In Desperate Manner

by Stoplight Delight

He could not believe it had come to this. February, 1990: late in a hard and hungry winter, Remus Lupin has come to the end of his options. Desperate in the hours before moonrise, he travels to Knockturn Alley to transact some dangerous business.

1. Part One

'… who,
Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger
And lack of other means, in desperate manner
Daring the event to the teeth, are all in uproar…'
~from Henry VIII

In Desperate Manner – Part One

Remus Lupin could not believe it had come to this.

His head swam with the effort of Apparation, and he groped for the sooty brick wall that enclosed the narrow passage between The Leaky Cauldron and the rest of Diagon Alley. Chilled fingers could scarcely feel the rough surface that chafed against his palm. In his other hand, his wand trembled. He tightened his hold upon it, the delicate joints of his hand grinding painfully. It was less than eight hours 'til moonrise, and every muscle and sinew in his body was taut in anticipation of the transformation. Remus leaned heavily against the wall, his head hanging between the sharp angle of his thin shoulders, trying desperately to catch his breath.

The journey had left him spent and quaking. It was not such a long way to Apparate by Remus's usual standards: a little more than two hundred miles from the hollow just beyond the crumbling garden wall of his cottage to this most familiar of London landmarks. On an ordinary day, even malnourished as he was, it would have posed no great obstacle. But now, burning with fever and riddled with a hundred twitching torments, his mind muddled by the pull of the moon, Remus understood that he was fortunate he had not Splinched himself.

The back door of The Leaky Cauldron swung open with a draught of warm air that made him shiver. He had left a bitterly cold morning behind in Yorkshire, and now the more southerly February damp was seeping around the edges of his threadbare cloak. Remus's fingertips clutched the wall more desperately still as the breeze brought with it the mingled aroma of the pub's morning custom: beer and tea and a breakfast fry-up. The smells repulsed him, making his empty stomach churn viciously as the middle-aged couple who had opened the door brushed past him, bound for Diagon Alley and all its quotidian wonders.

Remus was wretchedly hungry. At any other time, those half-forgotten scents would have left him mad with longing. But in his last hours as a man he craved only the succulent, coppery taste of raw, red meat. He could not remember when he had last indulged that yearning; certainly not in the eight hard, lean months since last he had found work. He could not often stretch his meagre earnings beyond the bare necessities of life, and this winter even those had eluded him more often than not. It had been four days since he had eaten anything at all.

It was one of the hallmarks of his hand-to-mouth existence that he always remembered his most recent meal with aching clarity. In this case, it had been little enough to speak of: two spoonfuls of beans, the last scrapings of a tin he had bought with a twenty-pence piece found in the slush-choked gutter outside the phone box in the little town of Hawes. Remus had gone there immediately after waking to a fresh fall of snow upon the countryside, hoping that the vicar of St. Margaret's church would be glad of an offer to clear the paths around the parsonage and the churchyard.

Such labour had been worth a few pounds now and then in the past, but he was not the only one with that idea: he had arrived to find an enterprising youth hard at work, bopping his head to the dulcet tones of some muffled Muggle singer piped through the ear-sized speakers of a pocket tape player. Once upon a time, Remus would have known to whom he might describe the device in order to get a detailed explanation of the proper terminology and the inner workings of the thing. Now, the thought of that was almost more painful than any of the rest; worse than the hunger, than the insidious nausea of the barely-adequate Apparation, than the agonies of the incipient moon. Remus shut his mind to it.

He had stretched that tin of beans as far as he could, multiplying each meagre serving as thoroughly as the physical laws of Transfiguration allowed. But even the most skilled of wizards could only do so much, and the resulting meals always tasted bland and somehow diminished. Nor was there as much nourishment in a dish of duplicated beans as there would have been in a full serving of the genuine article, but at least it sat in his stomach like a bowlful instead of a spoonful. He had slept comfortably that night.

