Due Death

She walked slowly down the hall, readying herself to leave. Where had she gone?

"Why am I so intent on finding out where she is?" She questioned herself over and over. Was it because she was so vulnerable now? She realized that that was probably it. She walked into the bedroom, seeing papers scattered on the floor, a few bloodstains on the carpet. That was what had worried her so immensely.

She walked around the room, realizing that the window was ajar, that the screen was missing. Claw marks lined the sides of the walls around the window frame. Had Remus ever noticed those?

She looked around, the bed sheet were missing and a few bones were littered around it as well. A nest-like bed formed around in the corner where the bed had been pushed roughly. She looked down, scanning the floor for any sign, anything, besides the bloodstains. They worried her so much. What had they come from, an animal or herself.

"Selina, I'll murder you if you did what I think you've done." It was weird. She couldn't believe she was actually caring about her. She had scared the living Hell out of her and yet she still wanted to protect her. It was a strong motherly instinct, however much she believed she would make a crappy mother.

She noticed two notes on the floor, stapled to the thin carpet. One was just pitiful, but the other was bloodstained, the stain pale but dark, as if it had been there for at least three days.

She bent over and jerked them from the carpet, reading the first and then the second, the ripped one.

They both surprised her immensely. She could recognize which one had been written first. It was as if in sequence, a warning that she would be hurt, and then the second, the threat, the one that signaled that she was dead. And she was being threatened or taken over or possessed by someone or something.

"I'm giving my soul!" What did that mean? She didn't reread the notes. But she did end up so suddenly on the wooden floor of the living room, skidding to a halt in front of the bedroom door. Why had Remus been such an idiot not to notice these things?!

She burst through his bedroom door, but nothing. No one was there. He had left, just as Selina had gone.

Or at least she hadn't checked upstairs. She made her way back to the hallways, making her way up to the second floor. Why hadn't they just stayed with her instead of living in this old place? Everything was so confusing. It was sort of like their old home except bigger and more . . . cryptic. It was silent as the grave and she could do nothing to break it except run around to and fro. He was nowhere. Where had he gone?!

"I should have been able to spot him if he'd left. Unless—the moon!" It came out quietly, a small whisper.

Remus made his way to the back of the room as soon as she had left. He would leave the house. He had sat quietly down against the bed, withdrawing into himself. Tonight was the night . . . the last moon. Selina had not shown, and that worried him.

He heard Tonks moving around and about the house, but he had suspected her to leave. The door had been shut quietly, and apparently she hadn't noticed. He wanted her to leave, to put her out of danger.

But as the last of the potion was position on the bedside table, he heard her smash through the door.

"Remus, look at this!" She showed him both the notes, but he did nothing except look at her angrily, sternly.

"I want you to leave." His voice was quiet, withdrawn, depressed.

"But Selina—"

"I know where she has gone. I want to keep you safe. Now leave." He continuously kept his voice low. It didn't rise, it was just a steady beat, mechanical, like a robot, programmed to stay low and deep.

"Please, listen—"

"Leave!" he implored. "She'll be alright, she's done this before. She just left; she's gone, transformed—"

"You don't get it!"

"She'll be alright. I'll be alright. Just, please go. I'll take care of it."

She cut him off after his last sentence, "She's been stolen. She's been serving someone, I know it—"

"And I shall take care of it. I just don't want you to be a part of it. I know you're able to keep yourself safe, it's just that if you're hurt I would never be able to forgive myself. Do you understand that?" He paused before deciding to go on. "It was Selina's mother I mentioned. I was an idiot long ago. I love you and I'm not going to let the same thing come of you. I need you to understand that. If I am ever to love you, I'm going to keep you from the same fate that took her," he restated, "Alright? I want you to leave. I know you worry about Selina, but she will be alright. Trust me."

She nodded, her mouth open, her pulse quickened. Had she heard what he just said? She nodded once more, kissed him softly on the mouth, and left the house, silently hoping that he would be okay.

Pain jerked him from his hallucinating. He realized that moonlight lit the room, the white, flowing curtains looked like water. Colors looked like tie-dye and the room dissolved as if he had opened his eyes underwater. Pain made him scream, his head overflowing with hot liquid; the moon was the center of his mind, the white of it hot flowing lava although however hot it was it was not made of fire, yet it was in his head. The heat in his head did not overcome the cold feeling that took him over.

