A/N: Just so you know, this chapter is happening while Tonks is at Hogwarts. With that, let's get on to it.
Remus's POV
I apparated on a wet and stormy street in a gray, blank sort of city. People walked by, inconspicuous to what was going on around them. Cars sped by monotonously and the little shops looked old and weary as rain poured down on the small town.
No one here could ever guess, muggles as they were, that an underground city of werewolves were living and plotting beneath their feet.
I walked along the slippery sidewalk until the rows of shops and houses ended abruptly and turned to rolling countryside.
I then turned off of the path and into the wet grass, walking along the edge of the town when suddenly I stopped.
"I think this is it," I mumbled to myself. I was standing in front of an old and abandoned brick storehouse. I pulled open the rusting metal door with difficulty and stepped into the cobwebby darkness inside the foul smelling building.
I felt my way down and carefully walked down the wide stairs that folded out before me.
I shuddered with all the smells that were filling my wolfish nose. I reached the bottom of the stairs where a dimly lit, cavernous space loomed before me. It smelled of death and decay, raw meat, mold, and unclean people.
A couple dozen unshaved and weary looking men with sunken faces and bags under their eyes were sitting dismally against the cement walls, their heads down in a fitful sleep on their own shoulders and hanging down tiredly, facing the ground.
"Err… Hello?" I called quietly, unsure of how to greet a group like this.
"What? Whaddaya want? Who be you?" a voice growled from a dark shadow. A tall, bulky man with messy grayish hair stood menacingly over me.
"I've come to…join you?" once again I was unsure of what to say.
"You bein' a werewolf then?" he asked gruffly.
"Yes," I answered.
"Take a seat. We're waiting for Greyback to return so's we can head out for the night hunt. Greyback will decide if you can stay," he said. I sat reluctantly on the cold, dirty floor.
I wondered why these people- yes I called them people. They are as much people as they are werewolves- resigned themselves to living here when I had found a way to live almost normally as a human. A human, not an animal. Surely they could, too.
"An-Ann- A- Annie! Anne help me!" A man next to me began screaming in his sleep. The rest of the men just kept sleeping, but I reached over and shook him awake.
"Ann… Who are you?" he asked sleepily.
"I just got here. Are you all right?" I asked.
"I'm fine. A dream about…" he trailed off. He was a nice looking man with dull blond hair and a round, friendly face. He would be handsome if he got some sun and a good shave.
"I'm Remus Lupin," I told him, reaching out my hand to shake. He looked down at it in astonishment.
"You been living with humans," he remarked, not unkindly.
"Yes, but I'm not any longer," I told him, lying.
"I'm John Peterson. I'll shake your hand, but you'd better not try that on this lot," he motioned toward the sleeping figures.
He shook my hand and just as he opened his mouth to say something else, the hulking figure of Fenrir Greyback came into view.
"Time for the hunt!" He roared. A great cheering came into the air at these words and a mob of people ran toward the door. I hung back and, my heart pounding, caught up with Greyback.
"I'm new. I'd like to know if I could stay," I said politely. Too politely.
"Been living with humans, eh?" He laughed cruelly.
"They never respect us! Darn stubborn little maggots, humans are!" he roared. That made me mad.
"We're just as much human as they are!" I yelled. He stopped and looked me square in the eye.
"You're in," He said simply before running up to the rest of the "pack."
That was a nicer outcome then the one I had been expecting (getting eaten alive) so I walked faster to keep up with the crowd.
By then we had reached town. It was night and the streets were deserted.
Everyone seemed to know exactly what to do. They ran off to scattered houses and shops.
"New man! Lupin? You take the butcher shop!" Greyback called. What? What exactly did "taking the butcher shop" involve?
"I'll help you," John's familiar voice flooded me with relief.
"Come on," he crept along the side of the shop and climbed through the open window. I followed him.
Inside the shop he immediately began snatching up hunks of meat and I followed suit. I reached for a big ham on the wall but withdrew my hand as if burned.
I had never stolen in my life! I was a normal person! A completely different species then these werewolves! At least, it felt like I was.
"I- I can't do it," I shuddered.
"What? The other werewolves are in the houses taking people for goodness sake and you can't take a ham?" he asked sternly.
"I can't," I said firmly. His face softened and he scooped up double meat for both of us and struggled back out the window.
We made our way back to the hideout and found the other men there already, ripping apart pieces of who knows what and I collapsed against the wall, eating a chicken leg and falling asleep.
In the middle of the night I woke up to a completely dark room. I wondered why I was on the floor for a moment until realization filled my body, along with a lurching feeling in my stomach and a sense of dread. I made my way up the stairs and sat in the field of grass beside the warehouse, looking at the stars. I'd be out by Christmas, I told myself. Three months! I would be done in three months and go back to sleeping in a bed, working for a living and eating vegetables. Meat was going to get very old in three months.
I watched a bright star and found myself wondering if Tonks was thinking about me, and found myself feeling jealous that she, unlike me, had the opportunity to take a bath.
