The Edge of a Knife
By: Dark Draconain
Rated: R (for language, drunkenness, and implicit sex)
Feedback: Is a rare and valuable commodity that I will always love you for.
Disclaimer: Remus, unfortunately, is not mine. Nor is Tonks. Or Snape. Or Molly. Or, well you get the idea, yeah?
Summery: (post-OotP-AU). The life of a werewolf is not all sunshine and daisies, and remaining an unemotional twat is sometimes harder than it might seem.
A/N:
Written in September – February 2004/05, which mean it's PRE-HBP and NOT CONON COMPLAINT! But, it's not light years off the mark, either. Basically, I wanted to write something post-OotP that saw Remus flip his lid and…do what does in the fic. It's a victim of my, "I'm not angsty, I'm angry!" phase. Consider yourself duly warned.
Also, this fic could never have been written without the help of Chevelle CDs, Creepy-Ooze, and Lloyd.
Told in the first person from Remus Lupin's POV.
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The Edge of a Knife
Part the First: Emotional Drought
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When I was six, I snuck out of the house. I got in a fight with Mother over my having to wear a ridiculous suit to Aunt Grace's wedding. I stormed off to my room, mulled over my options, and finally, sometime after sunset, came to a decision: I was going to run away. There would be no gut-wrenching note, no long farewells. I was just going to leave. Sleep in the forest for maybe a night or two.
I walked through the dark, overgrown woods that engulfed the hills beyond our gate, admiring the moon. It was full, shinning silver slats of elegant light through the still leaves. That was the last time I'd ever look at a full moon. A howl, mournful, melancholy, murderous, vicious, ripped apart the warm air. It was the scariest sound I'd ever heard, the howl of a werewolf under the light of the moon.
That werewolf, a great hulk of dirty brown fur, bit me, and then it killed my dad. He'd come to find me, but he hadn't even managed to raise his wand in defense: quicker than a Snitch in the rain he was dead, bleeding rivers of red and staring unseeing at the midnight sky.
After that I was raised by mother. She was kind, she tried. It was hard, being a Muggle, raising a wizard. She did everything she could and more. But she never forgave me. That was why we hadn't spoken in ten years.
I thought about visiting her as I stared out the window. It was raining, again. A cold autumn was brewing, likely to be followed by a colder winter. The last days of a fleeting grey summer were fading, washed away by the quiet murmur of raindrops in puddles. Water fell down the pane of glass, melting my reflection with a cascade of bitter tears.
"Pathetic," a voice behind me whispered. It was the cold sneer of Severus Snape: unmistakably harsh, filled with the clash of detachment and malice.
The room we were standing in was barren. The walls were pealing and stained yellow, the carpet ripped and torn, frayed edges like jagged pillars. I looked at Severus, into his eyes; voids and black holes, framed with a lank curtain of greased hair, a shade lighter but only under blinding lights.
Two months ago, my best friend was killed.
Severus held my gaze. In the darkness of his eyes I could see another distorted reflection of my haggard face: it looked white against the unfathomable black of his irises.
I opened my mouth, and said, "Yes." It was the only thing that came to mind.
He turned to leave, his long black robes, immaculately pressed and without a spec of dust, billowing behind his stringy frame. As he reached the cracked doorway, he paused, a gaunt hand resting on the rusted handle—rotting metal of elegant design that, like the house, clung to Elizabethan splendor. Severus turned to face me again, his thin lips pursed beyond anything quite normal.
My best friend, the only friend I had left, was killed two months ago while I watched.
"He's dead, Lupin," said Severus. "For better, for worse, he isn't coming back. Not this time."
I looked down at my fingernails. They were as short as they could be, bitten down by a nervous compulsion that fixated on trimming the claws of the werewolf. It didn't work, but I bit them anyway.
I said, "Yes."
Severus shook his head. "Pathetic," he said. "Truly pathetic."
We'd had that conversation before, I realized, so I said nothing.
He strode towards me, floorboards hidden under rotting carpet squeaking with each determined footfall.
It had been two weeks, and I was alone. I'd been alone a lot in my life: it was the curse bourn by my bite. The constant wars didn't help either. When I was seventeen, my girlfriend left me. Or rather, her father dragged her away from me. I hadn't seen her since. Maybe she was married with children. Maybe she was dead.
"Are you quite mute, Lupin? Can you not even," Severus paused before letting the final word slide between his teeth, "howl?"
I said, "No." It came somewhat as a relief to say a something other than, Yes.
"I always knew you'd go mad, Lupin. I was just expecting it to be a bit more," he paused again. The way his words dripped out of his mouth, the discord of their sound so smooth, it was enough to make me ill. "Climactic," he finished. "A bit more wolf-like." He had a ghost of a grin playing under his large, hook nose.
