Work Text
“We’ve actually met before.”
“I’m sorry?”
Remus had barely taken a step over the threshold of the Department and his eyes had not yet found the researcher he was working with.
“No need to apologise. If I recall correctly, you were… you were quite a pleasant child.”
A tall man with a distinctly awkward stance appeared at his side, apparently having just collected a disorganised looking stack of notes from the shelves behind the door. Remus searched him for a trace of promised familiarity, but couldn’t find any. Certainly the man looked too young to have been a teacher while he was in his first few years at Hogwarts, or even one of the few healers he’d encountered off the books as a nine or ten year old.
“You’re Mr Scamander, I take it?” There was barely a few inches between them and Remus was surprised to see a few silvery scars decorating the freckled hand he’d been offered. He shook it awkwardly, wondering if the researcher also spent one night a month trying to chew his own hands and feet off.
“Newt is fine.” He pulled back the hand a little sooner than seemed appropriate and nodded towards the door Remus had entered through. “Not in the office, thank you. There’s a lab on the lower floor and a menagerie in Romsey we’ll be mostly working out of. I hope you don’t mind if we do paperwork there? The noise in the main office is terribly distracting and the lack of real windows is frankly inhumane.”
Understanding that it wasn’t a real question, he followed him through the Department corridors, watching as the stack of papers was unceremoniously stuffed into a scuffed suitcase. Remus had been in the Department for the Regulation of Control of Dangerous Creatures a few times, naturally. For one, his father had worked there through most of his early childhood and of course, he’d had to submit himself to be registered at the end of his school career.
Thankfully, years of wartime and grief had separated him from the misery of unemployment in his late teens and early twenties. Now that the conflicts had settled down, the wizarding world was supposedly free of Voldemort’s influence, and all of his friends were dead (or at least dead to him), reality had come crashing back. For the three years between the death and incarceration of his best friends and his current position waiting outside the door to Beast Division for his new (employer? Research partner? torturer?) acquaintance, he had failed in every endeavour to find paid work in the wizarding world.
What a waste of risking hundreds of children's lives for seven years to go to Hogwarts, only to be forced to work within the muggle world if he wanted to feed and clothe himself. Of course, his ever doting mother and endlessly kind father would be more than willing to lend a hand, a few galleons and a place to stay, but his pride could only take so much.
And so, he’d owled his response to the Prophet advertisement for a paid ‘Research Assistant’ which - in Remus’ expert opinion - seemed to hint very heavily that what they were actually after was a werewolf.
“I take it you passed your apparition exam?” Scamander asked, reappearing in the doorway and setting off towards the lift without acknowledging Remus.
“I did. But I’ve never been over that way, would you mind guiding me?”
The sound of their footsteps melded into the symphony of echoes in the main atrium and the pair pushed through the crowds of preoccupied wizards and witches, out of an available fireplace and into the defaced muggle public toilets.
Once the March sunlight was streaming down upon them, setting Scamander’s auburn hair alight as Remus squinted at him through his eyelashes, he took his offered arm and they disappeared into the ether.
~ * ~
Magic spat the pair out on the edge of a large, overgrown garden wedged between two farmer’s fields. On the north eastern edge was a small building that Remus supposed might have been a house, and a few paces away, a more haphazard structure that resembled a workshed.
“This is a menagerie?” he enquired, trying not to sound doubtful. If there was any disbelief in his voice, Scamander seemed unconcerned and strode swiftly up towards the workshed, leaving Remus to hurry behind him once again.
He stood corrected immediately as Scamander pulled back the heavy wooden door to reveal a magically enlarged room that resembled something between an indoor zoo and a veterinary office. It certainly smelled like a zoo enclosure. The overpowering smell of straw, fur and animal feed hit him in a wave and clung to the fabric of his clothes and in his hair. Scamander led him over to a small, disorganised desk which was pushed under a window to provide some natural light and carefully set his suitcase down upon it. Remus watched him flick at what was perhaps a lock before opening it and pulling out the stack of documents he’d retrieved from the D. D. C.
After a few moments, he glanced up at the younger and noticed him loitering in the doorway and kicked out a chair for Remus to join him.
“I’m sure you were bright enough to read between the lines of the advert?” Scamander muttered, rifling through the papers he’d brought with little care or patience. “I do actually have some research on hinkypunks that it would be incredibly useful to have an additional set of hands for - you know how dangerous bogs can be.”
Remus had little first hand experience of the dangers of bogs, but chose to let Scamander carry on.
“But what I’m
really
into at the moment, is lycanthropes.” For the first time since they had met that day, Scamander looked up and caught Remus’ eyes. He couldn’t help noticing that they were quite like the eyes of Lily Evans. “Of course, you’re well aware of what the Ministry's like at the moment with werewolves. I daresay Greyback has done nothing to help things in recent decades. But someone ought to look into it all properly and I do feel we are lacking in unbiased, or at least favourable, research angles.”
He let the rambling die out and his last sentence hung between them for a few moments before he turned back to the papers.
“Of course, you aren’t obliged. I really would like some help with the hinkypunks.”
“Well, I’m not troubled by the notion of walking around a few bogs. If you’ll have me, it’d be my pleasure. I’d like to see what you’re planning on doing to me first, though, before I agree to any werewolf research - please forgive my hesitancy.”
