Full Moon
For the record, I find it hilarious that Aster's "perfect night" includes her being told off for being a poncy, rich arsehole. And if anyone is wondering, yes, Constantine does still give her shite over not buying the Starlighters an apartment building. It really doesn't matter how far into the future you're reading this, Dear Readers, he's going to keep giving her shite until one of them dies.
Oh, come off it! I was fucking kidnapped! It's not like I just got distracted by something trivial and flaked out! Connie knows that! (But that's getting ahead of ourselves.)
There was one other night, though, that was just about perfect in a very different way. The Starlight party was better though, because the morning after wasn't nearly as awkward.
Aster cast a tempus charm for the fifth time since she and Dumbledore had made their way to the Shrieking Shack to sit around in awkward silence while they waited for Aster to not turn into a werewolf.
4:12
Technically, werewolves didn't just transform under the full moon. They transformed under the full moon after the sun set. Some months, when moonrise was in the middle of the day, this meant they transformed as soon as the sun went down. Other months, like this one, for instance, there was some period after sunset but before the moon rose — sometimes hours — where a werewolf wouldn't transform. (Remus liked those the best even though it was harder going through the transformation back to human with less time to recover because he was wolf-shaped and dangerous for a shorter period of time.)
There was about half an hour between sunset and moonrise today. Because Dumbledore wasn't exactly an expert on werewolves, he had insisted that she needed to be down here, safely warded away, well before sunset. Aster hadn't complained because heading to Hogsmeade at three in the afternoon meant she didn't have to go to Potions. Of course, she would've skived off anyway to keep Remy company, but having a note from the Headmaster excusing her meant Slughorn wouldn't give her a detention for doing so.
If she'd realised that it would mean sitting around for almost an hour in awkward silence with Dumbledore, though, she might have. It had only been two weeks since their...conversation about the war, and they hadn't spoken since. The old man had tried to make small talk for a few minutes, but she'd shot His Excellency down at every turn, because she had no intention of making nice with a stubborn, hypocritical arse who insisted that he was a fucking general, and she was trying to convince him to negotiate with de Mort for Bella, rather than out of concern that he was going to get everyone she cared about outside of the House fucking slaughtered. And trying to act like it was worth it, getting her friends killed (he hadn't yet, obviously, but he was definitely going to as soon as they started seeing combat, because they were fucking children) just to avoid admitting that he couldn't beat the Death Eaters back into submission, was worse! Trying to chat about the weather and her lessons to take her mind off the 'impending' transformation as though she hadn't screamed at him and he hadn't kicked her out of his office the last time they'd spoken, as though he was still her headmaster and she was a student and nothing more, was just adding insult to injury.
The sun had set at three thirty-seven, though, and the moon had risen almost fifteen minutes ago now, and Aster (shockingly) was still not a wolf.
Dumbledore looked inexplicably confused about this.
She stared very pointedly at the glowing red numerals produced by the tempus charm for several seconds, then transfigured the boards over one of the windows to be translucent, gesturing as sarcastically as she possibly could at the sky outside. "Behold, the moon! I told you, I'm not a werewolf."
"But you were bitten! How is this possible?"
"Magic?" Dumbledore gave her a look, as though this wasn't a perfectly accurate and honest answer. She shrugged. "I don't know. Soul-magic animagus stuff? Or maybe the Blacks really do have too much magic in our blood. Bella doesn't turn either." Dumbles went a little pale at the thought of werewolf Bella. It was hard to tell by the ruddy light of the candles he'd conjured and with most of his face hidden behind his beard, but the way his eyes widened as well gave it away. "So, can I go, then? Because Remy will have changed by now, and I promised to keep him company and make sure he doesn't bite anyone else."
Not that that was really likely to be a problem, he was running with Fenrir's pack (and Bella) tonight, in the middle of some forest in Eastern Europe because the R and C goons would be out in full force hunting for them tonight. They apparently had a vanishing cabinet portal set up already — the wolves who were too old or young or injured to fight or who just refused to participate in anything to do with the Death Eaters went there every month. Fenrir, Bella, and the fighters of the Pack who would go on raids and participate in battles and shite went there probably two out of every three months, too, to keep their attacks in Britain unpredictable.
Well, that was their excuse. After a few weeks hanging around Ancient House again, spending more time around the wolves than she ever had as a kid, Aster was starting to get the impression that most of the vaguely thuggish muggle blokes in their twenties, the ones with chips on their shoulders about daylighters (magical and muggle) treating them like shite, who she'd thought were mostly in it because the Death Eaters gave them a clear and acceptable target for their hatred and rage, were really just sort of...lost. Or, had been. They'd all been outcasts in the muggle world too, for one reason or another. Petty theives and enforcers for loan sharks, dropouts and drug addicts. Rejects who thought they had nothing left to lose. (Because really, who else would sign up to become a fucking werewolf? or a footsoldier, for that matter?)
The Pack, in a lot of ways, had become the family they hadn't had as humans — a band of brothers, sort of, united by their Curse and their conviction that being werewolves didn't make them less. And when you realised that most of them were (had been) poor bastards with no family or friends, working shite jobs for shite pay in the muggle world, just sort of scraping by on the daily with no real prospects or even direction...yeah. It was pretty fucking hard to imagine being pulled into the Pack, given a family and a mission, even signing on for a fucking war, as seeming like a bad thing. Sure, they might die young, fighting for something they could have gone their whole lives not even knowing about, but they'd die doing something with their lives.
Of course, they weren't soft or nice — they didn't all like each other or even always get along, and there were a good handful who had problems with Fenrir's leadership for one reason or another, who occasionally tried to challenge him and take over the Pack — they were crude arseholes, for the most part, and just as macho as she'd thought. Most of them had a hard-on for violence and thinking of themselves as warriors. (Albeit a slightly weird idea of what it meant to be a warrior compared to what Aster had grown up with, less about leadership and Doing One's Part, and more about strength and virility.) But they were...relatable, that was a good word.
They weren't exactly Aster's kind of people, in the same way the Starlighters weren't really her kind of people — their lives had just been too different for her to quite fit in — and some of them really didn't like her (or Bella) elbowing her way into their little boys' club, but they weren't completely foreign and unapproachable. (She fit in better than Remus, and they liked her a hell of a lot more, too.)
The Pack spent all their time as humans focused on the war effort, learning to cast shot and practising hand-to-hand combat or helping out the enchanters by carving runes, or smuggling potions ingredients through muggle channels or whatever. But the Wolf didn't care about politics.
If it was put in a position where there were humans around to attack, it would, but any Reservationist would tell you there was more to the Wolf — more to being a wolf — than just violence and bloodlust and the need to spread the Curse. That need was paramount, but if any chance of fulfilling it was made impossibly remote, it was possible to embrace actually being as a wolf — to play and hunt, to fuck and work out any interpersonal problems within the group by having a good scrap, or just run and generally...enjoy giving oneself over to instinct and freedom and...being a wild animal for a night, basically. (Which Aster completely understood. She'd bet anything that if Bella really had been disappointed she couldn't be turned, that was why.)
So she was pretty sure they really spent more moons out in the middle of nowhere than causing trouble in Britain because they liked having the moons to relax and bond with the pack, even if they said it was to keep their attacks unpredictable. She wouldn't say that wanting to have a night off from the war effort hanging out with your adopted brothers and just...enjoying being fucking wolves was soft, but that was the kind of macho a lot of them were, like admitting to being motivated by anything even emotion-adjacent cast potential doubt on one's manhood.
In any case, it wasn't really likely any of them would be in a position to bite anyone tonight, she just sort of wanted to needle Dumbledore about failing to stop Remy biting someone last month, because he would never not be responsible for that, at least in part.
