- Text Size +
The Blood-Thirst of a Werewolf


Sirius sat himself down on the porch steps in front of the Shrieking Shack, his head in his hands. The sun was setting and he was trying to decide what he wanted to do, if he was going to go in and face Remus or just go back to the castle. He only had a couple more minutes to decide before the transformation would occur. He used his wand to draw a pattern in the dirt by the path. He stared at the rays of sunlight slipping behind the edge of the trees and watched as the light disappeared from sight. He closed his eyes, feeling guilty… waiting for the sound of the mournful howl that would indicate Remus’s change had been made...

I should have been there, Sirius thought, I should’ve been there with him all day. We should have been talking and hanging out; not him with some boy that doesn’t even know him like I do. He wondered how it was that Remus Lupin had come to trust someone so deeply so quickly that he was willing to tell his secret to another person in the castle…

Suddenly, breaking the night that had fallen, there came the deep, guttural howl from within the Shack, the cry of the wolf shivering the very wood of the house. The pain that came from the depths of Remus Lupin echoed through the howl as it warbled from his throat, carrying out into the darkness and sending a great shiver up Sirius’s spine.

It didn’t make sense, Sirius realized for the first time. Hearing the pain in the werewolf’s cry had made him realize it… Remus Lupin’s greatest fear was that someone would find out about his furry little problem… He hadn’t even told him, Sirius, his best mate, until almost a year had gone by… and Sirius had to basically tell Remus that he knew already before he had admitted to it. Even then it had been a big deal and Remus had been quite obviously terrified about the other boys knowing about his condition… No way would Remus have told somebody in under a month of knowing them. No way.

So then, if he hadn’t told somebody, then how would he have explained the Shrieking Shack to bring somebody out there? Why he needed to stay when the other person went back to the castle? Obviously, there couldn’t be a boyfriend. The idea suddenly seemed supremely absurd and Sirius felt like a total idiot for not realizing it sooner -- what a blithering nincompoop he’d been!

But then who had that been that Sirius had seen through the window? For he had seen somebody through the window… he knew he had… Was it Dumbledore, perhaps? Dumbledore had gone to check on Remus before...

Really, it didn’t matter, though, he thought. It wasn’t a boyfriend. That’s all that mattered. Remus didn’t have a boyfriend.

Well bloody hell, he will now, Sirius thought and he stood up, suddenly bold. He had to see Remus - even if it was in his wolf form - had to see him right then, so he strode to the door and flung it open.
The wolf had been waiting at the door, able to smell the thick scent of blood through the wood, and had been salivating at the mouth-watering richness of Sirius Black, just on the other side. When Sirius opened the door, the wolf came crashing through and knocked him down, sending him flying backward off the porch so that he landed on his back on the path, scraping his elbows so that they bled and the wind was knocked out of his lungs violently.

The werewolf came bounding out and Sirius rolled and quickly transformed to his animagus form as he did, sliding behind the overgrown brush beside the porch steps, half-Sirius-half-Snuffles, so that the wolf couldn’t get at him as easily as he could’ve done in the open as his skin rippled into fur and his spine cracked. He’d been an idiot for opening the door like that without looking, and as the final pops and snaps of his spine cracked through him, he peered out through the leaves with his keen dog eyes to see the wolf was running off across the field… toward Hogsmeade.

Sirius’s heart in his throat, he rushed out from the brush, the pads of his feet flying across the light dusting of snow. He skid about to the front of Remus, blocking him off, his teeth bared, cutting the wolf off, stopping him continuing along the path.

Alpha, he thought roughly, crouching low.

Remus growled.

ALPHA, Sirius projected again, harsher.

They were staring each other down, their eyes glowing into one another’s, teeth bared and dripping with menace. Sirius shook with the effort to make Snuffles as scary as the wolf… Then he heard something behind him, growing louder every moment, a voice, singing in the dark… the tones and notes carrying through the night, highly off key...

I’mmm ‘ennery the Eighth I am, I am… I got married to the widow nexxxxt dooor, she’s been married seven...times before...and evvvvvery oneee was an ‘enery… wouldn’t take a Willie or a Sam, no SAM! I’m her eighth old man I’m Henery… Henery the Eighth I am!

It was Bilius Weasley, drunk as ever, was coming up the path toward the fence that overlooked the Shrieking Shack, his voice wobbling as he sang that bloody stupid song... and the smell of him thick of alcohol, so strong that Sirius could smell it even at the distance they were at.

The wolf’s ears pricked and he crouched low…

No, Sirius commanded, NO.