Remus forced himself to relinquish his hold upon the wall, tucking his wand away with care. His hands, bare to the raw air, already felt chapped and sore. He hugged his cloak more closely around him and tried to get up the courage to step out into the wizarding high street. On any other day he might have been tempted by the dustbins on the other side of the pub's back stair, compelled to sift through the contents in search of some peelings or a crust of half-eaten toast to blunt the edge of his famine and scrub the vile taste of a too-long fast from his mouth. Today he knew he would find nothing he could stomach. Only one thing would answer his need today, and he meant to have it. He squared his shoulders, his spine protesting miserably, and opened the door that led into Diagon Alley.

At this hour of the morning, and on such a day, the street was fairly quiet. Witches and wizards moved between the shops with brisk, purposeful strides, shrouded in river-mist even just across the road. Remus did not pause to watch them. He did not raise his eyes to the enticing window displays, filled with colour and warmth and unimaginable bounty. He kept his eyes on the pavement and shuffled along as quickly as he could for the turn into Knockturn Alley.

He hated this place, with its dingy cobbles and menacing shadows. A thin sliver of sky, indifferently grey, slashed down the length of the dodgy street. The day was dim enough that the streetlamps in Diagon Alley were glowing warmly. Here, the wrought iron posts held broken lanterns, and the only light came from the globes hanging over the scratched and weathered doors of suspect-looking premises or filtered through unwashed windows in which the dusty skeletons of displays long neglected loomed like the ghosts that swirled in Remus's heart.

The shop he wanted was well down Knockturn Alley, just past the place where the street narrowed yet again, only just wide enough to let a single cart past. Not that there were any carts or carriages here. Back-door deliveries of unmarked crates were more the speed, concealed until the last moment under cloaks or by Disillusionment Charms. Remus had found this particular establishment seven years ago, when he had been looking for a bottle of pain-reducing potion on the cheap. The idea of squandering money on such a luxury was laughable just at present, but back then it had seemed like a necessity in the wake of particularly bad transformations.

It was an apothecary shop, or at least it looked like the relic of an apothecary shop. Remus stepped across the threshold into a room scarcely warmer or less damp than the street outside, and found himself surrounded by low, dusty and almost-bare shelves. Anything left out front was fair game for the thieves and sleight-of-hand artists that frequented Knockturn Alley. The proprietor kept most of his stock behind the high counter.

The man was tall, with the forward-thrust head and rounded shoulders of a vulture. He was perched on a stool, reading a two-day-old copy of The Daily Prophet. As Remus approached, his eyes went instinctively to the lead headline. It was an old habit, a remnant of the days when the news of the wizarding world had still seemed relevant to his daily life. He supposed there was a Situations Available section in there, as well, but it was useless to him now. Even if he did manage to find work despite his spotty employment history and his shabby raiment, he was in no fit state to perform it – nor would he be in the wake of the moon, if he did not accomplish his mission today.

'What do you want?' the man asked gruffly, not even glancing up. Above three photographs, each featuring a head-and-shoulders shot of a pompous-looking person of middle years, The Daily Prophet proclaimed: Candidates Debate Wand Subsidy Reform. Squinting in the gloom, Remus picked out the line beneath, which told him the election was now less than two weeks away, and the polls heavily favoured Cornelius Fudge for Minister for Magic.

'You sell—' Remus's voice caught in his throat, hoarse from the chill and from a habit of disuse. He took another half-step forward so that he could lean one bony hip against the counter. His head throbbed mercilessly, and he was trembling. It was not wholly because of hunger, or even the drag of the moon upon his bones.

He could not believe it had come to this.

'You sell restricted ingredients,' he managed, closing his eyes and bracing himself. 'Hard-to-find ingredients. Illeg—'

'Don't sell nuthin' illegal here!' the man said shortly, closing his paper with a snap and laying it aside. He glared at Remus. 'You want something special, now, I can get it for you. Always providin' you're willin' to pay.'

Remus shook his head tightly, not daring to move it too far off-kilter. He felt as if he might be sick. 'I'm not buying,' he said thickly. 'I'm selling.'