The real reason Aster was planning on running with them (aside from the fact that it sounded like fun) was to be a familiar presence for Moony, who was entirely unaccustomed to being around other wolves. She apparated to Ancient House as soon as the old man dismissed her with a curt (and slightly troubled) nod.
It was cold in...wherever they were and (maybe predictably) there were no werewolves left in the general vicinity. It did take a few minutes for them to recover from the change, but by the time Aster made her way down to Ancient House and through the cabinet, it was almost four-thirty. The moon would have been up for...
The moon would have been up for like three hours, she realised, peering up through the trees at the silvery disk, much higher in the sky than it ought to be.
Because wherever they were was hundreds of miles east of Hogwarts. Right, Aster, you idiot...
In her defence, Annie hadn't mentioned the time difference when she'd invited Aster to come along. (She'd probably thought Aster was aware of it. Damn it.) She probably would've had to leave school at like noon if she'd wanted to actually be here for the change.
Hopefully Moony hadn't panicked or gotten aggressive or something, surrounded by a bunch of wolves he didn't know. That was the whole point of Aster being here.
Sorry, Remy...
And, she realised, they'd probably have to hang out here for a few hours before heading back to Britain. Because when the sun rose here, the moon would still be up in England. Right? Yes, she was pretty sure that was right. And she really didn't want to know what would happen if you dragged a werewolf who'd already transformed back to human into the full moon again. Probably nothing good.
Damn. Well, at least she'd still have her wand. Remus, she knew, had to leave his somewhere safe when he transformed — unlike animagi, werewolves couldn't take shite with them when they changed, even when it was as attuned to them as their wand. She could make a fire and conjure blankets and stuff. It'd be fine.
Right now, though, it was fucking freezing. She popped into Padfoot's form as soon as she figured out what the hell was going on with the moon.
It was still cold as a dog, her breath still fogged in the cold dry air stinging her nose and throat, but it wasn't wet, there was only a little snow and her feet weren't warm enough to really melt it, and fur did a much better job keeping her warm than her thin, indoor, school-appropriate robe. She'd taken her cloak off while she was looking for parchment to make a note about getting her thrice-cursed apparation license (since she'd just apparated in front of Dumbledore) and decided she probably wouldn't need it, since she was just running around as Padfoot, anyway.
She hadn't actually found any parchment. The ancient outbuilding that housed the wolves' vanishing cabinet was practically abandoned, she'd ended up having to conjure a pencil as well as paper, but she'd remembered to stick the note to the wall right in front of the cabinet, she'd definitely see it tomorrow morning. (And remember to write it down again somewhere that wouldn't vanish when she got back to school. Hopefully.)
Anyway, the only sign of the Pack was a bunch of disturbed ground and tracks leading off to the north. There was also a little blood spotted here and there, but that didn't necessarily mean there'd been a scrap or anything — sometimes the transformation didn't go smoothly at all, bones actually breaking the skin as the Curse reshaped the wolf's body, and it was only a few drops here and there, almost lost in the cold and the wild pine-forest background smell and the overwhelming scent of wolf.
With twenty-three werewolves making the transformation, it wouldn't be surprising if a few had had bad shifts. Especially since Annie had said there were two newcomers other than Remus. Janet was on her third moon (four months since she'd been bitten) and Chaz was making his very first change tonight. Remus said that had been more common when he was younger, the actual physical transformation had gotten a little smoother over the years, even if it was still hideously painful.
Most of the Pack were adult males. Aster knew that, but Padfoot would have been able to tell from the marks they'd left on the nearby trees.
Bella was here, too. She hadn't marked any trees (which was kind of a funny mental image, but Aster really wouldn't put it past her if she thought she should for some reason), but her magic left a trace in the air, almost like lightning. It wasn't nearly strong enough to notice as a human, but as a dog it was clear, and she had to be at least unconsciously aware of it as a human, because she knew instantly that that was what it was. And Aster was pretty sure she was barefoot. It was sort of hard to see her tracks by moonlight, in soil as dry and needle-covered as this, but bare skin left a different scent on the ground than oiled leather boots, and there was a sharp, spicy, distinctively Bella smell lingering in the air, even behind the tangled trails of two dozen humans and the wolves they'd become and the sharper marked trees (and the blood and the cold, and the dirt and needles crushed beneath her paws).
And Moony. It was harder to pick him out among all the other wolves, but there! That was Moony!
And Padfoot was late! He'd left without her. She had to catch up!
She paused long enough to let out a long howl, let them know she was here, she was coming (time zones were just stupid, okay), but then she ran, letting the night and her instincts carry her away.
She didn't know how long it took her to catch up, time was weird as a dog. (Even weirder than normal.) Not as long as it might have, Bella had looped around a few times, fresher trails crossing old paths, so Aster had been able to skip ahead rather than covering all the same ground the Pack had before she'd gotten here.
Shadows darting through the underbrush, a frustrated yip, a flash of blue light and white cloth almost glowing under the moon, a breathless giggle, headed toward Aster, from her left — circling around again. Bella! She'd caught them! Finally!
In the minute before Bella reached her, she crouched low, panting to catch her breath as much as to cool herself (running was hot work, even when it was this cold out).
Three...
Two...
One...
POUNCE!
Bella hadn't been expecting her, that much was clear from the fact that she actually managed to catch her, but she was still Bella — she rolled with the hit, throwing Aster off her (and onto her back with a painful thump and a startled yelp), and was back on her feet sprinting through the trees in half a second, heading into a denser thicket and leaping with a flash of runes to pull herself up into one on the edge of a small clearing.
"Aster!" she laughed as the other wolves caught up, a furry wave surrounding the base of the tree, jumping (too high, they couldn't reach) and growling at her for having the audacity to be up there. "You're late!"
And she didn't dare change back to explain about the time. Not with three or four of them circling around the stranger they'd just noticed in their midst rather than treeing Bella.
A very large, black and grey male Aster felt certain was Fenrir stalked over to her, confident and challenging, though not enough to suggest that he actually found her any sort of threat — head held high and proud, wide-eyed and stiff-tailed, but his teeth weren't barred in outright aggression. She had to wonder exactly how aware he was of conscious, human matters as a wolf. Remy didn't really seem to remember anything Moony did most of the time, but she fancied Fenrir (it was him, she realised as he came closer, his scent distinguishing itself from the others who had accompanied him to investigate her) had at least some idea who she was and that she was supposed to be there, even if they hadn't technically met in these forms. It could just be that she also retained some of her human scent, she guessed, but...
Whatever.
She whined, crouching a bit, giving him an ingratiating wag and ducking her head. After a moment he responded with an accepting little wuf, moving in to smell her properly.
...Followed by practically every other member of the Pack, just a couple stubborn holdouts (the youngest of the Pack, wary of newcomers and unwilling to give up their game) guarding Bella in her tree. They'd been serious when they said she didn't really smell like prey — Aster would call her human, her scent was closer to human than anything else, even if she couldn't quite place that spicy note, but...
She wasn't afraid, maybe that was it. Moony, lurking off to one side, holding himself back from getting too close to any of the others, his body language even more submissive than Aster had been greeting Fenrir, and anxious, smelled more afraid than Bella.
Anyway, they already knew Bella, and they weren't really hunting her. A new female to sniff out was more intriguing than a familiar, non-canine pack-mate, especially when Bella was just sitting there, rather than running and giving them something to chase. She waited until they'd settled down a bit to drop back to the ground — about halfway through Aster's introductions — and though she still had to bat away a nip from one of the young males who'd 'treed' her, most of them paid her no mind at all, letting her walk around in the midst of the Pack in human form, which was just...really weird to see, honestly.
