[also a chapter UPDATE kind of hehe.. eh. also opening info kept]
Hello!
I think no one of the few dearest readers of this story believed that I would eventually do so (I didn't), but now I really am publishing the second chapter! yup!
So if nothing unexpected happens it might appear here... like some technical problems, since I've never ever ever added a chapter to a story here. heh.
I'd also like to thank TaylorToucan for review, because I was terribly unsure about the story and this was really a proper motivation! :-)
Actually, when I am thanking, i should also thank a certain kitteneater, who was kind of a beta reader (or beta audience) for the whole time I was writing...
And I would also thank mom and dad and the academy, oh, wait?
Okay.. there is not much happening in this chapter. The next one should be much more about some action, but this is just a little talkative stuff and it's really bad, but you now how things are, er... sorry.
J.K. Rowling is awesome and these characters and places and lots of mentioned stuff are only hers.
Yeah. So. Let's do that. It's getting dark outside and even if it is after the 12th August, there might be some falling stars visible! And that's awesome, too.
His dreams were strange. He met some of his imaginary friends, who hadn't hesitated to visit him during the fall of the previous day, then he saw Greyback, who was eating, more like feeding on the young mudblood who they met some time ago travelling with that Potter boy and whose face was getting kind of overused - if one was passing by any wall of any street in the wizarding world, big eyes of this young lady or/and her fellows were following him on every single step, he couldn't avoid them, something like a teenage celebrity, whom you can't stand after some time of constant media attack, with that one little difference that if you met such a star, you'd be expected to take an autograph, if you met some of those, you'd be expected to take their head.
Yet he would rather have this poster watching him at the toilette than himself watching its template gradually being halfway decapitated – there was a memory, rather mild uncertain idea of something in the past, in connection with a ghost somehow? - pushed away by an urgent disgust, sickness and unclear, but rather strong horror, no worries for her or even himself, just for the very possibility of such a thing, just for the hell of it.
Fortunately Grey's activity wasn't followed to the very end, the tiniest bit of good sense Scabior's subconscious had. The rest of the night was spent in rather chaotic mixture of pictures, sounds and ideas, Dark Lord asking about the way to Birmingham, that Lestrange bitch stepping on a glass ball and falling down, looking even more maniacal than usually (that was enough to make him giggle quietly many times during the following day), Potter himself eating a turkey with cranberry sauce (why the hell not, right? Dreams don't have to explain shit.), not to mention an old guy telling him that this time, he really, but really really fucked things up – and Scabior couldn't make him say, what the hell did he mean.
It was still dark, when he woke up from those anxious dreams, his sleep was broken softly and quietly, as a bursting soap bubble, he almost didn't open his eyelids, satisfied with just a narrow view of the outer world, but it was enough just to check things, just to check that that stuff really was just a dream and he's allowed to make a quiet "pfew..." and go on sleeping, just to check what Greyback was doing, just to notice that he's awake, wait, what? Just to check that Scabior's being watched.
Fenrir was sitting right opposite him across the fading flames and his eyes were looking in Scabior's direction, although it wasn't clear, whether he's even aware of it. Yet Scabior didn't like it. Yet he felt uneasy. Explored. Measured. That's how predators look, attentively and ready-like, any time, breakfast, dinner, before, after, summer, Christmas – look, as if they knew everything about you, as if you couldn't make any move they wouldn't expect you to make, as if you were so adorably vulnerable. And you just know you are.
Then all of sudden the predator laid down. And the prey – the prey fell asleep again, for it understood it was safe for now. Yet falling asleep aware of the fact that its survival wasn't based on its abilities or chances, but on the predator's arbitrariness.
...
When he woke up (again), he was surprised by the volume of light, which the late dawn was bringing towards his tired eyes through the branches – how different was this from his idea of the Forbidden Forest, the dark and gloomy one, the one so matching into a fairy tale, the one he imagined when he himself was going to Hoghwarts, a castle nearby. The second thing he noticed (after that awesome, glorifiable morning glare finally cleared out from his fuckin eyes) was that Greyback was missing. On a hunt, Scabior thought and smirked, to his own surprise, for he didn't consider it a single bit nice, the less funny.
He tried to stand up – it was better than yesterday but still pretty painful. He made a few hesitant steps, revising all the rude words he knew, and when he bitterly congratulated himself after having reached the next tree, he noticed that despite the werewolf's absence he's not alone.
You – are – fucked.
Oh no, not you again.
You – are – fucked.
You – are – boring.
Better than being fucked.
Why the hell should I be fucked this time? The doggie was right, they won't look for us here. Actually, I would be surprised if they looked for us at all.
You are with a werewolf, remember?