'Selling?' The man raked his eyes over Remus's frame. The cloak hid a multitude of evils – the shabby robes, neatly patched but badly faded; the length of cord that he wore in place of a belt; the shapeless hang of garments that had been purchased by a slender but healthy young man in a time of war and were worn now by a gaunt invalid whose only purpose in life was to scrape together another day of it. But apparently the shopkeeper saw enough to convince him that this was no Auror in disguise. He stroked his weak chin with its wisps of mousy whisker. 'Just what might you be selling?'

Remus's eyes wandered to the tightly-packed shelves behind the man. Roots and stalks and seeds in scratched glass jars. Ceramic cruets labelled in blue glazing, the contents marked in Latin. Jugs full of murky fluids ready to be measured out to order. He saw the stock bottle of pain-reliever. A phial of a familiar brew that would take the edge off of his mounting fever in less than twenty minutes. A thick, dark carmine suspension that he would be yearning for soon enough, if only all went well. Remus remembered gentle hands, supporting his head and tipping glass measuring cups full of all those things against his lips. He remembered a steady and capable finger, stroking his throat to induce him to swallow when he was too weak and too far gone with pain to remember to do it himself. How long had it been since he had faced a transformation with a cache of such luxuries to aid him? He did not know, and he choked back the covetous ache that rose in his chest.

'Blood,' he whispered, unable to meet the man's eyes.

The apothecary – if apothecary he was: it was impossible to know whether he had any genuine qualifications – tilted his head to one side, eyes narrowing shrewdly. 'What kind of blood?' he asked. 'Dragon? Salamander? Veela?'

'Werewolf.'

The word seemed to crack in the dusty air. Remus felt a hot rush of shame rise up to drown him, and he clutched the countertop with a shaking hand. He waited for the man to recoil, or to draw his wand, or perhaps to spit upon him. Instead, the spidery hand rose again to pluck at the frizzled whiskers.

'Bottled,' said the apothecary; 'or fresh?'

It took every ounce of his waning resolve, and still Remus did not think he could have forced out the sound if not for the crushing weight of penury and desperation behind this whole venture.

'Fresh,' he croaked, and he flipped back the left side of his cloak. With a hand that trembled as if palsied, he raked up his frayed sleeve to bare his thin arm. Its tangle of scars, old and new, gave his pale skin a strange texture in the poor light.

The man grunted, an unreadable sound that Remus nonetheless immediately began to dissect. Had he heard disgust? Horror? Fear? All of them, surely, and other things as well: disdain, hatred, dismissal. Refusal?

'Werewolf blood's useless 'cept on the day of the full moon,' the man said. 'The best stuff's taken while the beast's transformed. Used to be impossible to get it, but now with the Wolfsbane Potion…'

Remus swallowed the piteous noise of longing that wanted to rise to his lips. The Wolfsbane Potion. He knew of it, of course. Was there a werewolf in Britain who did not? It was the stuff of idle fantasy, of wild, half-drunken hope. It was not a cure; there was no cure. But it allowed a werewolf to keep his rational mind throughout the transformation. It gave him sanity. A werewolf who transformed under the influence of the Wolfsbane Potion was tame. Safe. Able to endure the change without the need to restrain himself, without the fear of getting loose to hunt and to harm, without the dread of waking to a torn and ravaged body that he would be too weak to heal properly for days. The Wolfsbane Potion was nothing short of bottled humanity.

Remus had never sampled it. Would never have the opportunity to sample it, more than likely. The ingredients alone were prohibitively expensive for a man who might scrape together thirty-five Galleons a year at doubtful, menial jobs he could never keep for longer than a handful of months – when he could get them at all. The skill required to brew the potion was considerable, far beyond Remus's own talents. And even if he had left Hogwarts with an Outstanding NEWT in the subject, he could not handle the most important component of the potion. Making it himself was out of the question. Paying someone of sufficient skill to brew it for him – he might undergo today's demeaning ritual every month for a year, and still not save up enough to afford one course of treatment.

'The moon is full tonight,' he said, trying to close his mind to the tantalising, impossible dream. 'Surely… surely it's worth something.'

