AUTHOR'S NOTES: Second in a series of two drabbles, this time from Moony (the werewolf's) point of view. It's supposed to take place after Sirius has been taken to Azkaban. I think the wolf would have to accept Sirius as much as he accepts Padfoot, even if his natural instinct is to hurt humans-- after all, he is trapped inside of one. The title was taken from Anne Sexton's "Red Ridding Hood" poem-- I thought it was appropriate. Feedback makes me love you forever.
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Many Are the Deceivers
1/1by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com
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Where are you, Padfoot? Where? I howl so loud, I make this house-forest shake and shake, and still there's no you. It's been so many bright-sky nights, so many brief Moony-without-Remus times . . . where have you been? Everything is so strange, it smells so wrong, and all the shadows are too big. I've looked for you in them, I know you like to hide and play tricks, but this isn't funny any more. No more pup play, yes no? I want to see you, come out, come out!
My own-- you must be here somewhere, I know it. I'd know if your two-legs was "dead", I'd know if you had gone to sleep forever. Stupid two-legs me! I hate him, we have to look for you, but he just mingles with the big two-legged pack, he just cries on nights when I'm not free. Useless, useless! He thinks things like "betray" and "Azkaban". . . more uselessness, these two-legged words. They don't mean anything. What is an "Azkaban"? It makes the other-me feel like his ears would go flat, like he'd whine and scratch at the door if he was me and I was him. But if I was him, if I could be free more, we wouldn't be without you, my own. I'd have found you already, smelled you all over to know where you've been and what you've seen. I'd be curled by your warm black side right now, licking at your neck. "Betray", betray is like leaving the pack, but the pack is gone already. Prongs, his mate-- they've gone to sleep forever; his puppy-- or whatever you call a stag-baby-- went with the giant two-legs to someplace with a name that means nothing to me. And you, Padfoot, you're gone to the place called "Azkaban", and that means "fear, death, want to die, sorrow, never again".
The rat is gone, too, but I still smelled him, even when my two-legs was sure Wormtail was "dead". Stupid other-me, doesn't even have a good nose. Doesn't understand anything-- the pack is gone, there's nothing to betray, and we have to find you. He "cries", he makes water with his eyes; he used to hold onto your coat, the one for "bike riding", before his weak nose stopped being able to pick up your scent. I claw through the box of your two-legs things that Remus-me has hidden, I root and sniff, your smell under all the "humanness". It's still there, like the time when the leaves all fall down, so heady and sweet, that's you. My own, my Padfoot-- you have to come back, even two-legs me believes that, or else he wouldn't have kept your things, he wouldn't cry and cry your star-name as he lays alone in your den. Why doesn't he do something!? We can run, we can, so very fast; he knows the names and I know the smells. We could find you, I'll snap up anyone or thing that tries to get in our way, my big jaws held wide-- one bite, two, gone! He shudders inside me, the Remus-me, but he can be fierce too, he wants just as much to claw and rend and tear, now that our own has been taken, now that we are without pack or mate.
It's been so long, Padfoot. Have you gone to the stone-forest where we used to live? To the "Forbidden Place" where we used to run, or to the house, the place called "Shrieking Shack", after the terrible sounds the other me makes when we change? I don't understand why you don't come back, or even the Sirius-you, to embrace my two-legs and hold onto him in the den, give "kisses", explain to him about the pack. Your other you knows what's going on, I'm sure, even if I can only smell certain things and not put them all together. You have to hurry, Padfoot, if you can, because he wants to kill himself and me, Remus does. Even more than when we were a puppy, he wants to make it all end. He has always wanted to make me end, for fear I will make him end first. Stupid, stupid, he's given up, so sure you're never coming. But you are coming back, Padfoot, you have to, I know that you will. You're my own, my dog-in-the-stars. Remus-me should let me out, I can find you, I can do better than he is, just moving about without "talking" and crying all night long.
Crying, shedding tears-- a human thing; where I can only howl and snarl and try to get back to you.