(no subject)
Title: Shadows and Light.
Author: Becky_H
Characters: Remus Lupin
Word Count: 441
Catagory: Mild angst.
Beta: Matsujo9
Summary: Full moon reflections
He'd always sworn that he could feel the light against his skin. Once James had asked him -- laughing -- what it had felt like. Remus had answered truthfully that it was like being caressed by the softest, gentlest hand imaginable and having your skin peel away behind it, every nerve ending exposed. James had stopped laughing.
It wasn't anything so dramatic, of course, but the analogy still rang true even after thirty years and more of full moons. It still felt incredible for that moment before it began to hurt, and even the pain lasted only long enough to make itself known before it was gone again, washed away in a much less delicate, greater, hurt.
Muscles tore, bones broke. His body shattered itself in the cold light, ripping itself apart to reform into a shape that was entirely new and completely animal. When the violent convulsion of change left him, it didn't matter if the floor he rose from was a dirt and leaf litter deep in a remote forest, the stone of Hogwarts' floors or the worn, soft wood of the Shrieking Shack; there was always the taste of blood -- metallic and cloyingly sweet -- lingering at the back of his throat. There was always blood splattered across the silver of a muzzle now turning to gray.
But, somehow, despite all of that, once it was over and he was again standing firm on all four feet, the pain was forgotten, at least for the night. There was no mask to hide behind, no mistaking what he was, no pretended harmlessness to set others at ease. Instead there was more than 150 pounds of fur and bone, muscle and sinew.
Unquestionably beast, undeniably dangerous.
Tonight there was no pack to run with, no family to protect, no territory that mattered enough to guard. There was only the night. There were the changing scents and soft sounds brought to him by the same shifting breeze that was the only touch his fur had felt in nearly twenty years. And, of course, that cold light streaming from above.
She was the one companion he could never outrun. Long after the rest had fallen behind or just fallen - to death, to prison, to betrayal or simply to time - she was still there. Beautiful and brilliant, terrible and terrifying, she flayed both skin and humanity from him and bent him to her will. She pushed back the shadows and freed him to run from the dark into her cruel, unforgiving light.
It was no wonder he howled at the moon.
It had been thirty years and the light still hurt more and cut deeper than the dark ever had.
Author: Becky_H
Characters: Remus Lupin
Word Count: 441
Catagory: Mild angst.
Beta: Matsujo9
Summary: Full moon reflections
He'd always sworn that he could feel the light against his skin. Once James had asked him -- laughing -- what it had felt like. Remus had answered truthfully that it was like being caressed by the softest, gentlest hand imaginable and having your skin peel away behind it, every nerve ending exposed. James had stopped laughing.
It wasn't anything so dramatic, of course, but the analogy still rang true even after thirty years and more of full moons. It still felt incredible for that moment before it began to hurt, and even the pain lasted only long enough to make itself known before it was gone again, washed away in a much less delicate, greater, hurt.
Muscles tore, bones broke. His body shattered itself in the cold light, ripping itself apart to reform into a shape that was entirely new and completely animal. When the violent convulsion of change left him, it didn't matter if the floor he rose from was a dirt and leaf litter deep in a remote forest, the stone of Hogwarts' floors or the worn, soft wood of the Shrieking Shack; there was always the taste of blood -- metallic and cloyingly sweet -- lingering at the back of his throat. There was always blood splattered across the silver of a muzzle now turning to gray.
But, somehow, despite all of that, once it was over and he was again standing firm on all four feet, the pain was forgotten, at least for the night. There was no mask to hide behind, no mistaking what he was, no pretended harmlessness to set others at ease. Instead there was more than 150 pounds of fur and bone, muscle and sinew.
Unquestionably beast, undeniably dangerous.
Tonight there was no pack to run with, no family to protect, no territory that mattered enough to guard. There was only the night. There were the changing scents and soft sounds brought to him by the same shifting breeze that was the only touch his fur had felt in nearly twenty years. And, of course, that cold light streaming from above.
She was the one companion he could never outrun. Long after the rest had fallen behind or just fallen - to death, to prison, to betrayal or simply to time - she was still there. Beautiful and brilliant, terrible and terrifying, she flayed both skin and humanity from him and bent him to her will. She pushed back the shadows and freed him to run from the dark into her cruel, unforgiving light.
It was no wonder he howled at the moon.
It had been thirty years and the light still hurt more and cut deeper than the dark ever had.