Hunger and anger. They were the only two sensations the wolf felt, strong enough to drive anything more rational out of his mind. As he lunged at the walls of his prison and scratched at the wood over the windows until his pads bled, the pain hardly even registered. He'd do anything for food, anything. Even tear himself apart.
He howled a weak, pained howl, wishing someone would answer it and tell him he was not alone. But he was; he always was.
So the wolf turned instead to himself, needing to make the pain register, needing to feel something other than the hunger. He grabbed at his leg and sunk his teeth in until the taste of blood filled his mouth. It was the wrong kind of blood, sour on his tongue, but it brought with it the kind of pain that consumes the mind. So he dug his teeth in more and more, bringing as much pain as he could before his survival instincts finally kicked in and made him stop.
And then the hunger was back, as fierce as ever. And the wolf limped forward, fresh blood warming the floor around him, and threw himself again at the walls, knowing they would never come down but still having to try, again and again, until finally he was so pained and exhausted and dizzy from loss of blood that he collapsed unconscious in a corner, passed out for a few blissful hours until the hunger's pull awoke him and he had to start all over again.
When Remus came to the next day, his entire body ached with a pain that would have made him scream if he hadn't been so used to it. He tried to open his eyes, but found that only one would obey.
"Madam Pomfrey," he called, his heart racing with sudden panic. Had he scratched one of his eyes out last night?
The matron came rushing over, pulling back the privacy curtain to find Remus sitting halfway up in his bed. "Remus?" she asked.
"My—my eye." He reached up to feel it, his fingers finding a lump of gauze.
"Oh, yes, that. It seems you had a go at your face last night. The eye will be fine—I've made a potion to keep out infection—but, well…there will be some scarring around it."
Remus swallowed. He'd taken pains to hide his scars as best he could, but he couldn't hide one on his face. Most wounds and scars could be healed by potions, or at least concealed—but werewolf bites and scratches were cursed, unable to be helped by anything. If he'd attacked his face, he'd show the proof of it for the rest of his life.
Madam Pomfrey brought over some chicken soup, forcing Remus to eat the whole bowl. He'd have preferred something sweet, chocolate maybe, but of course he didn't tell Pomfrey that. He definitely didn't want to be eating something with meat, not after spending a whole night lusting after it. Remus's memories from his night as the wolf were as blurry and incomplete as always, but he remembered the thirst for flesh quite well, and it made him sick to his stomach.
"You sure you don't want to try my idea next moon?" Pomfrey asked. She'd offered to have the gamekeeper bring some dead animals up to Remus's shack before his transformations so he'd have something other than himself to snack on.
Remus shook his head. "The wolf won't go for animal meat," he said. "If anything, it'll just make him hungrier." He never referred to the wolf as himself, even though he knew all too well that they were one and the same.
After Remus finished the soup she shoved down his throat, Pomfrey set to work changing his wrappings and bandages. She applied a fresh poultice of dittany and powdered silver to any wounds that were still bleeding, her brow furrowed with concentration. Finally she turned to the wound covering his eye, and gingerly began unwrapping the dressings from around his head.
"Madam Pomfrey?" Remus asked timidly once she'd finished. "Can I see it?"
Pomfrey hesitated for a second; then, reluctantly, she conjured a little mirror and handed it to Remus. He held it up to his face, bracing himself.
There was a large, deep scar running diagonally from just above his nose down to his cheek, crossing over his swollen-shut right eye. He couldn't help but grimace at the sight of it.
"The swelling will be down by tomorrow," Pomfrey said, "and the scar won't look quite as red once the irritation is gone; but I can't make it go away."
Remus swallowed, handing her back the mirror. "Right. Thank you." He imagined his friends' questioning faces when he returned with a huge scar across his face, his mother's gasp of horror when she saw what he'd done to himself while he was away. He imagined what it would be like to be reminded of his wolfish self every time he glanced in a mirror.
Madam Pomfrey gave him another poultice to hold over his eye and told him, as she always did, to let her know if he needed anything. Then she ducked around the privacy curtain and vanished, leaving Remus alone to finally let the tears stream out from his single open eye.