He felt sharp knives being jammed into his finger tips, his feet, and his mouth. They were like probing needles, finding exactly where they went. When had he felt this excruciating pain? When had he been damned to feel this? Why was he like this?

Remus slowly felt his eyes dilating and widening, the pain making everything worse, a bittersweet liquid, a drink, a Courvoisier, alcohol. Everything seemed to happen so slowly, yet, even though he knew nothing as to where he was, his consciousness was stolen and he had no clue who he was. Vision blurred, dizzy, it all felt like a dazed daydream, but he did not wake up.

A building opened up in front of him, trees and leaves shaking and moving all about him. Leaves were fluttering in piles about the front of the building, a small copse behind it. He wondered what was held behind it. It widened as he limped slowly toward the back; he felt trapped somehow, something, someone's bright eyes looming over him above the tree line, making everything spin and move about like a horror movie, flicking and moving in and out of place.

He looked around, head spinning as if he had just come from a huge headache. Heat came over him in waves just like a normal headache, but the sight of blood, of remains, that was what awoke his mind; his control was completely lost, but he heard that voice, that fluid, soft voice. Velvet soft, silken, angelic, but it was rough all the same when he focused on it, just as the man's beard was.

He looked into those, yellow rimmed and threaded with that poisonous color.

A snarl erupted throughout his head, but he came to realize that the tremulous, terrorizing roar came from his throat.

He charged the man, his limbs flailing around like jelly until he came to control them. The man fought back, hands clawing, shredding, and tearing the air. A sudden pin lit across his chest and blood made his mind explode. It dripped down in small black droplets. He fought harshly, judging his opponent shrewdly.

A pair of eyes over head, burning and white, watched the both of them, enjoying the battle like a liquor, a sweet drink that should always be enjoyed no matter how bitter it was.

Bitter grapes, a champagne, or wine, either was good, but they still fought on, both challenging each other fiercely.

That is until one fell, gasping for breath, mane and hair flying as he fell, palms hard on the ground, teeth glistening with some source of blood, tongue savoring that iron, metallic taste. He had fallen, and so he lost.

Slowly, a mind crawled from beneath that deep layer of wanting, of desire, that primal mind, loaded of instinct and bloodlust.

Fur grew back into skin, eyes grew smaller, and the needles that had implanted themselves throughout his body withdrew in yelps and shrieks of pain. He was on his knees, but as he shakily stood, he was suddenly smashed down into the ground. Mud suddenly became his eyes, a layer of skin. He felt around, trying to eye his assailant with acute vision.

He realized that harden gashes on his chest were from his attacker.

"Greyback, I see you've come for a battle."

"And I see that you've already one." Both voices were bitter with dislike, yet the moon above them glared with impatience.

"It seems that I've already beaten you?" His voice drained out of him like blood from a gash. His breath quicken with the sight of his fallen daughter. "You've hurt her!" His brows knitted, his eyes growing until they became orange.

He charged that massive wolf-like figure, but he once again ended up on the ground. But as he lay next to her broken body, he rested her against his chest, his back to the bloodied wall of the water-house, the shed. He didn't know what lay inside, didn't care.

But, all of a sudden, the shed, Greyback, everything dissolved slowly until the whitewashed walls of a hospital open in front of him.

He slowly let her go, ready to return to somewhere else where he would not be pain attention, he just hoped that he would be able to forgive and be forgiven at the same time, tear not making their appearance as he had thought they would.


Dedicated to the friends that have always been able to make my day. However many I seem to be losing, I have always been able to keep the best by my side somehow. I would love to be able to thank them with this, even if it shall not be recognize by any others.

To my sister and my best friends, only two I could never be without—

Chasity, and Michelle

When it hurts to look back and you're scared to looked ahead, look beside you and you shall always find a friend there, right next to you.

When you have no clue what to do, when no one is there to guide you, look away from death, away from pain, and release yourself away from the world, away from the hate, and away from the memories.

K. T. Ochle