Not just seeing her in human form surrounded by werewolves, it was weird to see her so...relaxed. Sure, it was a ready sort of relaxed, not the sort of relaxed where she might actually be caught with her guard down, but she looked comfortable in a way Aster rarely saw her around anyone other than Aster herself, without the tension of having to perform, the awareness that one mustn't be too honest, mustn't act without thinking, instinctively. Even de Mort, for all his lamia princess aspirations, was a bit...human. As opposed to a vicious, near-feral animal only pretending to be a civilised person where other people would see him. Or a forest spirit, maybe — some nameless incarnation of freedom and wild places, where humans dared not trespass.
She looked for all the world as though she belonged out here, was what Aster was trying to say. Kneeling beside Fenrir as he presided over the introductions, completely unconcerned about her thin white tunic and loose hair fluttering in the chill breeze or that she was barefoot in the snow (wrapped in the shimmer of what had to be a heavy warming charm, but still). She seemed...calmer than usual. Content. In her element (albeit in a very different way than she was on a training field).
Much more so than Moony. Dumb wolf could take a lesson or two. After what seemed like an awfully long time, Aster finally managed to shake off the last of her new friends long enough to saunter over to him and pull one of his ears. Lighten up, Moony...
He bristled at her a bit, snapping at her for the ear-tugging, obviously hadn't entirely forgiven her for last month, but being surrounded by other wolves was clearly intimidating enough that he didn't actually want to drive her away. She was, at the very least, familiar.
It was a little funny, actually. She might expect Remus to act like this around a bunch of new people, but Moony was generally more assertive than Remus was as a human. Not really aggressive (at least when there wasn't a human around to try to attack), and not very insistent on displaying his dominance over Aster, even when Padfoot had also been male, but not hesitant or shy.
They had gotten into it a couple of times, especially when the Marauders had first gotten the animagus transformation down, but more because it drove Moony mental being trapped in the Shack and Aster would rather he take his frustration out on her than throwing himself against the walls and biting himself than because Moony really wanted to make a point or hurt her. He'd calmed down a lot once it had actually sunk in that at least he wasn't alone anymore, his frustrated, self-destructive rage giving way to a more playful sort of fighting where there was never a clear winner or loser. It was still playing rough, Sirius had had to assure all three of the others after the first night they'd joined Moony in the shack that the werewolf hadn't really been trying to hurt him. How they could possibly have thought otherwise, Aster still had no idea. Padfoot had only gotten a couple of nips that were hard and deep enough to get through the fur and break skin.
But human Remus definitely found Aster (or Sirius) to be a bit intimidating. Out of all of the Marauders, he'd always been least comfortable around Sirius. Yes, that was partially because Sirius was the one who'd realised he was a werewolf and told the others — which, yes, in hindsight, telling a Light noble and a commoner who'd only heard light propaganda about werewolves could have gone much worse than it had, Aster didn't really blame Remus for not entirely trusting her judgment, just in general after that, even if it had objectively worked out great for Remus...until about two months ago, she guessed. But she really didn't think it would be fair to blame everything on just recognising Remus as a werewolf and (somewhat aggressively) befriending him. There'd been loads of choices and turning points after that, Aster refused to believe she should have just kept her mouth shut and let him suffer in friendless silence for the better part of three years.
But out of all of the Marauders, Sirius had always been the most comfortable with Remy being a werewolf (Aster hadn't been raised to hate and fear Dark "Creatures" on principle), which itself had made Remus uncomfortable with him from the outset. After all, Remus hated and feared his wolf. Anyone who didn't think he was a complete monster had to be missing a few limiting phrases. (Like that wasn't patently obvious, even by third year.) And they were also just very different people. Namely, Remy was a Square Tim who'd rather spend his free time with a nice book in the library than flying or dueling, whereas Aster could look shite up if she needed to know something (and there wasn't anyone convenient around to ask), but she'd rather be doing things, or at least reading fun stories rather than boring history or literature or whatever.
Remy had pretty much always found Aster's energy and enthusiasm to be somewhat overwhelming and generally off-putting. Yes, he'd been helpless to withstand her charm offensive when she'd decided they were going to be friends, but she was well aware that he'd liked her the least out of the other Marauders (still might, actually — she wasn't sure he fully understood how much of a tool James Potter had turned out to be, and the role he'd played in ruining Remus's life), and he was often adorably wary of drawing her attention, on the off-chance that she would drag him into "one of your zany adventures" rather than allowing him to read quietly by himself all afternoon.
He wouldn't dare pick a fight with her just to entertain himself...or for any reason at all that she could think of, honestly. If Moony was reasonably assertive with her, she'd expect him to be able to hold his own with the other wolves, too — negotiate a place for himself in their hierarchy rather than anxiously stepping aside for anyone who indicated they wanted him to. But apparently he was only reasonably assertive when he was very obviously the biggest, most dangerous animal around. Put Moony in a crowd of werewolves, and he was suddenly exactly like Remus in the middle of a crowd of humans, deferring to everyone else to avoid conflict. (She was going to have to remember to tell him that in the morning...)
To be fair, most of the wolves were bigger, stronger, and more aggressive in their body language than Moony. With the fully grown wolves standing right next to them, it was easy to see that no matter how much bigger he was than Padfoot already (probably ten stone and a good hand and a half taller than her at the shoulder), gangly teenage werewolf Moony still had a lot of filling out to do. Also to be fair, he'd been avoiding socialising with them at Ancient House, so he didn't know any of them very well as humans, either. Aster didn't know all of them, but she had been able to pick out Clarence, Annie, Hati and Skoll, and Chris as well as Fenrir.
And obviously Betty was the one who was missing a hind leg — Aster had only met her in passing, she definitely hadn't spent enough time around her to have any sort of subconscious awareness of her scent to carry over into this form, but she knew the muggleborn witch had lost her left leg below the knee in the attack that had turned her. She'd been terrified of ending up on the werewolf registry if she went to Saint Mungo's, so had used a makeshift tourniquet to stop the bleeding until she could get to a muggle hospital, and that had done enough damage itself the leg had had to be amputated.
There were only two other adult females (Erika and Dot, though Aster didn't know which was which), and the littlest female — barely big enough to keep up with the rest of the pack — would be Janet. She was only eight, apparently. Annie, telling Aster and Remus about the other new wolves, had been nothing short of outraged, relating her story. Her father had been with R and C, bitten in a botched raid on Starlight a few years before. He lost his job, obviously. Starlight wouldn't take him in (since he'd actively been trying to kill them the month before, and all). His wife divorced him and banned him from seeing his kids, acting like it was contagious even when he was human. Family wouldn't even talk to him. After a couple of years of that, he'd had a breakdown, decided he had nothing left to lose, broke into his ex-wife's house, murdered her, kidnapped the kids, and tried to deliberately turn them. Janet's younger brother and sister hadn't made it. One of her aunts knew someone who knew someone who knew Bella, so little Janet mysteriously disappeared from an R and C 'home' for 'troubled children' before her first full moon. (Aster was sure she was a troubled child, seeing her mum and siblings murdered by her father, and him executed by some random Hit Wizard on the spot, but Troubled Children's Homes were basically torture-prisons for little werewolf kids.)
There were three juvenile males Aster hadn't met before today — the one who'd tried to nip Bella was almost the same size as Moony, but pale blond rather than Moony's darker, brindled brown; the other two a bit smaller — all of whom had also been liberated from R and C 'homes', and one male who was, like Annie, going white around the muzzle with age.
And the skinny, sick-looking male was probably Chaz, the newest muggle wolf. Annie had mentioned he'd been living on the streets in Edinburgh, addicted to some muggle drug or other, and being turned wasn't exactly a cake walk. It'd probably take another month or two for him to recover, since he almost certainly hadn't been in great shape to begin with.
