Human Nature

Human Nature

Author's Notes: This was very loosely based on a prompt by anael in a recent drabble request fest, that went far enough afield to stand on its own. Thank you to jazzypom for the beta!

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Sirius startled from a fitful sleep on hearing the creak of the drawing room door. It was well past midnight, a week before April's full moon, and the room was shrouded in darkness save for the low glowing embers of the fire. He shot up from the tangled blankets on the overstuffed sofa, immediately pointing his wand towards the sound; then he relaxed as he saw a familiar shadow cross the threshold. He yawned and rubbed his eyes as the slow, heavy footfalls towards the fireplace announced Remus' return from his latest Order mission.

"That you, Moony?"

"Yeah. I'm back, Padfoot."

Remus sounded hoarse and infinitely tired. The light of the candle in Remus' hand flickered shadows across his lined and weary face, which melded with the gloomy air around him.

Sirius whispered a quick Lumos to the side table lamp, its light adding a dull yellow sheen to the room. "Welcome home," he replied, yawning again. "Mission went well?"

He felt rather than heard Remus sigh as he set down the candle on the floor and sank down heavily on the other end of the sofa to toe off his boots. He grunted a noncommittal sound.

Sirius waited, but Remus made no further noise. Rather, Remus sat completely still for a long, long moment, hands on his knees, staring blankly at the red-hot coals in the grate as if trying to work out what to say.

Remus' mouth moved, but no words came out. Then Sirius felt a fine vibration through the sofa springs, like an over-tightened violin string, and Remus slowly bowed his head, burying his face in his hands.

Sirius knew how taxing Remus' Order assignments were; convincing the many sects of Dark Creatures not to involve themselves in the coming war with Voldemort was critical to minimize their losses, but not just anyone could do that. Most Wizards simply had no sense of what it meant to be a Dark Creature. Indeed, it was Wizarding kind that relegated them to the underbelly of society; ostracized and subjugated them to the point that Voldemort's offers actually seemed better than what they had. So really, no one was better suited to liaise with them on behalf of Albus Dumbledore than Remus Lupin, a Dark Creature himself.

Sirius was normally used to Remus' reserved nature. Lately however, when Remus returned to Grimmauld Place after his missions he was increasingly withdrawn and tense, and refused to talk about them, even with Sirius. Sirius, most times, could understand; though he suspected that sometimes Remus refused to talk because he didn't want to add to Sirius' own stress at being incarcerated for the second time, in this mausoleum of an ancestral house. Those nights, when words failed, liberal amounts of Firewhisky often brought them back to a functional equilibrium.

This reaction though, went well beyond that: with a start, Sirius realized that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

He scooted beside Remus and laid a hand on his trembling shoulder. "What's wrong? Remus? Talk to me, Moony," he began.

Remus shook his head, and, to Sirius' horror, began rocking back and forth like an inconsolable child, almost doubled over, still hiding his face.

"Moony. REMUS. Tell me, what in Merlin's name is going on?" Fear spiked his voice as he shook Remus' shoulder, terrified at seeing Remus not only bent, but broken in front of him.

Sirius heard a huge, shuddering breath, and the rocking abruptly ceased. "Nothing for you to worry about," Remus finally replied, his voice muffled through his hands. "I'm tired, Sirius, just--very tired is all. I just want to go to sleep now." He did not sound convincing.

"Bloody hell you are!" Sirius retorted, frustration flaring; he slapped his thigh and Remus winced at the sting. "You're not going to hide this, whatever's happening from me. I will find out. I will hex your bleeding 'nads to Sunday and slip Veritaserum into your tea if I have to. So TELL ME, what the fuck's going on?"

An ugly chortle greeted his demand as Remus straightened and dropped his hands to his lap. Sirius peered at his friend's face in profile; the set line of his jaw, the angle of his cheek, his entire face drawn and tight. Remus laughed then; bitter and mirthless, his skin a sickly grey and his hair lank in the wan lamplight. He opened his mouth several times to speak, then just sighed. His grin was more like a grimace.

"You know I've been liaising with the London werewolves the past few weeks."

