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Hunted

Chapter 4: A hopeless situation

How long she had been sitting there, Tonks didn't know. There was no way to measure time in this room, except for the fact that the sun had set quite some time ago.

When their capturers had first locked her in here, she had inspected the room for a possible way of escape, but found none. The door and window had been locked and they had taken her wand, so she couldn't open them herself, the room was furnished with a semi-decent bed and a small closet for clothes, Tonks supposed this was one of the guestrooms of the inn.

After her inspection of the room, Tonks had placed herself on the bed, trying to keep herself from wondering how Remus was doing. Probably worse than me and it's all my fault. If only I hadn't lost my diary. If only I had gotten to him sooner. How am I ever going to get us out of here?

Before her thoughts could become even more depressed, someone opened the door. Tonks looked up quickly and recognised the bartender who had served her when she had come here for the first time. Without saying anything, he handed her a plate with some food and turned around to leave.

"Wait!"

The man stopped, but didn't turn around.

"Please sir, I only want to know what's going to happen to me."

Of course, Tonks knew what the Vastatore's had planned to happen, but she had to find a way to get out of here, and if she couldn't do it on her own, she would have to try to find someone to help her.

The bartender still didn't turn around when he answered. "I don't know what's going to happen, miss, and you shouldn't ask questions, I'm not allowed to talk to you."

Tonks frowned. "Why aren't you allowed to talk to me?"

"Ordersfrom Michael Vastatore."

Anger was again welling up inside of her. But better not show it, if I want to get him to help me. "I don't understand, why would you listen to him?"

The man sighed and turned around finally. "You must understand, miss, this is a poor area, we never had much, barely enough to survive, and before the Vastatore family came here, most of what we had was taken from us by a werewolf-pack that was living nearby. Then one day, the Vastatore's arrived, they killed the werewolves, they saved our village, and they promised to give us money in exchange for our support whenever they asked something from us. We know they are scum, but they have done a lot for us."

A heavy silence fell into the room. Tonks didn't really know what to say to this, true they might have gone through a lot, but that didn't mean they had to support people who were obviously evil. At last she decided to ask the question that had been playing in her mind since she had been locked in here.

"Do you know where Remus is and what they are doing to him?"

The bartenders face, which had almost held a kind look earlier, now turned hard again. "I don't know, but if he's a werewolf, then he probably won't live very long."

Tonks jumped up. "No, you can't let them kill him."

The man looked at her challengingly, "Why not?" It was obvious now he deeply hated werewolves in general.

Tonks took a deep breath to steady herself and straighten out her thoughts, before answering. "Why not? Because he is a good man, because he deserves so much better than what he received in life, because he never chose to become a werewolf, but he was only a child and he didn't have a choice. Because despite all the prejudice and rejection he received in life, he still managed to keep fighting for everything that is good in the world. I know you and your people suffered a lot because of a pack of werewolves, but they aren't all like that, sir. Please believe me."

The bartender stared at Tonks for a long moment, then, without another word, he left the room. Tonks heard the lock closing behind him and sank back on the bed, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. There goes my last hope of getting out of here.

000

The room was dark, it had been dark since they had shoved him into it. There was no lamp, no candle, not even a window or a chink under the door to allow some light in.

He had been sitting here in the dark, on the floor for hours, although there was no way of telling for how long. At first he had tried to explore the room a bit, to find out where he was, but soon he had realised there wasn't a lot to explore, the room was completely bare and very small, with a massive door which could only be opened from the outside. Probably a basement.

He had soon given up and resigned himself to sitting against the wall and staring listlessly ahead of him in the dark. Of course now nothing could stop his mind from working in overdrive.

The first thing that had come to mind, was how ironic his situation was. The first time the Vastatore-gang had crossed his path, he had been on the run for the authorities in Britain, who had given orders to kill every single werewolf, but then he had escaped. Now, when politics had changed dramatically and he could safely return home, he had been captured by the same group of werewolf-hunters, and now there seemed to be no way out. No matter what Tonks said, there is no way I can survive this.

Tonks. She was also on his mind all the time, but then again, she had been constantly in his thoughts a long time before they had been captured. The fact that she was here somewhere too made it even harder to bear, because there was no way they were going to let her go. In fact, he had a good idea of what Vastatore planned to do with her, and it would be his worst nightmare coming true.

It's still three weeks until the full moon, who knows we may still find a way out of here in that time. But more likely, it would be three weeks of torture, mentally, because he knew what would become of them and wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it, and physically, because he was sure the Vastatore's would want to have some fun in the meantime.

Tonks being captured with him made it even more ironical. Her safety had been one of the reasons why he had gone away and hadn't returned, and on top of it, they had been captured when she had been trying to keep him out of the hunters' hands.

It was obvious that at this point, fate was working very strongly against Remus Lupin.

Thinking of Tonks at this moment made Remus only feel worse, but as he tried to keep his mind of her, horrible scenes of mutilated bodies, victims of the Vastatore's appeared in his mind's eye, together with detailed descriptions of what they had gone through before their eventual deaths.

After long hours of sitting there, Remus' gloomy thoughts were interrupted when suddenly the door opened. Looking up, he recognised the Vastatore-brothers, together with three others, the other members of the group of hunters. Probably eager to start their games.

