A/N: Update! Thanks to anyone who is still reading this and keeping this story alive! I am really sorry for leaving this story and Secret Room on hiatus for so long. I really, really do intend to finish both stories, no matter what.
Vaguely, Remus remembered this feeling. Waking up with small slivers of winter sunlight across his face, a warm body beneath him, a hand pressed firmly on the small of his back. It had been a long time since he had this luxury.
Sirius…
The Order's attack! Today!
He suddenly had an awful feeling about today.
"Come on men, eat that breakfast faster," Fenrir grumbled from his corner, hand shielding the piercing rays of the winter sun. Remus lay, bleary-eyed, against his shoulder.
"Not hungry?" Fenrir queried. Remus shook his head silently in return, stomach churning. He felt sick, and the glaring white snow was not helping a single bit.
"Me neither," the man replied- but Remus knew their indifference to food was not due to the same reasons.
The pack started on its weary path a few minutes later.
Night descended as soon as the pack set up camp at the target location. The scene would have been beautiful, Remus thought, if not for the events that were to follow. The snowfall had lessened, leaving the black sky open for the stars to glisten; the small campfires set a wondrous, healthy glow to the pale ground. Just down the hill, the cottage and its unsuspecting inhabitants seemed to be chortling and aglow with life.
He heard a crunch of snow next to him. Sure enough, there stood the large frame of Fenrir. Remus caught a cry in his throat, and tried to stop the emotions from bubbling over in his chest. He wished that he would stop counting the remaining seconds he had with the man.
But, oh-! If only he could stop time, and leave them standing in the frigid cold like this, for all eternity. How he hated being so emotional, being so weak-kneed. He shivered as fingers grazed the side of his hand…
"Cruciatus!"
An unholy howl sounded throughout the camp, followed by several others. Curses and spells tore through the once unmoving night, finding their targets.
The Order is here!
"I'll get Greyback!" a distinct voice yelled.
A woman with bubblegum pink hair sprinted through the messy crowd of werewolves and wizards. Fenrir caught sight of her, and snarled animalistically, pushing Remus behind him protectively, as he adopted the stance of a predator.
"Remus, dear!" the woman, Tonks, cried out, as she started her battle with Fenrir.
It was an obvious plea for assistance. Remus simply stood there, in confusion. His shaking right hand was grasping the handle of his wand, but it lacked the strength to draw it out. It wasn't an issue of whether he was going to blow his cover. It was an issue of who he should hurt, and who he should protect.
"Dear!" Tonks shrieked as she missed a near fatal blow from Fenrir. He seemed almost impermeable to magic, so powerful, so bloodthirsty- just like a monster. He roared loudly, knowing his triumph over the petite, helpless witch was almost secured.
I-I can't live this life, forever. The dream will end itself when the year does.
I'm…not a monster. I have a wife, and a child, a normal life waiting for me back home. He doesn't. We're not the same.
Remus drew his wand like a sword from his pocket. Weakly, he pointed to the turned back of Fenrir. His hands were shivering so badly from cold, from fright; he could hardly get a proper aim. He licked his dry lips, getting ready to cast the Cruciatus curse.
"Well, I thought you'd never!" Tonks yelled. Remus lowered his wand, startled, losing his nerve at her sudden addressing- but it turned out that she was referring to Kingsley and some of the other members. The tide of the battle was turned immensely against Fenrir. The overwhelming experience and expertise of the rest were to be his undoing.
"Let's go!" a younger voice suddenly cried out next to Remus, as a pair of hands jolted him roughly away from the scene.
Harry? Ron, Hermione- what are they doing here!
"Wait-! Please, let me-" Remus pleaded, felt the disjointed words fly out of his mouth, as he continued looking on in horror at the battle against Fenrir. The monster seemed to be subsiding, under the relentless attack of a dozen or more experienced Aurors. Collapsing, drowning, bleeding his way into the melting snow under their feet.
They're going to kill him.
The rest of the werewolves were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps lying somewhere, wrecked, on the cold ground. Dead. Fled. Betrayed.
A glint of a shiny object caught the glitter of the stars. Silver. An Auror held a large chunk of it in his hand, grinning almost maniacally.
"Such a beautiful metal to behold, isn't it!" he spat viciously into Fenrir's face, before bringing it down to it. Fenrir immediately shielded his face with his arm, and was rewarded with a sharp searing burn that went past the skin, into the muscle. He fought back a yelp of pain, and let out an anguished roar instead, as he felt the metal rush through his veins, clouding his vision.
He stumbled. Collapsed.
And wrenched Remus' heart back, on the way down.
"Fenrir!" Remus shouted, forgetting who he was, where he was, what he was supposed to be. He called out the monster's first name in front of his supposed allies, friends, his wife. He broke free of the trio's grasp with surprising strength, and forced himself through the Aurors without a shard of self-consciousness. He felt as if he had lost all control, lost his mind; but he had never felt so much stamina, so much emotion gushing through him before.
He hauled Fenrir to his side, with all his remaining strength, and moved as fast as he could into the cover of the dense forest. Spells shot all around his body, grazing past the top of his head, barely missing him. Behind him, various infuriated and confused voices called out, trying to tap into his conscience.
"Lupin! What're you-"
But in a war, no ally is forever.
"Stop him!"
Even more spells shot his way. Fenrir was a dead weight on his body. He wasn't even sure if the man was still alive.
"All of you, stop shooting at my husband!"
At that, Remus turned to look behind, wide-eyed. The spells ceased. Tonks stood in front of the Aurors, arms outstretched, as if shielding the area with Remus behind her.
"Please- let him explain himself first," she said weakly, as if on the verge of breaking down into a sobbing wreck. The Aurors turned to look expectantly at Remus. The trio ran to their side, expecting an explanation, as well.
But the explanation is not one they are waiting to hear.
Remus' eyes swept deftly across his anticipating audience, pausing only to look at his wife. She returned his gaze, sobbing now.
"Well, dear? What do you have to say?"
It would be better left unsaid.
He wanted to say "I'm sorry", but he was too afraid of the consequences.
So, he just tightened his grip on his Alpha, and turned away to shrink back into the cover of darkness, leaving his tearing wife and his confused friends behind.
They did not come after him. Neither the pack nor the Order did.
It was unexpected, but it brought him an odd sense of relief. He had betrayed both parties. Surely, at least one desired to have his head; so this isolation, this silent exile, was a god-given gift of mercy.
But he still had Fenrir to face. Perhaps he would be the harbinger of his punishment.
Still, Remus had tended to him gently all night. He had cast every possible Healing spell he had learnt, and had thus slowly removed the silver from the body. The man was still unconscious, but his heartbeat had returned to a normal, healthy pace. He was to awaken soon.
Remus settled him into a comfortable half-lying position against a tree trunk, and cast a warming spell. Then, he himself leant against the opposite one. He shouldn't touch the man any further. His eyes flickered shut, as exhaustion overwhelmed him.
The winter's silence hung heavy for the next few hours. Then;
"Boy..?" a soft, but deep voice muttered.
"Alpha!" he responded instinctively, without thinking, scrambling to Fenrir's side.
"The rest…" Fenrir groaned, as he propped himself better against the tree.
"Gone," Remus half-whispered to the wind.
Fenrir glared at him, and for a second, the monster danced threateningly behind those eyes again.
"What did you say!"
The previously unconscious man slid forward, and snatched Remus' arm painfully, jerking the smaller man forward.
"I am sick of you letting them get in our way, all the time! No matter what we do, they always have to be involved!"
"That directed to a man who just saved your life!" Remus spat back with surprising bitterness and courage. He knew what he was getting himself into. Fenrir could snap his neck into half any moment, with ease. But he didn't care anymore; he was alone in no-man's-land, no side wanted him, nobody wanted him; there was nothing left to fight for.
"And what difference would that make when I have to face the Dark Lord!" Fenrir roared, getting to his feet. He flung Remus haplessly to the side, fuming, "You're not like them! And they don't want you to be like them!"
"I- I have a wife. I have a child. I'm not like you," Remus sighed from his spot on the ground. How he desired so badly to just lie here in the cold, and be covered by blanket upon blanket of snow. Eventually, he would disappear from the world; become a mere ghost in a distant memory of a lost winter.
"But I, I will also face the Dark Lord with you, Alpha," he continued tiredly, "Blame it on me, everything. Give me up. I wish to burden everyone no further." He bit his lip hard after he finished that last sentence, hating himself for acting so melodramatic and emotional.
He was hauled to his feet.
The two men walked back aimlessly into the white world.
"So we just wait out till that day?" Remus breathed against Fenrir drowsily.
"Yeah. Though I'm pretty sure he's just going to cut that deadline short and come, after what happened to the camp," Fenrir answered, in a nonchalant tone.
Remus pressed himself closer against the warm man, hiding his face in his clothes. He was getting extremely sleepy, but the rising of the morning winter sun was not helping him with the process of going to sleep.
"I'm scared," he whispered wistfully, feeling less like the man he was, and more like a little boy. Fenrir had that sort of effect on him. And so did the image of a pale face, with slit nostrils, vivid red eyes and a serpent's tongue.
Fenrir slid his hands down to a comfortable position on Remus' waist, cocooning him.
"You deserve this, you know," he stated as flatly as he could. He avoided Remus' silent gaze.
"But Fenrir, do you- have you…"
Remus wanted to ask if Fenrir had ever, well, loved, anyone in the romantic sense. It was too hard to imagine. Yet he wanted to convince himself, in what could be the last few hours of his life, that he was spending his time with a man who was capable of some degree of positive emotion, not a monster that thrived off only the emotion of fear.
However, he didn't know how to do it without sounding like a cheesy goofball. So he simply pressed a chaste kiss on his cheek. Then, he withdrew and tentatively chanced a glance at the other's expression.
"It wasn't too long ago."
Fenrir smiled wanly and pressed a kiss, which held back most of its force, on his lips. There was a flash of a smile, the passing of a time in which he was truly just human, no animal, across his face.
Then, it went impassive. The grip on Remus' waist tightened suddenly, hurtfully.
A figure slid from between the shadows of the trees into the winter sunlight. Remus thought that its skin was going to be set ablaze, that it was going to catch fire, scorch, and burn to death; but it didn't. How he wished it did.
"Now, isn't this the sweetest thing?"
A/N: Lack of practice! I hope I haven't lost the personalities of the various characters too badly in this chapter. It may warrant a rewrite. But anyway, thank you for reading, and putting up with my inconsistency in updating!