This is the same story as the one I uploaded last week except that it's under
a different name. My story was removed because I included song
lyrics (which is against the rules, as I found out). I've
uploaded the story again without the lyrics and since the name of the
story was taken from the lyrics, I changed it as well. In case
someone wants to read the story with the correct name and read the
lyrics that inspired it, it can be found on my site (there's a link in
my profile).
Title: Not Even Fear
Author: Erika
Rating: PG-13
Summary: There's a place beyond anger, beyond despair, beyond pain, beyond natural human emotion; a place where you can't help but wonder whether light is nothing more than a hallucination of your own making.
Timeframe: Not too long after Sirius is sent to Azkaban.
Spoilers: For PoA
Category: Angst, POV
Disclaimers: Hogwarts and all of its characters belong to JK Rowling, I'm only borrowing them to have a little fun and I promise to return them unharmed (well, at least mostly unharmed). I'm making no money from this and this is written for entertainment purposes only.
Feedback: Both positive feedback and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated and will be cherished!
Archive: Please ask first.
My Website: Note: This is the technically a sequel to "Changes Us" but it is not part of the "Absolution" series. You don't need to have read it (which is a good thing, since I haven't posted it yet) or any of the stories in that series. If you want to, they can all be found on my website.
Remus:
Blankly, I stare into the bathroom mirror. The skin surrounding my right eye is a purplish-blue color and my lower lip is beginning to swell. Blood slowly seeps from a jagged cut on my cheek, causing the occasional crimson drop to disappear into the muddied folds of my frayed shirt. When I touch my fingers to the top of my head they come back stained red. Hidden by threadbare clothes, all manner of scrapes and bruises cover my arms and legs.
It could be worse, though. It should be worse. I should be dead. If that elderly shopkeeper hadn't interfered I would be lying motionless on rain-drenched gray cobblestones, completely oblivious to the cold touch of the winter wind. I'd have remained there until morning, an unhappy surprise to some unfortunate wizard on his way to work.
But I'm not dead. I let the teenaged bigots hurl all manner of vicious insults at me as they knocked me to the ground, taking special care to smash my head against the brick wall of some nameless building. I let them punch and kick the local werewolf. I could have stopped the attack in an instant. My wand was tucked into the inside pocket of my shirt. A powerful and yet relatively harmless spell would have stunned them long enough for me to escape. But I didn't even make the attempt. I simply lay there on the ground, staring into their hateful, jeering faces. I knew they intended to kill me and still did nothing.
I don't want to die. Maybe things would be simpler if I did. But I don't want to die. I want to feel alive. I let those young men – boys really – nearly kill me because I thought it would make me feel. Even pain and bitterness would be welcome. They are strangers to me now. If being brutalized because I'm a 'dark creature' isn't enough to stir my emotions then what is?
What must I do to feel?
Despair can be suffocating. In the weeks following the murders of my dear friends I found it difficult to get more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep. Nightmares made it impossible to truly rest. I would awake in a frantic daze, chest heaving, clothes plastered to my body by sweat. Sometimes I would even wake up crying. My days divided themselves into chasms of time, each marked by a different emotion. Grief. Anger. Bitterness. I felt as if I would drown in them.
Hours would slip by in silent, angry contemplation. What happened to Sirius? He was a different person at Hogwarts. We were all different people – not entirely careless and innocent but not entirely the opposite either – but especially Sirius. The boy I once considered my best friend is not the man that now rots in Azkaban. He is a different person now. He has to be. I never allow myself to think of the alternative – that he lied to us for the entire time. That he never cared, that he was always a Black at heart – black at heart. So, what changed? What changed him?
I no longer ask myself those questions. I no longer lie awake at night wondering if it's possible to flounder, forever lost, in sorrow.
I can't say when that changed. It happened gradually enough for me not to realize. Now, though, I would gladly exchange my eight hours of sleep for dreams bent on ripping my sanity to shreds. It would be better than this…this emptiness, this nothingness, this numbness of mind, soul, and heart.
I want to hate Sirius. I want to mourn James, Lily, and Peter. I want the anger and occasional tears. What's wrong with me? Why do I go through everyday as if I'm some sort of spirit, not dead, but not alive either? Why can't I bring myself to care when, knowing I'll overhear, someone says that werewolves should be locked away in Azkaban? Why, when I lost my fourth job in just as many weeks, didn't I feel even the slightest trace of resentment?
Tiredly, I trace the cut on my cheek. Why does simple, physical pain elude me? I'm standing in a dingy, dimly lit bathroom with blood streaking my skin and slowly coating my scalp and hair. My head should throb. My abrasions should sting. At the very least, my muscles should ache. I feel nothing, though.
What must I do to feel alive? To be human is to feel. Sorrow, grief, anger, betrayal… As unpleasant as all those emotions are they are all part of what it means to be a person. This catatonic state that I've lapsed into isn't life. It's like watching my life through a glass panel that blocks everything but sound and motion. It's like dying inside, a little piece at a time. It's like dying without feeling it.
Sirius once told me that he preferred the pain of desolation over the hollowness of not feeling because at least then he knew he was alive. I didn't understand at the time but now I know. He was right.
Wearily, I wander from the bathroom and come to a stop at the foot of my bed. The room is bathed in shadows, illuminated only by the light of the nearly full moon. For the first time in my life as a werewolf, I look up at it and feel nothing. Not even fear.
My God, not even fear.
Someone, please help me.
Please…
THE END