Title from Shakespeare's The Tempest. This chapter is set in November of Half-Blood Prince. It's a bit experimental and I hope you like it. Warnings for language, angst, sex and werewolf-y violence. Mentions of bombs, r*pe and homophobia.

All The Devils Are Here

In July 1940, a Messerschmidt bomber, having finished a bombing raid on the port of Whitehaven, dropped two leftover bombs over the Lake District on its way back to Germany. The pilot, Kris Baumann, saw a lamplight and dropped both bombs in quick succession, hoping to have hit a house. Baumann succeeded. The first bomb landed twenty yards from Keswick House, an eighteenth-century manor house belonging to the local wealthy businessman, Jeremy Constable. The children, Caroline and Stuart, were staying with relatives at the time, but both their parents, the housekeeper and one of the scullery maids were injured, and the stable boy was killed. His name was Samuel Asher and he was seventeen years old. The house was badly damaged and Mr Constable's business was struggling due wartime poverty. As a result, the family moved away from the property, and the house fell into disrepair.

The second bomb landed half a mile from the house, creating a crater. Due to the slippery Cumbria sandstone, the crater eroded in such a way that a tunnel was hollowed out. In the 1960s local children dared each other to climb into the tunnels, which were dark and scary as well as carrying the risk of collapsing at any moment. In 1974 a werewolf named Fenrir Greyback and a couple of his cronies moved into the tunnels, and fashioned them into caves. Two children disappeared that year- Evelyn Tinner, who was six, and Michael Gibson, who was ten. They were last seen playing by the caves.

Greyback and his mob- or "pack" as they referred to themselves- were a sporadic presence in Keswick for many years. Werewolves came and went and the pack often moved location, only returning to Keswick House and its caves every few years. Greyback himself wasn't always with his pack, often disappearing for weeks at a time. When he returned, those who asked where he had been were suitably punished so that they didn't ask again.

In the Summer of 1995, things changed. More werewolves appeared, literally, from the woodwork. After years of being hated and feared by their wizarding community, word spread that Greyback had an in with the Dark Lord. He Who Must Named, the werewolf whispers claimed, did not dismiss werewolves as dangerous or impure. "Mudbloods yes, werewolves no," the rumours promised. Wolves who for years had been sceptical about Greyback's colony, preferring to survive alone, found themselves drawn to the promise of security. A better world for their kind- well, it could hardly be worse than the present situation of no employment, no security and being spat at in the street by wizards. Keswick became a permanent base, and numbers grew so that by 1997 Greyback's following was as strong as it had ever been, with sixteen men and nine women in the pack. In the Autumn of that year, a man named Lorcan Jarndyce Rowe came to join them.


Remus is sure that Greyback's werewolf camp is the only place that's ever existed where sleeping inside a manor house is a sign of humiliation and sleeping in a cave is a sign of acceptance to the clan. The cave, Greyback laws, is where the real werewolves sleep. The ones who have proved themselves- what, exactly? Loyal, skilful, bloodthirsty? The ones who have gone along with Greyback's whims for that day? The werewolf alpha has many whims, but unfortunately none so far have involved Lorcan Rowe, Remus' alias, gaining permission to spend the night in the caves. Remus is sure that if he made it to sleeping in the caves he'd have more of a chance to integrate himself with the pack, gain intel and perhaps be able to sway some minds. As it is he's banished to the house with Amorag and Harley, two of the other newish werewolves, plus whoever else has displeased Greyback that day (so far it's always been men. Remus doesn't know if that's coincidental or not).