Like I said, he still didn't kill me. And the joke about freshness is pretty dumb.
I have another one, where is he now?
What?
What if he changed his mind? You are alone in the Forbidden Forest and aren't able to walk, the least to run, right?
Also not very funny.
I'm having a lot of fun.
Well, that was something he really didn't think about. He was too busy wondering how he would get rid off Greyback as soon as possible that he didn't consider the possibility of being gotten rid off himself.
What if he really was alone? What if Greyback just didn't want to waste time on helping him anymore, what if he left him here with all that weird creatures, what if – no, he wouldn't do that, that bastard, he saved his life, Christ, Greyback must have some kind of honour and...
I – am – fucked.
"Greyback?" he whispered shyly. "Greyback? Where are you?"
A brief blow of a cold wind was the only answer. The branches swayed and made the shadows dance in the morning light. How come that the fuckin forest looks terrifyingly even in the most schmaltzy sunrise he has ever seen?
"Greyback!" He tried really hard but still wasn't able to avoid a nuance of panic in his voice. "Greyback... you bastard, you couldn't have... Greyback?"
"What's up?"
Scabior turned sharply – and his leg let him know again, so that he didn't forget about it accidentally, he hissed and, not to lose his image, let this painful hiss end up articulated to a silent "To hell with that..."
He looked up at Greyback – the werewolf gave him a questioning look, holding a dead hare on his shoulder – and cleaning his bloody-red teeth with his tongue. Scabior felt pain, horror and an uncontrollable urge to vomit at the same time – calm down, mate, calm down, look at the beautiful day, look at the beautiful sunrise, which you can't see properly, since you are surrounded by trees, since you are in the Forbidden Forest with a bloodthirsty werewolf. Calm down.
"Hey, Scabior. What's wrong?"
"I... uhm... nothing, I just..."
"So you called me just for fun?"
"No, no... I... I thought that you..."
He realized what he was about to say. No, he wasn't ready for that. He definitely wasn't ready to admit such a weakness to someone like Fenrir, the less to admit it to himself, so he just stooped his shoulders, bowed his head and said:
"...yeah, just for fun."
A pause.
"Are you fuckin kiddin me?"
"No, I... it's just me, makin jokes all around and such..." he tried to laugh but it sounded more like he was trying to imitate a seal cub.
"Scabior, you are an idiot."
"I can get along with that."
Greyback sighed and sat down, which was quite surprising.
"Will you stand there all day long? I brought some food."
"F-food?"
"Yeah, that thing one puts into his mouth so that they don't die."
It was quite funny to be prevented from death by someone, whom he presumed to be killed by just a moment ago.
"So?"
"So?"
"I suppose, you're going to need some fire, miss Scabior."
"What?" This sort of pushed the fear away.
"I said..."
"I heard you, what do you mean by that... miss?"
"Oh, just nothin important."
He turned his eyes towards their probable breakfast and understood.
"Is that because I don't eat the meat raw?"
Greyback smirked and took a bite of the hare's back. Haha, very funny, monkey.
"Call me a big girl's blouse, Greyback, but you know what I will call you in a few years? A stinky corpse. Haven't you heard of all that shit you avoid by the thermal treatment?"
"I haven't eaten any 'thermally treated' meat for about fifteen years."
"Well, maybe that's why you look like..."
"Like what?" Greyback narrowed his eyes.
"Uhm... well... I didn't mean... I mean – you look very... er... healthy and... such. Like... uhm... really, you do."
"What about sitting down and shutting up?"
"Sounds like a good idea," Scabior said quickly and with a little trouble placed himself opposite Greyback, who returned to his previous activity – tearing apart the poor being, which became his breakfast unwillingly, with his own teeth.
"Will you take a piece, too, or are you on hunger strike?"
"I'll just have my stomach return to the right position."
The werewolf shook his head.
"You are weird."
Scabior thought something like that he wasn't the weird one here but didn't say a word. The forest was calm and silent and the only thing which could be heard was Greyback enjoying his meal, quite loudly.
Scabior swallowed slowly. Come on, you can do this, man.
"All right, Fenrir. Would you pass me that... that leg, please?"
The two of them went on walking through the woods – they agreed on crossing it all over and leaving at the opposite edge. Well, Fenrir agreed, Scabior had to agree. They went without breaks. Fenrir didn't show any signs of tiredness, Scabior felt like he would collapse the very moment the werewolf would release his grip. He was starving, too. Is there something in the raw meat which makes you resistant to hunger? Because Greyback just walked and sniffed and made lots of other weird sounds and was sweating and smelled and...