The man gave him a hard, quick look. An appraising look. He wanted Remus to think that the market was glutted with the superior product – a product he could not offer, not without the unobtainable miracle of the Wolfsbane Potion. But Remus was no fool. If anyone but the werewolves in Damocles Belby's clinical trial had access to the potion, they were far too comfortably off to be driven to sell their blood. And the werewolves in the trial would be under observation at the full moon, affording men like this Knockturn Alley charlatan no opportunity to bleed them.

'You sure about that?' he said. 'Seems to me the moon's not full 'til Sunday.'

It was probably just a negotiation tactic, but the sheer stupidity of the question made Remus want to cry out in frustration. Was he sure about that? No, of course he wasn't. It was a wild guess. He could not feel the pull of the moon in every joint and sinew in his aching body. He could not feel it thrumming in his teeth or pulsing behind his eyeballs. He had no idea what he was talking about.

'It's tonight,' he said mildly. 'You're welcome to check.'

The man slid down off of his stool. He was shorter than he had looked when sitting, and his clothes were far finer than his surroundings might suggest. Warm winter wool, smooth and glossy and cut well for his frame. Remus looked down at his own body, hurriedly pulling his ragged sleeve back down to hide the scars and starkly prominent veins that marred his arm. He swallowed against a throat rough as sandpaper.

Even now, he could not believe it had come to this.

The apothecary was at his worktable now. Above it was a shelf of heavy references: potions manuals, an anatomy book, volumes of physiology and symptomology, a pharmacopeia. The man took down the slenderest of them all: a little red volume that could only be Bartlett's Magical Almanac. The man lit an old-fashioned chimney lamp with a tap of his wand, and leaned into the light of the flame as he thumbed through the back pages. He stared for an unnecessarily long interval at the one he wanted, before putting away the book, dimming the light, and meandering back up the length of the shop.

'Full tonight, so it is,' he said. 'How much do you have for me?'

The question made Remus's shrunken stomach shrivel still smaller. He wanted to huddle in on himself, to hang his head, to slink away and try to forget he had ever even imagined doing something like this. But he could not. He had not eaten in days, and before that he had gone weeks without a proper meal. If he went into his transformation this weak, this starved, the wolf would be mad with hunger. It would ravage itself to ribbons, and he would not have the strength to close the wounds. He would bleed to death in the cold root cellar beneath the tumbledown cottage, and no one would even know to look for his body.

'How much are you offering?' he asked instead, meeting a question with a question. He had not forgotten how to barter, though it had been a long time since last he'd had anything of value with which to bargain.

'I pay five Galleons a pint,' the man said. 'You'll find that's standard.'

Remus did not know if that was true. What he did know was that the werewolf blood for sale at the licenced and Ministry-inspected apothecaries back in Diagon Alley – blood that could only be obtained by special permit given exclusively to established Potions Masters and qualified Healers – went for three Galleons an ounce. He had done his research. He always did his research.

'Ten,' he said, his voice far steadier than his resolve.

The man stared at him, incredulous. 'What?' he said.

'Ten Galleons a pint,' said Remus. 'I know what it sells for. You'll still turn a tidy profit.'

He could hear a voice, a long-lost voice that he tried to guard his mind from except in the throes of his darkest nightmares. That's not a tidy profit, Moony: that's highway robbery! Are you mad? Get out of here! You can get the money some other way: any way but this!

Remus's teeth ground together so sharply that they squeaked. There was no other choice left to him; no other option but theft, and he refused to stoop to that. He would sooner starve, would sooner bleed to death. The voice was lying. Of course it was. Lies, lies, how many years of lies?

Sometimes he wondered. Sometimes he simply could not understand.

'Five,' the apothecary was saying. 'Standard price. It don't sell for near as much down here as it do elsewhere – but elsewhere you'd have to go through the Ministry, wouldn't you? Official channels, half a dozen people involved at least. And then they'd all know what you are, am I right?'

He grinned hungrily. Wolfishly. Remus felt his shame crest high again. 'Eight,' he whispered. 'Eight Galleons a pint.'