~ * ~
It was odd, but not unpleasant company. Remus had spent many long weeks walking across various British farmland and woodland in the days before and after his transformation - both to keep himself away from civilisation and to give himself something to do, lest he fall into a well of self pity. Having another person by his side was a welcome change.
He was quite adept at herbology, and knew more than enough about mundane and magical creatures to get by in his school years, but it was nothing on Scamander (or ‘Newt’ as he repeatedly insisted). Unusual though it was, at first, to spend so much time with one person and be asked very little about his personal life, and told very little in return, he began to appreciate how refreshing it was to have something to think about other than the death of his closest allies.
Boggarts and ley lines, bowtruckles and species of wand wood, harvesting of leeches and how to call for various species of mundane birds. His strange (research partner? Friend? Mentor?) employer had plenty to fill their silences. He was rather like James, in that way, Remus supposed. Always with something to say, if the topic tickled him the right way - not to mention fond of a cold morning outside. He still hadn’t officially agreed to let the man conduct any off the books observations or experiments on him at his most vulnerable, but he was warming to the idea. Surely the hands that coaxed red squirrels down from the trees could never do anything too dehumanising.
Presently, they were sat on their haunches, Wellington boots rendered redundant in the still, murky water of the New Forest peatlands. The sunlight was waning behind them and the low streaks of light pierced through the trees, dappling the wet marsh before them in evening gold. Remus’ feet were numb, but he wasn’t willing to complain, and instead focused his attention on the clumps of mud and thick reeds that poked above the surface of the deeper areas, waiting for magical activity.
Newt leaned in slightly, so that their heads were close enough for Remus to catch his low whisper.
“They come out at sunset of course, but I suspect it’s because of the dappling. They can be quite lonely creatures. A facsimile of your kin is sometimes enough.”
Remus didn’t comment, but silently agreed. Particularly as the light tickle of Newt’s conspiratorial mutterings reminded him quite painfully of Sirius’ sarcastic commentary whispered in Remus’ ear at the back of the classroom for his amusement.
“See it?”
Remus’ eyes searched the water’s edges until he found it - the dapple of light that didn’t belong. Slightly more silver than gold, and bobbing almost imperceptibly at the wet banks to their right.
“How will we catch it?”
Newt gave him a rare sideways glance and a small smile.
“Play along,” he muttered, before slowly rising to his full height - out of the sparse remaining sunlight and into the shadow. Remus watched as the little orb seemed to come to life. As the light continued to wane, it was much easier to see the creature fully. The orb was but a fishing lure for an unsuspecting mammal, and the beast responsible for it a true wisp of a thing, thin limbed and almost transparent - holding the ghostly lantern up for Newt to see.
Surely he wasn’t going to follow it?
The odd, somewhat duck-footed walk very much sold the act of an ignorant wanderer following a mysterious light through the woods. He didn’t look back, but Remus caught the hand gesture from just behind his back hinting at him to stay put for now.
Close as they were to the edge of the bog, the murky water was only shin deep - though the ground was still thick and dangerously yielding. The bobbing light of the creature paused here and there, as though waiting for its quarry to catch up as he waded through the water. Even in the fading light, Remus noted Newt’s hand slip into his jacket pocket and presumably grasp his wand.
The hinkypunk, apparently quite convinced that he had the man hook, line and sinker, started to drift over to the left, into deeper waters. The only sound disrupting the gentle breeze across the leaves was the dull squelching as the older wizard ploughed, waist deep, into the bog. Remus craned his neck, leaning slightly to the left from the safety of his rock to see the creature clearly. It had stopped travelling forward and settled just above the water, dangling the lantern almost teasingly before Newt. He slid his wand from his pocket silently and Remus took that as his cue to pull his own out as well. A moment of stillness passed before Newt launched himself forward like a shark out of the water, conjuring a large glass jar around the creature and landing below it just soon enough to catch it before it dropped into the black water. Remus stood as soon as the creature was encased and summoned it to him with a wordless
accio
.
The jar - about the size of a keg and covered in silt and slime - whizzed across the water towards him. Clinging onto it like some bedraggled, wet koala was Newt, grinning from ear to ear at their success. Remus stumbled aside to allow the man and his catch to land on the soft bank in a soggy heap.
“You alright?” he asked, offering a hand to help Newt up. He ignored it, instead kneeling on the ground and wiping some of the silt away from the glass to better see the creature within.
“Brilliant.” The light from the lantern caught the delighted wonder in his eyes, bright against his muddy face. A painful flash of Lily looking delightedly at her husband and son filled his mind and he shook his head as though he could clean his mind's eye like an Etch-a-Sketch. “I’ve never seen one so close before.” Newt's voice pulled him back as he rose to a crouch and beckoned Remus closer. “See the lantern? I could be wrong, but it seems a separate creature entirely.” The hinkypunk looked between its own lantern and the men outside its container with a furious expression on its little ghostly face.
The air was colder now that the sun had set proper and Remus shuddered in his wet clothes. Newt seemed unbothered by his own blatant shivering, still peering intently into the glass. He flicked his wand, drying them both, but he had never been much good at cleaning spells. The result was an itchy cast of dry mud hardening over the both of them.
“Perhaps we’d be more use after a bath and a change of clothes,” Newt suggested, scraping the dirt from his cheeks with his fingernails. “I’ll take our little punk, if you can follow.”
