Chapter Text
London, Day 7 of the 73th Hunger Games.
It is with the fading memory of a baby in his arms that Remus Lupin returns to a world where the infant's cries blend with the cheers of the crowd outside.
Dull dawn light seeps softly through the wall of windows, slipping beneath the curtains to settle on the face of the man curled on the carpet.
Remus groans as he shifts away from the light, only to wince as he rolls onto a fresh, gaping wound. The noise outside doesn’t falter - the citizens of London are loud enough to be heard even through soundproof glass. He guesses it means the Games are over. He sighs and tries to get up, bracing himself on a nearby table - one he overestimates the sturdiness of. It collapses beneath his weight, sending him back to where he started.
The crash must draw attention from someone outside, because a soft knock echoes through the room.
“Mr. Lupin?” comes a firm voice from the locked door. “Do you need my assistance?”
“No-” Remus clears his throat, voice rough with fatigue. “No, thank you. I’ll be there in a minute.”
A minute becomes several as he takes in all of the damage.
There are new wounds on his legs, which seem to have become the wolf’s preferred target lately, as if it still believes Remus might one day manage to run away. There’s a sharp pain at the base of his neck; a quick swipe with his fingers tell him it is bleeding, though it doesn’t feel serious. What worries him more is the larger laceration on his back. He’ll have to ask Madam Pomfrey to check it, just in case.
The room isn’t faring much better. Claw marks rake the once-pristine wallpaper, tearing through the expensive shimmer. The curtains bear slashes and bite marks, though they were clearly of little interest to the wolf, who instead focused on tossing and shredding the furniture. Remus is quietly grateful for the plush carpet, which at least spared him the familiar ache of waking up on cold concrete, especially when he sees what remains of the king-sized bed in the corner.
But none of it surprises him. He’d known, the moment he realized the Games would coincide with the full moon, what to expect. He’d hoped quietly, foolishly, that they might end early. But Remus has never been a lucky man.
Once he's pulled on his dressing gown - no need to dress up formally, Pomfrey would ask him to undress in a minute anyway - Remus steps out into the hallway, squinting against the sudden brightness. It only worsens as he enters the living room, where morning light pours in through the tall uncurtained windows, mixing with the soft hum and artificial glow of the giant TV screen.
Poppy Pomfrey is sitting on the couch in front of it. Without looking away, she reaches out and hands him a cup of tea as he joins her.
"Who won?" he asks, taking a tentative sip. Warmth spreads down his throat, sweet notes of artificial vanilla masking the bitter edge of medicine beneath. It helps, just enough to relax the tension pulling at his shoulders.
"District 4" Pomfrey replies simply, sipping from her own cup.
Remus raises an eyebrow, finally turning to the screen - and there she is.
The tribute from District 4. Chest heaving, her small frame shaking, her hair patted and dyed dark red by blood. Her eyes are vacant, wide with shock, as if she hasn't yet understood what happened. The ground around her is littered with corpses - he can't tell how many, because they are all torn apart. Dismembered. Shredded beyond recognition.
His stomach lurches. He forces the tea down anyway.
He’d stopped watching days ago, the moment his own tributes died. He had endured the horror while they were alive, hoping to guide them through it. But once they were gone, he looked away. He always did. He had enough material to fill his nightmares as it is.
At the bottom of the screen, framed by animated fireworks and glittering confetti, the announcement scroll in big golden capital letters:
NYMPHADORA TONKS, DISTRICT 4 : VICTOR OF THE 72TH HUNGER GAMES
His thoughts turn to her mentor. Alastor Moody. He imagines the old man now - not celebrating, no, never that - but preparing, methodically, grimly, her return like a general returning to battle. Moody didn't just mentor his tributes, he brought them back. Back from the hellscape of the Games. Back to the world that cheered them for it, like they're not the one who sent them there in the first place.
He even brought *him* back once.
When Remus was reaped for his game, District 10 had no living victor. The Capitol had assigned Moody. Somehow, Remus survived. Broken and cursed, but breathing and living none the less.
Since then, only one other person had come back to District 10.
“Shall I escort you to the bathroom?” Pomfrey’s voice slices through his reverie, calm and clipped. The screen now shows Gilderoy Lockhart and Rita Skeeter, all polished smiles and too-white teeth, gleefully analysing and gossiping about the end of the Game.