In the day he's busy talking to the wolves (they call themselves wolves even when not transformed), eavesdropping on conversations and scribbling down notes to send to Dumbledore. In the daytime his guard is up, his senses alert, his brain occupied and paranoid. At night there's none of that to occupy him. Remus' thoughts wander and they always skulk down the same unpleasant alleys. Remembering night James and Lily died, when everybody was celebrating and he felt so furious and disorientated. Opening the newspaper a few days after, seeing Sirius' face on the front page and reading with horror about what he'd done. That night a couple of years later when he'd been in bed recovering from a full moon and his landlady had stormed in, screamed that she knew what he was and demanded that he leave that minute. After the shock, and the panic to grab his things and run, the street outside had seemed huge and empty. Remus didn't know where to go. There was nowhere to go. Drinking tea the morning after Mam's funeral thinking that she really was gone now. She was never going to be here again. The gleeful smirk Severus shot him before he dropped the word "werewolf" at breakfast. The feeling of Harry wriggling in his arms as he screamed that Sirius was coming back. Having to force out the words, "He can't come back because he's dead", and then losing grip of Harry and thinking not him too, please not Harry as well. The look on Dora's face when he told her he was ending things between them. She'd been surprised and bewildered. She hadn't seen it coming. Remus had spent months- longer than they were even together- picturing the scene where she broke up with him. He'd imagined what she was going to say so many times and in so many ways- this was a mistake. You're too old for me. I don't want to do this anymore. I've met someone else. Look, it's been a laugh but let's call it a day, shall we? You're dangerous. Remus, you're a decent bloke but you're also a monster. Work's really busy at the moment. It's not me, it's you. I don't know what I've been thinking these past few months. Remus, my parents want me to break up with you. What's someone like me doing with someone like you? I don't think we should see each other any more. You'll get in the way of my career. We just don't have much in common. DON'T TOUCH ME, WEREWOLF, DON'T LOOK AT ME, DON'T COME NEAR ME OR MY FAMILY EVER AGAIN!- that he felt prepared for whatever transpired. He'd even practised an understanding expression and a promise that this wouldn't affect their working together.

But Tonks hadn't split up with him. And after Sirius died a new kind of realisation hit, a clarity about how stupid and selfish this had all been. How little he deserved her and how much danger their relationship put her in. Remus hadn't had as much time to prepare for ending them himself as he had imagining Tonks doing it, so he wasn't surprised that it went wrong. How could it have gone right? He'd walked away from her afterwards and promised himself that he'd go away and leave her alone to get over him. That wouldn't take long, and if he wasn't there then he wouldn't have to see her and cause himself more pain. Dumbledore had asked repeatedly if Remus was sure about the assignment to the werewolf pack, and Remus had promised the headmaster that he was. It would be hard, he knew, but he deserved hardship after what he'd done to Tonks. He deserves to be reminded of what he really is.

He's been here three months now. Part spy for the Order, part converter to talk the werewolves out of Greyback's brainwashing bloodthirst. The balance is difficult- if Remus sticks his head above the parapet trying to persuade some of the wolves away from Greyback, they become suspicious, and that mars his chances of getting any information out of them. Likewise, asking too many questions about that the alpha is up to dents his ability to talk anybody out of Greyback's insistence that life will be better under Voldemort. This suspicion "Lorcan" creates is the reason he's not permitted in the caves, so at night he's curled on drawing room floor in the manor house, surrounded by broken furniture, smashed windows, torn carpets, crude graffiti that the pack have scrawled on the wall, and Amorag, Harley and whoever else bickering. Remus doesn't get much sleep and his dreams are full of Harry, Sirius, Mam, Peter, James, Dad, Lily, Dora. Occasionally Bellatrix features, launching Sirius through the veil and Remus is powerless to stop it, like he was when it really happened. Or Bella is duelling Tonks and he can hear them but he can't see, and he needs Mad-Eye but Mad-Eye isn't there. The worst Tonks dreams are when he relives being in bed with her. The weight of her on top of him and the feel of her beneath him. Her sinewy arms around his neck. How she looked naked and the face she made when he made her come. The things she'd say blur into each other in his mind: More. Yes. Again. You're such a special guy. Oh my God. I love you. Open your eyes. Slower. Harder. You're amazing. Yeah, right there. You're so hot right now. Fuck, I love you. Remus, Remus. I'm so close. Close your eyes. Don't stop. I love you. She was always asking questions so it wasn't a surprise that she didn't stop in bed. You're gorgeous, you know that? Is that good? Can you do that again? Faster? What do you want me to do next? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?