Sirius nodded, looking wary and worried. "Yes, you've mentioned that." His mind raced, mulling over the meanings.

A long silence followed, marked by the ticking of the grandfather clock on the opposite portmanteau beside the Black family tree. Everything waited, suspended; the house itself seemed to hold its breath. Remus' lips moved but nothing came out. He bit his lower lip.

"Remus?" Sirius asked finally, when the silence grew too loud to bear.

"They want me to prove my loyalty." Remus flung it out into the still air all at once, blinking rapidly, and the deadness in his tone echoed throughout the room.

"What?" Sirius gaped, uncomprehending at first. Remus murmured something indistinct; recovering quickly, Sirius leaned in closer to catch Remus' mumbled words.

"Greyback's pack. Before they'll allow me into the circle. They want me to show my loyalty to the werewolves at the next full moon." His hand began to shake violently.

Fear clawed at Sirius' stomach but he reached over and grasped Remus' trembling hand, cold and clammy, lightly stroking his wrist over one of the fine silvery scars. "How? Tell me. What do they want you to do?" Sirius spoke softly and evenly.

Remus shook his head and tensed again, that fine thread of steel in his soul winding so tightly that Sirius could feel it about to snap. "I can't. I can't do it, I--"

"What do they want you to do, Remus?" Sirius repeated, firmly this time. He squeezed Remus' hand so tightly he could feel the bones shift.

Remus looked up then, into Sirius' face, and Sirius' heart clogged in his throat at the depth of despair in those normally warm, kind brown eyes. "They want me to attack and turn a child into a werewolf. A child. To taste innocent blood. To forever condemn--" He trailed off again and wrenched his head away from Sirius' gaze, as if hiding from him.

To forever condemn. Sirius closed his eyes in stunned silence and his lips moved silently in supplication. Oh dear God. Remus...

Remus continued speaking, as if from very far away, the words nearly lost in his hoarse voice. "All my life since I was bitten, I've tried not to succumb to that base desire for flesh. I've tried to live my life as a Wizard, as a man, as a thinking, rational being. Even at the full moon when the beast is in control I do whatever I can to satisfy my craving for blood by feeding on myself rather than on innocents. But what Greyback wants--" Remus suddenly looked older than Dumbledore in the gloomy light.

Sirius nodded dumbly. He knew how bad the struggle was, knew it intimately, like his wand; recalling the times as a child, before he and James and Peter became Animagi, when Remus almost ripped his own heart out with the force of the craving. Even when they ran together as wolf and dog and stag and rat, the amount of distraction the wolf required not to gnaw off one of his own limbs was almost too much to bear.

A slow anger ignited and burned in him: at Greyback for asking Remus to give up his only sense of worth, and, irrationally (or perhaps not), at Dumbledore himself for forcing Remus into this position of giving up the dignity that defined him.

But he also knew Remus needed him now, strong, steady and in control. So he quashed the flare threatening to plume and moved closer, leaning his body into Remus', providing what little comfort through physical contact he could.

"I can't do it. I can't." Remus' normally controlled voice wavered.

"Does Dumbledore know?"

"I--just found this out tonight. I haven't informed him yet."

Sirius jumped up then, frustrated. "Surely once he knows, he won't make you go through with this--?"

Remus shrugged with defeat. "I'm bound to do whatever's needed for the cause. As we all are, Sirius."

"But Dumbledore can't ask you to submit--"

"We all took that Unbreakable pledge."

Sirius began to pace around the room. "Dumbledore won't let you. Even he won't ask you to sacrifice your humanity like this! Surely he'll find a way...? There's still a week to the full moon--Maybe he can ask Snape to modify the Wolfsbane--"

Remus' mouth quirked into a sad, wretched smile at the thought of Sirius invoking Snape's name in a beneficent light.

Sirius stopped to stare at him. "I won't let him do that, Remus! You will not subjugate yourself to Greyback like that! Unbreakable vows be damned!"

Remus jumped up himself then, to stand in front of the glowing coals of the fireplace.

