X - Maraud
14th September 1997
The old shack creaked with must and dust and old memories.
Despite sharing the blood curse with Lupin now, Snape still had to suppress a shiver at the thought of the teenage werewolf's jaws as the creature had come inches away from biting him, before James Potter had lunged in to the shack after him to drag him back out to safety.
Fortunately he did not have to wait long by himself. Footsteps echoed along the passage, and his tatter-robed accomplice emerged into the room.
"Any further news?" Lupin enquired of him, brushing the cobwebs from his old blue travelling cloak.
"Of course you have heard that the Golden Trio broke into the Ministry back on the first of this month? Well, it turns out they managed to steal an old locket from Umbridge. Phineas Nigellus heard them talking of it. I am certain that it is the locket that the Dark Lord wanted me to find in the Black's House...so I have failed him on that task. Very fortunately, though, I think..."
"Do you know what they want with the locket?"
"I cannot tell you, I'm afraid, all I can say is it is vital to Potter's mission. You have taken all the Wolfsbane?"
Lupin nodded, somewhat anxiously. "Yes, every single dose."
"Very good. Now we must get to Hyde Park…"
They apparated to a quietish backstreet near the famous West London park. They stood around under the shadow of a tree for a while, watching the black taxis filtering in and out the driveways of a nearby hotel, their diesel engines rattling above the more distant hum of the city.
Lupin chewed his lip nervously, and wondered if he could get away with taking a calming draught. Snape would probably advise him against it, however...His wolf needed all the worked-up aggressiveness he could get tonight…
They waited as close to dusk as they dared, before moving back into the cover of a heavily planted front garden, casting silencing charms all around them.
Snape could smell the sharp scent of Lupin's sweat, the fear in his dilated pupils; and noticed that his irises were just starting to turn bronze.
"As much as you love the glory of battle, Lupin, do try not to make this go the whole twelve rounds, for I have left the Carrows in charge for the evening, and I'd really rather go back to a school that doesn't have disfigured, dismembered, or any other kind of mortally wounded students in it..."
"I shall try my...very...best..." he managed to groan out just before the transformation took him.
Bayswater Road was quite busy with people and a constant stream of evening traffic, so they galloped as quickly as they could across it and flung themselves over the iron railings into the dense shrubbery of the park.
One man sat alone on a bench outside the front of the pub opposite thought he'd spotted two dark animal shapes the size of lions barrelling across the road between the buses. He frowned down into his pint glass.. (He thought it had tasted a bit weird... Perhaps the pumps needed cleaning out, or maybe it was well past time he thought about getting something to eat…?)
x-X-x
The park was considerably busier than the Heath had been, and Snape wondered what the hell the wolves were thinking to choose it as the spot for a whole city meet of bloodthirsty magical beasts… But as they neared the large lake in the centre of the park his eyes picked out an island in the middle of it.
There were a few groups of young men and leggy teenage boys loitering and lounging in groups on the grass and on benches by the lakeside, smoking roll-ups that were most definitely not entirely tobacco.
As they got to the water's edge, they aimed for a spot where there were no people. The sandy gravel paths smelt intensely of geese and their shit, and a thousand other smells of the city, from drips of ice cream dropped by tourists earlier on in the day, to the subtleties of expensive boutique perfumes and scuffed shoe leather...
Without hesitation Lupinwolf walked into the water up to his white underbelly fur and then began to swim across. After a slight hesitation (the fetid green water stank of rodents and waterfowl...) Snape waded in, too. The water was not as chill as he was expecting to it me. He paddled with all four legs, just about keeping up with Lupin, who was moving swifter and more silently through the water, and had obviously done this quite a few times before.
The island in the centre of the late wasn't large, smaller and narrower than the size of a football pitch certainly, but it was densely covered in trees and unlit by lamps. The two werewolves pulled themselves up onto a pleasure boat jetty and shook their bodies from side to side to fling the water from their fur in showers, two wet, spiky black shapes glistening in the silver of the moonlight.
Lupinwolf glanced back at him then, his jaw hanging open and tongue hanging out from the exertion of swimming. He let out a quiet whine, his bronze eyes glistening.
This was it, then…
He looked back towards the trees, and slipped soundlessly into the undergrowth.
