THE WEREWOLF

In which Remus prepares to transform without his friends in a hot evening of July

19:32

Remus turned rapidly away from the clock and started picking up the dishes from the table.

"Honey, it's almost time. You should prepare, I'll handle the dishes"

Hope Lupin touched gently her son's arm and smiled at him. It was a sad smile, her lips were slightly turned upwards but in her eyes, there was no sign of cheer. Remus hated that smile; he hated being the source of his mother's sufferings.

He simply let go of the dishes and sit back in his chair while his mother cleared the table.

A tense silence fell in the kitchen and for a few seconds the only sounds were the clatter of dishes and the water running in the stove.

Lyall Lupin rose up from the table, his chair loudly scraping the floor, and went to the cabinet next to the kitchen's door. When he came back to the table, he was carrying a bottle of firewhiskey. He filled two glasses, took one for himself and placed the other right in front of his son. Remus raised his eyes in surprise looking at his father.

"Lyall, what are you doing?!"

Hope turned from the stove with a shocked look at his husband.

"He's sixteen, Hope. He has probably tried it already with his friends. Sharing a glass with his father won't hurt him"

His father smiled sympathetically at him and Remus couldn't help but smiling him back. Under the stunned look of his mother, they both emptied their glass in a gulp. The older man slammed the glass back on the table decisively.

"See? What did I told you, Hope? No one who drink firewhiskey for the first time would empty his glass so smoothly!"

"That doesn't mean his father should urge him to do it"

She tried to sound reproachful but Remus could hear in her voice she was more amused than disgruntled and he knew she was as much grateful for the change of atmosphere as he was.

"Now," his father began, in a more practical tone "shall we go?"

Just when Remus got up from his chair, a black eagle-owl flew through the open window, landed elegantly on the table and, obligingly bowing his head, offered him his leg where a message was attached. He knew this owl well enough: members of House Black used only black eagle-owls specifically breed and trained to carry their letters in the most courteous way possible.

Remus quickly took the parchment and unfolded it while the bird flew immediately back outside.

Do not despair, oh my sweet love, for we shall soon be reunited under the moonlight and we shall spend another unforgettable night together, rolling our bodies on the ground in an oh-so-passionate struggle of love and lust.

Written with the hand of him which desireth as much to be yours as you do to have him.

S.B.

It was just Sirius-like to find the way to jest even about the gravest things. But it was, after all, one of the reasons Remus loved his friends. With them, there was no sense of tragedy, no haunted looks, no sword of Damocles hanging over his head, no expressions of pity. Heck, James even used to refer to his syndrome as his "furry little problem"! Even if it could be mistaken as lack of sensibility, Remus knew it wasn't. They were well aware of how painful it was for him. In fact, they probably knew it better than his parents did since they were the only ones having witnessed with their own eyes his transformation, more than once. And Remus wasn't keen to let anyone else see it. He imagined it wasn't a pleasant sight.

"Is it one of your friends?"

Her mother was looking at him and Remus put rapidly the letter in his back pocket.

"Er – Yes"

She didn't fail to notice his uneasiness and stared suspiciously at him.

During all his childhood, Remus' parents had been his only friends and companions and there has been no secrets between the three of them. Now that he had his friends from Hogwarts things were different but his mother still had some problems coping with that so she often appeared to be nosey about his correspondence with them.

"We should go, Dad." Remus added hurriedly. His parents didn't know that James, Sirius and Peter were informed of his secret and he wanted to mantain the things as they were to avoid any futile argument about the importance of being discreet.

The clock in the kitchen was pointing at forty past seven when father and son headed through the field towards the solid wood shack near the border of the forest.

The summer sun was slowly sinking behind the hills on the horizon but still the heat was almost insufferable after the comforting chill of the house, thanks to the Cooling Charm his father had cast.

"I've cast a Cooling Charm in the shack too" he reassured him.

"Thanks Dad"

Remus was truly grateful; he couldn't imagine how he would have suffered those temperatures with a fur.

For the past month and a half, the entire country had been crushed by an exceptionally hot and dry summer with temperatures exceeding 35 °C. Rivers were running completely dry, gardens and fields were rapidly turning yellow and arid while people, wizards and muggles alike, were staying hidden in their houses most of the daytime, not daring to face the unforgivable hotness of the sun.

"Any news from the Ministry about this wave of drought and heat?" He asked.

"No," his father frowned deeply, "it's obvious there is a wizard's hand behind it but we haven't been able to track who he is nor the reason why he is doing it. The only thing we know is that he must be very powerful. No common wizard could cast a Modifying-Weather Charm that works on this large scale and for so long"

"Do you think it could be Him?"

"I suspect, yes. It's the most obvious conclusion. Many believe it's Him but few have the courage to say it aloud. And with no proof we cannot publicly accuse Him."

"Here we are," he announced as they reached the shack. "I'll cast the protective charms while you prepare yourself"

Remus entered the shack and welcomed the pleasant coolness. As he began to undress, he could hear his father outside murmuring the charms to prevent him to escape from his wooden prison. As if that wasn't enough, his parents will stay up all night outside the shack, guarding him. He had tried to dissuade them, years ago, but they refused to listen. At some point, his mother went hysterical, shouting how could he even think they could sleep while he was enduring all that pain and Remus stopped trying to convince them.

Once he was completely naked, he folded his clothes and passed them to his father through the window to prevent them to be teared to shreds. He then simply sit on the wrecked wooden floor, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and started trying to de-touch himself from his body as Dumbledore had suggested him. He has found it helped a little to bare the torments of the transformation.

Once, when he was really young, his parents had tried to sedate him with a mixture of Painkiller Potion and Soporific Elixir for the transformation. He still remembered it. The overwhelming panic, the feeling of being trapped in your own body as it rapidly crumble piece by piece and being unable to move or express your agony in any way. From the outside, he looked deeply asleep and unconscious but inside… inside was like hell. That night he had learned that when you can't express your pain, its effect increases a hundred times.

He was now perfectly still, his chest moving slowly up and down, his head completely blank. He could almost see himself from outside.

Back in the kitchen, Hope Lupin raised his eyes at the clock and saw the time hand moving slightly. Eight past eight. A soft white light seeped in through the open window.

Suddenly he felt it, somewhere deep inside him: the wolf. His heart jumped in his chest and his breath got caught in his throat. The world imploded inside him.