As promised, he disappeared with a sharp
crack
.
~ * ~
With the hinkypunk transferred into a much more acceptable enclosure, the two of them scrubbed 'til their skin was pink and dressed more presentably (i.e. not like two bog creatures themselves), Newt and Remus took on the nightly task of climbing into the enchanted trunk and tending to the animals inside.
Quite apart from the few local specimens kept in the enlarged and repurposed workshed, these creatures were Newt’s own finds. Remus had seen enlarged camping tents and luggage, but never the two combined quite in this way. It was an impressive feat of magic and he suspected it was also quite illegal.
The residents included, but were not limited to, a small herd of overzealous mooncalves, a swooping evil that he claimed to be ‘rehabilitating’, a litter of undocked crups, an ornery niffler and a sinister lethifold that Newt addressed as though it were no more dangerous than a blue tit.
Remus was quite content to help with all but the last and was grateful to be unusually gifted with the patronus charm.
“Had any further thoughts about the upcoming moon?” Newt hedged as he offered chunks of raw minced rabbit into his pen of excited crups.
Remus watched the little puppies flit between gently licking Newt’s freckled fingers and devouring the raw meat with a somewhat queasy expression.
“You’re certain you can contain me?”
“I’m quite positive.” He wasn’t facing him, but Remus could hear the smile in his voice.
“You’re certain you can fend me off?”
“You needn't be concerned.”
Remus snorted. “You must be joking. I must be one of the most dangerous creatures in here.”
He should have been expecting the correction.
“Well, actually, by Ministry standards, werewolves and lethifolds are about equal in levels of danger to human life, so you can take that as assurance, if you need it.”
Remus pressed the tips of his cold fingers into his thighs, willing himself to stay where he was crouched and not get argumentative.
“I won’t goad you into agreeing with me, Remus. If you’re certain you’d rather not, we still have enough time to dose you up with wolfsbane in anticipation.”
Remus’ head snapped up. “You have wolfsbane?”
Newt cast him a rare glance. “I put an advert out looking for an unemployed werewolf. Of course I have wolfsbane. You can’t possibly think I was intending to just let a werewolf run loose between two farmers’ fields?”
Well, he hadn’t suspected that Scamander would be
that
irresponsible as a senior in the D. D. C.’s Beast Division - more that the remote location might include a stone walled basement with a sturdy door he could be locked behind.
“I wasn’t expecting to run loose.” He offered, weakly.
“Surely you weren’t expecting that I would confine you and allow you to mutilate yourself on my watch?” Newt certainly sounded offended and Remus felt his cheeks burn. “I would never be so neglectful.”
“My apologies…”
“Please don’t take the behaviour of the Beast Division as a whole to be reflective of my views on any creature - including werewolves, Mr Lupin. I have one real goal, and it’s understanding. I wish I could say that the D. D. C. and magi-zoologists of the past had approached werewolves with a similar angle of interest, but I’m sure we’re both quite aware of that gaping failure. Nevertheless, I hope you would trust that I would do anything in my power to prevent a being - man or beast - from unjust treatment."
Remus was glad for his slightly overgrown hair, as it shielded his eyes somewhat from having to confront his embarrassment.
“Of course.” He sighed and dragged his hands across his face, feeling a bone-deep tiredness creep upon him. “Please accept my apology and my consent.”
Newt extracted his hand from the pen and stood. “Apology accepted, of course, but not the consent. You can sign off tomorrow if you still feel the same.”
He did.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
As he’d come to expect, the searing pain behind his eyes that warned of the waxing moon came upon him. With one day to go, he sat in the workshop, hiding away from the bright Spring sunlight, pulling notes on chemiluminescence up for Scamander while the researcher did the more arduous work of traipsing about the New Forest boglands looking for ‘decomposing bodies’.
Remus was quite glad to stay inside.
From the window, he could see the recently erected ‘den’ that Newt had pulled up from the local landscape in a manner that Remus had never seen someone use transfiguration before. Encased in a long list of powerful wards and surrounded again in a rather rickety, but effective silver chain-link fence - Remus was fairly impressed at the effort the researcher had gone to to try and erect an enclosure that was somewhat appropriate for a wolf to spend ten hours in while also being fairly well contained.
He was also sure that the transfiguration of silver was highly illegal, but again, chose to turn a blind eye. Scamander was a law unto himself and creating some silver for one night of use wasn’t the worst crime he would be committing that week.
Becoming deeply bored of biochemical equations that he barely understood, Remus closed his reference texts and looked, instead, to the notebook that Scamander had been keeping on
him
since he’d agreed to his dual role as both researcher and Guinea pig.
He couldn’t help a derisive snort at Newt’s bluntly accurate description of his pre-full-moon demeanor as “
morose and undeniably baleful
”. He’d certainly been poor company the past few mornings - perhaps it was why Newt had been so eager to go and dig in the murky water for half-rotting bodies alone.
Time slipped by unnoticed by Remus, other than the throbbing of his own frustratingly incessant heartbeat inside his skull. He was quite unaware of the change in light or quiet of the birdsong and at some point, he had gone from staring, glassy eyed, into the middle distance to sleeping hunched over his own crumpled notes.
The workshop door squealed as Newt forced it open with a casual wave of his wand and Remus startled awake - only to immediately regret being conscious.