"You're bleeding on the carpet."
Remus glances down. Sure enough, a small pool of blood has formed at his feet, seeping into the cream wool.
"Bloody hell, sorry. I'll, uh, I'll just take a quick shower and be on my way, I-"
"Don't be a ridiculous, Remus. I'll treat your wounds before you leave." She stands up, already assessing him. "What do you need?"
"Not much" he lies "A few cuts on my leg, but I don't really have time to-"
"I'll be quick." She cuts him off firmly. "You sit. Regain your strength. I'll get my wand."
Before disappearing into her locked room, she takes his hand and presses two squares of dark chocolate into it.
Remus murmurs his thanks, then pockets one for later. The other he places on his tongue, letting it melt slowly, the rich taste anchoring him. It’s a quiet ritual between them. It started the day he came back from the Games, twelve years old, half-dead and cursed. She had treated his wounds, then offered him chocolate - his first taste of it. It became their secret. The one moment of comfort he found in the new routine he was forced into.
He tries to pace the room, to shake off the numb ache clawing at his limbs. But walking becomes unbearable after a few laps, each step sending stabbing shocks up his leg. So he switches to coffee. One cup. Then another. His mind is wide awake, but his bones still grind together, his muscles still slowly knitting themselves back into place.
When Pomfrey calls him to the bathroom, only minutes have passed—but it feels like hours.
He tries not to flinch as she cleans the wounds with a flick of her wand and bandages them by hand. He tries not to groan or hiss, tries not to let her see how much it hurts. But Poppy Pomfrey has been tending his injuries since he was a child, and even at thirty-two, he can’t hide pain from her.
She hands him a jar of numbing cream before letting him go.
The soft hum of the elevator rises around him as it descends floor after floor. Remus leans against the mirrored wall, watching his reflection sway with the motion. There’s a smear of dried blood at the edge of his jaw he hadn’t seen before. He rubs it away absentmindedly, only to hiss as his fingers brush too close to the wound at the back of his neck - the one he forgot to mention to Poppy.
Too late now.
He debates going back, just for a second. But the elevator won't stop anyway. It can't, unless you order it to with your wand, and Remus doesn’t have a wand. Not that he could use one anyway. Muggles like him don't have magic. The elevator will only stop at the pre-selected floor the wizards have decided he will go to. It doesn't frighten him anymore, it's always the same one. He just stares at his reflection, then at the slowly opening doors.
The mortuary is a grim maze of gigantic tunnels. This place certainly has another use, and a real official name for paper work, but all he knows of this place is the mortuary, so that's how he named it. Moody told him it used to be a form of communal transportation in the old days, but was abandonned when the wizards installed their own flue system, and then repurposed by the Ministry. It is buried deep within the guts of London, far away from the prying eyes of the public watching the games. There's no fun in seeing a corpse. It is still, grey, and slowly deteriorating. Nothing glamorous or exciting about it. Unless they find a way to recycle.
Further down the tunnel, a shriek echoes like an alarm. The sound sends a shiver down Remus' spine as he is escorted further down the tunnel by two aurors. Each on either side of him, Remus notice their hands now closer to their wands tucked on the side of their hip. Low, slow magic linger in the air. It is electric, stressed like its users. Remus frowns, it's usually the danger he presents that concern them.
"Did they really bring it back?" The youngest auror whispers to her colleague.
"After all the galleons they spent to create it? Of course they're bringing it back." Her colleague looks behind them for a moment, his shoulders tense. "Give them a few month, and you'll find it at the Elphaba zoo."
They finally reach the real Mortuary. One of the auror opens it with a flick of the wand and whispered words Remus barely catch. The doors open wide, a gush of cold air knocking over him. Inside, he sees the mentors of District 9 flinch away from the stretchers they were looking after. He recognizes the shivering shoulders and the confused cold grey eyes of Alice Longbottom, while her co-worker place his hands on her shoulders, whispering gentle words of comfort to calm her down. He knows the man too, Mundungus Fletcher. Remus never liked him, but a sense of sympathy always linger among mentors, especially in the Mortuary. Their eyes meet as the loud clang of the stretchers being pulled away and stored in their cold compartment rattles in the room. Mundungus - Dung - gently leads Alice toward the exit, their own two aurors following closely behind. Alice stops when they pass by Remus. In a moment of lucidity, she reach out and grabs his hand. She looks at him, but her eyes are like those of the victor this morning. Vacant.
