Chapter 5: Remus and Angua

Summary:

The werewolves converse. Evening of the day after the full moon.

Chapter Text

Vimes had learned about Roundworld from a previous headache which had involved bank thieves who'd never heard of the Thieves' Guild but had pocket-sized gonnes. If the golems hadn't been at the bank—the gonnes had chipped the golems before they reached the robbers, but they honorably captured the men instead of killing them. Then they'd been turned over to Vetinari who ignored their origins and sentenced them to the hemp fandango. Somehow the multiverse had shifted before they reached the scaffold and they'd disappeared. Roundworld, the wizards had muttered. It had to be another world. They could have disappeared only to another world, and Ponder Stibbons had calculated that, as strange as it seemed, the equations showed the world they vanished to was round.

Remus woke in the evening sensing the pain of an unusually bad shift. The new slashes and slices were more than typical, but today he felt the deep ache of broken bones also. It was strange—and then he opened his eyes and realized again why he was so disoriented. Angua was sitting patiently beside him. She handed him a rib of roast pork, its skin crackling and dripping with juice, as soon as she saw he was awake.

"Roundworld," she muttered. "The wizards explained. They have no idea why your - world - collided with ours, but I think it's what saved you. They can't explain why people don't fall off, but I don't care." She spat. "It's magic, and I hate it."

The roil of anger had risen from her when she said wizards, which played badly for him. But—he was curious and if it would distract her – he'd spent weeks talking to werewolves much more likely to kill him. He was an operative, even this close to a change. He crunched down the first rib and she handed him another. He'd never had anything so delicious.

"You don't think werewolves are magic?"

"Of course we're not magic—we're natural born monsters!"

"Born?" Even though he was still in deep pain as his body sewed itself together, Remus would say anything to distract her from the topic of magic. Besides, he was fascinated. Living with the curse, but in a family—it couldn't help but be better.

"Of course born." Her smell turned bitter. "I come from a "noble house" in Uberwald—that's hundreds of miles here, forests and cold. I liked the forests," she sounded wistful. "The only good thing about Uberwald are the trees and the clean air. My dear family—my father is Baron Guye von Uberwald. My mother is Lady Serafine." Contempt poured from her. What was that all about? He spoke without thought.

"Wouldn't a family of werewolves support each other through the full moons?"

It was what he'd always wanted—family to share the change with him. Family to understand how muscles rip and bones crunch. The Marauders had helped, for a few years, friends who gamboled with him in the forest. Friends whose illegal, unregistered, underage Animagi forms allowed them to slip from human to animal to human again without pain. He'd envied them the rapid body shifts, even as he marveled at the years they'd practiced to give him companionship. He missed those days more than he could say. As a teen, he'd never thought about what might happen when they graduated. He'd assumed they'd always be together.

Then came the betrayal by his best friend, the deaths of his three other best friends, Sirius's imprisonment for over a decade, and then his dangerous escape. The shocking discovery of the real traitor, with Sirius still unable to prove his innocence because Peter had escaped. His best mate had been a prisoner in a dark house, and finally died when he tried to fight the Death Eaters in the Ministry. Sirius' fall through the veil would never leave his memory. But parents who understood him and didn't spend years dragging him to healers trying to reverse the irreversible—that had to be so much better than the alternative.

She snorted. "Not my family. But you—werewolves aren't born on Roundworld?"

"No." Why should he tell her about the attack—he'd done his best to forget it. On the other hand, she was the only person who might understand. "You have to be—bitten. I was a child." He heard her gasp, and rolled over to face her.

"Gods." She hesitated. "But then—you don't have to live with—the one who—changed you?"

"Sometimes, if no one will take you in. You're lucky to get away with only being changed and not killed. Feral werewolves live in packs, and some who've been bitten can only find places with the packs—anyway, I didn't have to live with them. The rest of us—live as best we can in society, trying to hide it." Now he smelled his own anger. "I was changed when I was four. I lived with my family—my father dragged me to healer after healer, legitimate and not, trying to—make me normal."

"Huh. We have families here, but—" he could smell the twisted red-green-black of anger and pain. Angua shuddered, hesitated. "My family really are monsters. My mother is a high-society bitch, and my father spends so much time in his fur he can scarcely talk anymore." She shut up abruptly and leaned back against the wall of his cell.

He wondered about siblings, but didn't dare ask. She continued. "Oh, Offler's teeth, it doesn't matter if I tell you. You're the only person who would understand. Carrot knows, but he can't understand from the inside—but my brother killed my sister."

"Ohh," He breathed out. He started to touch her arm, stopped. His arms still ached, but also—touch meant more than words to werewolves; not good here with a woman who wasn't his wife.