'No.' The apothecary crossed his arms, looking more like a vulture than ever, and shook his head with firm finality. 'Five Galleons a pint, or you can walk out of here right now. Make trouble, and the Werewolf Capture Unit's just a quick shout by Floo away.'

Remus did not truly believe the man would call for the Werewolf Capture Unit. He would not want any Ministry official poking around this place. Nevertheless the threat was effective. The truth was that Remus would reap the worst of the consequences if it came to that. More to the point, he could not afford to be turned away.

'Five Galleons, then,' he said, feeling his whole body sag with weariness. 'Will you take two pints?'

Ten Galleons was not much, but he could make it stretch for as many weeks. Maybe more, if he managed to scrape together a few odd jobs or even – if fortune smiled on him and the Fates were kind – something like regular work. By then, spring would be well underway and the first young greens would be growing in his stony little garden. By then, there would be mushrooms to forage in the woods, and a chance of snaring a rabbit or two. Remus hated that: snuffing out a little life made him feel more like a predator, a monster, than anything else could. Well, almost anything else, he thought now, as he stood prepared to trade on his status as a Dark Creature.

'I'll take as much as you want,' the apothecary said. 'None of my business. But you've got to know that it ain't recommended to give more than one pint at a time. The Muggles won't take more, and they're mad enough to put one person's blood in another person's veins!'

Remus did not want to think on the intricacies of Muggle medicine. He forced himself to lift his eyes from the scratched countertop to make a sweep of the room. 'Do we do it here?' he asked.

'Where else?' The man disappeared behind one of the shelves and came back with an enamelled tin basin and a long tube of rolled leather. He set down the former and unrolled the latter, spreading out a series of barber-surgeon's tools held in place by stretched, sagging loops. 'Best take a seat. We can't have you fainting away in the middle of it.'

He nodded back towards the window, where a couple of shaky-looking stools were shoved up in one corner. Remus tore himself away from the inadequate anchorage of the counter to fetch one. By the time he returned, the man had chosen his tool: a wicked-looking fleam with a polished horn handle. At least the thing looked clean, and it was undeniably sharp. Perhaps it would not be so bad.

Remus lowered himself carefully onto the stool, resisting the urge to simply let his flagging strength ebb from his unsteady legs. He rolled up his sleeve again, more carefully this time. He braced himself against the counter with his right hip, resting his right elbow upon it as he stretched his other arm over the bowl.

The apothecary shot him a look of pure loathing, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him nearer. He positioned Remus's arm so that his forearm rested on the far lip of the bowl, and his upper arm just above the elbow on the near lip. He palpated the veins in the crook of Remus's arm, looking thoughtful. Then he put down the fleam and reached under the counter to produce a thin strap of leather with a buckle on one end. It was too short and narrow to be a belt: it looked more like a garter. But the old stains in the leather told Remus its purpose, and a moment later it was around his arm just below the bicep, cinched to tingling tightness. His veins, already prominent under the thin veneer of papery skin, bulged out far enough to cast a fine shadow.

'Make a fist,' the apothecary said. Remus obeyed, trying to fight back the nauseous horror rising within him.

He could not believe it had come to this.

He heard another voice now, anxious and dismayed. Moony, you can't! Don't be ridiculous! You're not an animal; don't let him treat you like one. It's only money, Moony. It's not worth this.

It's only money. How often had he heard that? It had always been only money to James, who had never wanted for it in all his too, too short life. Tears, unexpected and unstoppable, rose in Remus's eyes at the thought of his friend. His loyal, loving, generous friend, who had been so horrified to learn that Remus had cut back to two meals a day during that first, viciously cold winter after they had left Hogwarts. James had bundled Remus up and bustled him out of his bare little flat, whisked him off to London for a hot meal in one of the restaurants he and Lily liked to frequent, and then insisted upon supervising the food shopping for weeks afterwards. A few missed dinners had roused him to such concern and righteous indignation. This? This would have broken his heart.

'Do it,' Remus said harshly, casting his gaze away from the limb he had offered up for sacrifice. 'I'm ready.'