He used to get along with Alice, back when they first tried to change things. She was good with crafting things, and would make little trinkets for all members of the order. They would find them on their way back from missions, left to be discovered as a reward for coming back. Even with the flame extinguished, Remus still feel a lingering anger for what they did to her. For how they still parade her around, even though she isn't able to be a mentor. She's not meant to be one. She's a message. A Warning.
Remus gently squeezes her hand back, and lets her go. She freezes for a moment, then her mind wanders off somewhere else, her eyes lost staring to an invisible point in the wall. Dung murmurs his thanks, and guides her out of the Mortuary. Now it is only him, the aurors, and-
"Shall we begin?" Come a cheery voice from his right, making him flinch. He looks at the small woman, with bright white hair and pink makeup around her eyes. The smell of disinfectant coming from her gloved hands and sterile uniform make his nose hitchy. He can already feel the headache coming. He nods, and she leads them further in the room, in front of the cold compartment facing those of District 9. She looks at him, and he supposes she smiles at him by the way her eyes wrinkles above her mask, before she opens the doors.
District 10 has been relatively unlucky this year, in terms of tributes. First was reaped Aderyn Glyn, a thirteen year old girl. She loved birds, and could rumble all day about the loss of her family's owlery when the breeding and care of the birds were forbidden. The owls were now managed by and for the wizards of the Capitol, magically modified to answer to their every whims and orders. She promised that when she won, she would request her own couple of birds to give them a fresh start, a new freedom in their District. Remus didn't have the heart to tell her she wouldn't be able to make any demands, nor that District 10 was not a place where freedom would flourish. She was the first to die, falling from her platform when she spotted one of her beloved bird. Lying on the cold table, he doesn't dare to look down, where he knows the towel covering her legs would sink down on the table.
Second was Colt Rosser. Fourteen years old. Colt was from one of the farthest farm in the district. His parents raised horses for the Capitol, the very same that pulled their chariot through the Capitol. Next to Aderyn, he acted like he was a big guy, confident, with a proud smile adn a plan in mind. He had gained a few sponsors, and even scored a decent 8 with his strength. But on the last night, Remus found him crying in his bedroom. The boy was petrified, and grieving the fact he hadn't brought anything from home. His mentor gave him a token then, a woollen string. Not related to his family, or horses, but at least to their district. Colt had promised to give it back to him if he came back. Remus can see he still has the string, as he lays on the cold table. It is tied to his wrist, just below his fracture, the first of many that caused his death on day three.
In the end, it is always the same. Remus failed them. He knows the feeling by heart, and welcomes the dullness that comes with it. Tears stopped coming a few years ago. But still, he lets his fingers linger one last time. He brushes Aderyn's hair out of her face, and takes her token : a small bone whistle. He adjusts Colt's collar, and unties carefully the string. Both would be given back to their family.
"Finished?" Asks the embalmer with a sing-song voice. Remus merely nods, as she pushes back the stretchers in the dark and cold prisons of their compartment. Once again, Remus abandons his tributes for the train back home.
District 10 is a vast thing. It is made of green hills stretching forever. Empty farm tracks weaves their way through the ups an downs of the hills, and split up like branches of a tree to join each farm and ranch. Patches of dark, deep forest cuts the roads and the gentle greenery of the hills. The district stretches out until what feels like the end of the world. Remus believed they did, until he hit the force field head first as child.
As vast as the district is, all the roads lead to the Calon, the one and only urban area of the district. The few merchants of the District own a house there, close to the train station and the city square. It has the only train station where they send their goods, after they are treated and changed in the different factory surrounding the city. They send their wool, their leather, the milk, the eggs, the meat, the feathers, and all they can offer. In exchange, the Capitol sends them tesserae. The rest of the population lives in the suburbs of the city, closer to their job in the various slaughterhouses or factories for the treatment of animal goods. What lies in-between, is a ghost town. A medley of different architectures of times long gone, now all victims of neglect, left to rot without exceptions. Children living there like to make up stories about the town's history. How this building was destroyed. Why this one is made of brick, and this one of cement? Most suspect the rebellion caused all the damages, or at least all those Remus had taken to the Capitol.
