their permission.
Soft rustling behind me made me stop and turn. I frowned at the rustling bush and stepped a little closer.
"Hello?" I asked, knowing the bush would not reply nor would any animal. A black blur leapt out at me I screamed as it landed on me and began to bite at me. I screamed and screamed as it tore at my arms with its long talons easily slicing through my pyjamas and my skin. It bit my side and I screamed as loud as my little lungs would allow.
"Stupefy"
Whatever it was immediately stopped taking part of my side with it as it slowly ran to the bush disappearing from sight.
"Remus!" I felt the familiar hands of my father as he turned my head toward him.
"Remy, hey, hey… you'll be ok" he said turning to back door. My mother stood screaming hysterically.
"Olivia, get help" dad shouted. She fell to the floor still screaming and beginning to shake.
"Is mum ok?" I asked quietly, feeling really tired.
Dad picked me up and ran right past mum and kicked open the back door running through the house. He kicked open the front door and ran over to the car and lay me down on the backseat while shoving mum in the passenger seat. He quickly ran back inside and came out carrying mum who was now silent. He put her in passenger seat and then climbed into the car beside me and slammed the door shut.
"Driver?" I asked
Dad pulled out his wand
"DRIVE" he yelled and a shot of yellow light shot from his wand and immediately the car pulled out of the driveway and sped along the road swerving out of oncoming traffic and driving any where to get us to where we were going.
"Dad?" I asked he looked at me his hands pressing on the side of my stomach.
"I'm tired" I said
"No don't sleep… uh… let's make it a game. Whoever doesn't fall asleep gets an ice cream. Ok want to play?"
"Yeah, but I think mummy lost" I said frowning. Dad leaned forward and looked at mum who was sleeping calmly in the front seat.
"Yeah, no ice-cream for her, it's just you and me Remy" he said nodding.
"I'm really tired" I said "I'll just… for a few minutes. You can wake me and we'll start again"
"No, no, no… you go to sleep you can't win"
"You look like you need the ice-cream more" I said and letting my eyes drift shut.
"Remy… no" dad said but I ignored him and let myself slowly drift off to sleep.
I woke up feeling sick and downright awful. I opened my eyes, this was not my bed. It wasn't even my parent's bed. I sat up and glanced around. Dad was sleeping next to the bed in a chair and mum wasn't anywhere insight.
"Dad?" I asked shaking his arm. He sat up immediately.
"Hey Remy, your awake" he said
"I didn't win did I?" I asked
"It's ok… don't worry about it" he said.
I didn't realise it when I was younger but as my dad looked at me that dreary January morning I was no longer his bright intelligent son I was his foolish mistake. Every moment he looked at me after that there was guilt lying heavy in his eyes. Still years later it's there, I wasn't able to really recognise it till a few years ago. I was so used to it that when I did notice it hurt, a lot more then chunk Greyback had torn out of me ever would.
"Where's mummy?" I asked
"Having a nice chat with the doctor" dad said
"I'm in a hopsicle… wait… hopstiple, wait… hospital" I said correctly.
"Yeah…"
I frowned in thought; the brown blur must have attacked me.
"Was it that dog?" I asked him.
"Uh… yeah. Look Remus the thing is-"
"He was supposed to start school this year… how can he now?" I heard mum ask as she walked into the room with a short man wearing a white coat.
"Mummy" I cried getting off the bed and wrapping my arms around her.
"Hi…" she said quietly. I looked up at her.
"Why are you crying?"
"Because I'm so happy to see you"
"Did I sleep to long?" I asked as she walked me back over to my bed and sit me back on it.
"No just as long as you needed" mum said kissing my head and sitting down next to dad.
"This is Dr Charles" dad said.
"Stranger" I said dad frowned at me.
"No, it's ok sweetheart. He's a good man" mum said
"No! No! Stranger in the yard had Ted"
"Oh Merlin" dad said.
"Who sweetheart?" mum asked frowning.
"Fenrir Greyback" I said.
My parents looked at the doctor
"Oh… ah… Mr and Mrs Lupin may I talk to you outside?" the doctor asked. My parents hugged me before following the doctor out into the hallway.
I waited patiently for a few moments I heard mum begin to sob heavily as the doctor's muttered voice floated into my room.
