A/N: First fanfic in quite a while, kinda nervous! But I've been longing to write (non violent) Fenrir/Remus for some time now, so here's my attempt!
Pitter patter, pitter patter.
The storm clouds rolled above as Remus hurried along the path to the pack's hideout. Mud sploshed noisily and rainwater swirled around his shoddy leather shoes. He hugged his coat tighter to his body, trying to ignore the howling wind.
Finally, he stopped in front of a weather beaten house. Light emitted faintly out from the inside through the cracked and dirtied windows. The house was large, imposing, and wild. It looked like an outgrowth from the ground of the woods. Faint murmurs sounded from all around him. Remembering what he was told to do, Remus lowered his head cautiously, keeping his wand well tucked out of sight.
Footsteps more audible than the rest headed straight for him. Their very sound silenced out the senseless chattering.
"Look up," a gruff voice rasped.
Remus complied obediently, and his eyes met with the towering figure. Fenrir was easily more than a head taller than him. Despite all the turmoil and chaos he had to rough out all those years since he had been bitten, he still felt a familiar tinge of fear and awe at the sight of the werewolf. Fenrir, on the other hand, looked more than pleased to welcome him back.
"Where's the welcome for my favourite boy?" he called out to the pack. A few hands started clapping first, followed by two, three more, and soon the air was ringing with nothing but the sound of hands clapping.
Remus was taken aback. This civil behaviour was uncalled for. He had expected some sort of more beastial welcome, but perhaps years of working with the Death Eaters have tamed them- to a certain extent. He chanced a quick glance around. As his eyes swept past the members of the pack, he saw how most of the older ones were eyeing him with a wary regard, suspicion, sizing him up. They didn't trust him but knew better than to voice their opinions out against Fenrir.
Fenrir drew all attention back to him by clapping his hands loudly twice. All were silent again as they watched him take one long stride towards Remus. It was then that Remus saw that the werewolf was wearing what looked like a crude attempt at a formal suit. The clothes looked odd clinging on to the strong frame of Fenrir, and gave off an air of tackiness. Had the task at hand not been so serious, he would have broke out in laughter.
Seeming not to notice Remus' amusement at his choice of garments, Fenrir patted the top of the shorter man's head roughly, ruffling his hair.
"Come with us."
Like automated robots, the pack started filtering into the house. Remus followed close behind Fenrir, frightened of what task he would be assigned to do, but eager to be out of the pouring rain. The light made the house seem almost like a sanctuary, especially after the many weary days of travelling to find the location of the pack.
"Here. Your own room," Fenrir stated simply, pushing Remus into the tiny, but adequately furnished room. Remus placed his travelling bag gratefully on the floor, and the bed, though looking in a terrible shape with the mouldy bedsheets, looked like it would provide better rest than the abrasive grounds of the woods. There was a small workdesk beside the bed. A lone window was situated above it. On the other side of the room, there was a grimy looking bathroom, but then again, that would suffice.
"Thank you, Alpha," Remus said, with a genuine tone of appreciation in his voice as he bowed. Fenrir waved his hand as a sign of acceptance.
"You know I don't bother with such..treatment for the others. So do your job of teaching the children well."
"Yes, yes of course, Alpha. I will," Remus said quickly. But as soon as Fenrir left, he sunk to the bed in stupor.
Teaching? Children? Remus groaned, holding his head with his hands. It could only mean one thing. Fenrir expected him to teach the younger ones offensive magical spells.
But he couldn't! If an entire generation of werewolves were to become literate in magic, he couldn't imagine the chaos they would wreak upon the world. He had to find a way around this.
The next morning, all the children were already sitting at their desks when Remus walked nervously into the makeshift classroom. He stood awkwardly in front of the dusty, slanted blackboard. He stared at the children, and they stared back at him. Each held a crude looking wand in the hand. The wands looked more like branches snapped off from the Whomping Willow than anything else. It was good to note that none of them were attempting to gnaw at the wands like a dog would at a bone, though. Still, it felt like some sort of sick parody of his Defence Against the Dark Arts Classes in his time at Hogwarts.
Remus cleared his throat weakly. The silence was suffocating.
"My name is er, Remus Lupin. Our Alpha has so kindly offered me a spot in the pack, so, in return, I will be teaching you magic."
He clapped his hands together, holding his breath, hoping that there would not be some uproar in the class upon hearing the pansy, basically useless in warfare, spell he had picked. Oh, he had done some careful consideration the night before, of course. Unforgivables were the first to be struck off the list, followed by any curses, jinxes, the offensives.
The list boiled down to spells like Accio, Expelliarmus and such. But even those he arranged carefully in his lesson plan, leaving spells like Expelliarmus to the last lessons. In his mind, he had pictured a wild classroom of little werewolves Expelliarmus-ing anything in their way, him standing in a corner wringing his hands in distraught, a fuming Fenrir yelling at him from the other end of the class, trying to restrain as many children as he could with his arms. He might be Fenrir's "favourite boy", but such a catastrophe would earn even him a place on a dish of that night's dinner.
"Teacher? Do you even know any spells? Why are you just standing there?"
The little voices rang out, breaking his train of thought. Remus hastily shook himself back to the realm of reality, swiftly drawing out his wand from his back pocket. The calls of the children subsided as they stared at his better made wand in awe. Their eyes were wide, speaking of anticipation and an innocence that would break Remus' heart if he looked too long into them.