Remus is slowly limping his way through the abandoned ruins, walking up a hill. The wind is cool against his sensitive skin. A slow shiver runs through his spine, one he welcomes. It anchors him in his skin, something he desperately needs after hours alone in the old thing they called a train. He can still feel the ache of the constant shutter in his bones, the low rumble of the train still echoes in his bones, and the oppressing heat caused a new layer of sweat to form above his abused skin. An auror once told him they used to park animals in some of the carriages, and he kept wondering how they made it alive. He sneers at his own nastiness, and craves for a bath once he makes it there.
He finally reaches the top of the hill. Remus sighs in relief, and turns around to take in the view. From the hill, Remus can see the sea, twinkling under the light of the waning gibbous moon. Remus studies it, suddenly aware the tension in his bones might not only be from the train. He thought last full moon wasn't so bad, yet he can't shake off the tension creeping underneath. It's like the Wolf is still present, when he should be back to rest by now. Is it a sign the next full moon will be worse? Did the wolf despise taking control in a new area so bad it wouldn't rest until it found its way back to its den? Remus doesn't know, and he hates that.
A door opens to his right, then a familiar voice booms in the empty street. "You coming in or what?"
Remus turns, and an hesitant smile creeps on his face. "Hi dad."
Lyall Lupin, an old man with more grey than auburn hair on his head, shrugs, and goes back inside the tiny house, leaving the front door opened. Remus comes in, closing the door behind him. A single light bulb hangs miserably in the corridor, lighting up the narrow corridor with falling wallpaper. Remus breathes in the smell of dust and lavender, closing his eyes. There's nothing like the smell of home.
"I've kept some water for you to get clean." Lyall gestures further down the corridor, shoulders pressed against the wall.
"Thanks. You didn't have to stay up for me." Remus shakes off his jacket. He hesitates for a second, but decides he doesn't want to place it over his father's work coat on the hooks by the front door, instead he hangs it over the banister of the old stairs in ruins that lead to a collapsed floor. Their house used to have two floor apparently, but the damage had always been a present part of their home.
"I know. But I have a morning shift at the slaughterhouse tomorrow." and I wanted to see my son home, comes unsaid, like most things with Lyall. Remus looks at his father, an argument those walls have heard over and over again forming on his tongue. You don't have to go. I can give you the money. But he already knows the answer, the one hidden behind his father's frown. Keep your filthy money.
"Right." Remus clears his throat, looking down. "I'll, I'll just, go then." He points to the bathroom down the hallway.
"Yeah, sure." Lyall nods, patting his son's shoulder on his way to his bedroom. But as he expects him to leave, his father lingers instead, almost hesitant.
"Enid died two days ago." Remus freezes, and his father squeezes his shoulder. "The Grangers say it was a heart attack in her sleep. Painless. I though you should know. "
Remus stares at the cracks on the walls, suddenly aware of how many there are as his mind goes blank. He expected sadness, but maybe he is too desensitized to feel grief anymore.
There's another squeeze of his shoulder, and Remus looks at his dad. *Are you okay?*. Remus nods.
"Thanks for telling me. I'll... I'll sort things out at her place tomorrow".
The answer must satisfy Lyall because Remus feels his hand slips from him. "That's good. Very good." Lyall sighs, massaging his face with his hand. "I'll let you to it then."
Remus watches as his father turns and disappear into his bedroom, throwing him a last nod before closing the door.
Goodnight.
There used to be an easier time. Back when they were three in the house. His mother, Hope, had been the cement holding the Lupin household together, the translator between Remus' and Lyall's silence. Now, all there was left was everything left unsaid, and the cracks on the walls.
Bitterness swells in Remus' stomach. Like a flood, it grows restless, angry and destructive. It's always the same thing, the same bloody routine with him and Lyall. He is at the threshold, like very year, and it is always the same year that awaits him. The same heavy silence from his father, the same side-eyes from the district, the same loneliness- Merlin the loneliness-
There's a sudden crack down the hallway.
