Chapter 19
“I’ve been given something that I’m sure everyone will enjoy,” Lucius purred with a wide, vicious smile. “Our manny elves, Kreacher and Dobby, have provided us with memories of Sirius Black’s ignominious demise, and I’d like to share them with you. I’ve been warned that some of the images might not be suitable for the ladies’ eyes, so…”
“We watched as Granger and the two youngest Weasleys cut down our Slytherin friends,” Susan remarked softly, voice incredibly sad. “We saw our revered headmaster behead the only professor who truly had Harry’s health and safety in mind. We watched his supposed family try and steal from him, once he’d left us. Anything you show us now couldn’t possibly be any worse than the heartache we felt as Harry watched his whole world die.”
“Fair enough,” Malfoy said with a catch in his voice. It took a few moments for him to get his emotions back under control, then he tapped the runes on the bowl of the pensieve, putting it into display mode, and everyone sat forward in anticipation of a frightfully good show.
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
Sirius Black is on his hands and knees in the clearing in front of the cottage that belongs to Remus Lupin, naked as the day he was born. The werewolf had disappeared several days ago, and Black can only surmise, as he waits there, shivering, that something or someone has finally corralled the werewolf. He leans forward, mouth open, and a stream of blood and bits of innards flows from the gaping orifice. With a groan, he weakly flicks his wand, incanting one of the very few healing spells in his repertoire as an Auror. Rustling behind him has him bracing himself as a large bear exits the underbrush, making its way to the man nearly prostrate on the forest floor. With a grunt, the animal mounts Black, hammering into the man’s weakened body as the animagus screams. It’s been like this for a few weeks now, ever since he and Remus had that conversation about Harry Potter, and the last Black lord fears that he might not survive this last ‘coupling’.
He had woken up from his drunken stupor, naked and confused, with an uncontrollable itch and the urge to vomit up everything that he’d ever eaten in his entire lifetime. He ran outside the cabin to hurl in the bushes, bending over to make sure that he wasn’t covered with his emesis, and didn’t hear the buck as it came out of the forest. He did, however, feel the hooves wrapping around his waist as it mounted him and slammed into him. The shriek he gave had the lycan stumbling from the cabin, staring in horror as his best friend was raped by a twelve point buck. Lupin tried to disengage the animal, but the stag flung his head at the werewolf, the tip of his horns scoring a rather deep scratch across Remus’ stomach. The conversation afterward was uncomfortable and difficult, and set the other man on a quest to research what was happening to Sirius, and if there was any way to stop it.
The trysts, for lack of a better term, continued nearly every day. Lupin tried to lock the animagus in the cabin, but somehow, he always managed to get out and expose himself for any male animal that smelled his pheromones. Between the sexual assaults, Black spent most of his time bent over the porcelain god, vomiting up food, blood, and sometimes bits of his intestine or stomach. Remus was able to procure potions to help stop the loss of the other man’s innards, but they were only a temporary patch; nothing the werewolf researched explained the other man’s illness.
“I miss you, Moony,” Sirius moans as the bear finishes and pulls out, leaving a bloody trail as it goes back into the forest. None of the carnivorous animals recognize Black as a source of food when they’ve finished molesting him, and not for the first time, he wishes that one of them would just bloody eat him already. “I don’t think I’ll live much longer,” he continues as he stretches out on the forest floor. He has just enough energy to roll over and stare up at the starry sky as he murmurs, “I’m coming home, James, Lily. I can’t wait to see you again.” With a faint sob, he closes his eyes, his chest rising and falling fewer and fewer times until it finally stops. As the potions have finally done their jobs, the effects dissipate, since the body that held them is no longer alive, and the smell of blood and flesh attract the carrion eaters, who come to the banquet.
END WARNING END WARNING END WARNING END WARNING END WARNING
“Dear Merlin,” Neville whispered as the images faded. “Whose memories are those?”
“Both Kreacher and Dobby contributed to the show,” Lucius told everyone, face pale. Even he hadn’t realized just how vicious Severus’ potions would be. “Kreacher, because of his connection to the Black family, was able to pull thoughts and memories from Sirius, whilst Dobby watched the physical part of the revenge. They both have many more memories of Black’s torture, if you’d like to see them.”
“NO!” everyone yelled at once, faces pale. A few were fighting their gorges, trying manfully, or womanfully in some cases, not to vomit all over the expensive Italian rug under their feet. “We’re good,” Luna whispered, hand covering her mouth in a combination of horror and nausea. “It wouldn’t be out of the realm, however, to submit some of these memories, censored of course, to the papers and completely destroy any good regard Black might have had in the world,”
“That’s...a really good idea,” Fred agreed with a feral grin. His brother nodded along with the suggestion, still fighting down the nausea. “As long as we leave enough to imply what’s going on, the wizarding public will fill in the blanks.”
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Lupin opened his eyes and stared out of the cage sadly. It had been several weeks since his capture, and he was still waiting on the judgment of the council. After he’d been cleanly captured from that small cave, he was dragged back to the largest werewolf encampment in the world. Fenrir had become the Alpha Supreme of the werewolf packs, and he asked Lucius Malfoy for enough territory to allow his pack-mates to move about freely, without interference from the Ministry or the general wizarding public. Malfoy had several large parcels of land, all connected, that he’d given to the werewolf to set up as a village in which to house any lycans that needed a safe place to stay and live. From all over the world, the werewolves emigrated to Lángrén Bifēnggăng, which translated from traditional Chinese to Werewolf Haven. There, they built homes, storefronts, a school, a hospital and an Auror station; all manned by the citizens of the new village.