But all the others were young and healthy, and Moony wasn't about to contest their self-asserted superiority.
Even, apparently, when one of the males Aster didn't know decided that she shouldn't be over here hanging out with this loser. He strutted over to posture a bit, baring his teeth in Moony's face, making him cringe back — very clearly putting him in his place (well below this arrogant bastard of a wolf in the Pack hierarchy) — and trying to herd Padfoot away from Moony, putting himself between them with his back to the younger werewolf, giving Aster very clear interested signals — what say you and I break off and start our own pack sort of vibes. She wasn't in heat, obviously, but some human instincts carried over to the wolf-form as well, the same as with Padfoot.
Not interested. She wasn't here to shag random wolves, and even if she were, well... He was fit, sure, but most of them were fit, and Arrogant Bastard didn't smell nearly as attractive as at least two or three of the others. She brushed him off, slipping past him back to Moony with a dismissive flick of her ears.
Apparently Arrogant Bastard didn't want to take no for an answer, or else thought she was too stupid to know what she was doing and hadn't meant to blow him off, because he'd done the same thing again, circling around to sniff more suggestively at her rear, his tail wafting his own scent more strongly in her face. (Hey, you sexy little thing, sure you don't want to get to know me?)
She bristled, spinning to face him without thinking about it, ears laid back, teeth bared, snapping just short of his nose with a little warning growl. (Yes, he was much larger than her, but I said no, horny fuck! Piss off!)
He really didn't like that, going from amorous to offended in about two seconds flat, but before he could decide what to do about it, the wind shifted to come from the east, carrying with it...
What was that?
The musty scent of some sort of prey animal — like a deer, but not quite? She'd definitely never smelled that exact thing before, but her instinctive certainty that it was a thing to hunt was confirmed by a wave of excitement rippling through the clearing, ears perking up, heads turning to catch more of the scent. Arrogant Bastard — either abandoning her or in the hopes of showing off a bit, she wasn't sure which — called out with a come join the hunt howl, which was answered by half a dozen of the other young adult males.
Fenrir bounded over to make it clear who was actually in charge here, staring Arrogant Bastard down until he blinked, curled-lip not-quite-growling giving way to ducking acceptance of the fact that yes, he'd been out of line trying to usurp Fenrir's place at the head of the Pack. Not very submissive — this might be Lawrence or Jory, Aster suspected (they were the two who had the biggest issues with Fenrir's leadership as humans) — but enough Fenrir knew A.B. wouldn't challenge his leadership when he repeated the call to hunt.
There was a flurry of motion as the large grey wolf led the singing hunters out into the forest, following the scent of the prey. Bella went with them, of course, wearing a bloody, anticipatory grin that absolutely matched the wolves' body language. The rest of the Pack, led by Clarence, followed Fenrir more slowly, with Annie and Betty and the old male wolf bringing up the rear, corralling the two smallest males and little Janet to keep them from getting under foot or giving themselves away when they got too close. Too many hunters would just get in the way, but they might circle around to cut off attempts by the prey to retreat or something, and they'd all want to join in feeding when the prey — whatever it was — was taken.
Aster didn't really know that, that they might try to cut off escape attempts, she was just guessing, but it seemed reasonable, and also like a thing she could do without getting in the way. She'd never hunted with wolves before, she wouldn't want to misunderstand their signals and compromise their chance to fill their bellies tonight, but she didn't want to be left out! She wanted to help!
And Moony should too, she decided, nipping at his tail and bumping his shoulder (leg — tall bloody bastard) with hers before trotting off to catch up with Clarence.
The prey was farther away than Aster had expected, though that might've been because their calls and their own scent had disturbed them, sending them galloping off into the dark, leading the Pack on a glorious, blood-lust fueled chase, and they were fast, even on broken, heavily forested ground — there were three, quickly separated from each other, though they were all still moving in the same direction, toward...
Toward the lake!
The glimpses Aster caught of them, the sounds of their bodies crashing through the undergrowth, they were big, much bigger than deer — elk, they had to be! — and elk could swim!
She wasn't the only one who realised what was going on. When the hunt broke the tree line, stumbling out onto the rocky shore, half the Pack was waiting to harry the elk and distract them, making daring leaps at their hind-quarters, dodging hooves flying in all directions to tear at the haunches and soft tail-area, drawing torrents of blood. One of the wolves was caught by a vicious kick from the largest of the three — the cow, the two smaller must be this year's calves — from the front — she hadn't realised these things could move like that, apparently neither had he — sending him metres through the air to land in the water, breaking through the thin ice ringing the shore with an almighty crack.
One of the small ones went down first, blood loss bringing it to its knees with a terrified bellow, quickly cut off by a chomp that ripped its throat out in another gout of blood — a mercy, since the blood-maddened wolves who'd brought it down didn't wait for Fenrir to finish with the cow and take his share before digging into its belly, gorging themselves on the steaming organs as they were exposed to the air.
Aster, moving entirely on instinct, helped take down the second small one as it made a break for the water, already bleeding heavily. She leapt at its neck, the same way she would with a deer, teeth clamping down, flesh shredding as her momentum carried her away, pulling it down with her, sliding and tumbling to a halt at the very edge of the lake, blood, sweet and hot, spilling over the icy stones, congealing quickly as it spread onto the frozen surface of the water.
She didn't wait for Fenrir, either, joining the feeding frenzy with half a dozen others who'd worked to bring this one down, sinking teeth and muzzle into the carcass to tear out a solid chunk of lung, light and squishy, nose filled with the scent of hot meat. She bolted it down, diving back into the fray and claiming a mouthful of kidney as well before retreating.
She let herself flop to the ground, full — she had had a large, late lunch in anticipation of spending all night running around with Moony, and that was only a few hours ago — and tired from the chase, content to watch Moony actually enjoying himself for once, ripping into the remnants of the first carcass with the other young males, helping them tear the limbs apart and coming away with an entire haunch, which he dragged away to gnaw on, just under the trees. Aster let him be. He seemed guarded and wary, and she'd already gotten between him and (a very different kind of) prey last month, he might get territorial if she followed him, even if she had no intention of trying to steal his dinner.
There was more than enough for all of them, no need to fight over the kills, though that didn't actually stop a few scuffles breaking out over who had the right to the choicest bits.
Aster was pretty sure that with a normal wolf-pack, not werewolves, the alpha male and female, the breeding pair, would help themselves to a kill first. Since there wasn't really an alpha female in Fenrir's Pack, Fenrir got first take of the cow when she was finally down, followed by Clarence who was his second-in-command. They were joined by Bella, her knife and hands dark with blood by the light of the moon, more smeared across her face and clothing. Aster was suddenly almost certain that she had eaten a human eyeball, watching her cut a chunk out of the shoulder and take a bite out of the tough muscle, jaw working to cut through the raw meat with her tiny human teeth, because why would the fact that she was human stop her from tearing apart a fresh kill and eating some part of it raw?
Honestly, Aster wasn't really sure why that was at all surprising to see. If someone had asked her if she thought Bella would eat raw elk-meat whilst running around with her werewolves on the full moon, she probably would have said yes. It wasn't out of character, really, any more than it was out of character for Aster to do the exact same thing.
Well, it was sort of out of character, as in, the much more civilised version of herself she'd tried so hard to embrace over the past five and a half years. But not for the real her. Nobody who knew her outside of school would be surprised. Yes, she was Padfoot right now, she realised most people would probably consider that an important factor, changing her tastes and whatnot, which would make them less surprised than they would be otherwise, and...probably less likely to freak out? but it wasn't like she was actually an animal or couldn't control her instincts like the werewolves. Remus, for example, probably wouldn't really be surprised by her chowing down on a still-steaming elk carcass, but he would definitely be disgusted by the idea. (Of course, Remus would be disgusted by the idea of Moony just eating a raw elk haunch over there, because he was absolutely the worst werewolf, but.)