Remus jumps, and grips the banister, expecting something to come. A burglar, or a beast, or a tribute-
Then he sees the frame on the ground.
It has fallen.
Remus sighs in relief, trying to calm his rapid heartbeat.
A quick look to the wall tells him the nail has finally given up after years of good and honest service. Remus sighs, thankfully the glass hasn't broken as he picks up the only photo they had in their house.
It wasn't one of those enchanted moving pictures they displayed in the Daily Prophet, it was a simple grainy static photograph. Hope looked exhausted in it. She had an air of sad acceptance, laying in her bed with a shine of sadness in her eyes, her thinning hair and faint smile. Cameras were rare and expensive. The only reason they even had this photo was because the Capitol had paid for it. A gift, they said, for his fidelity to his nation.
But Remus knew better. It was a tool to keep his guilt burning low and steady. To tame the wolf.
And it worked. The flood had subdued, leaving nothing but ruins in its wake.
Sometimes, Remus wonders if it wouldn't be better to not have any photo at all.
But his father treasures it. So Remus takes it down gently, turns it face down on the kitchen table and walked off to the bathroom.
54th Hunger Games, Reaping Day.
"Speaking of the devil - here is your mentor."
Poppy's down-to-earth voice booms in the dining car from her seat at the head of the table. Remus curses under his breathe at the door. So much for slipping back to his cabin unnoticed until they reached the Capitol. He had thought, had hoped he might avoid this part. He used to think himself as lucky, but right now, he curses his so called lucky star for letting him down.
The two tributes stare at him from their own seat. One offers a sympatheti smile. The other scowls.
"That's it?" snaps Elain, the female tribute. Her voice is sharp as broken glass, and her eyes are cold as ice as they dug into him. "The 16-year-old? They couldn't even send us a proper mentor?!" She straightens, slamming her palms against the table. The champagne glasses shake on the white linen.
He remembers her from the mechanic's shop where she works with her parents. Every year, they decorate the shop for her birthday - something simple, always heartfelt, always new.
This afternoon, on his way to the station, Remus saw the shop hidden behind swaths of cloth hanging from the roof. He had smiled. Elain's birthday, the day after the Reaping, had become a kind of local tradition. A flicker of hope after a tragedy. He's expected them to go all out this year.
That was before her name was pulled.
Now, all he can see is the small wire fawn they had displayed on the storefront for her seventeenth birthday last year, now hanging from her necklace as her token. And Elain, glaring at him and his incompetence like he's the omen of everything gone wrong.
A part of Remus gets it. It's the same kind of unfairness he felt back then, but reversed.
It's my first year, it can't be me! I have only one year left, it can't be me!
"Alastor Moody will join us." he murmurs, frozen at the door. "The train stops in District 4."
"Great" she bites, "A kid and an infirm. Feeling lucky yet, Pettigrew?"
Her fury shifts to the boy across from her. He stiffens. He's a small kid, round-faced, with sandy hair and wide, anxious blue eyes. She search for a flicker of anger in him, but he doesn't meet her gaze. Instead, he just... deflates, sinking further into his seat.
She scoffs.
"Fuck this. Call me when the real mentor gets here."
And she storms out.
For a moment, there's only silence, cut by the hum of the train and the soft clatter of the wheels on the rails. Poppy excuses herself with a quiet *"I'll check on her"*, and follows.
Remus is left alone, still frozen at the door, with the boy - Pettigrew.
He doesn't know Pettigrew personally. He only registered his first name - Peter - when his name was pulled. But he remembers glimpses about him. The boy is an only child like him. His single mother volunteers at school events. He sees him sometimes at the library, always alone.
Like for Elain, Pettigrew doesn't look at him either. His eyes stay firmly set on his plate. He seems to have selected a few of the stranger dishes, clearly unsure of what it *is* and what is *safe*.
Remus finally breaks the silence.
"Don't eat the truffles."
Peter glances up, one eyebrow raised.
"The black mushroom ball." Remus clarifies. "It's disgusting. Don't tell Poppy though, she loves them." He approach the table and reaches toward the dessert side, picking up an eccentric glass bawl with floral patterns. "Now *these* are chocolate truffles, much better."
