From the End
Story Rating: T
Summary: Remus has often wondered of his End, and imagined it; but never quite like this.
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the Harry Potter books or movies. All credit goes to J.K. Rowling and the producers.
Fenrir smiles at him from across the dungeon, and Remus can't help but grimace.
Could that even be considered a smile? He wonders. More likely he is the one smiling and Fenrir is grimacing. Yes, that works more nicely.
He paces back and forth, glancing at the one window in the room.
Fenrir laughs at him again. Is it a laugh? A cruel, cold thing that might be a laugh to others.
"I don't often kill my own children," he says, in a low voice. Remus supposes he is trying to start a conversation, but he won't speak to the one who ruined his life.
Or perhaps blessed it? If he weren't a werewolf...oh, how things would have been different. James, Sirius, Peter...and then later Harry, Ron, and Hermione...and most recently, Tonks...
He pauses his pacing for a moment, in reminiscence, but it's too painful, especially now.
"The willing ones, at least," Fenrir concedes. "You were willing once, also. Don't you remember?" He's leering now, and Yes, Remus does remember...
...terrible moonlit nights; they used to be his haven, his safety, but now he dreads them...Such a precocious,composed child! his parent's friends would marvel, but it was hardto be precocious when one is a wolf pup, not possible to be composed...He lifts his muzzle and howls to the moon sliver he can see through the basement window, howls for his pain and loneliness and hopeless dichotomy...but suddenly he is not alone, and can't be lonely; his wolf wins over, and he sniffs at the air...Just before him sits a larger wolf on its haunches, watching him, silently wary. He approaches the window eagerly, sits just before it to examine the stranger; this stranger that is somehow more familiar to him now than those upstairs. His pain is lessened; he is not fighting anymore, he is a wolf pup with its father...
...and wishes he didn't.
"Too bad, now." Fenrir rasps. "Too bad, wolfie."
Remus paces.
"Lucky for you, though," he continues, examining dirty, blood-crusted fingernails. "Lucky for you I don't do incest, wolfie."
Remus feels vaguely nauseous.
He's surprised that's all, though, surprised that at the end he isn't desperate, isn't mad with desperation. He's surprised at the end. He'd expected a quiet life, punctuated monthly, of course, with dangerous nights, but with Alicia or Sirius or Tonks, beside him, forever...
But isn't that what he would get, Forever, with them all at once, after this night was over?
Fenrir is still watching him, and Remus remembers that he is supposed to be goaded and angry, but isn't able to bring himself to show either.
The other man shrugs, stands up and goes to the basement window to check on the evening's progress.
"Almost..." he mutters as he turns away to catch Remus watching him. He smirks again. "You know I would have loved to fight you...Man to Wolf...if it were possible...I could enjoy it, then, especially..." He licks his lips and goes back to the basement wall to sit once again. Remus turns to follow him with his eyes, to watch him sit against that familiar basement wall.
Familiar from years he'd spent down here; or so they felt. 36 nights out of 365. An eternity of nights; all the times he was a wolf-child down here, howling at the moon, howling at the stranger outside that he'd longed to let in...and now that stranger was with him, inside, now they would finally be wolves together. Just what he'd desired for those eternities of nights.
The moon shines.
Remus tries to Feel, tries to be Human one last time...and succeeds in a bit of relief, not for his life's continuance but for it's end.
The fight is furious, but short. Fenrir has years of this to help him, and Remus has nothing. Fenrir has bloodlust, and Remus has never wanted to kill; Fenrir lives for his sadism, and Remus lived for is friends, but they're gone. There's no one left, and as he lies panting under the grinning jaws of Fenrir, he is silently thankful, that it will be short and quick like this, short and quick like his friends and family while he lived on to suffer. His friends and family who will be waiting for him in the After…and suddenly the thought is there, the one he'd never allowed in before, it's right there as the sharp teeth descend:
If there is an After...Oh God, let there be an After.