Finding a Pack
Six months after he leaves his childhood behind, Remus catches a break.
He wakes up in the woods with the smell of blood in his nose. From a quick glance, he knows it is his own.
And then he hears them. People. Humans. No- he wipes the blood off of his chin and sniffs again. Werewolves. Fear prickles. He thinks of his father, stationed outside the door of a cellar lined with silver.
They aren’t leaving. If he can smell them, they can certainly smell him.
Quickly, he pulls his pants on and buttons them, painfully aware at how loose the waist is now.
He emerges from the small foxhole, trying not to shake too badly. He pulls his bag over a stiff shoulder and holds the strap tight.
The click of his bones settling into their natural positions fills his ears and sets his teeth on edge.
There are two men, dressed in fur-lined coats and plaited trousers. It’s a strange combination.
“It’s alright, pup, we aren’t gonna hurt ye,” one of the men says, offering a wolfish grin.
Remus wants to make a run for it, but there are three more men spread out in the woods. He can smell them.
“Get separated from your pack?” The man steps forward and Remus shakes like a leaf. “Ey?”
Remus shakes his head.
“You need to sit down, pup.” The man whistles and one of the other men walks out of the woods.
“Another stray, Alan?” He asks when he steps out of the woods and joins the two currently watching him like he is going to collapse. Which he might.
This man is less intimidating than the man named Alan. His clothes are threadbare and his face is clean shaven and young.
He resembles Remus’s father a bit. From the pictures on the mantle. From before the bite.
“We can’t just leave him, Ricky,” Alan bends down and smiles once more. “Come on, you are swaying on your feet. If you sit down, I promise we’ll keep our distance.”
He hasn’t really got any better options.
Walking a few yards away from Alan, he walks at the same pace as Ricky, so that they stay the same distance apart.
Once he reaches the bench he drops his bag on it and slumps back against the smooth wood.
“Casey, Killian, come on out ‘ere already,” Alan summons the other two wolves.
“Killer, Alan. I told you to call me Killer,” a young man complains as he emerges, all scruffy faced and wearing too few layers for the late autumn air.
“You want to petrify the kid?” The man who must be Casey shoves Killer’s arm. He’s a bit older than Killer, with a long scar across his cheek, much like Remus has.
Remus relaxes a touch. These are the first people he has seen in three months that haven’t chased him off. And they are all like him.
“Hungry?” Alan asks, ignoring his… his what? Are they his pack? Family?
Remus nods, knowing his bag is empty save for the last of the freeze dried apple slices that he’d nicked from the store.
“Ricky. Feed the kid.”
Ricky pulls a bag off his shoulder and pulls out a sleeve of water biscuits. Which is good, because Remus won’t be able to keep much of anything down for a few hours.
He’s pretty sure he ate a deer last night. Or a fox. Something bigger than usual but no challenge for the wolf.
There are bits of game still in his teeth.
His stomach roils and he swallows whatever is trying to come out. Vomiting in front of these men would be humiliating.
“Catch,” Ricky throws the sleeve and Remus catches it.
“So what do you think? Gonna tell us your name?” The last man asks, standing a bit apart from the other four men.
He’s not sure he should. Maybe his parents are still looking for him. He doubted it. It’s been six months.
“Remus,” he says around a mouthful of crackers.
“Remuth?” Killer asks.
He shakes his head and Killer laughs. Guffaws actually.
“Remus,” he swallows.
“I’m Alan,” Alan says, smiling. “That’s Ricky, Killian, Casey, and Derrick.”
The man called Derrick steps a bit closer, seeming to have realised Remus poses less than no threat.
“You’re werewolves,” Remus answers, curious. He never heard them last night. Can’t remember hearing them at least.
“Same as you,” Killian says, tossing a chocolate bar at Remus. “Eat that too. It should help with the pasty complexion.”
They’re laughing at him. He can understand. He knows what he looks like. The state they’ve found him in.
“What are you doing out here by yourself?” Alan asks.
He’s clearly the leader. Though he doesn’t appear to be the oldest. Derrick and Ricky seem older. Maybe the tallest. Or maybe he’s been a wolf the longest.
“Keeping away from humans,” Remus shrugs.
“Not been turning for long, huh?” The one identified as Casey asks. “Those first few months take their toll.”
“Seven years actually,” Remus bites out, the flash of anger spiking. That’s been happening more often as of late. His anger overflowing before he can breathe through it.
He watches as the information sinks in.
Looks are shared and Remus manages a small self-satisfied smile.
He isn’t new to turning.
“How long have you been on your own?” Alan asks, pity leaking into his voice and wiping the smile from Remus’s face.
“Six months.”
“How old are you?” Killer asks, pity in his voice too.
“Eleven.”
“Would you like to come with us into town? We’re just going to get some breakfast,” Alan offers.
Remus shoves another cracker in his mouth and shrugs.
What does he care? It isn’t as if he has anywhere else to be.
Besides, it might be nice to not be so alone anymore.
And then Remus is adopted by a pack of werewolves, unaware of his magical abilities. Abilities that he himself has been having a difficult time suppressing. Of course, he doesn’t have a wand like his father had, so it isn’t that big a problem for him. He just pretends the strange things that happen around him are caused by other things. Not him. He isn’t a wizard.
He’s a wolf.
The pack teaches him to centre himself so that the wolf and the boy can coexist. They provide him with guidance and a family that he is all too eager to accept.
They teach him to hunt in a pack. To make a fire. To build a shelter that keeps out the worst of the wind and the cold.
They have a truck they use to move throughout the country, never staying in one place long enough to attract the attention of wizarding authorities.
Things improve. He even finds himself happy. Marginally.
“You can’t go by Remus. You’ll get eaten alive,” Killian says a couple of months in, ruffling Remus’s hair. Killer wasn’t really sticking as much as the young man wanted it to.
“Why not? His name is Alan,” Remus points at the man who had let him into their pack with kind eyes and open arms.
“What’s your middle name again?” He ignores Remus' good point.
“John.”
“Well that’s boring.”
Remus ignores him right back, standing up and walking towards the fire he’d helped build.
They live in the forest for the most part, in tents. Only stopping into local towns when they run low on supplies. Remus likes it. Things aren’t much easier, but they are better once he has others in his corner.