Peter eyes the balls suspiciously, picking one with his fingertips, turning it around to examine its surface, taking an hesitant sniff, which leaves cocoa dust on his nose. Then, he pops it into his mouth.
His expression melts into bliss. He suddenly relax in his seat as he hums at the tender taster of chocolate.
Remus laughs and sets the bowl between them, sliding into Poppy's abandoned seat.
"That's excellent!" Peter grins. "Maybe wizards aren't all that bad if they can make food that good!"
Remus grins back as Peter reaches for another dish - something that looks like soup frozen into jelly.
"Now, what's *that*?"
They spend the rest of the journey sampling the Capitol delicacies. Peter dares Remus to try fish eggs from District 4 that smell (and taste) like a carcass. Remus gives a passionate lecture on all the kind of chocolates that exists, along with all the different types of cocoa, of textures and fillings, until Peter looks physically ill from the sugar.
They don't talk about the Games.
Remus is grateful for that. He suspects Peter is too.
For a few hours, at least, they're just kids again.
1st day after the 73th Hunger Games, August.
He had left his father's house in the morning, before the sunrise could settle on the Capon. Lyall was already gone, the photograph faced up on the kitchen counter.
Before leaving, Remus had fetched the tool box under his father's bed, and put the frame back up. The photograph was slightly crooked, the new nail causing another crack on the wall. He made a mental note to find a way to fix that next time.
The sun is setting nicely over the hills when he makes his way to the outskirt of the Capon, zigzaging between the ruins on the main road. Other workers already left their house and are walking down the road. Like a wave growing toward the beach, the workers gather, and the crowd gains force as they went on. Workers of the slaughterhouses were waiting in front of a house with the front door open, cigarettes between their lips and coffee in their hands, all in their grey overall and stench of washed up blood. One of them gave him a slight nod as he went past. He probably knew Lyall. Remus nodded back. He heard a woman on his right asking a coworker to borrow a set of gloves, and another of her colleagues giving her her spare. Other groups formed along the road, catching up on the latest news, or silently enjoying each others' company
It is natural for humans to pack with those they know. Remus has known what it was like, once, to have a group to walk with.
Once they reach the end of the Capon and enter the industrial estate, most of the workers split up even more. Little by little, the road got thinner as they passed by the slaughterhouses, the triage warehouses and goods' treatment plants. Remus was the only person who continued as the concrete turned to dirt and the road leads him further away from their only city.
Remus Lupin, like all victors are expected to, lives in the Victor's village. The thing is, again, like most victors, Remus doesn't like the village. It isn't home. It is not even a street. It is an agglomeration of houses in circle lost in the green hills, too far away from the Calon and the other farms. It is not even a village, it has no stores, no meet-up place. They are a roof over the Victors' head, a place to keep them stocked somewhere and keep an eye on them. They are insects, placed in terrarium to be observed by the cold unseen eyes of wizard kind.
Two days ago, he became its sole inhabitants.
Which is the reason why he was currently in his neighbour's house, trying and failing to sort everything. Clearing out Enid Pettigrew's house, it turns out, was a hassle.
Enid was not a particularly messy person, no, she had plenty of storage. But *that* was the problem : she had storage everywhere. She had pilled bookcases on bookcases until they reached the roof, each case filled to the brim with anything and everything. She had slid boxes with little wheels under her sofa, that was pressed against bar separating her living room to her kitchen, to stock more wool and knitting equipment. He found a new wardrobe dug in the wall under her stairs to put all her purple jackets and her wide collection of straw hats. He even found the smaller shelf she had asked him to help her build a few years ago hanging above the threshold of the living room, filled with a little hand-made pots and vases of clay with more or less expertise, with little name tags either reading 'ENID' or 'PETER'.
That was also why it was difficult. Enid had made a shrine out of her house.
Peter's ghost is everywhere he looks. In his childhood drawings hanging on the walls, in the books he brought her back from the Capitol, in his favourite blanket laid on the old sofa, in the half-eaten bag of chocolate truffle on the bar. In the Order of Merlin she had hung in the space between kitchen and living room, next to the commemorative photo he has been staring at for the last ten minutes.
