Put the toys away.
Santa's broke his sleigh.
Cuckoo lost its time today.
May we play again someday?
--
First Moon
--
"I've never had to share this room with anyone before."
Bill Weasley, still weakened and tired from his injures that would never really heal, could see why. Remus Lupin's flat was comprised of two levels and four rooms. On surface level, a kitchen doubled as a sitting room, a small bachelor's bathroom, and a disused bedroom; underground, by ways of a storm door just around the back and a stairwell that descended more than six-feet under, a basement with reinforced concrete walls and flooring.
While the flat was clean and homely, the only traces of evidence that life existed from time to time in the basement were dried bloodstains on the walls, the floor, even the ceiling, and tufts of fur scattered unceremoniously about the room. Chains—two hideous steel pairs—hung on the farthest wall from the ladder, the chain links repaired in many places. Something ominous, steel, and circular lay near to the chains with its own chain leading back to its secure in the wall.
"What're…" Bill coughed in the ill-scented air; "Sorry, but what are the chains for?"
Lupin, in the process of waving his wand at the ladder to make it disappear, leaving the storm door inaccessible, did not meet his gaze. Wandering over to one of the few lighting devices in the basement, he poked it to life before safely storing the wand away in a crevice that shimmered oddly; he gestured for Bill to do the same.
"For the heat months." Lupin said in a tone that practically breathed shame. "Don't worry. You won't have to use them tonight."
He felt his mouth run dry. "I?"
In the process of shrugging off his robes and stripping down to his briefs, Lupin nodded with feinted calm. "Yes. It's not the heat months, but we still don't know the full nature of your condition. If it turns out you don't transform fully, or that you don't transform at all, you'll still be trapped down here with me. If I'm chained, you'll have a better chance of escaping me if that's the later case. I'm quite sure you would prefer not to be mauled again."
A strained silence, broken only by Bill beginning to strip down to his underclothes with some difficulty, reigned in the dank air of raging bloodlust. Lupin moved over to the chains on the wall and began the process of getting them tightly around his ankles and then wrists. Bill wondered how the other wizard could stay as calm as Lupin was, doggedly tightening the links until they dug deep into his skin.
"Um…" Bill moved forward, unsure at the strange look in Lupin's eyes, "Do you want any help?"
"Actually, could you possibly do the collar for me?"
Bill nodded and sat down on the floor, picking up the steel band that just fit over Lupin's head. A strange tingling sensation rushed through Bill's blood and he shivered. It was a feeling not unlike sexual euphoria, except it was darker, more sinister. Lupin did not fail to notice the momentary change in Bill's and abandoned his chain work for a moment, studying Bill's features torn and tattered with unflattering scrutiny.
"It looks," he said after a moment with no small amount of sadness in his tone, "like you're going to lose at least most of the basic control over your mind along with your body. Still, I believe that it's better if we chain me; you're weak and already injured."
"Does it hurt?"
The words had come out before Bill could stop them, but Lupin didn't even blink. In fact, he looked a little relieved that he hadn't had to volunteer the subject himself.
"Yes, Bill," he answered with calm frankness, sitting up against the wall so that the chains didn't strain, "it hurts very much. There's really no way I can prepare you. It's a lie, by the way, that the first transformation is the worst. It's just more shocking; the pain that comes from having bones spontaneously break, reorganize, and mold back together in entirely different positions twice in a night is what kills many young victims who survive the initial bite. I suppose one gets used to the sensation after a few years, though."
"Is that why they say that physical torture doesn't work on werewolves most of the time?"
To this Lupin just gave Bill a wane smile and told the collar around his neck to tighten so it couldn't come off when he transformed. Then the two sat in the room as the sky darkened above them, the open wooden storm door with no ladder leading up to it letting the beginning of night leak through.
"Why don't you just block off the moon beam?"
"Too dangerous. If I did, we wouldn't transform, but it would only cause the wolf to react to any kind of moonlight in varying severity until a full transformation can be realized. A month of animalistic hell compared to one night is nothing."
"So now we wait."
Lupin smiled and tilted his head back into the tiny ray of dying light that the lamp was casing before it gave out. Bill sat where he was and pulled his legs up to his chest, a position he hadn't honoured since he was twelve-years-old and scared that he was going to get expelled.
"Yes," Lupin said, closing his eyes as the light flicked out and the beginnings of moon beam tracked its evil way in; "Now we wait."
--
Sentomegami
2005 July 18