'All right, all right, don't get your knickers in a twist,' the man said. He took the fleam and ran a thumb over the largest vein, right in the crease of Remus's elbow. Then with a spare, efficient motion he rocked the tool against the skin. There was an almost inaudible pop and a sudden release of pressure, and dark blood welled up from the puncture, streaming over either side of Remus's arm and pooling in the bowl below.

'Open your fist, slowly,' the man said.

Remus's fingers were numb, the bloated blueness disappearing as the spent blood drained from his body. His arm shook as he released his taut muscles, but the apothecary seized his wrist and held it fast against the rim of the bowl. With his other hand, he released the leather strap, whipping it out of sight. Feeling returned to Remus's nerves, and a dull, aching pain came from the place he had been pierced. The blood was flowing more slowly now, having to make its journey down into his hand before washing back towards the wound. It was not as dark, either, the crimson diffusing the deeper maroon of the first few ounces in the bowl.

It was a haunting sight, the rich red washing over his waxen skin. Remus could not look away. He sat transfixed, watching the very substance of his being run away in twin glossy rivulets. The flow was steady, unchangeable, and yet he thought he could see it pulsing, drawing near and then far, growing large and then small. That was when he realised there were spots rising in his vision, and that his nausea was no longer an abstract thing.

He raised his right arm, still bracing his elbow against the countertop. He buried his eyes against his palm, leaning heavily into the inadequate support. He tried to breathe slowly, steadily, as he had been taught long ago in a round tower room filled with low tables and mismatched tuffets. In through the nose, out through the mouth. It was the way he breathed in the last minutes before a transformation, when he strove to empty his mind and to calm his peripatetic heartbeat and to prepare himself for the loss of all reason.

There was movement in his periphery. The apothecary had picked up his wand. He tilted it at the bowl, taking a measurement. 'Twenty ounces,' he said. 'You're a ready bleeder, ain't you?'

He had always been a ready bleeder, or perhaps a slow clotter. Remus had a hazy memory of falling on the front step, of a grazed knee that bled so copiously that by the time his mother, who had been working in the flowerbed among her marigolds, reached his side, the cuff of his sock was soggy and red. Remus knew it was a memory from before, because he had been wearing short trousers – a normal child's standard garb in those days until the age of seven or eight, but forbidden him from his fifth summer, when the scars began to become too numerous to ignore. So it was not a product of his curse, but of his physiology. Another cruel little quirk of fate, complicating a life already lost in hopeless hurdles.

His pulse was roaring in his ears now, and the room seemed to tilt very slowly to the left, spinning in a lazy anticlockwise direction. Remus drew in a ragged breath through parched lips, forgetting his silent coaching. It hitched in the back of his throat, and he clamped his jaw against it.

'If you're going to be sick, see you don't puke in the bowl,' the apothecary said detachedly. 'I ain't payin' good money for a contaminated product.'

Remus was quite determined not to be sick. There was nothing in him to vomit up, anyhow; nothing but the cup of water he had downed greedily before leaving his cottage, and whatever thin bile burned so mercilessly in his empty belly. Why had he come here? Why had he done this? Why, oh why, oh why?

The wand-tip was glowing again. 'Nearly there,' said the man. 'Thirty and one half. Close your fist.'

He must have obeyed, because the command was not repeated. But Remus could not feel his arm anymore. It had gone quite cold. All his limbs were cold, his legs like leaden weights dangling down the side of the stool. He burrowed further into his right hand, as if he could press some semblance of sensibility back in through his forehead. His vision was blotted out entirely now: black splotches and sun-bright flares blinding him. The world felt very distant.

'There!' the apothecary said triumphantly, and Remus's left arm hit the countertop with a thunk as the man shoved it off of the basin. A sharp pain shot up from the crook of his elbow, and his right hand forgot its duty to his head as it flew to clutch his arm. His skin was slippery with blood, and he burrowed his fingers deep into the meat of his lean muscles, trying to ease the pain and stem the steady trickle still oozing from the puncture.