“Any success?” he asked past his own yawn as he attempted to straighten out the mess he’d made of his paperwork.
“Somewhat.” Scamander was holding something wrapped in dark cloth that appeared to be dripping onto the stone floor. He set it down carefully by the door and charmed the smudges of mud from his own clothes. “Were you able to find er… anything interesting? In the books, I mean.”
A schoolboy embarrassment overwhelmed him and he had to actively remind himself that he was a grown man.
“A few things - muggle chemistry was never my strong suit though, I’ll admit. What’s in the cloth?”
Newt shrugged out of his jacket and kicked off his soggy wellies before levitating the parcel over to a bench against the wall. Above it, as though in a kitchen, hung several strange instruments which Remus suspected weren’t for cooking. Rather than explain, Newt stood slightly to the side so Remus could watch him unwrap the damp cloth and reveal a dark, wet lump that certainly had four legs and a head.
“Is that a dead dog?”
“Indeed.”
Remus balked and averted his eyes. He wasn’t generally a squeamish person, but with only a few hours until his entire biology was reformed into a man eating monster, he was a touch more sensitive than normal.
Newt noticed his discomfort and Remus watched his eyes widen in panic as they stared at each other.
“What time-”
“We’ve still got a good forty-odd minutes ‘til moonrise-”
“-I’ll get going.”
Remus scrambled to his feet and jogged off towards the house, finding a towel he could easily transfigure into a simple pair of trousers. He’d rather not transform naked in front of Scamander. He kicked off his shoes and wriggled out of his jacket, discarding them both in the small bedroom he’d been given for the duration of the job. He passed Newt as he hurtled back down the stairs. He seemed unusually nervous, particularly considering that he’d spent the past few days confidently assuring
Remus
that there was nothing to be concerned about.
Remus slowed to a stop near the front door and turned to face him properly. It was Newt’s research, but at the end of the day, he was the man-eating monster.
“I won’t be offended if you don’t want to, anymore. I swear it.” He tried to fill his eyes with as much truth as he could, but it was pointless since Newt was looking mainly at his own hands.
“That’s… that’s not the issue at all-” the words seemed to trip over each other on their way out of his mouth. “Please, take yourself down there, I’ll catch up.”
Remus shifted his weight anxiously between his feet and searched Newt one last time for a clue as to the problem. There were plenty of nervous movements to catalogue - darting eyes and fidgeting fingers - but he wasn’t a legilimens, so he took his leave and sprinted across the grass into the waning light and clambered up the fence before the touch of it became unbearable.
Stopping only to retch under the pull of the moon, he stumbled down the short tunnel Newt had constructed out of loose stone and earth - thankfully enough of his anxious human mind had left him that the structural integrity of the overhang didn’t trouble him. Instead, he was quite preoccupied by the feeling of impending doom that heralded the moon breaking free of the horizon.
~ * ~
The fields were still lit with the last few hours of daylight, but there, unmistakably, was the bright moon against the lilac sky. Newt hesitated on the doorstep before heaving a sigh and stepping out into the grass - wand in one hand and notebook in the other - and pulling the front door closed behind him.
There is something about a werewolf’s presence that is distinctly unnatural. As the only real prey of that powerful and capable hunter, Newt could not shake off the bone-deep fear and insistent trembling that screamed at him to
run
. He white-knuckled his wand and ploughed determinedly onward to the enchanted silver fence he’d constructed a few nights earlier. A distant onlooker might question the silhouette of a gangly man climbing a six-foot fence and dropping to his knees on the other side - but there were no onlookers. The two farmhouses on the East and West were out of the line of sight of the isolated little cottage, and there were certainly no trails or leylines running within a few miles. After all, that was what had endeared the location to Newt.
It certainly wasn’t the draughty windows of the damp stone house.
It was the promise of solitude and no uncomfortable questions.
There was no noise coming from the dark depths of the artificial den and one could only assume that Remus was already gone. Newt pulled from his trouser pocket a finely made, long silver chain and wrapped it around his arm - just in case.
Throwing a chain was a little maintained skill amongst wizards, often looked down upon due to its connections to muggle witch-burnings in previous centuries. Any wizard willing to look past the historical connotations could see the usefulness of the skill - not for capturing witches, which were just as unperturbed by silver as wizards were - but for immobilising a werewolf if one had enough distance.
It was incredibly difficult to cast correctly around a moving target, but the silver itself was usually enough of a shock for a fast enough wizard to incapacitate the werewolf in some other manner.
Of course, Newt considered it a last resort - he was already second guessing the use of silver in the boundary fence. Werewolves were morally problematic like that. There really was no truly evil ‘beast’ - not that he’d found, anyway. Certainly, some creatures came with a nature which did not encourage human interaction - but once their behavioural patterns could be understood, it was possible to adapt one’s handling to accommodate them if necessary.
It was for this reason that he personally considered werewolves to be ‘beings’ more than beasts. When discussing the transformed state, it was much easier to see the beast, however even then, there was a single-minded aggression about them which was reported beyond that of even acromantula or lethifolds. Like a man deranged. A curse living within one’s blood.
Still, he was no fool, so he was armed.
A small point of light appeared at the end of his wand and he made his way towards the den, knees bent, breath held and eyes wide. Perhaps he was the only man to be so close to a werewolf of his own volition?