So it really shouldn't be weird to see Bella over there, joining in, too. But it was for some reason, like it was weird to see her walking around with the wolves all human-shaped.
Maybe that was it — that she was human-shaped seemed...wrong, somehow. She didn't seem uncomfortable being human, but it didn't suit her, even more obviously here than when she was in a human space, surrounded by humans. There was definitely something jarring about seeing her defend her custody of her snack from Arrogant Bastard with a positively feral snarl, standing her ground and giving him a nasty cut below his right eye when he tried to challenge her right to help herself before him, and...yeah. Aster was pretty fucking sure that she should be a wolf too, not trapped in that awkward human form with its little teeth and nails instead of proper claws, needing to use tools to put uppity little boys in their place.
She never thought she'd feel bad for someone not being able to be turned, but she could see why Bella would be disappointed not to really be one of them. She'd have to ask why Bella hadn't become an animagus, too. It wasn't like she couldn't do the transfiguration...
Bella pretty clearly didn't actually want the quickly-cooling lump of meat that badly, she was just making a point that Arrogant Bastard couldn't make her give it over, that her position in the Pack was well above his. When he retreated to wait his turn like a good boy, she brought it over to sit beside Aster while she kept picking at it, which was nice of her — Arrogant Bastard would probably leave her alone if Bella was here — but she gave what was left to Janet when the little wolf bounced over looking for someone to play with. All the adult wolves were either eating and didn't want to be bothered, or had come together in little piles to keep warm and sleep off the meal.
The meat disappeared in a handful of snaps, not at all a sufficient distraction.
Bella pushed the kid away, making a show of not wanting to play. It definitely was a show, though. Bella always wanted to play. Usually she wanted to play a hell of a lot rougher than most people considered playing, even in the House, and she didn't exactly have a lot of free time, but Aster could almost guarantee she'd rather wrestle with the little wolf — barely more than a pup, half Padfoot's size — or play tug-of-war over a bone or chase her around the edge of the lake than just sit around watching the others laze.
Janet didn't know that, though, letting out a frustrated little yowling moan and throwing herself bodily against the sitting witch, trying to force her to play like she might a similarly-sized wolf. Bella grabbed her, dragging her down to the rocky ground as she tipped over, causing a frankly hilarious panicked scrabble to get away, and an accusing little not funny bark when Bella just lay there laughing at her.
After a few seconds, the surprise wore off. The little wolf crept closer like she thought she was being sneaky, until she could pounce on Bella's head like she would a mouse or something, which at least made Bella roll out of the way. Aster wasn't really sure how long they went on like that, Bella intentionally just barely avoiding the pup's attacks and annoying her by tugging at her paws and tail, sometimes tripping her or rolling her over instead of just dodging. It reminded Aster sort of (a lot) of Bella 'fighting' her and Narcissa when they were younger (and, yes, fine, now too, if she was being honest) — letting them practise throwing everything they had against her, but not even really breaking a sweat fending them off.
It was definitely long enough for Aster to recover from the run.
Were we ever quite that pathetic? she wondered, as Bella (sitting) ducked under a frustrated, leaping charge. The little wolf clearly wasn't expecting that, stumbling when she landed and falling onto Aster with a startled yip.
Clearly she could use a hand. Metaphorically, obviously. Aster made a show of getting up and stretching, wandering down to the water to get a drink so she could take Bella by surprise when she jumped in.
She wasn't surprised, of course, because Aster also always wanted to play, but it was at least less obvious than jumping at her head on. Wait, actually, that might be more unexpected—
She gathered herself to leap, springing forward at the very second Bella turned to avoid a frustrated chomp from the pup, and— Ha!
She got her!
Aster's weight pulled her off-balance, sent her stumbling — she actually tripped, over Janet, who capitalised on probably the only moment of clumsiness either of them was ever likely to witness from Bella by nipping her hip, hard enough to draw blood through her thin bloomers. This seemed to surprise Janet more than Bella, her hand shooting out lightning quick to grab the pup by the snout with a vicious grin.
She whined, trying simultaneously to push Bella's hand away with a paw and roll over in submission. She couldn't while Bella was still holding her in place, but as soon as she let her go, the little wolf was on her back smiling, clearly concerned that she'd actually offended a very scary pack member.
Aster was pretty sure Bella was just making a point — don't get any ideas about which of us is in charge here, just because you managed to make me bleed. She didn't actually want to end the game. After a few seconds she relaxed, dropping the grin and kneeling rather than crouching, and reached over to tickle the poor confused wolf. Aster wasn't sure, but she didn't think wolf-Janet was as good at reading human body language as she was, even when Bella was being very deliberate about it and mimicking wolf body language as best she could without a tail and fur to fluff up and everything.
The wolf scrambled back to her feet, backing away uncertainly, which meant if Bella didn't want the game to be over, she had to go on the offensive, stalking the pup (very obviously telegraphing her movements so Janet could keep ahead of her) and teasing her with more tail and ear-pulling until she regained enough confidence to actively defend herself instead of just warily attempting to avoid Very Scary Human being silly and annoying.
Aster waited politely until the pup was actually playing again before jumping in and maybe scaring her off. Well, more like she just sort of sat there for a while, trying to wrap her head around the realisation that Bella was...surprisingly good with kids? She meant, she'd liked playing with Bella when she was little, but she was a total hardarse when she was actually teaching them something. Everyone Aster knew outside of the House had told her at one point or another that she'd been held to unreasonable standards as a child. (Even Walburga thought Bella and Dru had been too hard on them, and she was a heinous bitch.) So it was sort of easy to forget that just playing with Bella was fun, or maybe start to think that it only seemed fun in comparison to the endless lessons that had been the rest of her life before Hogwarts.
But no, watching her tease the little wolf back into actively engaging in the game... Did Bella actually like kids?
Huh.
Whatever, Janet just fell into a little playing bow and dared to dart in and make a feint at one of Bella's hands. It was probably safe to join in again, she decided, bounding over with a sharp, excited I want to play, too bark.
Over the next...while (time continued to be weird as a dog), more wolves joined in the game, not unlike the trainee Death Eaters joining Aster in trying to score another point on Bella that first time she'd gone back to Ancient House after...everything that happened on Samhain, forcing Bella to actually have to work to avoid more bites without laying into them with crazy rune-enhanced strength. Unlike in their mock battle, she wasn't entirely successful. As usually happened when she was horribly outnumbered and holding herself back to avoid killing her opponents (as in all trainees versus Bella exercises), she did eventually lose. In this case, losing meant one of the larger (though not fully grown) wolves pouncing on her back as she rolled out of the way of another attack, knocking the wind out of her, then pinning her to the rocky shore by lying down on top of her so she physically couldn't move without resorting to using the runes.
It was pretty funny, actually. He kept lying on top of her until Fenrir came over and rescued her, which was followed by a long, mournful howl Aster wasn't sure how to interpret. Apparently it meant come on you lazy dogs, it's almost morning, we're moving. He led them back to the clearing with the vanishing cabinet and its little warded hut, wolves occasionally throwing anxious glances at the lightening sky as they went. They'd ended up quite a way from the cabinet in the course of chasing Bella and then the elk. Obviously they'd actually run much farther, but in a straight line, just going directly back, she thought it was about twice the distance from the Castle to the far side of Hogsmeade. By the time they'd reached it, the sky was growing noticeably brighter by the minute, and the wolves were growing more visibly anxious.