Peter Pettigrew had been many confusing things for Remus. His biggest pride, his best friend, and his greatest shame.
The guilt makes him look away, back to the counter he was trying to clear out. He has brought a box, to store everything he deemed important. In the three hours he has spent in the house, he only put an photo album filled with drawings Peter had made during his life and Enid's favourite hat.
Every time he picked something, he felt the unstoppable urge to put it back. He is a trespasser in her home. It shouldn't be up to him to clear out the place, but he is all she had left. He could leave it all like this, to gather dust and rot away to the years. But he knows he couldn't stand the sight. She deserves better than that. She deserves her things to be kept, to be treasured, like the woman she had been.
Enid Pettigrew had been his only neighbour for twelve years. She had moved in with her son when he won his game at sixteen. After-
After it happened, it was only the two of them in the village. He expected her to hate him, to despise the mentor who failed her son, who let him join a cause bigger than them that cost her son's life. He wanted her to hate him, for someone else to feel his resentment.
She didn't.
She brought him tea when he came back from the questioning with bruises and new scars.
She forbade the Aurors from entering his house when they came back a few days later. When they entered anyway and took him, he found her waiting for him outside the station, twelve hours later. She didn't mention the tremor of her hands when she took him home, nor the bruises on her arms. When Remus missed his mother, he would cross the gravel roads separating their houses, climb over the fence, and knock. She'd let him in, and let him lay down with her in the sofa, his head on her lap so she could run her fingers through his hair. He never mentioned how she used to do this for her son, she never mentioned how he would call her mom in the early hours of the morning, in the state between awake and asleep.
Over the years, the child grew into an adult. She still let him in to drink some tea. He let her bakes him raisin cookies, Peter's favourite. She gave him eggs from her chicken every week, he brought her groceries from the Capon. She waited for him back at his house every morning after a full moon, with bandages, a cup of fuming grey tea and no questions about his situation. He thanked her and thanked the stars for bringing her in his life everyday.
Enid Pettigrew had been a guiding star in the last twelve dull years.
He makes a mental note to get the tea leaves to brew a cup for her tonight. He turns to the cupboard above the sink where he knows she stores it, when he finally notices it.
Perched on the windowsill, there is a owl staring at him.
A barn owl, clarifies Aderyn's soft voice in his head as he remembers one of her lecture about the distinctive features of different species of owls. The owl has the heart-shaped face and the creamy and copper feathers she had told him about.
The owl tilt its head. Before he can stop himself, he tilt his head as well.
"Hello you", he whispers, scared to spook the owl. When it doesn't move, he takes a tentative step toward her. Then another. Slowly, he holds out his hand to it. The owl looks at his hand, and Remus is afraid it will nick at his fingers, but it doesn't. Instead, it gets closer and bump his hand with its head. A smile breaks his lips, and he softly begin to scratch her feathers. "Nice to meet you too."
It's the first time he got so close to an owl, and one thing he didn't expect is the size of the thing. It is almost covering the window with its body, and its head is just a bit too big to fit in his palm.
He wonders where it comes from. A quick look at his bare talon tells him it isn't carrying a letter, so not a messenger. Maybe it was on its way back from the Capitol to its district? District 10 is on the far west of the Capitol, and he knows the Head Auror in their District hates the owls (the man keeps complaining about that this Merlin forsaken district stink enough of animal stench as it is), so it only leaves district 3 with a sea to cross.
"I'm sure Enid has a few mouses in her basement somewhere for you." He takes back his hand. "You'll just have to give me hand to find them first." he jokes.
That seems to be the wrong thing to say. The owl suddenly stretches its wings, and launch into the kitchen.
"What-"
The owl hits the cupboards, its door opening and spilling its content on the floor.
"Wow wait-!"
The owl continues to fly in its confusion. It struggles in the kitchen, hitting a few more cupboards before jumping above the bar and entering the living room, Remus at its heel, trying desperately to bring it down.
The owl ignores him, it tries to land on the shelves above the door, only for it to crash down under its weight. Remus runs to try to save Enid's vases and pots from the fall, when the whole shelves stop mid-air a few inches from the ground, then finish its fall slowly. Remus stares at it in disbelief, then glares at the owl that is now on the sofa, with its talon caught in the blanket.