It always feels wrong in his dreams, like he knew it always was in reality but ignored. It's worse than hearing her fight her aunt because this time it's him doing it- doing what? He isn't sure- and it's a vile, unsettling blend of lust and violence, of enjoying it and feeling sickened by it, of loving her and knowing that he can't be with her, of having ended things and knowing that he should never have started them. (He did start it, he kissed her first). Remus wakes sweaty and flustered, and he knows he must have been mumbling and Merlin-knows-what else in his sleep, because the others are sniggering at him. It's not dissimilar to how the Marauders used to giggle at each other for the same thing back when they were teenagers sharing a dormitory (Sirius didn't care because he was having actual sex from the age of fourteen. Peter would giggle awkwardly, and James would blush magenta while everybody teased him that he was jizzing in his sleep over Lily Evans). But the werewolves' cackles have a harshness, and Harley goads, "Whose your bit of skirt, Lorcan? When are you bringing her here for us all to get acquainted?".

"Bit of skirt? Ain't you heard Rowe's a fairy?"

They guffaw to themselves and eye Remus to gauge his reaction. He reckons that the taunt is supposed to make him angry, but he aims to avoid conflict here. Which is easier said than done because petty arguments are always starting between the wolves. They fight over food, chairs, whose turn it is to talk, and often Remus finds himself somehow in the midst of an argument he didn't realise he was having. The rumour that Lorcan is gay has clung to Remus for a few weeks now. The werewolf camp is horribly sexual; the men joke about rape and compare numbers of women they've had sex with to numbers of women they've bitten. They jack off together, slobbering, calling out increasingly lewd fantasies. Remus can't bear to be near them even though it might help him fit in more. The fact that he wouldn't join in was how the gay rumours started, and now whispers of "Fruitcake", "Fairy" and "Poof" follow him around. One of the older men clapped him on the back and told him, "We'll soon sort you out, lad. You'll get a taste for it". The mention of 'taste', Remus grimaced, was meant in two ways, and both of them feature in his dreams about Tonks. He finds that, oddly he dreams about her stomach more than her face. She had quite an interesting stomach, as stomachs went. That piercing in her navel; cold against his face and metallic-tasting on his tongue and poking into his stomach when he was on top of her. Auror work had given her muscles; her abs were unusually hard and Remus remembers last Christmas at Grimmauld Place when she challenged the twins, "Go on, punch me. Guarantee it'll hurt you more than me". She had a tattoo of a pirate ship above her left hip. Remus had once asked her why she got it and what it meant.

"It means I was sixteen and drunk,"

He'd goggled at her and she laughed. "Kidding. I got it a couple of years ago in Camden, cost a flipping fortune. I just fancied it, I s'pose I liked the design"

Remus still goggled at her.

"What?"

Remus reckoned that of all the versions of himself in every universe, not one of them would spend money on a tattoo for no other reason apart from just fancying it. No significance other than liking it. Tonks was nothing like him. And that was the most exciting thing. Nymphadora, he thought fondly, what on Earth is it like in your head? But he hadn't said it out loud. Instead, he'd leaned over and kissed her.

Now, he dreams of the pirate ship tattoo and the piercing, and of the curve of her waist and taste of her skin. And often that taste becomes blood, and his jaws clamp around her stomach and she's screaming and bleeding and Remus wants to let go but he can't, he can't-

"Shut the fuck up, Rowe," barks Harley, hurling a chunk of chair leg at Remus. The nightmares have made him thrash and squeal and wake them up again. It's a dream, it was just a dream, he tells himself, gulping air into his lungs, she isn't here, she's safe, you didn't hurt her. He forces himself to look around the room to remind himself of where he is. In the house at the camp. Not in Dora's warm bed, surrounded by her cushions and her purple duvet while they kissed and talked and she told him about her pirate ship tattoo. He isn't there and he never will be again, even if he survives this mission. It's useless, it's utterly fucking futile, Remus thinks as he glances round the room and Harley and Amorag growl at him to go back to sleep. He's not getting anything done; he's found almost no information for Dumbledore and talked no werewolves away from Voldemort. He's got scrawnier and sicker and frailer, he's hungry, cold and exhausted, he's bewildered and scared. None of his friends are here. The only person Remus hears from who cares about him is Dumbledore, but the Headmaster's codes make pleasantries impossible. There's no warmth or encouragement in Dumbledore's correspondence, only instructions and information. Dora isn't here. Sirius is dead. All that happens here is humiliation.

Remus is in hell.


Thanks for your time. I hope you liked the slightly different style of this chapter. Whatever you thought, please let me know in the reviews. I haven't had much feedback on the last few chapters, so I'd be really grateful if you left a review of any of them too. Thank you very much.