The apothecary strode away, leaving the basin of blood just beyond Remus's reach. The smell of it was tantalising, maddening, the only thing in all the world that could pierce the haze of dizzy sickness that was wrapped around him. Saliva flooded Remus's mouth, burning in the glands at the base of his jaw. Swallowing frantically, he retched dryly and bowed his head low over his lap. Could it be possible that he was hungry for the taste of his own blood? Nausea and mortification threatened to swallow him. He was an animal.

The man was back. Remus glanced up warily, unable to quite focus his eyes but aware enough to make out the cotton bud and the sliver of glass. The apothecary dipped the former, delicately, into the dish. He smeared a scarlet comet-tail across the slide and inspected it with shrewd eyes. He held his wand behind the glass, muttering an incantation that Remus could not hear over the roar in his ears. The wand-tip glowed white, then green, then a sickly chartreuse.

'Hmph,' said the apothecary, disgust evident in his voice. 'Not very good quality, is it? Anaemic. Not worth five Galleons a pint. I'll give you four.'

Remus could not immediately make sense of the words. He gripped his wounded arm more tightly, feeling the blood ooze up between his fingers. He had to stop the bleeding: he had already lost more than he could spare, and the life flowing from his veins now was flowing for nothing. But the thought of reaching for his wand was unattainable, and the effort of even the simplest of healing charms was beyond him right now. He could not even muster the energy to speak.

'Just like a werewolf, misrepresenting the quality of the goods,' complained the apothecary. He was moving his wand over the bowl now, casting some sort of charm – no doubt to preserve the blood, to keep it from curdling or separating. 'Small wonder an average establishment won't harvest their own part-human blood. Too much trouble by half.'

'You said five,' Remus mumbled, the words coming thickly around a tongue that felt like sandpaper. He blinked thrice, as hard as he could, but he still could not bring the room back into focus. His bony elbow was aching with the pressure of his unsteady body leaning upon it. He moved the fingers of his left hand to reassure himself that he still could. The bloody flesh beneath his grasp shifted and rippled with the tendons. 'Five Galleons a pint.'

'And I'm telling you this swill ain't worth that price,' said the man, annoyed. 'Four Galleons a pint, eight for the lot. Take it or leave it.'

'We had an agreement,' Remus protested feebly. He could not mount a cogent argument. He could not even lift his leaden head to look the proprietor in the eyes. 'I need… I need…'

He could not articulate what he needed. His hazy brain was trying to muddle through the math, to work out how long he could survive on eight Galleons. He could not bear to do this again. Even if it did not take him months to replenish the store of blood he had shed today, even if he had not been guaranteed to lose still more tonight, he could not bear to do this again. He felt wrung out, shrunken, thoroughly abased. It was as if his humanity had flowed away with the life-giving fluid, leaving him a savage husk.

He could not believe it had come to this.

'Eight Galleons is what I'm paying,' said the apothecary. 'If you don't like it, you're welcome to take the blood back. Have to provide your own container, of course, but…'

He shrugged indifferently. Cold despair drenched Remus. He had no choice, and they both knew it.

'Eight Galleons, then,' he rasped, his skull rocking in a curt little nod that made the room spin still more perilously. 'Now.'

The man chuckled. Dear God, he chuckled. 'Sure, yeah, now,' he mocked. He moved up the length of the counter to the rusty old cash register, and rang up the purchase. The tinny bell was like an ice pick into Remus's temples. He cringed, dragging his arm nearer to his body. His wand. A healing charm. It wasn't a cursed wound. It wouldn't take much of an effort to close.

But he had no strength for any effort at all.

'…six, seven, eight,' the apothecary counted, slapping down the gold coins in turn. They were old, scratched, their gleam long forgotten. Remus did not care. It was money, hard, cold wizarding money. It was food. Meat for tonight, a sack of dried beans and one of oats for the days to come. Perhaps even a loaf of bread. He could not think farther ahead than that. Planning, budgeting, proper shopping, that would have to wait until after the full moon.