After a few hours Scabior somehow resigned. He had to admit, he kind of got used to all that and also... also he didn't want to be called "miss" again. He decided to let Greyback do what he wanted to and ignore everything from the surroundings to his companion himself. He just has to find something to occupy his mind with... like... the results of the Quidditch league? That was quite problematic, since most of the best Quidditch teams had to stall their activities, having half of their line-ups arrested for not pure or at least not provable origin. There also wasn't a lot of time to care about the latest results during the last months. On the few occasions he got to the Ministry in person, he bought (or borrowed, so to say) Daily Prophet sometimes, but, no matter whether he liked the new ideology or not, its content was getting a little monotonous and its pages were so filled up with photos of the ones he was supposed to look for (you generally don't like it, when even newspapers you read in your free time remind you of work you still haven't done) and passionate descriptions of the atrocities reportedly committed by the mudbloods (he could recognize something similar to Greyback's work in some of them) that for poor little formerly so popular Quidditch players wasn't more than a page left, when they were lucky.
They discussed Quidditch with the Snatchers just once or twice. Alan, that guy from West Sussex, who spoke of his wife all day long and Scabior could name at least seven health problems she suffered during the last two years, as well as what she was wearing on their wedding and which cakes she bakes the best (it was quite sweet, such a tender devotion, especially from someone, whom Scabior had witnessed to torture girls in their teens), so this totally married guy claimed that he used to be a Seeker in the Slytherin house team and since he was between ten to thirty years older than the rest of the guys (maybe with the exception of Greyback, whose age was undefinable, but who wasn't joining any studies in his life, nor this "pointless" discussions, anyway), no one could actually doubt it, maybe just for the shape of his body, which none of them could imagine to be carried by any available broom. Alan, however, didn't doubt the importance of the Seeker's constitution himself – he proclaimed that out of all guys present, the one with the best chances to become a good Seeker was Jerry –
Oh, yes, Jerry, that lad, whose wand was now in Scabior's pocket.
Lord, he ate all the cookies just in five minutes. And then another idea to be thought through appeared in Scabior's mind, that was – did he actually know anything else about the boy? And he couldn't answer anything else than – not a lot.
Jerry had some serious problem with acne, really. And he was a completely teenage teenager (probably in his late teens, actually) in many other ways. Scabior remembered Jerry's eyes - any time when there was a female person among the mudbloods they caught, they looked like they wanted to jump out of his face. Well, if it was their wish, they managed that in the end.
A sudden flash of pain disturbed his thoughts and he, despite any efforts, whined quietly.
"What?"
"Nothin... nothin."
Even though he was supported by Greyback, his leg was about to hand in its notice. No wonder, he's been using it the whole day with almost no relief... quiet, Scabior, just occupy your mind with...
Jerry. Jerry with all that shit all over his face. Jerry who ate all the cookies within five minutes. Jerry with his terrible urge to get laid. What else? Just try hard, you have to remember something – you've spent several months with that lad, something must've stayed in your memory...
Jerry... Jerry once said something like he had a sister or so... or Scabior thought so at least. No, no, a brother – no, it was a female person for sure... a cousin? A niece? Well, that would indicate some siblings though...
Jerry who had pimples and ate cookies and had some relatives probably, cause he didn't just fall down the sky, well, in the end he fell down that bridge and it looked relatively the same, with one exception – the fall wasn't the beginning but just a miserable end of his life.
Jerry who had legs where his shoulders were supposed to be.
"Fuck..."
"What's that this time?"
"I don't know anything bout Jerry."
"What?"
"He had pimples and ate cookies and was horny as hell. That's all I know bout him for sure."
"And..?"
"I don't know, it's just... he's dead, isn't he?"
"I've never seen anyone alive looking like that."
"It's just..."
"What?"
"That I didn't know... I have his wand now, don't I?"
"You do. Is that so important?"
Scabior didn't seem to hear him.
"He didn't speak a lot, did he?"
"You could follow his example."
"Who was he, actually? Just a guy with pimples, or something more?"
"Scabior?"
"Yeah?"
"That was a polite way to tell you to shut up."
"Since when do you intend to be polite?"
"More like since when do I drag overtalkative cripples through woods?"
That did make Scabior quiet. He cast his eyes down to the ground, not in a gesture of submission, but in realisation that he talked too much. With the monster. When you don't mind it touching you, at least do not talk to it. A simple emergency rule. Last rule left before the monster eats you or before you get saved by a prince. Scabior was pretty sure that no prince would desire him very much, which made just the first possibility prospective for him, which didn't make him any calmer. For a split second he remembered about Jerry again and for a split second he felt envious about him having all this shit over. Nothin over his head anymore, apart from his legs. No, Scabior, stop that, stop those stupid jokes about Jerry's corpse.
Oh, god, someone save him!