The wolf used it’s powerful hindlegs to launch himself forward, racing across the span of grass and snow toward the fence, where Bilius Weasley was lowering himself onto a rock, taking a long pull from a bottle he held in his fist and rocking himself drowsily, too drunk to notice the bloody werewolf barrelling across the yard toward him.

Sirius’s heart was in his throat. He ran as hard as he could, coming up beside the wolf and snapping his teeth. Remus! REMUS JOHN LUPIN! he was screaming it, barking it, his panicked yaps loud and anxious. He leaped at the wolf, knocking shoulder to shoulder, but the wolf’s strength was much more than Sirius’s and he very nearly fell over from the impact of the strength of the wolf against his own.

The barking of the dog seemed to rouse Bilius a bit and he looked up and saw the wolf and the dog running toward him, nearing the fence and his eyes widened - probably the closest to sobriety he’d been since the day he’d set off the fireworks from the Bell Tower - and he got up, stumbling backward, tripping over the rock he’d been sitting upon, crawling backwards and raising the glass bottle as though it were a weapon, feeling across his chest for his wand pocket in his jacket.

Sirius leaped at Remus and grabbed onto the scruff of his neck, hanging from him like a bonnet ornament on an automobile, and he clutched the skin, the taste of blood coppery in his mouth. He hated to think what Remus’s neck would look like when he turned back to a boy, hated that he was probably breaking another scar across Remus’s flesh, but he held on - for the life of Bilius Weasley, he held on, shaking, pulling, desperately trying to stop the blood-thirst of a werewolf on the full moon.

Nothing in the world was as ravenous as that.

Please Remus, please, please, please, he begged, Obey Alpha, stop! Please!

But the wolf wasn’t stopping.

Bilius held his arms over his head, pleading, too, just as hard as Sirius was…

And suddenly there was a great feeling of an impact and Remus slammed into something and Sirius was flung forward, clear over the fence, onto the ground at the feet of Bilius with a yap of surprised pain, scraping along through the thin layer of snow until he struck the rock head-first and blacked out.




Dumbledore stood in the center of the Lupin’s living room. Aurors surrounded him, rushing about, investigating, trying to find out who’d killed Lyall Lupin. There wasn’t any magical evidence anywhere that anyone had been to the Lupin home. No marks in the door from blasting, even. Whoever it was that had been let in hadn’t disturbed a thing. They’d simply cast the killing curse and left.

Albus stared sadly down at Lyall Lupin, whose face was ashen in death and eyes closed - thanks to Moody, the auror, who had swept his palm over the man’s face to drop his eyelids. “Nobody should be left starin’ into space like that,” he said gruffly as he’d done it. “It ain’t right, it ain’t peaceful. Death, at least, should be peaceful.”

“I agree,” Dumbledore had murmured.

Now Moody was ordering the other aurors about, barking orders at them, and Dumbledore was left standing over the body. He shook his head, marvelling at how quickly things change… how horribly tragic and needless this death was…

His eyes fell on the parchment on the table, and his heart wrenched with emotion as he bent forward and lifted the parchment up…




“What do you reckon had Professor Minnie so upset?” James asked Peter as they walked through the castle later, after the feast had ended. They were headed up the staircase, jumping trick steps and catching the rotating cases. “She looked terribly heartbroken. Do you reckon… someone in her family…?”

“Dunno,” Peter said, still nibbling on a couple of the chocolate bats that had been given out at the feast.

It was an odd feeling, the juxtaposition of everyone else being happy and singing Halloween carols as they ran about through the corridors, their voices and laughter loud and echoing off the halls, while James was feeling so concerned and uneasy. It couldn’t have been just anything that made someone like Professor McGonagall cry. And it wasn’t exactly as though Dumbledore had been a picture of happiness and joy. The last time that either of them had looked as upset as they had then, they’d been announcing the death of Derek Bell…

James felt sick.

Mopsus had said in class that someone would be leaving them in November. They were only hours away. Had the seer’s prediction happened a few hours earlier than he’d expected? Had somebody died?

Quickly, he ran through his mind all the faces he’d seen at the feast, trying to remember if there’d been anybody missing, but he couldn’t think of anyone (besides Remus and Sirius, of course). And then a horrible thought occurred to him - what if something had happened to Remus or Sirius and they’d heard about it, being the staff? What if it was that Remus had bit Sirius? Or that he’d managed to hurt himself in the Shrieking Shack somehow…

James felt sick at the thought.

Surely Dumbledore would’ve told them… wouldn’t he?

Or would he?

He didn’t sleep that night. He sat up on his bed, staring out the window at the full moon, worrying and waiting for news that seemed ominously dark in his mind - news that hung in the unknown, a nightmare waiting to be had. He hugged his knees, counting by the hours until he’d see Sirius and Remus again and know that everything was alright...