Remus was no longer there. He saw the marks in the mud from where his bare feet had staggered across the springy ground, and the remnants of the hastily transfigured trousers torn and soiled with dirt in a heap to his right. The heavy breathing and slight keening of a large animal was unmistakable. Newt made a mental note that the transformation was not only a painful experience for the man.
He wished to be less exposed, and the light he had conjured dimmed itself, leaving just enough illumination to make out the shadowy form of the temporarily stunned and recently transformed werewolf.
It seemed larger than a man, though Newt knew that it would weigh just the same as the man it had been moments earlier. Their eyes met - it always had been easier to look into the faces of animals than people. There was something Remus-like about its expression. The eyes were more piercing, almost luminous yellow, but were quite as wide and had the same wild, panicked look he’d caught in the workshop barely an hour ago.
“Remus?”
The werewolf blinked and bared its teeth.
How vicious would it be? Did the disposition of the man have any bearing? Previous texts would say ‘no’, but perhaps he would be the first to know for sure? Would it go for him on sight? Did physical hunger have anything at all to do with it? Would it attack with its mouth, straight to a major vein, knowing instinctively to spread whatever curse lived in its deadly mouth into his blood?
It was a strange dance - one where only the leading partner knew the next move and Newt was forced to blindly follow. There was something interestingly cat-like in its inclination to stay low and stalk - though Newt was quite certain it would be more than capable of chasing him down like a bloodhound. He held his wand at arm’s length and pocketed his notebook so he could show the beast his empty right hand. He stood there, crouched and careful, looking intently into the amber eyes for a sign of intelligence. Of understanding, or interest, that he was both meaning no harm and prepared to defend himself.
It certainly watched the wand - more interested in watching that than the movements of the man. Surely because it was well aware it was more than capable of overpowering the gangly human if not for the stick.
“I will bind you, if I have to,” he told the animal, quite truthfully, and watched its gaze flick from the wand to his mouth, and back again. “I don’t want to, but I will.”
It remained crouched, belly to the soil, muscles tense like a waiting viper, feeling the magical, insatiable hunger beg at its mind.
“I’m not frightened of you.”
It was somewhat true. Viscerally, he was frightened. But that was just biology. He could think over biology - his mind was king of his body. No matter if there was fear in his bones, they couldn’t make him flee.
He was not a miracle worker. The beast did not roll, belly up, and welcome him like the young crups in the suitcase, but there was some tentative understanding between them. An hour and then another slipped by while the two sized each other up. Newt could crouch there all night if his life depended on it (which it did). Eventually the wolf snuffed what might have been read as a sigh of resignation and the muscles in its hind legs visibly relaxed. Its eyes, however, did not leave Newt.
“Thank you.” He muttered, ducking his head slightly to match his words. Slowly, he moved to the mud wall of the den and sat himself down, leaving a good six feet between the two of them (enough space to cast the chain in a pinch) and took out his notebook.
“I’m glad we could come to understand each other,” he carried on, opening it to a blank page and taking out a pencil. “I doubt you’d enjoy me anyway. I’ve had plenty of animal bites and nobody has bothered to clean the plate, so to speak.”
The wolf just blinked.
They sat like that, the man and the wolf, for several hours. The man flitting between sketching and writing, tipping himself from side to side every now and then - half to get a better look at the beast and half to prevent his backside from going numb. The wolf crouched there, watchful gaze on the glint of silver purposefully peeking out from the man’s sleeve and the wand held between his teeth.
Newt wondered if perhaps the only reason werewolves had the reputation for being insatiably and uncontrollably bloodthirsty was simply because no one had ever been foolish enough to stand up to one before.
Or he could be developing a streak of hubris.
Once the internal screams of his own fear had been ignored long enough that they receded to the back of his mind, it was easier to appreciate how striking a creature the werewolf was. Similar enough to a mundane wolf to be mistaken at a glance, but with a distinct
otherworldliness
that made it particularly enchanting. The amber-bright eyes, the odd intelligence in the eyebrows, its wide, sure paws and thick, sandy-brown fur that did quite resemble Remus.
Tiredness set in as the early morning crept on, and the wolf could certainly sense it. There was a definite impatience in its face as it waited to see if the man might give in. Newt was beyond such blunders - more than willing to keep himself awake all night to feed some juvenile creature - but it was amusing to watch the wolf lick its lips as though dinner was in the oven.
“You haven’t forgotten my promise?” he reminded it, offering a small, impish smirk. It was interesting to learn that werewolves could roll their eyes.
The morning sunlight was high enough to penetrate the little den, though the moon still shared the sky. Newt could not contain a slight flinch as the wolf shifted, but it merely shuffled further back into the darkness of their earthen cover as though offended by the light. He noted that down too, feeling quite pleased with himself.
As the moon met the horizon and began to disappear from sight, the serenity and careful quiet between them was broken. A hauntingly human scream tore through the silent night and the wolf scrabbled in the mud, trying to lodge itself in the furthest corner of their little den - defensive and frightened. The teeth reappeared for the first time in many hours, snapping at Newt, though this time with a blatant
stay back
in its wide-eyed stare.
Newt was never one to act predictably.
Unwilling to watch and offer no comfort as the creature squealed in terror, he edged forward, mindful to tuck the chain safely up his sleeve, lest it accidentally make contact. Whale-eyed and desperate, it snapped at him, but without much direction. With one hand carefully placed on its tense neck to make sure it couldn’t catch him in its jaws, Newt crouched down along its flank and ran a gentle hand along the thick brown fur in some instinctive effort to console it.