Aster did her best to reassure Moony it would be okay, but he knew as well as she did that the transformation was always awful.
The way the wolf's limbs were proportioned and their hips oriented, there were many more broken bones shifting to the quadrupedal form, especially in the legs and hands. Shifting back was bloodier — there was usually more soft-tissue damage. The exception was the face, the snout receding with a series of broken-nose crunching sounds that always made Aster shudder. (It was definitely a mark of how hurt she'd been last month that she'd managed to sleep through Moony shifting back.)
One werewolf going through the change was a gruesome sight. It wasn't easy or coordinated — different parts twisting back into human shape completely out of sync with each other, back and hips twisting and cracking, rib cage reforming, skull bulging in a way that simply shouldn't happen as the brian case grew and the mouth and nose shrank.
There were probably ways for, say, a sufficiently talented metamorph to do all of those things without killing themselves, gradually resizing and shifting bones and muscles in concert, growing new ones or dissolving old ones slowly and carefully — one of Aster's great-aunts had famously had wings, she probably could've turned herself into a wolf if she wanted to. Werewolves, however, weren't able to control the transformation. Not like that. That was why werewolves healed so shockingly well from any injury that wasn't cursed or inflicted by silver. If it weren't for the magic involved, the Curse sustaining their bodies through what should be deadly transformation mishaps, Aster was pretty sure that there was no way a werewolf would ever go on to contaminate anyone — they'd all just die the very first time they transformed.
Two dozen werewolves going through the change simultaneously was orders of magnitude worse, every possible way the transformation could go wrong, going wrong. ("Wrong" as in it would kill them if they weren't werewolves, not like it somehow malfunctioned and they didn't regain their human forms at all.) Skin and muscle tearing as long bones and skulls grew too quickly, patches of skin sloughing off with fur — she was pretty sure she saw a cranium crack open as the brain grew too quickly—
Aster had been very glad she hadn't transformed back to human herself. If she had, she probably would've thrown up. Seriously, that was the sort of shite nightmares were made of. Bella, in contrast, just lounged against a nearby tree, watching the show with a sort of disturbing, fascinated intensity. Aster decidedly did not want to know what she was thinking over there. Yes, she liked hurting people, but just seeing people in pain didn't really do it for her.
It wasn't really surprising that as soon as they were all human shaped again, before most of the wolves managed to recover enough to do anything other than lie panting on the frozen ground waiting for the pain to stop, she skipped over and cheerfully informed Aster that she'd meet everyone for breakfast at Ancient House in a few hours, but the fun part of the night was over, so until then, she was going to see if de Mort waited up for her. Aster was betting he had. (Even odds on which one of them would be getting 'play'-tortured.)
When the werewolves had recovered enough to move, they'd unpacked their clothes (and wands, for those who had them) and a bunch of blankets from a trunk Aster suspected had been warded until sunrise so the wolves wouldn't touch it — she certainly hadn't noticed it when she arrived — started a fire, and Annie had come around checking whether anyone had any injuries that needed tending. Since they'd spent most of the night hunting and/or sleeping off the meal, only a couple of people had even minor bites to deal with, from little dominance scraps over the elk. Bella had probably been the worst off — a couple of other wolves had managed to nip her as well, as more joined in that last game — and she obviously hadn't been concerned.
Arrogant Bastard (who turned out to be Lawrence, one of the wolves who had the most problems with Fenrir, and therefore with Bella) was probably the second-worst wounded — that cut he'd gotten for challenging Bella's position in the Pack hierarchy had persisted through the change, which meant that knife had been silver. Probably because if Bella was risking being wounded for an extended period getting into fights with the transformed wolves, they were damn well going to take the same risk. He'd been furious, shouted at Fenrir for a couple of minutes about "that psychotic little bitch" and how she shouldn't even have been here, let alone taking a cut of the kill, she's not even a fucking wolf!
But both he and Fenrir were too exhausted by the change to really get into it. Fenrir just said something like, fuck off, I feel like I've been run over by a lorry and am not in the mood for your shite today — if you have a problem with Bella joining us, you can tell her so at breakfast, and Larry retreated to the other side of the fire to seethe quietly and let Annie sew his face back together.
Aster, for her part, just conjured a blanket for herself, cast a few warming charms, and staked out a nice, snow-free spot under a tree for herself and Remus.
"What did..." he asked, clearly a bit out of it from shifting back, possibly trying to remember anything that had happened as a wolf. "What did he mean, take a cut of the kill? We didn't... Did we kill something?"
"Mmm, yeah. We had elk for dinner."
"We? Are you— Gross, Aster. Why would you— I know you know what you're doing as Padfoot," he eventually managed to stutter out, a certain note of accusation in his tone.
She grinned at him. "Yes? So?"
"So, you– you actually just decided to take a bite out of a dead animal?"
"Yes? Well, technically I took a bite out of it before it died, but yes? You did, too."
"Moony did," he corrected her.
She just shrugged. "Whatever. It was good, anyway."
"I think I'm going to be sick."
Aster giggled. "You are the worst werewolf."
He glowered at her. "I'll take that as a compliment, thanks." Then he realised, "Wait, does that mean Bellatrix...?"
"Well, yeah, obviously."
"As a human? Eugh! Now I'm really going to be sick..."
"Human-shaped, at least." Aster shrugged. "So, do you remember anything?"
"Not...really? I mean, lots of running, and I know you showed up at some point—"
Aster grimaced. "Yeah, I forgot about the time difference, and Dumbledore wanted me to hang out at the Shack for a while to prove I wasn't going to turn. Looked like I smacked him with a fish when I actually didn't. Sorry I was late, anyway."
Remus sighed. "Don't worry about it. I...don't think you missed anything much?"
"Mmm, probably just more of you awkwardly hanging around the edge of the group like that kid who's afraid he's going to be picked last for quodpot. In case you were wondering, Moony around other werewolves is sort of exactly like you around people you don't know." She almost managed to tell him that without laughing. Almost. "Let's see... You were chasing Bella when I got here, and then I caught up and everyone stopped to say hi; Larry over there was sort of an arse about me wanting to hang out with you instead of shagging him; then there was the elk hunt — sort of sad you don't remember that, you actually seemed to be enjoying yourself for once."
Honestly, that was probably why he didn't remember — listening to the others coming around, Aster had sort of gotten the impression that it was a little like Walpurgis: the more a wolf resisted their instincts, the less conscious they were of what was happening when the Curse finally won out over their human mind.
"There were a couple of spats over who got what bits, which is when Bella cut Larry's face up. He deserved it, challenging her right to feed before him."
Remus gave her a look like she'd completely lost the plot. "She's not a wolf, though."
Aster gave him the same look right back. "It's symbolic. You know how— Wait," she cut herself off. "Do you know how dominance hierarchies work?" Generally speaking, Remus was much better read than she was when it came to theory shite, but when she was actually interested in a thing she was studying, she could be as obsessive about that as anything else.
Basically what she was saying was, she'd done a lot of research on canine social structures and behaviour when they'd been working on the animagus thing, including werewolves. There hadn't really been a whole lot written about werewolf pack dynamics — or at least not a lot she'd managed to find out in legit bookshops — but what there was seemed pretty consistent with that bloke Shenkel's (muggle) wolf research. Yes, he'd mentioned wild wolves probably didn't act like wolves in captivity, but werewolf packs seemed more like captive wolves in a lot of ways — mostly traumatised adults forced together by circumstances rather than normal wolf families, so.
Remus, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with being a werewolf, up to and including researching the condition, or even normal wolves. He shook his head.