There were upwards of seventy wolves already there, including Greyback, who was lolling casually on a raised mound at one end of the clearing. His hulking form set him apart from the others, his orange eyes gleaming malignantly in the gloom. A few of the wolves were busy licking blood and feathers off their chops, some goose carcasses were scattered around; hors d'oeuvres for the wolves who had arrived at the meeting early. Clumps of loose white and grey feathers drifted around the dusty ground.
As Lupin stuck the front half of his body into the clearing Greyback sat up on his haunches and gave a low rumbling warning growl. The other wolves shifted in unison, slinking back to the edges of the clearing, leaving space in the centre for the challenger and the Alpha.
Snape moved to the side, next to a small group of unkempt sandy and grey wolves and sat down on his haunches. He watched as Lupinwolf shut his jaw, his whole body stiffening, his tail raising and his ears shifting back…
Greyback stood up on all fours, his hackles raising and head lowering, baring a huge mouth of sharp yellowed teeth.
The two werewolves crept forwards, stalking, until they were around ten foot away from one another. Then-
With a lupine snarl Greyback sprang, flinging forwards as did Lupinwolf, and the pair of them clashed together. Jaws snapped and lunged and snarled, flecks of spit and slobber and blood flying, clawed paw-hands slashing and grabbing at fur and flesh.
Lupinwolf kept twisting and turning to the side, trying to grab Greyback at the side of the neck, but each time the Alpha flung his head back, just too quick for him, or their jaws would clash together in a tangle of sharp teeth. After many attempts Snape could tell the frustration was definitely mounting, the snatching and the snarling becoming increasingly frustrated and frenzied on both sides. The wolves tore and bit at each others' flanks and faces wherever they could, until they were both bleeding from multiple small wounds.
Just then Greyback caught his challenger's upper front leg in his jaws and bit down with a loud, sharp crack. Lupinwolf let out a loud yelp and sprang back. Greyback grinned at the noise, and some wolves in the crowd whined and yelped in anxiety.
Lupinwolf's front leg looked badly broken, it was twisted and hanging uselessly - it was clear that he could no longer put weight on it, so the creature stood up on his hind legs instead, grimacing, his tail lowered...almost between his legs.
Sensing victory, Greyback advanced with a terrible toothy grin that Snape thought could easily compare to the Dark Lord for sheer level of radiated evil...
Damn it Lupin...Thought Snapewolf desperately. Don't give up now...You still have your magic…! He gave a frustrated growl.
If only he could bloody well talk…
Lupin shot him back a wild glance, inexplicably, just as if he had heard him. The werewolf then turned back to his opponent, raising his head and remaining healthy limb a little higher and closed his eyes meditatively...
The sudden glow and resulting crack took everybody by surprise, wolves flinched back. One moment their Alpha had been bearing down on his challenger, his jaws ready to claim their victim, and the next second he had been flung across the clearing in a flash of white light, and left whimpering on his back, a deep slash wound across his stomach...
Lupinwolf flung himself across the clearing and fell upon Greyback, and in one bloodied lunge ripped out his throat.
After the Alpha had wheezed out his last rattling breath there was a long and heavy silence filled only with the sounds of nesting geese and a distant siren of a police car. Drifts of loose white feathers twirled noiselessly in the air.
After a moment of getting his breath back, Lupinwolf turned and surveyed the other wolves in the clearing quietly and triumphantly, his shoulders hunching from the pain of his arm, he whined at them plaintively, then slumped down onto his side, exhausted. The other wolves gazed back at him.
There was a movement at the edge of the clearing, then; it was the really old, grizzled wolf. He stepped forward towards Lupinwolf, sniffing at his jaw, then licking gently at it. He let out a long howl, and several others joined in.
The wolves took it in turns to approach the conqueror deferentially, licking gently at his jaw and wagging their tails. None of them bore any regard to the motionless mound of fur at the edge of clearing, its blood matting black into the silver-white pelt.
Finally Snape felt he should step forward, too. He followed by example, licking Lupinwolf's jaw and the fellow wolf pulled his ears back, peering up at him sheepishly through a bleariness of pain, as if to apologise about forgetting about his magic ability until the last moment…
Ten points to Gryffindor, Alpha… Thought Snape wryly.