"Yes. She wasn't a full bi-morph, you understand?" He shook his head. "You and me—we're bimorphs, we change from human to wolf. Elsa—couldn't change. She was stuck as a human. Wolfgang is, was, a purist—a species supremacist. He despised her and he killed her. He drove away my other brother."

"Your other brother was always human, too?"

"No, he was the other way around. He was always a wolf. Wolfgang could have killed him, but he was satisfied to drive him away. Andrei works as a sheepdog, and I'm not even sure where he is now."

The gold-red color of pride and anger filled her. "Wolfgang's dead now, though. Mr. Vimes killed him."

"Mister - ?"

"You met him—no, I think you were still in too much pain. The Commander came in and talked to me for a second. He's the one who told me he thought you came from Roundworld. Whatever that is."

"My world"—still hard to believe he was on another planet—"is beautiful in places, too. Scotland is cool and rainy."

"Sounds nice." She shifted tones again, and he realized he forgotten, dammit, she was an Auror. "So why don't you tell me about the magic?"

Damn, damn, damn. Alright, he could buy a little time. "Why don't you tell me about my wife?"

"I suppose that's fair—what's her name, anyway?"

"Dora. How is she?"

He was right, she'd decided to treat a prisoner fairly—if he was a prisoner—the door to the cell was open.

Angua stretched her back. She went on. "The woman with the pink hair is at the Lady Sybil—she's breathing well and they've treated her injuries. She isn't nearly as bad off as you are. She was unconscious when they found her, and has these really strange injuries. I was told they look like she'd been cut with a burning sword. You know what could have caused that?" He didn't say anything.

"You're going to have to tell us sooner or later."

"Why? Am I a prisoner here?"

Angua was startled. "No. We brought you to the Watch House because it was the closest place with help. We put you in the cell because it was the largest place for Igor to work." She paused, obviously considering. "Mr. Vimes isn't keeping you a prisoner, but—see, you stink like wizards. And I could see the octarine around you. Wizards haven't had wars here for ages, but they nearly destroyed everything. The both of you were nearly dead—"

"We were fighting a war." His own bitterness stank. "A war with evil wizards who believed that they were the only people who mattered. They would have killed everyone, Mu—non-magical people as well as magical. We had sent away the younger students, but the oldest students insisted on fighting with us—"

"Students? You were fighting in a school? Are you a teacher, then? Weren't there any soldiers, or at least any trained fighters?"

He laughed out loud. "Oh, we are trained fighters. My wife, for one, is better than I am—" he choked. "She shouldn't have been there! I told her to stay safe, told her to stay with Teddy! I didn't know she was there until I saw Bellatrix and heard her scream. I couldn't get to her—Dolohov was on me and I couldn't get to her in time, I couldn't and then—" he flopped to his back. "Then Dolohov killed me; I thought he killed me. He hit me with a killing curse—I saw it coming—." Remus struggled to explain to Angua. "He raised his wand and hit me with the type of spell that is an Unforgiveable. I saw it coming, but I couldn't block it, and then I felt my chest explode. Then I was here," he growled, voice twisted and grim.

"As to whether we are the evil wizards, Dora was killed—was attacked—by her own aunt, because she wasn't a pure-blood. Bellatrix's sister—Dora's mother—was from one of the highest pure-blood family, but she married a Muggle. A non-magical person. Dora was only a half-blood, so Bella hated her, and was even more disgusted when Dora married a werewolf. I told her I was too old, too poor, and too dangerous, but she twisted me around her finger, flashed that beautiful hair—I should not have married her." Angua silently gave him a large rib and he ate it, eyes closed.

"Dora's injuries were from a wand. She was dueling—I couldn't see whether she'd landed anything on Bella. I hope she did. Yes, there are spells that burn. You only use them when you duel to kill. We were fighting for our lives, our friends' lives, our students' lives—they shouldn't have been there in a war either, but they were."

"Why were you dangerous to your wife?" Angua had inexplicably changed topic, with a voice she was trying to make mild. Woman, you haven't interviewed many werewolves, have you? Humans can't hear those vibrations, but I can. You are so angry you want to punch me. He was furious.

"Why was I dangerous? I'm a fucking werewolf, why do you think I'm dangerous? I couldn't get any wolfsbane - you might call it something different, but you know it's the only way. You and me, we turn into raving monsters every twenty-eight days—have to lock ourselves away so we won't kill anyone!"

Angua was all the way out of the cell. "Stay there, Remus, or I will lock the door, and I don't think you're strong enough to break out yet." She took a deep breath. "At the full, I turn to wolf and lose most of my human thinking, but I spend the night chasing chickens. That's all. I'm not - the Disc is not - I'm sorry for your world."

He caught the odor of her pity for him, and suddenly understood what she hadn't said. Merlin. How was it possible?

Werewolves on the Disc didn't have to kill people.