It's funny that you can undergo an incredibly long journey and then just one little wrong step and...
Also it is funny how we tend to include some philosophic stuff in everything, so that we looked as the masters of the situation, even when we are totally doomed, even when we stumbled on bumpy ground of woods and it literally tore our leg apart so much that we felt even dizzy and sick and that we would fall down if we didn't have any support.
„F...Fenrir..."
No answer, not to mention no sign of noticing.
„Fenrir."
„What this time?"
„Shouldn't we... it's getting dark... shouldn't we..."
„No way."
„But..."
Every step is hell.
„It's not dark yet. Shut up and move your ass."
„But, Fenrir, we've been walkin for the whole day and..."
Queasiness.
„...and I think that –"
„I said no. I am not the one who can't survive without the other."
„For now."
„What did you say?"
„I said for now. Now you are the stronger one."
The gaze on Greyback's face didn't look very promising, but they stopped at least. Maybe this partial success gave him strength. Strength to kill himself. He bent his head.
„Fenrir, I... I can't walk anymore. I am just not goin. It's that simple. You can go. I don't care."
When he looked up, the mentioned glare was turned into disbelief. Then, as if there was something funny about what happened, Fenrir's grimace softened a tiny little bit, even if by something mocking.
"You are opposing," he said slowly and for some reason kind of meaningfully. What the hell was funny here? What the hell was funny?
"Yes I am! Yes I am, I am a fuckin cripple, then let me kick the bucket here and go fuck yourself!"
To Scabior's shock Greyback started to laugh.
„What."
„Nothin," he answered and looked around. „Let's go there. There might be a lee."
Scabior was stunned.
„A lee?"
„That place without wind."
„Just like that?"
„Just like that without wind."
„I mean –"
„Weren't you dead tired?"
„Kind of, sure, yeah, I..."
„Then let's go."
"Incendio," Scabior whispered and a little pile of sticks, he had collected from his surroundings of a radius about the length of his arm, caught fire, and never felt this spell so nice, never felt sitting in a heap of needles so comfortable. He was glad and a little bit surprised, too, that Greyback didn't react even by the grimace of his face – he actually seemed to be asleep, just five minutes after they had stopped. Incredible.
It was incredible, too, that he'd never seen Fenrir asleep before – like apart from yesterday. During their travelling with the snatchers Greyback usually disappeared for the night – mainly to get some food, of course, but he never reappeared before the dawn. He probably just didn't bother returning and after the hunt and the following dinner he just fell asleep at the place he was at at the moment. Or was it because he didn't trust the guys?
Scabior could see nothing of his former boss but a dark silhouette, since the flames were between the two of them. But he could hear him – somehow he expected Fenrir to snore – like to snore really hard. But even this sound was in Greyback's way wolfish – incredibly deep, dark, reminding of growling more than anything else – and also surprisingly quiet and calm. Scabior couldn't help being a little envious, for he hasn't slept like this, that is like a big, hairy and horrifying baby, for too many years.
He sighed, straightened his back carefully and looked around. It seemed weird, but in this isolation, with Fenrir being asleep, he felt almost – safe?
"Scabior?" Greyback said suddenly and the mentioned one would jump up if he could.
"What?" he responded in a false tone of not caring.
"Are you afraid of me?"
Scabior swallowed all the liquid he could find in his dried mouth and watched Greyback as if he was a boiling cauldron about to explode.
"S-sorry?"
He couldn't see his face very well in the gloom.
"Forget that," Fenrir sat up and gave one long look in the flames, that kind we usually give when our minds are so heavy with thoughts that we don't care about burnt retinas. "Fuck cooking. Fire is freakin awesome to look at," he said suddenly, laughed a little and Scabior smiled nervously. He's never seen his boss in this kind of mood and wasn't sure what it could bring.
"You know what?"
"Uhm... what?"
"I remembered bout Jerry."
"Did you?" Scabior looked up surprisedly, but with a noticeable interest both in his voice and eyes. Greyback lied again.
"He joined us about a month before you. He lived nearby Manchester. And he was goin to Hufflepuff. The guys were once... laughin at him cause otherwise they were from Slytherin, all of the ones who ever went to Hogwarts, I mean."
"I don't remember that."
"I think it was before you came. Or maybe you had one of your drinkin evenings..."
"Oh..."
There was silence for a moment.
"So that was Jerry."
Greyback answered by another deep silent snore and Scabior couldn't resist a little indulgent smile for some reason.
"Thank you, doggie."
The sleeping one growled quietly, for a moment Scabior thought that he was awake and heard him. But no angry reaction followed and so he presumed that Fenrir just had one of his hunting dreams – cause what else could he dream about?