"Right, well, it's basically a matter of aggressiveness and strength, which wolves can kick which other wolves' arses. The strongest wolves end up at the top of the hierarchy, making decisions, getting the first take of kills and, in actual captive wolf packs, only the alphas breed. There's usually a pretty strict order of precedence, largely divided by sex, so you have an alpha male and an alpha female, and a beta male and female, and so on, and they usually don't fuck much with the other sub-group's hierarchy. Fenrir's pack is sort of lop-sided and sexist, so it's more like an alpha warrior and alpha everyone else — and the alpha non-warrior, Annie, if you were wondering, doesn't have nearly the same standing as Fenrir.
"The order of precedence wasn't super clear with three kills to feed from and the leaders' actually going down last, but I'd say Annie's more on-par with the fifth or sixth most dominant over all. But the boys don't really mess with her and force her to defend her place, which is more based on her being their healer than her fighting abilities, the kids and old folks and other non-fighters look to her for leadership when Fenrir's not around. And there's some bleed-over at the lower levels, like the younger males who are almost old enough to run with the warriors are sort of jockeying for position in that hierarchy. You had a chance to push to be included in the boys' club, but you didn't, because you're still you, even when you're Moony.
"Bella isn't a wolf, so her relationship to the rest of the Pack is...sort of like an alpha in a third sub-group that's just her?" And Aster, maybe. Her own relationship to the Pack hadn't been clearly established yet. "I mean, she's clearly not really part of the Pack hierarchy, letting them hunt her and...the fact that she's really only out here to have fun, sort of just fucking around and not insisting they recognise the fact that she's dominant to the rest of them most of the time, makes it a little confusing, but she and Fenrir act like equals."
She had beaten Fenrir in a dominance fight when Aster was nine and the werewolves had joined the Cause and obviously she was ranked much higher than Fenrir among the Death Eaters. But the way their alliance worked, the wolves weren't actually Death Eaters, directly subject to Bella's (or de Mort's) command, they were an independent group working with the Death Eaters. Bella was de Mort's liaison with Fenrir and he was expected to more or less follow her orders (maybe with a little negotiation), but the rest of the Pack answered to him, not her.
"Uh...huh," Remy said, as though he didn't quite believe her, or maybe just as though he was a little too hung over from the change to give a fuck.
Aster shrugged. "I'm pretty sure she yielded first take to him and Clarence to be polite — you know, recognising that this is their party, she's not trying to mess up their internal politics — but she's definitely not going to take shite from anyone else, including Larry. He was jumping the queue, anyway, there were half a dozen actual pack members who took their cut before him, too.
"After we ate, everyone sort of just chilled. Bella and I played with Janet for a while—" The mousy-haired little girl was curled up in a blanket now, leaning on Clarence over by the fire. It was sort of hard to tell from this angle, but she might have been asleep. "—and then a handful of the others joined in until it started getting light and we had to come back here." Which did make sense. Walking back however many miles as humans, naked and freezing, would have sucked. Especially since pretty much everyone just wanted to lie around and do nothing for a while, post-change.
Remy nodded slowly. "I remember...being a little anxious — everyone greeted me and that other new bloke, Chaz, and then...running. You showed up at some point. Then...more running? I think we were on a beach? And...blood. There was a lot of blood. I was even more out of control than usual, I just...
"It...wasn't bad, though," he admitted, sounding sort of surprised. "It...might actually be the best full moon I've ever had, honestly. I mean, I'm not hurt, and no one else got hurt, and yeah, it's gross that we just ate a wild animal, but I don't feel nearly as worn out from the change as I usually do—" Made sense, that kind of healing really did take it out of you, especially if you didn't eat enough. "—and I...don't know how to feel about that."
"Do you have to feel any particular way?" Aster asked, trying not to groan at the realisation that a less-worn-out post-change Remus was a Remus more inclined to be introspective.
"I... Well, I don't know! I don't– I don't want to like having... I don't want to belong here!" he finally bit out.
Aster really couldn't help giggling about how...indignant he was about that.
"I'm serious, Aster!" (Aster briefly regretted the loss of her ability to make serious/Sirius puns anymore.) "It's like— They're terrible people, alright! Turning people and helping Lord Snakeface and all! And I...liked running with them! And I don't know how to feel about— I don't want to want to come back here next month because this is the least awful full moon I've ever had!"
"No, I get that. It's just funny because welcome to my entire life, Remy." Trying to come to terms with the fact that she really only fit in with objectively terrible people was something she'd been working on for years. By which she meant, she knew it, she'd just been trying to deny it for years. Giving up and just admitting it, accepting that she was nearly as fucked in the head as Bella and going back to the House instead of trying to run away from it as far and as fast as possible — that she was selfish enough all the terrible shite Bella did to other people didn't matter as much as the fact that she was nice to Aster — was...sort of an enormous relief. She might not be a good person by the standards of the Light, but at least she wasn't hating herself for it anymore.
"Don't give me that shite!" he snapped, much more assertive than he usually was in the wake of the full moon. "You chose to go back to the Blacks! Had a bloody ceremony and all, if you don't remember!"
"Well, yeah, but the reason I did was, I don't belong anywhere else. I spent five years trying to pretend I wasn't a Black after I realised how fucked up we are, but..." What was it the Dark had said, just before it re-wrote her as Aster?
You can't change who you are. There will always be some part of you that knows you belong to us, burning away at you... (Something like that, anyway.)
"It's not the same," Remus bit out. "They didn't ruin your entire life, make you a– a thrice-cursed monster so you can't even live around normal people without being a danger to them!"
For some reason, that really struck a nerve. She glared at the self-pitying wolf. "You're right, it's not the same. But if you think you pose a greater threat to normal people than I do, just by existing, you need to get your head out of your arse."
"What?!"
"I mean it! This isn't a gods-cursed competition, I'm not trying to one-up you, here, but if you honestly think being turned and becoming a danger to humans one night a month makes you more of a monster than being bred for aggressiveness like a fucking dog; repeatedly exposed to the Dark since the age of seven; taught that everyone outside the House exists to be used and discarded as you see fit, and that violence is the answer to all of life's little frustrations; trained as a weapon literally longer than you can remember; and set loose on an unsuspecting public, with only your own tenuous self-control standing between grievous bodily harm and anyone who so much as slightly annoys you on a bad day, knowing that there's probably going to eventually come a day when you're just mad enough to forget the consequences and give in to the urge to torture someone to death for taking the last rasher of bacon, or because you're bored, or because you need to hurt someone like needing to get laid, and practice-duels and slightly-too-cruel pranks just aren't cutting it, then, yeah! You need to get your head out of your arse!"
Aaaand...now he looked afraid. Great job, Aster. "You really..."
Really what? she wondered, even more annoyed now (at herself as well as with him). Really think you're a danger to people around you? (Sometimes.) Really think your life is worse than mine? (No, just that I'm more of a monster than you.) Really think I've got my head too far up my own bum? (Oh, fuck, yes.) "Look, Remy. You're a danger to humans all of one night a month. Greyback turned you, yeah, but your father's the bigoted arse who convinced you that makes you a monster."
Remus scowled at her. "In case you've forgotten, I turned someone myself last month. I am a monster."
Aster ignored the interruption, because that wasn't his fault, but she'd told him that before and he never listened. "If you don't want anything to do with Greyback, fine, I didn't really expect you to want to join his Pack, just to lay low with them for a month or two. But if you want to come back here next month, don't let the fact that he's here ruin it for you. I mean, the very least he can do after turning you and ruining your life is let you share their range if you want to."
"I— That's not the— It's not even about that– him!"
"Well, then, what's the problem? Because if you didn't notice, there are no humans here for you to hurt, and last night was pretty great, actually."