He could feel the rippling muscles under his hands, knotting and unknotting as the daylight broke the curse. The whimpers and desperate screams were something beyond pain. Newt wondered if the wolf had any awareness that it would be back in a lunar month’s time, or if, at the end of every cycle, it felt it would die.
They couldn’t hide from the sunlight much longer and the screams died to a breathless keening as its biology rewrote itself all over again. His boldness waned when the animal was gone, leaving behind the sweaty, shuddering shoulders of the man on the ground in front of him. Contorted like a frightened child and facing away from him, Newt could only assume that tears might accompany the frightened gasps. The idea of bearing witness to it did something uncomfortable and foreign to his insides and he felt as though the skin under his hands, where soft fur once was, might burn white hot as punishment for looking and touching where he didn’t belong.
Still, he remained statuesque at the side of the werewolf, thoughts racing through a blank mind.
“Does it have a name?” For some reason, it was all he could find to settle on, and he had to say something to pull the younger from his misery.
No answer, but a definite catch in the breath.
“The wolf, I mean. I know other lycanthropes who live among the unbitten will... separate their two forms - some give them a name.”
The long, high moan that came from him sounded much more lupine than anything else that night.
Newt allowed his eyes to drift cautiously to where his left hand was still braced against the nape of Remus’ neck. He relaxed his arm. He would hardly whip around and bite him now. Goosebumps sprung up across the back of his neck and down his spine as the cold morning air rushed in to replace his warm hand.
“Moony.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Why the dead dog?”
He hadn’t even opened his eyes, but as soon as his mind came back to him, it was all he could think about. He was not where he’d left himself, in the mud outside. He was in a bed where the sheets were so cold they almost felt damp and the light from the window was interrupted and scattered by condensation. He sat up and realised he had been talking to no one. The room he’d dumped his clothes in the evening before was empty but for him and his possessions. Ignoring the goosebumps that were travelling down his chest and back, he pulled himself to his knees so he could wipe away the water and look out of the window down into the fields below.
There was no evidence of what had happened the night before. No artificial hillock, no silver fence. Not even the disemboweled corpse of Newt Scamander lying in the grass. There was no light from the windows in the work shed.
It was raining.
Remus reached down to the floorboards to collect his jumper and trousers from the day before and attempted to wriggle into them without leaving the scant warmth that had managed to accumulate under the bedding. Finding his wand on the windowsill, he summoned a pair of wool socks and tried to convince himself to stand.
He’d had worse mornings-after. Nothing seemed to be broken or bleeding, and there was no taste of iron in his mouth. There was an undeniable sickening feeling twisting in his stomach, but there were a hundred things that could be.
The old floorboards groaned as they bore his weight and he made his way downstairs, careful to make enough noise so that he wouldn’t startle Scamander. There was a warm, dim light coming from the kitchen and Newt was sat at the scarred farmhouse table reading a book with both hands wrapped around a cup of tea.
At the sight of him, the odd sickening feeling seemed to rise like a tsunami and he clamped his lips together, willing himself not to retch. The other man looked up, and now it was Remus who could not meet his eyes. Instead, he tried to focus on something safe, like his hands, but the ghost of his cold fingers against his back crawled down Remus’ spine and he could think of no solution but to back away, into the dusty sitting room where Newt was safely out of his line of sight.
“Remus?”
He swallowed a shuddering gasp and the urge to vomit along with it before answering.
“I’m fine.”
He heard the rustle of Newt’s book closing, but not the scraping of a chair. The thudding in his ears calmed somewhat and he pressed his cold fingers against his eyes.
“There is… literature about werewolves being “moon sick” before and after transformations,” Newt offered matter-of-factly. “Perhaps that’s the issue?”
Remus laughed. Once. Cold and empty.
“It’s not that. It’s true, but it’s not that. It’s just… It’s been a while.”
Newt was silent. Remus pressed his back against the wall and slid down it so he could sit and rest his head on his knees. He could feel the tense pull of his shoulders, ready to spring up at the threat of movement. Thankfully, there was none. Newt stayed still and out of sight.
“A while since what?”
Since he’d been seen. Since he’d been touched.
Since anyone had said ‘Moony’.
“Since I’ve had company.”
There was a soft thunk that he suspected was the mug of tea being set down on the table.
The silence stretched out between them, just the light tapping of rain on the draughty windows and the occasional creak from the old house.
“I’m…” Newt’s sentence died away. Remus stared hard at a crack in the plaster on the wall opposite him.
There was the soft scrape of the chair legs against the stone kitchen floor and Newt’s careful footsteps, still out of sight. He could picture him - that hesitant, crouching stance - one hand on the table, carefully listening for what Remus would do.
“I’ll be back.” He grunted, before getting to his feet and closing the front door behind him.
The rain wasn’t too heavy, but he wasn’t wearing shoes, or any waterproofs, so it took only seconds for his feet to be thick with wet mud and his hair to be plastered to his head. By the time he was safe in the cover of the workshed, his jumper was clinging to him like wet cement.
He peeled his jumper off and held it at arm's length to dry it. It wrung itself out like an old dish towel and still smelled like damp wool, but it would do.