Great. A rabid magic owl.
The owl frees itself from the blanket, and launch for the wall now. It begins to scratch the surface, right next to the Order of Merlin.
One scratch lands on Peter's face.
Remus launches himself at the owl with a new found rigor. The beast struggles in his arms, its wings flapping in his face and its talon scratching at his arms. He strides across the room to the window. He curses under his breath as he tries to maintain the owl in his grip with only one hand. The beast throws a vicious strike to his cheek, missing his eye by only a few inches. He yelps, and the owl seems to calm down an instant, just long enough to him to open the window and throw it outside.
The owl takes off in the garden, flying above the chicken coop and sheeps' pen. It lands on barrier protecting the sheep from the woods, staring back at him. Remus stares back, hunched over the windowsill.
He tries to catch his breath as he stares at the owl. He can feel a pearl of blood form on his cheek, then slowly goes down to his jaw. He smells the iron of the blood, and feels his grip tighten. The Owl keeps staring back with its black empty spheres.
They are two beasts staring at one another, a predator and a prey.
The owl seems satisfied with itself. It takes off into the sky, leaving behind a bloody talon print on the barrier.
Remus sighs in relief.
He closes the window, and takes in the sigh of the livingroom. Enid's belongings are scaterred around the place and the fallen shelf is blocking the entry. He flinches when he sees some of her favourite tea cups broken on the ground, and puts them in a box to fix later.
He manages to make more progress in the following hour than he did in the last three. It's certainly easier to *fix* the place than it is to *disturb* it. He almost thanks the owl when he takes in all the progress he has done as the night is setting around the house. *Almost*.
He picks up three boxes he has filled - one with broken things he needs to fix, one with items he can give at the Capon, and one with things he wants to keep (which is mostly filled with Enid's tea supplies) - and puts them down by the front door. He makes a stop in the garden to make sure her two sheeps make it to their barn, and the chicken in their coop. On his way back to the front door, he stops by the Order of Merlin. He sighs at the claw mark on the picture, and decides to add it to the *to fix* box.
But when he tries to take the photo off the wall, it doesn't budge.
He frowns, and tries again.
Nothing.
"What the-"
As he lets go of the picture, he must trigger a mechanism somewhere, because something impossible happen.
The photograph widens.
The frame stretch slowly, unnaturally, beyond its physical limits, getting thinner and thinner as it does, until the wood turns to a string, ready to snap like overstretched bubblegum. Remus takes a step back, unsure of what to do. It continues to stretch, more and more, the picture of Peter's uncertain smile after his victory turns greyer and greyer, turning the boy into a goul, until the grey darkens to a pitch black to overtake the whole photograph that loses itself. Remus' back hit the wall, and before he can think of an escape, the bottom of the frame hits the floor.
The shock vibrates through the whole frame like a spiderweb blown by the wind. It slowly stops.
Remus stares into the darkness, still pressed against the wall, waiting like a deer in the headlights for the danger coming.
The minutes pass, and nothing comes out.
He hears the sheep bleat in the distance, but the lingering fear of something coming out the moment he takes his eyes off the gigantic frame holds him still. Like his eyes have magic capable to stopping the unstoppable, like the wizards' hands. Stupid.
Slowly, Remus makes a move. He stretches his hand forward, toward the blackness of the canvas. He is too far away. He takes a deep breath, and take a step forward.
He tries to touch the picture, only for his hand to fall forward.
The magic from the hole tickles his fingertips, like electricity before the lightening strikes ends him. He has never felt anything like it. The Aurors' display of magic are brief, and do not linger. Their magic comes and go, the common muggles aren't meant to feel magic. This is something new.
It feels like the lightening might bring him back to life.
It is with this unknown sense of hope and awe that Remus takes another step forward to get a better look.
The photograph has become an open gate leading to a place of deep and endless darkness. The warmth of the august's evening, the sweet smell of lavender of Enid's kitchen, and everything human fades into this place, if such a blank space could even be qualified as such. The last few ray of sunlight die at the beginning of stairs that wants to guide him deeper in the sea of nothing. The magic grows stronger the more he reaches far below.
Remus holds his breath. No matter how long he stares, he can't see the end of it.