"Sirius, even if I could refuse Greyback's ultimatum, you--you don't understand what it's like to run with the pack," he said, holding his hands out almost in supplication. "It's like--a raw energy, a hunger, that feeds on itself, magnifies, whenever the pack is together. It's insatiable. It's a magic that consumes, even in human form, you feel it coursing under your skin. In human form it's almost impossible to deny the power of the calling in the pack. In wolf form, in the pack all control is completely lost, Wolfsbane or no. In the end, human or wolf, in the pack all that matters is blood."

Sirius thought a moment, then raised his jaw in a defiant gesture. "We can fight this, Remus--"

"No. You can't do anything about it, and I'm too weak to fight it anymore when I'm with them. I can't avoid it any longer, Sirius. There's no use in denying it. I am, and always will be, a beast. Forever a Dark Creature in word and deed."

"So the werewolf comes to his senses," a deep voice boomed from above them, behind a closed curtain on the opposite wall.

Sirius whirled around, wand aimed, and with a snap of his wrist the curtains flew open to reveal the speaker. His namesake, born in 1745, stood imperiously beside a winged velvet chair inside the ornately gilded portrait. In the dull light of the room his face was still draped in shadow.

"What the fuck do you know?" Sirius seethed. "Sniping from the dark like the coward you are--"

"Your friend is just stating the obvious," his namesake replied haughtily, putting an ugly emphasis on the word. "The uppity werewolf has finally learned his place in the world. Or rather, his lack thereof. He finally understands he belongs with his own kind--"

"Shut up," Sirius whispered, his anger bubbling. "Just SHUT. UP."

"Indeed, talking to your esteemed elders like that. You would do good to follow his lead and learn your place--"

"INCENDIO!" Sirius shouted, finally succumbing to the white hot fury. The figure in the portrait just barely escaped before the portrait and the curtain blackened and shriveled to ash in the ensuing blue flame.

Behind him, Remus had moved back to the sofa and sat on the edge of it, head bowed. When Sirius turned back around to face him, he was shaking his head. "He's right, you know," he said dully.

Sirius' heart chilled at the empty look on Remus' worn face. "No, no, no," he murmured, kneeling in front of him and taking both hands. "He's a sodding prick who can't tell his mouth from his arse. You belong here, in this world, the Wizarding world. This is your place. You're too good, too strong, too honourable--"

Remus batted his hands away. "Stop it, Sirius," he said. "We both know otherwise."

Sirius shook his head in exasperation. "I refuse to believe that," he said, taking his hands again. Remus resisted, slapping them away. "You've fought this for thirty years already, you still have decades left in you."

"Sometimes it's best just to give in." With that he stopped fighting and sagged, folding in on himself with the weight of defeat.

It was the utter flatness in Remus' voice that scared Sirius to the core. He blinked, licked his lips, and thought frantically, eyes flicking around the room. Up to now, despite his shabby robes and frequent lack of food Remus Lupin was the strongest person he knew. He drew on his quiet dignity and his resolve to be better than what society condemned him to be, kept his head high and his pride intact. Remus even seemed to have more than enough strength to go around for everyone else.

The Order needed and depended on Remus to be strong. Hell, he needed Remus to be strong, to survive the nightmare of Grimmauld Place. And Remus came through every time, even after the longest and most grueling missions.

But this last assignment was going to kill his strength and his spirit if he had to follow through with it. Without those, Remus really had nothing. He really would be condemned.

So he needed to be strong for Remus now. To show him where his real place was.

Sirius rose off his knees, grasped Remus' limp hands and drew him to his feet in a smooth, sure gesture. "Let's go, Moony," he said softly.

"I think I'd like to be alone now, Padfoot." Remus stubbornly refused to meet Sirius' gaze.

"No," he replied simply, squeezing their hands together. "Come on."

He drew him up the stairs to their bedchamber, a hovering candle ahead of them, lighting their way up the stubborn stone staircase. Remus went, though reluctantly. Inside the small dark room, Sirius quickly disrobed, while Remus stretched out full-length on their bed, fully clothed, arms folded and staring up at the flickering candle-thrown shadows on the dingy ceiling.

Sirius pulled back the dusty velvet drape covering the portrait in the room to ensure no uppity ancestors were lurking, then cast an Imperturbable charm on the curtain. He also locked the door and set privacy wards, coming at last to stand at the side of the bed, looking down at Remus with an infinitely sad expression.

