monster
Groaning, he picks himself up off the bathroom floor, leaving the tiles smeared with blood, and drags himself over to the sink. He leans over to look into the mirror above it, and recoils at what he sees:
The shadow of the wolf still lingering behind Remus Lupin's face.
It grins with sharp teeth out of the fresh wounds on his neck and chest; and its hungry eyes stare back at him from within his own, the flecks of amber in amongst the green a constant reminder that, even when he is human, he is never quite himself.
Spitting in disgust, he lands a gob of blood in the basin, and turns his face away. Hissing with pain, he cleans up his cuts and bandages the worst of them. And then, having staggered out of the bathroom and down the corridor, he finally falls into bed to wrap his shivering limbs around the woman who waits for him there.
His wife, whose hair morphs from mousy brown to bubblegum pink in the blink of an eye. "You're home."
"Yes. Home." Feeling his stomach churn, he turns immediately away and hides his face in his pillows. He cannot bear to let see the monster that she married.