There were, of course, protective wards surrounding the land and a good bit of the woods around the town, to keep nosy people out of their home. The village was under a massive fidelius charm, which required ten very powerful wolven wizards to erect, with Fenrir, as Alpha, and Tyler Lockwood, his Beta, as the secret-keepers. Anyone from the outside wishing to visit the werewolf village had to undergo a rigorous interview process, which included questioning under veritaserum and an examination of the applicant’s aura, to make sure that no one with hidden agendas could have access to the protected town. Once accepted, the petitioner was given an amulet, the silhouette of a wolf howling at the moon etched into a round bronze pendant, which would grant them unlimited access to the village and the unique wares they had on offer. Only the person to whom the medallion is keyed could use it to enter the haven, and anyone passing it to another would automatically lose their own right to visit Fenrir’s haven.
“Today is the day, wolf,” Marsha Quist murmured with a sultry smile. “Today you pay for your part in abandoning pack, as well as the five children you’d turned whilst you were a student in Hogwarts. Out of those five, only three survived their first turning; Scott Howard was killed by his parents, and my brother, Edward Quist, was hunted down by a bunch of wizards and decapitated. He’d bitten me when we were playing once, and now I am what you are. I am your granddaughter, and I will be delighted to see you roast for what you’ve done to my family.”
“I will mourn for what could have been, cub,” Fenrir said as he came up behind the woman. “I killed your father because he butchered my mate, and I turned you out of revenge for his attack. You were to come with me and be a part of my pack, but someone came along and took you away before I could include you in the family. Then that old man got his hooks buried deeply into you, and you were lost to the family.
“It pains me, cub, that I have to be the one to punish you for your transgressions against the family, but I take my duties as Alpha quite seriously. It is time for you to stand before the tribunal and face your judgment and punishment.” Lupin was taken from the cage, hands bound with magic-suppressing cuffs as he was led to an open clearing. At one end of the circle was a table at which four people sat. The center chair was empty for the moment as Remus was maneuvered into place, and then tied to a pole that stood in the center of the clearing. Shaking his head, Greyback turned and walked to the table, taking his place in the center.
“We are here to pass judgment on one who should have been part of the pack, but he turned his back on his brothers and sisters to suck the cock of Albus Dumbledore in order to be protected from the werewolf hunts during the old man’s time as Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump. He has refused to acknowledge his power and strength; instead choosing to align himself with weak humans who would only use him for his enhanced abilities.
“Here to pass judgment with me are Tyler Lockwood, my mate, Sérafine Pigot, Will Randall and Edward Munster. We have been following you for a very long time, cub, and we’ve witnessed the things you’ve done in the name of your god, Albus Dumbledore. We know that he instructed you to bite those five children so that he could steal their legacies away from them, as well as their seats on the Wizengamot. They were muggleborns, born of squibs who had been banished into the muggle world for having no magic. They were from pureblood lines, and you sentenced them to lives without power, prestige or love, and in two cases, death. You have eagerly and willingly aligned yourself with known werewolf haters, who went out of their way to slaughter our kind for no other reason than that they were animals one night a month.
“They were upstanding citizens; hardworking family members who were punished, through no fault of their own, one night a month because someone else lost control; because Albus Dumbledore ensured that none of those turned were able to establish themselves in a pack or family unit. It is because of this isolation that so many of our kind lose their minds on the full moon nights, for without the stability and love of pack, they have nothing; they are nothing.”
“So what do we do with you, Lupin?” Tyler asked rhetorically, since Fenrir already had a punishment set for the man. “Do we turn you over to the Ministry extermination squad? Do we banish you from the village and set you adrift amongst the humanity outside our borders, watching as you slowly go mad from the isolation? Do we neuter you and turn you into a toy for some of our less cultured members? Do we permanently bind your magic and make you a manny for the younglings?”
“I...I would like to be a teacher again,” Remus stammered hopefully, eyes filled with tears. “I could teach the youngsters about their magic.”
“What of your duty to Harry Potter?” Sérafine asked softly. “He was part of the human pack you’d created with James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. What of him?”
“My wolf never recognized that child as pack,” Lupin snarled angrily, eyes turning gold for a brief moment.
“And why is that?” Will Randall queried. “After all, he was born of your pack, so he should have been a part of your pack. Could it, perhaps, be jealousy? Were you jealous of the attention that the child was getting, which meant that you weren’t receiving any of that regard?”
“N-no, I wasn’t jealous of the brat,” the lycan denied vehemently. “There was just something about him that had the wolf raging.”
“Maybe it’s because you were aware of that prophecy, and you were afraid that you would lose James Potter,” Edward Munster contributed with a feral grin showing too many sharp teeth. “After all, it was no secret that you’d been pining for the Potter lord ever since you met him. How disappointing and painful was it, to realize that your mate was actually meant for another? And that, like the coward you are, you rolled over and showed belly when Lily became his, instead of fighting for what was yours by right.”
“N-no, that isn’t true,” Remus shouted, amber eyes wide as the realization hit him. “No...no…” he kept murmuring as his true feelings, buried for so very long, finally broke through and hammered him with guilt.
“Enough,” Greyback barked, silencing the whispering of the crowds. “For the sin of turning unwilling children during your time at Hogwarts, and for turning your back on a child of your pack, I sentence you to be staked to the ground, by both hands and both feet, on top of an anthill. You will be covered in honey and chocolate, and you will remain there, in the hot sun, until every last bit of flesh has been picked from your bones. There will be a silencing ward around you so that your screams do not disturb the other residents. You are to be a feast for the animals that live here; that is your sentence.”