"I'll be teaching you all a very simple spell today to get you started," he smiled. Their gaze followed him as he walked over to his desk to place a soft, white feather atop it. Swishing his wand, he called out, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The feather instantly flew up into the hair, hovering at the space where Remus' wand was pointed at. Sensing that he was a friendly adult, the children did not restrain their excitement. They cheered loudly and applauded him as he strode around their tables, showing them the levitating feather, allowing them to prod and poke it. On Remus' part, he heaved a great sigh of relief inside at their positive reaction. He even felt a little surge of pride at the recognition he was being given. It was a nice change he could get used to.
"Teach us!" they said excitedly, their faces alight, as he ended his walk around the class.
"I will, but you have to promise me to learn the incantation well first before we do anything with those wands. We don't want any accidents in here, do we?" Remus said, feeling more and more at ease. The children were not what he had expected. They were still rather honest, uncorrupted, compared to the adults they lived with.
"We promise you, Teacher!" they said in unison, placing their wands down on their desks as a sign. Remus himself placed his on the desk too. His initial fear of teaching the children was just about completely gone, upon realising their willingness to cooperate.
"Okay, repeat after me," he said, loudly, clearly and slowly so all could hear him, "Wing-gar-dee-um Leh-vee-oh-sa!"
The children attempted to copy him, but their lack of magical knowledge soon became apparent as none were able to pronounce the spell properly. Remus took in a deep breath and thanked the heavens above for gifting him with a patient personality. This was going to take quite a bit of time.
"Wing-gar-"
"Winger!"
Remus laughed and shook his head. He decided to go around to each child instead to teach him individually till all got it right. It was a tiring process, as each child took about five to ten minutes to get the syllables right. But better the effort to teach a harmless spell instead of unleashing a new pack of crazy, bloodthirsty and magical werewolves onto the world.
The hours flew by, and Remus forgot about lunch in exhaustion, whilst the children forgot about lunch in their excitement. His eyes were flickering shut at some points in time, after hearing each child make the same mistake as the previous, after repeating himself a million, zillion times. His legs were numb too, from kneeling down next to the tables for too long. Still, he fought to keep his spirits and energy up, and was rewarded when he finally reached the last child.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" the boy said proudly after another six minutes of toiling. Remus smiled tiredly at him and patted his arm in a congratulatory manner.
Tired but feeling a sense of achievement, Remus walked to the blackboard and scribbled the name of the spell on it.
"For the last time today, let's repeat the name of the spell we learnt," he said, using the chalk to point at the words on the board. The children nodded in agreement.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
All the children exploded into more rounds of clapping -Remus honestly wondered where they picked the habit up from- and cheering as they realised they all could say it perfectly. However, Remus did not join in, partially because he was too sleepy, and partially because he was pretty certain he had heard a low, foreign voice say the spell together with the children.
"Over here," the voice spoke.
Remus turned his head towards the source, and sure enough, there stood Fenrir. He was leaning casually against the doorway, frame almost filling up all the space. His arms were crossed over each other as he grinned lazily over to Remus. He didn't seem angry or display any want of berating him for wasting the children's time with such a useless charm. Uncertain of how to respond, Remus smiled shyly back.
The children were dismissed soon after, and Remus collected his wand, getting ready to return to his room to prepare for dinner. But Fenrir still stood at the doorway, blocking his way out. Remus stood dumbly in front of him, his head bowed towards the floor. He could feel the taller werewolf's eyes boring into his head. Tensing his body, he expected a blow to the head to follow.
Instead, Fenrir clapped a large hand onto his shoulder and led him back to his room, strolling in a casual manner.
"Great job, my boy, I wasn't wrong about you, was I?" Fenrir grinned again, showing his sharp teeth as he leant against the door to Remus' room. Remus looked up quickly in shock. An odd feeling of pride at those words warmed his insides.
Fenrir continued, "Saved you something from lunch." He pulled out a squashed meat sandwich wrapped clumsily in foil and slapped it onto Remus' palm. "Make sure you keep up the excellent work tomorrow," he nodded.
"I'll keep that in mind, Alpha."
Fenrir shifted away from the door, allowing Remus to turn the doorknob to enter the room. Remus thought he saw a flash of uncertainty flicker across his Alpha's face, before in one fast movement, he was drawn into an embrace that lasted for no longer than a second. Fenrir then took a step back, surveying him. Hands trembling a little from that unexpected moment of contact, Remus didn't know if he was supposed to say anything in return.
"Thank you, Alpha," he said. And that suddenly made him feel like the lamest guy on the planet as Fenrir barked out a laugh as a response.
"Wingardium Leviosa," he grinned, surprisingly managing the name of the spell with no difficulty at all. Remus suddenly had a strange urge to ask him if he had been watching him conduct the entire lesson, but the door was closed and he was all alone again before he could get the question out. He blinked at the surreal remembrance of the events of the day, of the children, of Fenrir, before dropping his aching body onto the bed contentedly.
He really, really could get used to this.
A/N: What do you think of the story so far? D: Is Fenrir too OOC? (I myself think he is -is embarrassed by that fact-) If you have any suggestions/views/etc, please do drop a review, I'd really appreciate it!(: