An Absence of Humanity
We can find sorrow in words and in music, but the real pain comes in complete silence.
Basically, it's one of Remus's transformations that show his coping mechanisms, the weight of his burden, and what it means to be a werewolf.
Word count (including A/N): 2228
Written: April-May 2018
The roots dug into his side, but the pain was just an unnecessary reminder of what was to come. His feet dragged on the earthy ground, but it was fine. He was early, so he could be as slow as he wanted.
Even at the early hour, Remus Lupin's head throbbed. It was like a hammer clanging against his skull, the sound reverberating through his head. But it wasn't a hammer or a large piece of wood … it wasn't even a frying pan or one of Remus's spell books. It was his heartbeat.
It beat hard and fast, slicing straight through any attempts at contemplation. It could only get worse.
Ba-thump.
Ba-thump.
Ba-thump.
Soon the long tunnel was behind the boy, and he reached the trapdoor, sliding the latch with trembling fingers.
Ba-thump.
He got in. The shrieking shack was in tatters after years of use: blood stained the walls and claw marks cruelly blemished the once smooth wood. Just as the scars blemished Remus's skin.
Ba-thump.
He was in the next room now - a small corridor. This wasn't as bad. The Wolf knew that this space was long and thin and tight, so the Wolf stayed away.
Ba-thump.
He reached the staircase: huge and beautiful. Each step was shallow and comfortable, and it was wide, stretching up towards the heavens.
Ba-thump.
Remus started up it, the familiar heavy weight of each step burdening him once again. Last month had been especially bad, but still the wolf had not dared to venture upstairs, with the wards Remus had placed upon it.
Ba-thump.
Remus really didn't want the wolf up here.
Ba-thump.
He reached the landing in the fourth floor, legs screaming in protest. He stopped to push open the door to yet another corridor.
Ba-thump.
Finally at the end room. Remus always locked this room. He didn't want the Wolf to get to this room.
Ba-thump.
The room was untouched by everything but time and rats. High, gothic windows ran along one wall, coated in grime; the peeling wallpaper was patterned with swirling shapes; the mouldy carpet was thick and spacious; the worn sofa was a faded shade of warm burgundy.
Ba-thump.
In the centre of the room was a grand piano, dark and dusty from years of neglect. Whoever had once lived here had clearly been wealthy: the dining room was grand, the staircase spiralling high to give different floors, and this room just spoke of reverence and majesty.
Ba-thump.
They say time destroys everything eventually, but werewolves are much more efficient. Because of a werewolf, Remus Lupin had morphed from a cheerful, happy young lad into a quiet, closed boy. That same bloodthirsty monster had turned Remus's eyes from a clear blue-green to a haunted honey-gold. A different werewolf (one which Remus was very familiar with) had scarred his skin until his back was a network of crisscrossing marks, his right shoulder a mess of marred flesh, and his limbs looked like the well-used scratching post of a particularly ferocious cat.
Ba-thump.
Remus tried not to think of things like that. It was hard anyway: his heartbeat was becoming more erratic, and his head ached worse than ever. He had broken into a cold sweat that ran down his face, his neck, his back. Throwing his cloak onto the sofa, he stepped forwards. It was a burden to move his legs, but he did so until he sat in the piano stool.
Ba-thump.
Now his thoughts sunk into the past.
He was nine. He sat on the stool. It was rather high for him, but several books lay beneath his feet to keep him at the right height.
The sheet of music was like a language. If it was, he was fluent in it after years of isolation and time to practise. His fingers lay on the keys, gently caressing each one. They were black and white. If only all the world was like that - most things seemed to be a murky grey in between.
His fingers danced to the metronome of his heartbeat, and his mind waltzed with it. Soon enough, the tune was his own and the sheet was forgotten: he played out his soul for the world to hear … but not many knew the language of music. The tune spoke of sorrow and joy, of fear and hope. Each note struck a chord in his heart, resounding through his mind. The music lifted his burden, if only for the duration of the tune. But this was his tune. It could last forever.
Without words, without expressions or sign, Remus managed to speak. He spoke of his whole life, laying it out piece by piece … or note by note. All the triumphs, the failures, all the laughs and fears … they poured out of him as his fingers leapt across the piano.
For once, without friends and running out of books to read, Remus Lupin was perfectly content and happy. A great weight lifted briefly of his shoulders as he played for hours on end, well into the night.
Of course, this time, fifteen-year-old Remus only had until moonrise to do this, so he sat and he played. He didn't care what he played - it could've been anything. But it was most likely his own tune that he had played all those years ago when he was still lonely and friendless. The tune that bridged the gap of the broken pieces of his mind. It healed his desolate heart and killed his jitters. As he sunk further into the embrace of music, his headache softened and his heartbeat worked for him as a mournful metronome.
Of course, he had to stop soon enough. He had become too engrossed in his melody, and moonrise crept up to him and smothered him, stealing him from his precious music. He stiffened on the stool, and began to change.
First his fingers and toes curled into long claws, his feet squashed and stretched. He bit back a scream.
Ba-thump.
His bones stretched painfully and his skin was pulled over the elongated limbs. His clothes were ripped off his thin frame. This time Remus did scream. A scream that cut through the waves of music that remained, that sliced through the air.
Ba-thump.
His internal organs shifted and changed inside, and the scream turned into a raw yell, chilling and tortured. It felt like his insides were on fire and being beaten over and over with a club.
Ba-thump.
Fur sprouted all over him and he twisted in the piano stool, trying to drag himself away from the instrument.
Ba-thump.
The Wolf within him crept towards his larynx and throat - the scream cut off and was replaced by a desperate choking sound. It was as if he was being squeezed by the throat and then as soon as it came, the crushing pressure was released and the scream finished with a howl.
Ba-thump.
The howl only became more pronounced and pained as his skull morphed so that he had a long snout. He had the body if of a wolf. But he wasn't yet the Wolf.
Ba-thump.
Ba-thump.
A silence full of sickening relief.
Ba-thump.
Ba-thump.
Ba-thump.
In a sudden overwhelming rush, there were more anguished howls of pain, but Remus couldn't even feel himself opening his mouth. All he was aware of was pain. Torturous, crushing, shattering pain, like shards of glass were being pushed into his brain, like each of his memories was replaced with swords that turned and killed him from inside out.
BA-THUMP BA-THUMP BA-THUMP
And his heartbeat was like a bird flinging itself at the bars of its cage.
BA-THUMP BA-THUMP BA-THUMP
Loud and desperate.
BA-THUMP BA-THUMP BA-THUMP
Couldn't even think anymore.
BA-THUMP BA-THUMP BA-THUMP
His human mind slipping through fingers like sand.
BA-THUMP BA-THUMP BA-THUMP
And then…
Just with that, the orchestra of pain stilled. The erratic beat of his heart settled. Remus Lupin was gone. The Wolf had come to play.
A new room. The Wolf knew that. New smells, new objects. First it paced. No prey. No blood. He could smell human, though. The same human that he always smelt. The human that was never there, but always had been, and it confused the Wolf every time.
He threw himself against a wall. And again. And again
He needed to get out. He needed blood and flesh. He wanted to taste human meat.
The Wolf felt no pain. He continued to ram his shoulder into to wall. It wouldn't give, as usual. The hard object in the centre of the room was a strange shape. He smelt human all over it, so yet again he threw himself against one of the legs.
It was sharp at the corner, and the Wolf's muzzle scraped against it, leaving a deep cut. A warm, sticky liquid ran down his snout, over his wet nose and into his mouth. Human blood. The Wolf had human blood.
He went for his shoulder first. The right one was in such a convenient position, so the Wolf gnawed at his own human flesh and snarled in content at the sweet, tangy, metallic taste that ran over his tongue.
He leaped upwards towards the black thing. As high as he could. The surface changed as he stood, as his paws skirted the white things. They made noises. Loud and clear and so very unpleasant. He scrambled to get off, claws scraping the keys as he struggled, until he was finally on solid ground. Quiet ground.
He tilted his head and howled at where he knew the moon would be, had he not been in this prison. A howl of triumph, for there was blood on the floorboards, and it tasted very human.
He howled that triumphant howl that echoed throughout the building, carrying to Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, shocking the creatures in the Forbidden Forest and making the humans flinch.
When Remus woke, it was early in the morning. He lay on the floor, completely naked and breathing heavily. His right shoulder hurt like hell, but other than that he seemed undamaged. Good. He turned his head, blinking the spurs out of his eyes and looked at the piano. Not too bad. Just scratched up. He sighed in relief.
Pushing himself up very slowly, he lifted the discarded cloak from its place on the sofa and wrapped it around himself.
As a wave of nausea broke over him, he steadied himself on the piano, a few clashing notes escaping the instrument. He looked down and saw that the black and white keys were splashed with blood. The tips of his fingers were yet again marred. After using his claws, his delicate fingers were cut up beyond belief at the tips, and his nails were cracked and bloody.
The red liquid was a great slash across the black and white of the majestic piano. Some had dried from last night - or that morning - and some of the keys were crusted with it.
The shack lay in a silence. Not a pleasant silence … it was the silence that came upon a battlefield after every soldier had been slaughtered; the silence that fell upon a house when one member of the family was gone forever; the silence after a bomb dropped - the silence of sorrow, of mourn, of loss and pain. A silence a world away from the haunting music from only hours before.
Remus Lupin sat on the piano stool and found himself unable to make his fingers dance again. He couldn't immerse himself in the music, sink into the melody.
The silence was loud. It filled the room and it was suffocating and overwhelming and huge. It was so deafening that Remus Lupin fled from the room, ignoring the ache of his shoulder. He sat on the bottom stair of the staircase and let himself drown in the absence of noise. There were no laughs from his friends, no scalding shouts from the professors, no music to wallow in. Remus fell into the void of silence, and although the sun had risen, the dark closed in.
Because there was no cure to lycanthropy. No way to measure silence or pain, and those were the things that dominated the young werewolf's mind. It was perfectly reasonable, Remus assured himself, because he had felt pain that no other Hogwarts student had. Even with three wonderful friends, a fellow prefect and study partner, and some understanding professors, he felt utterly alone. They might know his condition, they might have heard rumors of the extreme pain, but they didn't know it first-hand.
Even with caring friends, Remus Lupin felt more alone than he ever had before. He was without music, without the rejuvenating laughs of friendship, without the crinkling of chocolate wrappers, without even the sound of pages turning in a book. Without anything that made him feel human.
Time destroys everything eventually, but werewolves are much more efficient. They can ruin the lives of others, and always destroy themselves in the end.
Next chapter coming soon!