Harry Potter One Shots

Moon Beloved

All rights belong to the author, Bil

You know the kiss of moonlight as the devil's benediction. You know the thrill of inhuman power and strength thrumming through you while you surge into the world with the savage joy of pure fearlessness... And you know the despair and self-hatred born of shame at your very existence.

You grew up suddenly when you were six years old, grew up in ways some people never need to. Strange, the way it happens. One day you were a little boy scared of the monster in the cupboard and the next day you were the monster.

(you are the monster)

Of course, that's not what others see. In the eyes of those around you, those who see only your soft-spoken surface and don't know the truth of what you are, you are the quiet one, the rational one. The voice of calm and reason, the one person always ready to offer a helping hand and a kind word of encouragement. No one sees the beast inside, clawing at the cage of your ribs and breaking you down in its attempt to be free. They don't see, because you don't let them see. The fiercer the beast rages, the quieter you become.

Balance, balance is the key. You don't love the beast within – how could you? – but it's a part of you and you accept that. Fighting it only gives it strength and the only way to silence the beast is to acknowledge it as yours. Even your dearest friends have never understood that: to them the wolf is separate, a cursed parasite. You never tell anyone the truth, never tell them that the beast isn't an addition to you but a part of you. You know they wouldn't understand.

(and people fear what they don't understand)

When people learn the truth of what you are, they fear you in an instant. Even friends, people who liked you. You can see the change in their eyes, the way they suddenly can't look at you as they edge away from you. They shun you, they turn you away – save for a precious few who are willing to look beyond the curse and find the person afflicted by it. There are so few who are willing to see you as a person and not just a curse.

So few, and you've gotten most of them killed.

(pack – dead, lost, gone)

Your parents, Lily, James, Peter... Dead.

Harry isn't dead, but he's been taken from you just as surely if Voldemort had succeeded on that dark, terrible night. Instinct tells you to find the boy, protect the boy (packmate, wolf pup). But reason overrules instinct: you have already failed him so completely. Why would you go near him when you only destroy everything you love? No one ever told you that the bite of a werewolf gives a worse curse than the full moon, but you know it now. You keep away from the boy because it's the only way to keep him safe. Safe from you.

You failed Harry's parents. You trusted Sirius and let them distrust you (you knew the beast within, knew they shouldn't trust you because you don't trust you). You should have known. After the trick Sirius played on Snape, the trick that nearly cost you your own life, how could you not have seen the murderer lurking in the laughing eyes of one of your best friends?

But you didn't see. You failed, the way you always fail. Failed to stay safe from Greyback, failed to protect your parents, failed to exert any authority over your friends... failed to defend the only family you had left.

(everything you touch turns to silver, accursed, fatal silver)

"Harry is safe," Minerva tells you when you visit Hogwarts, desperate for news of the last of your pack, desperate for contact with someone who knows what you are and doesn't hate you for it. "He's safe." You nod and smile and sip at your tea, acting the part you have always acted, the part of the quiet, rational one. You pretend with the ease of long practice that there isn't a part of you breathing in her scent and whispering "Prey."

Harry is safe. The rest of your pack is dead, save the traitor withering in Azkaban. You leave.

You leave and you live amongst the Muggles. They don't ask questions, they don't give you side-long looks of fear. They don't carry silver or chain you down with laws and legislation. But magic pulses in your blood, waxing and waning with the moon, and in the end you always return to the world that hates you, fears you, loathes you. Until you tire of the hunger for something the wizarding world won't ever give you and you flee back to the Muggles and the cycle begins again.

You're trapped in the ranks of the damned, doomed to never live more than half a life. Acceptance and no magic or magic and no acceptance. There is no middle ground. No balance. The beast rages against the chains of convention and prejudice and as it grows angrier you grow quieter and more polite in contrast.

(get away from me, werewolf!)

You smell their fear, you can't help it. The curse of a werewolf, to be stronger, better, faster. Different. But you're good with people. You get along with them (at least until the fatal discovery of your true nature), you smile and joke and offer help, and they like you. You're non-judgemental (because you have no right to judge), you're forgiving (because you hope for – need – forgiveness in return), you're friendly (because you're alone, so alone), and you're slow to anger (because the beast inside you is always angry).

And you pretend, as you laugh and advise and listen, you pretend that you don't sense their blood pulsing in their veins, that you don't taste the smell of their living, breathing, fragile bodies... You pretend that they don't smell like prey.

You can kill. You know that, it's so easy – a little spell, a hand around a throat, teeth and claws digging into flesh. Killing is what you are. That's why you will not kill, not even in self defence. Because you know the lure of the power, you know the taste of someone else's fear filling your senses like wine, thick and heady. Because you know you're too weak, so you daren't risk it, can't allow yourself to feel death at your fingertips. You're too weak and you know how easily you could slip over the edge. It's all about balance, the balance between wolf and human, and the balance is so easily broken.

So when the beast rages and snarls, you grow quiet and smile and you don't taste the fear of your prey, don't smell the blood, don't listen to the beat of pattering hearts.

You are the monster under the bed, the terror hiding in the dark. A demon in human form. You hate yourself.

(moon-racked, ruled by silver, dying, dying, dying)

You don't remember the sight of the full moon, it's been so many years since you saw it through human eyes. You do remember when moonlight used to be a joy, creating an eerie landscape cast in silver and black, an enchanted world you could see through your window when you were supposed to be asleep. It was a night like that that you crept outside and got lost in the forest, scared and alone amongst the trees. You used to like the moon. Now you know what lurks in the shadows – and worse, what walks in the light.

They call you a dark creature, but it isn't true. You're a creature born of light, born in the light, ravening and cruel under the gaze of the cold moon.

You are their demons, you are their fears. Gentle, mild-mannered Remus with the beast howling inside you. They'll kill you, one way or another (starve you, stab you, chain you), and even when you die at their hands you'll forgive them full heartedly. Because no one forgives you and you want them all to. You need them to. Forgiveness for being different, for being the beast in human clothing. For being weak, for being lonely, for being lost in a great world where no one wants you, where they only accept you if you deny what you are.

You will always be that little boy lost in the forest with the monsters surrounding you and they'll never forgive you for it.

(i'm sorry)

There's no escape when the monster lives inside you. Not when you are the monster.

No escape.