He released his desperate grip on his arm and dragged the coins to him, burying them in the inner pocket of his tired old robes. There was something in that pocket already, soft and pliable beneath his calloused fingertips. Remus pulled it out, feeling the weight of the Galleons settle consolingly against the washboard of his ribs. It was a handkerchief. White linen aged to yellowish, old bloodstains brown on the cloth despite careful laundering. The hem, stitched so skilfully by nimble hands long turned to dust, was worn away in places to a fraying fringe of threads. In one corner, worn white chainstitch spelled out his initials, the 'J' unravelled almost to bare memory.

Your mum makes them, doesn't she, Moony? A third voice, higher than the others. A round, kindly face, lit up with effortful interest in a simple Christmas gift. I think that's nice. There's a lot of love in homemade things, you know.

Peter. Dear, faithful Peter, always so careful of his feelings. Remus wondered what Peter would make of all this. He would be just as horrified as James, but frightened with it. Peter had always struggled with the reality of the wolf, even after the mystery had been stripped away by nights of familiarity and madcap play. And it would have worried him to see Remus in such a wretched state. He would have taken him by the arm, found him somewhere to lie down, fetched him a cup of tea, hot and ridiculously sweet. It's good for shock, you know. Sugar, I mean. Drink up, Moony. You'll feel yourself again in a minute or two.

Remus rammed the handkerchief into the crook of his arm, soaking up the blood and staunching the wound. He got clumsily to his feet, swaying.

'You'll pass out if you get up too soon,' said the apothecary. The warning was indifferent: habitual. How often had he done this, leeching those too desperate to have any other choice? Suddenly Remus wanted to put as much distance between himself and this man as possible. He wanted to leave this dingy place and its questionable wares far behind. Most of all, he wanted to get away from that bowl, that bowl that was glutted with his blood. That bowl that still, incredibly, smelled of temptation.

He made for the door, unable to keep a straight course. He fumbled with the handle, using his left hand because his right was holding the handkerchief to the still-seeping wound left by the fleam. He staggered out into the street, unsure which way to turn. There was a lamppost a few yards to the right, its lantern shattered and dark. Remus canted towards it, the socket of his shoulder striking the iron as he leaned desperately in for support. The world was spinning, spinning, spinning.

He could see the place where the street widened, the pavement curving to accommodate the change. That way lay Diagon Alley, and the butcher's shop where he could buy a pound of their cheapest stewing meat. Remus tried to fix his thoughts on that, to focus on the goal of the entire miserable exercise. He panted shallowly, struggling to muster the strength to abandon the support of the post. He adjusted his hold on the handkerchief, now soaked through with blood. His head swam as if he had just Disapparated. He closed his eyes against the whirling nexus of coloured lights that swam before them.

Diagon Alley. Food to take the edge off of this insidious dizziness. Food to give him enough strength to return to the little cottage on the moors. Food, to ensure his survival tonight when the wolf raged and rampaged. This, all of this, for food.

Remus pushed himself off of the post, his body protesting the effort and his skin slick with cold sweat. The bite of the winter air cut through his inadequate garments. His cloak was whole, though worn thin and fraying, and his robes were neatly and meticulously patched. The undergarments beneath were in tatters, too far gone for darning charms or even the most careful needle. Remus was shivering, chilled to his core. He could feel his wand poking the crest of his hip, still with him at least, even if he did not have the strength to use it. That was all he needed to know. He could leave this place, if he was sure he had his wand.

He started up the street, back towards the light and welcome of Diagon Alley. It was not so far to walk: only a few blocks. His down-at-heel shoes shuffled against the pavement. His right sock was wet with icy sludge. There was a hole in that shoe. He'd have to find it, see if he could patch it. New shoes were as much a fever-dream as the Wolfsbane Potion. His thoughts were muddled, wandering, molasses-slow and galloping all at once. Remus tried to focus on the task at hand. All he had to do was walk. He could do that. He could.

He managed another three steps before he fell, limbs crumpling bonelessly as his head wobbled and the sickly fingers of a cold swoon seized him. He crashed onto the cobbles, knees first and then his shoulder. Even before his head struck the pavement, he was falling away into oblivion. One last, fading thought blazed through his muddled mind.

He could not believe it had come to this.