Author's notes: This story takes place during MWPP days, and is centered on Remus's struggles with his lycanthropy. The prologue, posted below, is written in first person, but the rest of the story will be written in third person.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

SILVER HEART

Prologue

Full moon tonight. The darkness calls me, claiming me for its own. I am wild and free, burning inside my own body, waiting for the change that will allow me to run through the forest, flying over the brush. I will race the wind, cry out my challenge to the very spirits of the night, and never be conquered. I am young and wild and burning with the need to be free.

But not yet.

I am standing at the window of the tower, watching the sun fall lower and lower in the sky. The horizon is painted a thousand radiant shades of red and gold, a glorious tapestry of light and flame. I am burning like the sun, the wolf in me howling to be let loose, let free, let go.

The sun blazes, throwing out a last farewell in striking tones too brilliant to behold, before sinking out of sight.

It is time. I can feel her behind me, smell her pity and fear. I can smell the metal of the cage she will lead me to, and I bare my teeth in a snarl, a furious growl escaping my throat.

The change has begun, and I should already be caged. Her pity allowed me to stay and watch the sunset, but her fear forces her to approach, and pull me away from the window. I snap at her, my canines already growing longer, sharper. I flex my fingers, reveling in the power and strength coursing through my veins even as I struggle to hold onto my humanity for just another moment.

She sees the danger, backs away from me. I study her, her scent heavy in the air, her pulse beating loudly in the silence. I want to leap on her, to rip and rend and tear her human flesh, taste the hot blood just beneath the skin.

"Remus."

Her voice is unsteady, frightened, and I hate her for it. In less than a heartbeat I am on her, crushing the breath from her lungs, clawing at her flesh until I feel bone scraping against my fingers. Her screams ring in my ears and I throw my head back and howl, the scent of her blood tugging at the wildness within me, the burning, the longing to be free…I shake my head as the room spins around me.

My body trembles with the pain of changing, but I pull myself away from her, back slowly into the cage. She looks so young, lying placidly as her blood seeps across the floor. She is young, though, new to her path; too young for this. I snarl, still drawn to her, to the blood still spilling forth from wounds I caused. Wounds I still want to taste.

I can feel cold metal against my back, the cage pressing into my skin. The wolf in me struggles, and I know I am weakening, that in a moment I will lose all resolve and run, and let Hell welcome any who get in my way. And she, she is dead already, or dying. It will not matter to her. I leap for the opening, burning to be out, burning to be free, and only at the last minute do I manage to turn my body and slam the cage door shut.

I collapse onto the floor, but in an instant leap up again and throw my twisted body at the bars. My muscles shift and contract, and I howl my anguish into the silence. As the pain of changing fades, a wolf's anger grows. It burns in me, the fury that I am caged, the desire, still, for the body and blood lying just out of reach. Rip and rend and tear. I am burning with the need for it, to be free, and I throw myself at the metal bars in an impotent rage, slashing, biting, howling. But at last the cage wins out, proving stronger than my anger and pain, and I can only lie on the floor drifting in and out of consciousness until dawn.