Soon after they let us go home. My parents immediately began to call various different people. I learned a few days later we'd be moving houses. I was glad I didn't want to stay here. We needed a place with a basement or an attic. I was sick and would have to stay in there once a month. I didn't really understand it. Dad had tried to explain it but I didn't understand. How was I Remus but then one day not Remus? It didn't make much sense to me and to be honest I thought my parents were getting a bit silly.
I sat on the back step staring across the backyard. Days trickled by and as my parents packed up our house I continued to sit on the back step staring across the yard until it was time to eat then I'd come back and sit here.
"Come on Remy time to go!" dad called. I stood up taking one last glance across the yard. I spotted Ted sitting on the dirt where I'd left him after that night.
"Quickly Remus!" mum said. I stared at Ted. His fur worn and dirty from years of me dragging him around and the few weeks he'd spent sitting in the yard partially covered by the ground. I turned around and walked through the bare and empty house leaving Ted sitting in the yard, abandoned and alone.
I don't know why I left him there, even now I couldn't tell you why. Most would think so I could forget that night, pretend it never happened. But I knew that wasn't true. I'd accepted it, it was part of who I was now, and there was no forgetting it no matter how many reminders of that night I got rid of.
I got into the car next to a few boxes, the last of things that needed to be moved. And we left my house to sit and rot, Ted still partially buried in dirt.
Days flew by and we settled in at our new home and into a routine, dad at work, I was at school and mum at home.
They treated me funny at school. Skinny, pale sick kid no one could be friends with him. He's pale, weird and different. They weren't the most intelligent bunch.
My parents assured me it was fine, they still loved me. But mum couldn't look me in the eyes and dad's guilt was hurting me.
Because I was sick I had to stay in the basement once a month so no one else would get sick. I'd never heard of an illness that affected you only one night a month but mine was special.
I'll never forget my first night in the basement.
"DON'T JOHN NO! DON'T HE'S SO SCARED" mum was screaming as dad pulled her back up the stairs leaving me to stand alone in the empty cold dark room.
"NO! MY BABY! JOHN NO! PLEASE ANYTHING ELSE NOOOO" mum screamed, her voice hurting my ears. Dad forced her up the stairs and tried to hold her back as he shut the basement door. I heard all sorts of locks and things clicking. I just stared at the door. Dad had spoken to me, telling me it'd be hard for us all. Mum was having a particularly rough time with it and to make her feel better I shouldn't cry. So I didn't. I never cried, never. Not even as I heard my mum screaming and tearing at the door with her fingers. I didn't cry as the basement slowly got darker due to the falling sun. I stared out the tiny window high above me watching the sun set. It grew dark and the full moon rose. There is no word in the world to describe the feeling of having every bone in your body snap out of place. But I didn't cry because mum would hear and it'd make her sad. She couldn't be sad… she needed to be happy. All night as I got really hungry I didn't whine I just bit at my hands so mum would be happy. But no amount of silence could make her happy, I smelt her just outside the door, still trying to get in but dad had obviously put some magic on it. I smelt her sadness, her fear, her disappear. It was everywhere choking me. I kept clawing at the walls trying to get away from it. I did this all night, eating at my own arm to get rid of the hunger I was feeling and clawing at the walls to get away.
Morning came and my bones snapped back into place the sounds alone enough to make me retch. My insides all twisted about and changed as I returned to normal making me retch. The strong stench of despair, my mothers and my own making me retch.
My family just drifted through life, mum looking more and more lost as days went by and dad letting his guilt eat away at him. I could barely recognise them any more and I hated it.
"It's not your fault" I said to dad he smiled, it was hollow, a shadow of what a real smile should be.
"I know" he said but he didn't. I knew he didn't.
For years our lives were routine. Go to school, go to work, clean. Eat, sleep, and lock me in the basement. Just years, on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day. For month after month after month after month after month after month after month. Just years of this cycle.
I was going insane, I knew it. I could feel it, I flinched every time I heard the word stranger, I stuttered when speaking to my teachers knowing I could trust them but inside me doubt screaming. They could be disguising themselves.
My dad was a wizard, he understood this stuff, and werewolves though uncommon were not a myth. That's what I was. A werewolf… when I was ten he let me read some of his magic books about them.
My mum was a muggle meaning she was completely non-magical. She knew about it vaguely from what dad had explained but even after years of locking me in the basement once a month couldn't understand.
I knew now what I was, it wasn't an illness, or a disability like I'd believed as a child it was me. I was Remus the werewolf unlike my parents who were simply John the wizard and Olivia the muggle.
My parents got divorced shortly after my tenth birthday. Because of my condition I would have to live with someone magical who could keep me sealed in so the obvious choice was of course my father. The courts actually decided it against it and I was sent to live with my dad's sister Aunt Kathleen.
I remember the day my parents dropped me off at Aunt Kathleen's house. Mum hugged me good bye and then sat in the car and wept. I stared at her sitting next to my dad in the car. It was the first time she'd hugged me in six years.
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There is a lot people remember about there lives. It's often the most awful and most joyful parts of your life. I've never had particularly joyful moments so usually wake up screaming after reliving the awful bits of my short life.
There are of course good bits in my life but not enough to outweigh the bad. Don't worry this isn't some self pity part; I've just got a lot of issues.
Right now I was trying to get rid of the strange pain I had in my side. I usually got it after a particularly rough transformation or I'd had a nightmare about the night I was bitten. I lifted up my shirt staring at the predominate scar of teeth marks on my left side.
I had a number of scars from myself when I'd bitten and scratched myself, most were long and deep and I knew I'd have them for a long time. But even through all the crisscrossing scars I could still find the place Greyback had bitten me. I still felt his dirty hands crawling all over me.
I left my room and walked downstairs into the kitchen. A young woman no older then twenty stood in painful looking heels and a rather revealing baby doll.
"Hey Remy" she said
"Hi" I said she smiled and sat on the table eating a piece of celery.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked. I shook my head.
"Sex helps me sleep, it also makes me hungry, ergo celery" she said.
I mentioned the courts decided the best environment for me was with my aunt. Even though my aunt happens to own and live in a brothel.
Just shows you how bad the other two options were.
The gorgeous Aphrodite stood before me, one of my aunts employees. With her curly blonde hair and flawless body she really deserved to be any where but such a creepy place.
But amazingly most of the girls enjoyed it, I think it was mostly the fact that Aunt Kathy was like a mother figure to them and made sure any shady clients stayed well away and didn't harm the girls. Plus pay was reasonable and most had no where else to go and appreciated Aunt Kathy's mother like attitude toward them.
"I will try that sometime but for now I shall stick with a nice glass of water" I said Aphrodite shrugged and hopped off the table.
"I have to go, have a nice night" she said
"You to" I said she smiled
"I always do" she winked and left just at Aunt Kathy walked into the room.
"Ah hi baby" she said hugging me.
"Morning" I said she glanced at the clock.
"Three? Go back to sleep" she ordered.
"Couldn't sleep…" I said.
"Nightmare?"
"Yeah, but I'll be right, just remind me not to eat cheese. Ever" I said she smiled.
"I'd start blaming it on falling asleep in your clothes… your going to ruin your jeans" she said I looked down at them and shrugged.
Aunt Kathy was my dad's younger sister. They looked fairly similar with the trademark Lupin blue eyes and sandy blonde hair that mirrored my own.
She was about twenty-seven but even though she was fairly young on the outside was wise beyond her years. She did well academically but was known for her common sense and street smarts.
"So… got any horny friends?" she asked
"Aunt Kathy!" I cried glaring at her.
"What? I'm low on clients! I just thought you know as you were a teenage boy you'd have some teenage boy friends who'd like to come" Aunt Kathy said with a shrug.
"No" I said
"You don't have friends?"
"None who'd pay for sex when they can get it for free?"
"What about you?" she asked I raised my eyebrows at her.
"Sorry" she said
"I'm not going to be able to get back to sleep; do you want me to do reception or something?" I asked. She beamed
"You know I have half a mind to leave this place to you" she said putting an arm around me and leading me downstairs.
"As great as that sounds Aunt Kathy I didn't really envision myself living in a brothel I couldn't imagine owning one" I said.
"I think you like it"
"I'm a teenage boy chuck my in a house with scantily clad women I am bound to like it" I said
"So you do like girls? I thought because of the whole no girlfriend thing you were gay"
"You're not the only one" I said sitting down behind the desk. Aunt Kathy smiled a charming little grin before sitting down at the desk facing the wall and began to go through all sorts of receipts and books.
I sat at the desk glancing at the clock. It was only a few minutes of just sitting before Aphrodite's three o'clock quietly walked into the cosy reception hall.
I glanced down at the name on the sheet
"Morning Mr… Smith" I said to him he grinned sheepishly.
"Wife out of town?" I asked noticing the wedding ring he was fiddling with.
"She thinks I'm going fishing" he said I smiled
"Now do you have the payment this time?" Aunt Kathy asked looking up at him. I glanced at her and then at him.
"Yes and from last time also"
"You're a valued customer and you know you pay first. Don't forget again" Aunt Kathy said taking the envelope from him.
"You'll be with Aphrodite again she's in room twelve" I said to him. He nodded and gave us a small smile before walking off down the stairs on the right.
"You have such great people skills Remy… why am I getting notes from Hogwarts about you being to shy?" Aunt Kathy asked I looked at her.
"Aunt Kathy… you know I don't like people"
"So that was faking"
"No it was my first step. I can now form full sentences in front of strangers without my voice quivering" I said she smiled and turned back to her books as she tied her hair back.
"I've gotta get some things you'll be all right yeah?"
"Yes I'm sure I can sit here for three minutes with my wand at the ready and be fine" I said she pinched my neck
"Don't be cheeky" she said and walked off to the left obviously to go find more books or something.
A bright bubbly brunette skipped into the room, she looked not a day over fourteen and sat beside me batting her eyelashes.
"Hi" she said smiling.
"Lucy" I said she smiled.
Lucy, a rather petite girl was actually twenty years old but had basically the physical appearance of a fourteen year old girl.
I looked her up and down she was standing in a blue pleated skirt, a white shirt and blue tie with knee high white socks and five inch heels on her feet.
"Nice look" I said
"Yeah Nick likes the young ones… can I ask why I'm always the one stuck with paedophiles?"
"You're the only one who looks underage" Aunt Kathy said walking back in. Lucy pouted.
"I don't want to have Nick; he creeps me out and makes me-"
"Ah! Not in front of Remus!" Aunt Kathy cried. Lucy looked at me
"You're doing the clients tonight right?" she asked moving off her seat onto my lap wrapping her arms around my neck.
"Uh…"
"Lucy! Nick doesn't hurt you all right and until he does you've got to serve him all right. Besides he's lost weight recently" Aunt Kathy said. Lucy stopped fiddling with my belt buckle and gave Aunt Kathy a dark look. She climbed off me and did my belt back up for me.
"Sorry… just thought I'd try" she said I said nothing and merely stared at her.
The door opened and we all looked up.
"Lucy" the man said pushing his dark hair from his eyes.
"Hi Professor" Lucy said tugging on her plat nervously.
"Mr Matchers" I said he walked over and handed me an envelope.
"Room twenty-two" I said to him handing the envelope to Aunt Kathy.
"Lucy? Why weren't you waiting in your room?" Mr Matchers
"I'm sorry Professor" Lucy said and led the way down the stairs Mr Matchers following quickly.
As soon as I was sure they were gone I turned to Aunt Kathy.
"We are a sick and disgusting sex" I said to her she smiled and patted my shoulder.
"I'm going to go on a coffee run want some?" Aunt Kathy asked I rolled my eyes
"Already?"
"Hey, I'm a working girl I need at least twelve a night" she said
"I'm fine thanks"
"Rats. If you said yes I'd make you go" she said and walked off to the left.
I looked down at the appointment book, the next one wasn't for twenty minutes so I rested my head in my hand and stared at the desk in front of me.
I'd been here dozens of times in the past seven years. At first Aunt Kathy tried to keep me away from all that but as I got older and she realised that I was a 'pathetic-nancy-boy', her words not mine, she decided to put me to use and had me do a few odd jobs every now and them to help out.
The door opened, I glanced up and froze.
"The prince is in!" Sirius Black called dropping his luggage in the doorway.
"Oh for fucks sake"
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First chapter. I like this story; it's going well so far. A little weird start but it'll find a comfy rhythm and rock it. Don't forget to review, Penny
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