The hinkypunk was in the far corner where the light struggled to reach, glowing eerily in a large glass tank. Remus crept over to it and crouched down, pressing his fingertips against the glass. It held up the lantern, as though casting the light across his face to better see him.
Newt might have been right about the lantern. The hinkypunk was a wisp of a thing, barely there. Ghost-like. The silvery glow - the brightest point - was whatever floated within the ethereal confines of the lamp.
“What do you have in there?” he whispered, leaning in as close as the enclosure would allow. His breath clouded the cool glass and he was abruptly aware of how warm and alive he was, even in his damp and shivering state. Alive and warm, muscles pulled tight crouched next to the wisp of a creature, painfully aware of the swishing of his own heartbeat echoing loudly in his ears. Surely the creature could hear it? Perhaps that was what drew them to the surface.
The hinkypunk, obviously, did not answer.
He dropped his hands, fingertips grazing the dusty, straw strewn floor, and cast his eyes around for something - something to hold his attention so he didn’t have to think about Newt’s eyes upon his cowering body.
The dead dog was still on the bench.
He stood, eyes locked on it, and crept forward as though it had some gravitational pull that was drawing him in. Newt must have charmed it in some way, or perhaps that was the nature of it’s previous resting place, but it was still quite recognisable. He couldn’t be sure if it was the natural coat or the time spent compressed by water and peat, but the fur seemed wiry and dark. Its long legs lying crossed, as though it had fallen asleep on the bench.
Its eyelids were closed, but he couldn’t be sure if, under the fur, there was any eye to be seen. Remus put a tentative hand to its flank, barely touching it at all. The stiff fur tickled his palm
There was certainly something between them. A veil, or a wall that separated life from death. It seemed, now that he was confronted with it, that the gap was not consistent. Some days - those sunlit days by the lake, laughing in muggle London between missions, evenings in the safe house watching the baby cruise around the furniture with fond eyes - those days, they could be miles apart. Other times - waking up alone in the woods, licking his wounds, standing before the mummified dog - he could almost see himself in his mind’s eye walking the wall. One stiff breeze might tip him over to join them.
It might be a relief.
To be freed from purgatory.
To stop pressing his face against the glass and just break through.
“What year were you bitten?”
“Excuse me?”
The droning of the rain must have drowned out his advance and Remus snatched his hand back from the dog as though he’d been burned. Newt had had the good sense to conjure an umbrella (and wear shoes) before making the trip and had managed to stay mostly dry. He was leaning against the open doorway and the sick feeling rose again as Remus wondered how long he’d been standing there.
“How old were you? When you were attacked, I mean. I know you registered at seventeen, but you were a werewolf at Hogwarts. The first one.”
He was looking at him. Properly. Inspecting him.
Like a beast.
“Four.” Whispered, like an unwilling confession.
Newt’s face didn’t change, but Remus could see his eyes flicking from his face, to his hands, to the dog and back.
He stepped closer, slowly and purposefully. Remus wondered if that was how he had approached the wolf.
“Why did you register yourself?”
There was nothing to grasp on to, to try and guess where the line of questioning might lead. No hint of accusation, of shaming. Just flat curiosity.
“I thought it was the right thing to do.”
“Right for who?”
Remus sighed and tried not to let annoyance seep into his tone.
“It just seemed safer, that way. I’d been too free, for too long, and I had grown complacent.”
Greedy, even
. “We were in a war, I suppose, and… I just wanted to do the right thing.”
His head was tilted, like a curious animal. Like a bird.
“Moony was lonely.”
It wasn’t a question.
Remus sighed. “I wouldn’t know. We don’t share a mind.”
“That’s still up for debate.” Again, no malice, and yet Remus was riled.
“You tell me, then.”
Another step closer. His hands were clasped behind his back and he looked down at the dog between them. Remus followed his gaze.
“Sometimes… sometimes I think, I think it’s easier without friends. Being alone is fine, but becoming alone is… almost unbearable.” Newt sighed, and carried on.
“You had particularly good friends.”
~ * ~
They trudged through the sodden ground between the usual apparition point and the edge of the New Forest in companionable silence this time. The rain masked the sunset, but the night darkened all the same. Remus’ arms were heavy with the burden of the dead dog, wrapped once again in its cloth. The hinkypunk had been returned to its jar for transport and Newt levitated it before him as it was much too awkward to carry such a distance.
He felt like a child asleep in the back of the car - along for the ride with no real knowledge of the purpose of the trip or the destination. Newt’s face was impassive and he had little to say besides instruction and encouragement over the uneven ground.
Dusk had well and truly settled as they breached the treeline. The land sloped imperceptibly downhill and the water trickled with them, the ground yielding increasingly below their boots. The little creature in the jar stood, quiet as ever, its lantern aloft, providing enough light to see the immediate route ahead.
Remus began to kid himself that the trees looked familiar. Odd, twisting, wavy trunks - like withered arms reaching towards the dark canopy above. Their long roots intertwined with each other, weaving a landscape of tufts and ridges that forced one’s full attention. The rain had begun to ease, and only the occasional runoff from the leaves above struck them. Just as he had begun to think there was nothing familiar about these trees at all, the space between their trunks grew wider and the ground thicker and softer. A few more stumbling, squelching footfalls and they were once again on the wet, grassy banks of the bog.