I said nothing.
"Why," he asked, "are you so affected by this? Surely you must have seen it coming. The man was all but begging to die."
"He was my friend, Severus," I said. "Something about which you would know nothing."
"Yes, well, he was like you wasn't he?" the ghastly grin had spread into a smirk. "A monster. You would have made a sweet couple: the Beast and the Beast-ier. Lovely."
"Shut up," I muttered, casting my eyes about for something other than the raging black orbs set into Snape's twisted face.
"He wasn't your friend, you know. He used you. Just like he used everyone else."
I had a very high tolerance level. I'd been putting up with Snape and his unpleasant disposition for years. I'd been docile while he flippantly threw around the term "mutt" and regarded me with the scorn usually reserved for a rabid dog. Today, two months after my best friend had been killed, I didn't feel like being tolerant.
"Go away," I said slowly. My voice dropped and picked up an added rasp.
"Don't go about loosing your head," he said. "We wouldn't want you joining Black. Think of poor Potter, all alone, only strangers to dote on him. What tragedy."
My hands clenched into fists.
"Does it bother you?" he asked. "Do you miss his father? Or, perhaps, his mother, that pitiful excuse for a mudblood?"
"Don't," I said. My voice sounded distant. I could hear the threat like a muffled growl.
"You liked her didn't you? Yes, well, mudblood, half-breed. Not dissimilar where you? Pity what happened, with Pettigrew and all. Bit of a rat, wasn't he?"
I threw the best punch I'd ever thrown, and it hit him in the jaw. I heard a crack, and stood still while I tried to decide if it was his bone or mine. I didn't really care.
"Don't talk about them, Snape," I said. "Not to me."
He rubbed his jaw and violently hauled himself off the wall in a flurry of black robes.
"Damnit, Lupin!" Snape hissed. "What the hell was that?"
"Leave me alone," I said. My voice wasn't much above a whisper, trembling and rough. I didn't know what it had been, either. I hadn't intended to hit him. I hadn't thought about hitting him. I just had.
"You stupid mutt," Snape said, more or less spitting the words at me. "Do you think killing me will bring them back? Do you think it's going to solve your life's story and make you feel better? I'm the monster in your little fairy-tale world?" He let the words hang over me, and I balled my hand into a fist. It stung.
"You're an idiot. A bloody fucking moron." He brushed off his robes and added, "Black was the monster. You were always just his lapdog."
I wasn't sure exactly what it was he'd said, but the combination of words and names had somehow infuriated me. There were only two times I remembered being that angry, and they were laced by the icy sting of betrayal. This was just pure rage. I could feel my entire body shaking.
With or without thinking, I stepped towards Snape until our noses, both larger than the norm, were almost pressed against each other. I could smell the grease in his hair, the sweat on his pallid face.
Very slowly, I said, "Go away."
He said, "No."
I punched him, this time on the nose. Then I did it again, and again, and again, alternating between different targets until he was in a heap on the ground and I was on top, hitting him again, and again, and again until I couldn't hit anymore. I saw the faces of every person I'd ever lost, loved, and hated, relived every single event from the monster that had made me to the Department of Mysteries in seconds, and all I could feel was a torrent of indefinable pain: anger, fear, violation, hopelessness, hatred. I might have screamed. I could have cried. I just kept going, punching, and punching, and hitting, and slapping, until all my emotions were replaced by blank exhaustion. Then, panting, my arms numb, I collapsed on top of the pile of wet robes and sobbed.
"Remus!" someone squealed from the doorway. I raised my head with considerable effort. Molly Weasley was bustling into the room, her face flushed, mine pale and dripping with sweat and tears. "What happened?"
I opened my mouth to tell her, but then I realized what had happened was I'd beaten Severus Snape into a state beyond semi-conscious. I was too drained to think anything other than, Oops.
Molly made it over to where I was sprawled across Severus and grabbed my limp shoulders. She hauled me to my feet, her fingers digging into my clavicles to counterbalance my shaking legs. I felt like I was going to be sick, the pain in my hand that had once been so removed now sharp and cutting, shooting up my arm.
I said, "I—"
"Ssh, Remus, it's okay," Molly cooed, bringing an abrupt and much appreciated halt to my incoherent complaints.
Then Severus moaned.
"What?" said Molly, her eyes catching a dangerous blaze. She ripped her arms away from me, rushing to comfort Severus and leaving me in a drunken sway, trying to maintain my balance. When I was stable enough to look up, she had him turned over so his face, smashed, swollen, and smeared with blood was turned towards me. I couldn't see his eyes.
Oh, Merlin. I did that. I was going to vomit.
Before Molly could begin her harsh interrogation, I said, "I," raised my hand to my mouth, and fled.