Remus still refused to meet Sirius' eyes, and Sirius exhaled a long, low sigh. "You are a man first and foremost, Remus," he murmured, soft but certain.

Remus still said nothing. Sirius counted the quiet in heartbeats. When it was obvious Remus would not take the next step, he raised his wand.

"Evanesco," he whispered, Vanishing Remus' clothes off his body.

Now Remus glared at him, his wan features darkening with anger. "Fuck it Sirius, I'm in no mood--"

"Shut up," Sirius ordered, though gently, climbing onto the bed to kneel at Remus' bare feet. His steady warm gaze traveled up and down Remus' body, taking in the silvery whorls and reddened puckers of past and present scars. He reached out to touch his left thigh, the angry, pulsating cicatrice banding his leg that started it all. Remus trembled under his light caress, though still resolutely keeping his gaze turned upwards.

"You bear the marks of the beast but you are no beast yourself," Sirius said quietly, running his hands up and down his legs. "You never were. You prove it every day you don't let your Dark nature subsume you." He kept his voice measured, even formal, almost by instinct, hoping Remus would respond to it. Remus blinked and drew a shuddering breath, but otherwise remained still.

He maneuvered himself to kneel between Remus' calves. "Every day you defy the threats and slights of society around you." His hands slid upwards over Remus' concave belly and the ridges of his chest, up over his shoulders and down his arms, mapping each indentation and healed incision, bite and tear. "You fight for the better, even when everything is against you. You know the difference between what's easy and what's right. It's easy to succumb to temptation, to the wolf, to blood. But you don't, even though you pay the harshest price."

Sirius brushed Remus' fingertips, then squeezed his hands and gazed at him earnestly. "You've survived horrors no one else could have, suffered unspeakable loss and betrayal." At that Remus met his eyes with a look so full of empty yet understanding despair that Sirius had to glance away, wincing at the pain.

He regrouped, and continued, returning Remus' despondent gaze with one of utter faith. "You can and will resist what Greyback wants. You are the best of us, of all of us. You will survive and endure because that is who you are. I believe and trust in you and I would not do that if you were not the man you are. You keep me going as the man I need to be. If not for you I would be completely mad now in this hellhole, not just half round the twist--"

At that Remus' lips twitched a bit though the rest of his face remained impassive in the guttering light of the candle. Sirius nodded, and raised Remus' hands to his mouth, murmuring against his knuckles. "You keep me going, Remus," he repeated. "Let me do the same for you now."

After a long wary moment Remus nodded almost imperceptibly; exhaling one extended sigh, his body sank into the mattress as his muscles relaxed. Sirius' mouth trailed over his hands and fingers, tracing bone and vein, nipping lightly at his fingertips. Remus' body shivered with each caress of lips and tongue and Sirius watched him squeeze his eyes shut, his jaw quivering. Still clasping one of Remus' hands, he leaned over to brush the shell of his ear with his lips, Remus' grey hair soft against his cheek.

"You are a man, Remus," Sirius murmured, running out of words to say; nuzzling into his neck and tasting the pulse point under his stubbled jaw, dusky and damp with need.

He moved over Remus slowly, almost reverently, falling silent now; speaking to him only through hands and fingers, lips and tongue, in words of heat and musk and salt. It was the only language of comfort left that Sirius was still fluent in, and he prayed Remus would eventually understand. Remus remained mute, but slowly, slowly he began to respond; and once he began to arch and gasp under his touch Sirius knew he had deciphered the message.

Afterwards Remus buried his face into Sirius' neck and shook silently, as Sirius tightened his arms around his body and pretended that the sudden wetness against his shoulder was only sweat. Remus finally stilled and his breathing steadied into the even pattern of sleep, his head pillowed on Sirius' chest. Sirius lay staring at the ceiling, cradling Remus in his arms until the first pink wisps of dawn peeked through the dusty bedroom window. He listened to the roar of blood in his own ears, each heartbeat speaking of the precarious line between Wizard and beast; and thinking of how sometimes it was impossible to tell really, which was which.