Two of the unknown men positioned themselves in front of the door. As if I have a chance of escaping, with six armed werewolf-hunters in the room. The two youngest Vastatore-brothers came to stand on either side of Remus on a short distance. The leader of the group, together with another unknown man, stood still before Remus, sneering down at him. All of them were not only sporting their wands, but also visibly carrying swords in their belts. Silver swords, with silver grips. They're obviously trying to intimidate me, but I won't give them that pleasure, or at least not outwardly show it.

Michael Vastatore started speaking. "It's been a while since we had a visitor here. It's a very isolated area, and it can get a little bit boring. I must say I'm really glad we found you, it's been a long time since we've been able to play our favourite games and I started to fear we would be getting out of practice. I'm sure you'll be happy to provide us with some fun."

Vastatore laughed, and his followers joined in. Despite his intentions, Remus already started to feel sick, but he managed to not give them any reaction.

"You know," Vastatore continued, "we should really thank miss Tonks for this, we would probably never have found you, if she hadn't provided us with some very useful information." He pulled a small, pink, book out of his coat. "I'm sure you're interested in some of the things she wrote about you." He opened the diary and started to read some quotes aloud.

"July 10, 1995. Dear Diary, Kinglsey Shacklebolt introduced me to the Order of the Phoenix today, I can't believe I'm allowed into a secret organisation fighting Voldemort, while the Ministry doesn't want to acknowledge he's back, stupid flobberworms. Anyway, I also found out the Order has some very interesting members, one of them is Sirius Black, he used to be my mother's favourite cousin you know, before he was convicted, but apparently he's innocent. Even more interesting is his friend, Remus Lupin, he's a werewolf, and extremely handsome.

"October 13, 1995. I've been spending a lot of time at Headquarters lately, although there's no real reason for me to, I just like spending time with Remus, that's all, but it doesn't mean anything.

"January 10, 1996. We received some bad news a few days ago, a group of werewolf-hunting Death Eaters, or death eating werewolf-hunters, whatever, seems to be after Remus, I'm very worried about him. And talking about Remus, I couldn't keep from staring at him for the last few weeks, I'm starting to think this is more than just a crush.

"April 16, 1996. Alright, fine. I'm going to admit it, but only to you. I'm in love with Remus Lupin.

"January 3, 1998. It's only been a few months since Remus has gone away, and I miss him so much. I probably won't ever see him again, I don't even know if he's still alive, and he never knew how much I love him. But I know I'll never stop…Alright, I'll stop writing now, this is getting too cheesy.

"May 22, 2000. We've been searching for Remus for two months now, and still no trace of him. Everyone is starting to give up ever finding him again, I think Harry and me are the only ones who refuse to give up. But I will never give up on Remus!

"June 28, 2002. I'm going to find Remus! Is it stupid and naïve of me to hope I can convince him to come back with me, marry me and live happily ever after together?"

Finally, Michael Vastatore stopped reading, and for a moment, silence reigned in the dark room. Remus was staring blankly in front of him, feeling dizzy, trying to comprehend what he had just heard, but before he had a chance to, Vastatore started speaking once again.

"What do you think, werewolf, it seems like the girl has fallen in love with you. It's kind of funny, don't you think, that something like that can happen. I mean, how could she ever expect to get human feelings back from a werewolf." The group of hunters laughed again. "Anyway," Vastatore continued, "since she wants to spend her live with you, I'm sure she'll be happy to join in our some of our games, mainly the ones under the next full moon."

It wasn't the first time he had used that threat, but Remus couldn't keep himself from reacting, he couldn't let that happen to Tonks. He stood up quickly. "Leave her alone."

That seemed to be the exact reaction the hunters wanted, because now they only laughed harder. Suddenly, Remus felt a burning pain against his bare back and he collapsed on the ground. They had taken away most of his clothes when they had dumped him into this cellar, he had assumed then it was meant to take away as much as possible of his human dignity, but now he knew better. One of the younger brothers had whipped the flat side of his sword against Remus' back, being almost naked made him vulnerable for this kind of attacks.

Still laughing, the werewolf-hunters left the small room again, leaving Remus lying in the dark again.

The place where the silver had touched his skin burned intensely, and he was sure the skin showed some severe blisters. Luckily the sword hadn't cut through his skin, but that hadn't been what the hunters wanted anyway, they wanted him to live as long as possible.

Remus thoughts drifted to what Vastatore had read out of Tonks' Diary. She loves me. I can barely believe it. But she wrote it in her diary, so there was no doubt it was true. What if he was just making it up, what if it wasn't Tonks who wrote that? But Vastatore had been all too happy to be able to read it to him, and Remus knew he wasn't making it up. And apparently she's been searching for me for years, she really does love me.

All the implications that one little fact brought with it, hit Remus at once. How she had been wasting her time looking for him, when she should have been moving on with her live. How impossible it was for them to be together. I'm a werewolf, I could never burden her with that, I'm too dangerous. How the hunters were going to use it against them, they are going to make me kill her. The last realisation made his chest constrict painfully and his stomach churn. The next moment, he was throwing up on the ground next to him. He tried to move away, but the pain of the blisters on his back sprang up suddenly, due to his movements, and the next moment, the world went black.

000

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