“This is where I retrieved the dog.” Newt mumbled, inclining his head towards the centre, where he had stood - waist deep - over a week before, waiting to ambush their current prisoner.
“Are we returning it?”
“Not to here.” Newt took the first step into the water and Remus followed, as he had been inclined to since they encountered each other in the Ministry. “Somewhere better.”
They waded on. Remus appreciated, now, how difficult it was, and understood what Newt had meant about needing a companion when exploring bogs. If he took a wrong step in the thick silt, he would never be able to free himself.
The water was up to his chest, and he was forced to hold the stiff dog aloft, like a trophy, as he yanked his legs out of the grip of the thick water and onto the next step. It must have been the deepest point. Even with the silvery glow of the lantern above them casting dancing embers of light across the water, it was totally impenetrable - an unknowable void.
Newt, with the use of at least one hand, was able to scrabble up before him and kneeled in the silt to secure a firm hand around Remus’ forearm, pulling him out of the depths. With an immense effort, the pair of them, huffing and weighed down by their waterlogged clothes, emerged from the bog like two swamp monsters.
“Just a touch further.” Newt assured him, pulling him to his feet before pressing on, determined.
Remus followed.
The ground rose, and gained sturdiness until Remus was no longer fearful of losing a filthy boot to its clutches. The trees leaned in once more, congregating closer together, like cold souls outside a church. They weaved through them with their otherworldly cargo until Newt came to an abrupt halt. He stepped into a small clearing, turning slowly, inspecting the surrounding trees, the leaf strewn ground and the dark canopy above.
“Here, I think.”
Supposing he could mean only one thing, Remus unwrapped and placed the body of the dog onto the forest floor, his arms relieved to be rid of the burden. It was not particularly heavy, but carried through difficult terrain, particularly over one’s head, made it harder to bear.
With a casual flick of his wand, Newt settled the jar between them with a gentle
thunk
.
“Are we going to bury it?” He asked, trying to catch Newt’s line of thinking. He was crouched down beside the jar and had placed both hands on the wide lid. Again, the light caught him. The bright eyes, the determined expression and the careful hands that set his chest on fire with a bone deep pining for the company of friends.
“I don’t think so. Let’s see if I’m right.”
He twisted and released the lid before stepping back to watch.
The little wisp climbed, weightlessly, out of the top of the jar and dropped down onto the ground without disturbing a leaf or twig with its tiny feet. Newt leaned in, looking almost eager, as it picked its way across the forest floor to the body of the dog.
Whatever was in the lantern seemed to have a want, or a need, to be closer. Remus could see it struggling against the ghostly glass like a moth on a window. The two creatures met - the wisp and the corpse - and the lantern was lowered onto the still body.
As the wisp released its grip, the lantern shattered, as though made of something more than light and smoke. The tinkling of ethereal glass echoed around the small clearing and the little light sank into the dog’s fur.
And the animal went up in flames.
Remus staggered back without thought and turned to Newt for some reassurance that the silvery flames were to be expected. Unable to find any horror or panic, he watched the reflection of the fire in his eager eyes instead. Had he known?
As abruptly as it had started, the flames vanished, leaving behind no trace of the dog other than a handful of ashes that slipped away on the slight breeze. The hinkypunk, looking much dimmer without its lantern, disappeared with the ash, like a wisp of smoke.
Newt vanished the jar and crouched down where the dog had been, his nose almost to the leaves. Remus lit his wand, now that they were without the lantern.
“Completely gone. Passed on, I suppose.”
“Passed on?”
Newt stood and placed a hand on Remus’ shoulder - the first time he’d touched him since the moon had touched the horizon line the night before. With a slight pressure, he steered Remus around so they could walk, side by side, back the way they’d come.
“The rest of it. What was left, I mean.” Newt paused for a moment, apparently looking for the right words.
“The body died a good while ago, I’d think. But perhaps it’s the nature of an environment like a bog. It clings to things that should be let go. Things get left behind, left to stagnate - trapped in the water.”
Remus stumbled on a tree root and felt Newt’s hand tighten on the shoulder of his jacket. He made sure to hold his wand aloft, to better light the path.
“So it’s alone in there, unable to move onward, or to return to how it was before, it longs for someone, or something to join it. To share the misery or to pull it out, I’m not certain.”
“You think the wisp comes from the bodies?”
“Quite sure. I believe there was something soulful about the little light.”
He could not be sure how much time had passed. It seemed that in the dark woods, the night could stretch on for whatever length the world deemed necessary. They carried on in silence through the mud for a short while before yet again, they were faced with the dark water’s edge.
Remus sighed, glancing down at his heavy clothes that he’d neglected to dry. He didn’t know if he had it in him to make the journey again.
As he was about to voice the complaint, Newt’s hand left his shoulder and with a flick of his wand, crude wooden planks began to rise from the water, one in front of the other until a bridge stretched across the bog they’d waded through hours earlier.
True to form, Newt stepped out ahead with confidence, and Remus followed in his wake. It seemed the sky was lightening at an impressive speed. Their boots thunked across the wooden planks and by the time their feet met wet soil again, Remus could dismiss his
lumos
.
The morning rays pierced through the trees and, relieved of his burden this time, the coming day felt to Remus like it could stretch on forever. Stepping out, with Newt following behind him, he stumbled towards the treeline into the golden light.