"That's the problem, Aster! I don't want to— I don't want to like being a werewolf! It's not— It's a bloody curse, Aster! I don't— It's evil, okay?! I don't want to— I can't like it! I can't..." He broke off with a ragged breath, pulling into a Ball of Misery and burying his face in his knees so she couldn't see him cry. Not that it actually worked.
"So, what? You'd rather just...hate yourself? For no real reason?"
"No real reason?" he gasped out. "I'm a werewolf, Aster!"
She scowled at the top of his head. "So fucking what, Remus?"
"So, I'm—"
"No, Remy, shut up. That was rhetorical, and you're wrong. Do you think little Janet over there should hate herself?" She nodded at the kid, now definitely asleep, curled up by the fire with a conjured pillow, as well as a blanket. "Is it her fault she was bitten? Should she spend her entire life feeling guilty about not locking herself up to suffer on the full moon?"
"I— It's not the same thing, Aster!"
"Then what's the difference? She hasn't been brainwashed into thinking that she's evil? She hasn't been locked up and kept prisoner to tear herself apart every month since she was turned, and had it beaten into her head that she deserves to suffer for something completely beyond her control?"
"She— You don't understand, Aster! You never have!"
"No, I haven't! Because it's never been your fault you're a werewolf! You have nothing to be ashamed of or feel guilty about! Yes, you turned someone, but you weren't in control of yourself at the time. You did everything you could to keep yourself away from humans, it's not your fault someone came along and sabotaged you!"
"No, I didn't!" he argued to his knees, shoulders shaking harder. "I— If I weren't a f–fucking coward, I– I would've just– just killed myself before I could— I should have— I shouldn't—"
...Fuck.
"Remus." He didn't respond, still stubbornly curled into his ball, despite clearly having trouble breathing well enough to cry properly. "Remus, look at me," she snapped, using the don't you dare disobey tone Walburga liked to throw at her.
Aster (Sirius) usually ignored it, but Remy wasn't nearly so practiced in the art of disobedience, and he didn't really want to die. She was sure he didn't. If he did...well, there were plenty of sharp objects and poisonous plants around Ancient House, not to mention at least two or three balconies from which a fall would almost certainly be fatal. The wards were set to keep him from using the floo or apparating out, and the werewolves had been keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't leave the property overland and go turn himself in, but if he really wanted to commit suicide, they weren't watching him closely enough to stop him. If it was just that he was afraid it would hurt, Aster knew for a fact he was a good enough potion-maker to brew something painless, and it wasn't like there weren't entire books of poison recipes in the Library.
"What?!" he scowled, red-eyed and furious, clearly prepared to argue that he would be entirely in the right if he were to kill himself, even though it wouldn't actually help anyone.
"If the only thing standing between you and suicide is that you're a fucking coward, say the fucking word and I'll put a knife in your heart right now."
"W–What? You— What?!"
She glared at him. "You heard me. If you honestly think the world would be better off without you, tell me. I don't agree, but you're my friend. If you really want to die, I'll put you out of your misery, here and now." She conjured a silver-edged throwing knife for effect and set the point against his chest. "No point putting it off," she added, with a disdainful drawl.
"I— No! No, I— I take it back," he stuttered, pushing her hand away, apparently shocked out of his self-pitying moment, which was exactly what she'd been hoping would happen. Then, after she vanished the knife, "Have you lost your fucking mind?!"
"No. Just making a point."
"What point? That you're just as crazy as Bellatrix?!"
"That you don't want to die. Maybe you think you deserve to, because you're a monster, and oh, no, you might be dangerous to other people all of twelve hours a month, but you don't want to, and you know what? You're wrong. You don't deserve it. Monsters have just as much right to live as anyone else. If they didn't, I would've murdered your father years ago."
And she would've patted herself on the back for doing so, because (as far as she could tell) stopping people from torturing their helpless children was a Good Thing according to the Light, and it wasn't like she had any legal recourse to get Remus away from his parents, like Dorea had saved her. Unfortunately, life is inherently valuable, so you can't just go around killing people was an even more obvious Light precept. But if certain people didn't have a right to live, Lyall Lupin was at the top of the fucking list, and she wouldn't have regretted killing him for a second. Actually, now that she wasn't trying to be Light anymore, and actively embracing the traditions of the House (which had long included murdering people they didn't like, just because they could), maybe she would anyway. No, it wouldn't help Remus at this point, but Lyall was a bigoted sack of shite, killing him would still be a boon to the world at large.
"My father..." Remus trailed off, not actually able to bring himself to defend that horrible man, which was good, because he was a monster, and nothing Remy could say would convince Aster otherwise. "I don't think that's how that works. Monsters don't— Not if they're a danger to humans."
"Well that's awfully species-ist of you. But Dumbledore doesn't even advocate slaughtering all the acromantulae in the Forest, and they're definitely a bigger threat to humans than you."
"Not if people stay away from their territory," he mumbled.
"And if you come out here, or even go to Starlight and stay in one of their safehouses on the full moon, how is that different, really?" she asked, very pointedly. "I can't make you stop hating yourself for not hating being a wolf, but the Curse is part of you, now. Hating it is like, I don't know, hating yourself for fancying girls—" Remy did fancy girls, even if he was too shy and terrified they'd recognise his scars if he ever got as far as heavy petting, so had never actually tried to get with anyone. "—or liking meat, or something."
"Those are not comparable things, Aster."
She sort of thought they were, insofar as they were instinctive things he couldn't change about himself, but she knew what he meant. Fancying girls and eating meat weren't things he considered bad, let alone evil. (Though BJ's father definitely thought his son fancying blokes was bad, and Ellie was a "vegetarian" because she thought it was cruel to raise animals for food, so it wasn't like it was completely ridiculous to frame them as potentially negative things.)
"Fine, then. It's like me hating myself for having the Madness." She'd been trying to avoid that comparison, since this isn't about you, Aster, you twat, but it really was the best comparison she could draw. "The only thing either of us can do is try to find ways to avoid hurting anyone else when we're not in our right minds. Unless you think I should kill myself, before I seriously hurt someone."
He hesitated. The fucker hesitated! "No, but... It's still not the same, Aster. It's just not."
Yeah, the full moon's much more predictable, and easier to compensate for. Arse. She sneered at him. "What about Janet, then?" Because the wolf-pup's situation was exactly the same as Remus's. He'd been turned a few years younger, actually. But she'd eventually grow into the same danger he posed, no matter how cute she was now.
"I—" He cut himself off, presumably because he realised that if he kept arguing his side, he'd be advocating for the murder of an innocent child, but he wouldn't actually go so far as to say, no, he didn't think she should be put down before she hurt someone.
Un. fucking. believable.
She was halfway to the vanishing cabinet before he seemed to realise that this conversation was over. "Wait, what?"
What? You have the temerity to ask what? Oh, I don't know, Remus, maybe you just implied that an eight-year-old should die just because she survived an attack? Either that or you don't think she should be put down, but can't bring yourself to admit that you don't deserve to die either, and I don't know which one it is, but either way, I sort of want to strangle you right now, and you categorically would not be able to stop me, and that would sort of be proving your point that I should kill myself before I seriously hurt somone, so I have to go be somewhere else, now. Fuck you.
"Unless you really do want me to kill you, this conversation is over."
She shut the door on his response, wondering whether Bella and de Mort were still up, and if either or both of them would like to help her murder Lyall Lupin — because either way, he was entirely responsible for Remus's self-hatred.
One of my greatest regrets from this period in my life is that I didn't make up with Remus before Yule. I have never, however, regretted the murder of Lyall Lupin. (Even if Bella was fairly insufferable about her little baby daughter, all grown up and disposing of her political opponents in true House of Black style.) That was long overdue, and I honestly can't think of a better person to have been my first kill. Seriously, fuck that bastard.