the mirror-blue night., remus / josh.

[MARLENE ELISABETH MCKINNON]

While no class would ever oust Care of Magical Creatures from its position as Marlene’s least-favorite class, there were days when Herbology came pretty close to earning itself a pretty solid second-place finish. She’d had a particularly difficult time with those stupid…whatever they were called, the mossy things that liked to grab hold of people when they weren’t paying attention and not let go…and because she hadn’t been able to tame hers to properly prune it in class, Professor Sprout had suggested that she put in some extra time in Greenhouse Four after class. Well, ‘some extra time’ had turned into a good two and a half hours more, leaving her dirty, tired, and longing for the squishy comfort of her bed despite the fact that it was just barely reaching dusk. After that long dealing with particularly handsy plants, she couldn’t have cared less that it wasn’t quite an acceptable time to go to sleep for the night.

After attempts to wipe smudges of dirt from her arms were by and large fruitless – a fat lot of good those gardening gloves had done for her – the blonde let out a huff of irritation and left the greenhouse of doom behind her as she began the trudge back to the castle. Maybe she should have convinced Lily or Frank or someone to come and spend time with her while she was trying to wrangle the plant into submission and give it its haircut of sorts, just so she didn’t have to trek back all by herself, but the fact of the matter was that she hadn’t, and so she did. She supposed it could have been worse, though; better to be alone and bored than to be stuck in the company of one of the many people who annoyed her to high heaven. She could have been forced to work with Vicky Dougherty – with whom her last interaction hadn’t gone exceptionally well (and that was an understatement) – or, of course, Sirius, and to be honest, at this point, she wasn’t sure which would have been worse.

She also wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t have let the plant wrap itself around his neck and choke him to death had he been anywhere near it.

Before she knew it, her feet had carried her quite a distance from the greenhouse, and the sound of branches whistling through the air caught her attention. Glancing idly over, she noticed that the Whomping Willow was exceptionally active, swatting at flocks of birds that dared get too close to it. (Why anyone had thought it was a good idea to plant such a violent tree anywhere near people was anyone’s guess, and Marlene couldn’t, for the life of her, even make close to an educated one. She thought it was rather ridiculous, to be honest, because…well, it was a mean tree, and ridiculous as it might have sounded, she couldn’t help but occasionally wonder if its animation was potentially extendable to more than just flailing branches – what if it one day decided it could move?)

Shaking the thought from her head, she stopped to watch its attempted assault on the birds – a few less feathered things in the area was no skin off Marlene’s nose, that was for sure – and she was already well past late for dinner, so a few minutes of mild entertainment didn’t seem like such a bad idea. At least it meant that she wouldn’t just go back to her room, collapse on her bed, fall asleep, and then wake up in the middle of the night because it was far too early to turn in for the evening. Pulling her coat a bit tighter around her, she idled, taking in the battle taking place. Despite her dislike of birds – and anything else that made her sneeze – she found herself wincing sympathetically as the Willow landed a couple of blows, knocking the birds around. “Ooh,” she murmured, tilting her head to the side. The way that thing was battering the birds? She couldn’t figure out why anyone ever would have wanted to challenge it.

Other than the fact that some people were just plain stupid.

[REMUS JOHN LUPIN]

Remus Lupin
============================================================

As far as bad days went, Remus was definitely having one. To start, all of his (four) friends were missing due to different things that they needed to see to, be it James checking up on Lily or Sirius moping about something Remus had clearly forgotten or Dorcas apparently avoiding him after their… er… run in together after the Halloween Ball was coming to a close and the two of them had had enough firewhiskey to get a full grown River Troll inebriated. Loneliness aside, Remus had barely managed an Exceeds Expectations on his potions essay. Sure, an E was hardly something to be upset about, but it was a little too close to an Acceptable—which was way too close to failing—for Remus’ comfort. Who cared about lacewing flies and boomslang skin anyways, when that night you were going to turn into a monster in a shack that everyone in the country thinks is haunted because of your howls? He was moody, even more so than he normally was (there was a reason Sirius liked to refer to it as his time of the month; not just as a joke) so Remus had almost tossed the parchment into the fire and given up completely.

On top of that, nights alone were the worst. While werewolves apparently didn’t take much liking to attacking dogs or stags or rats, without their company, the beast inside of him liked to take it out on himself. Usually one of the three other Marauders could accompany him and provide the monster with something to pay attention to apart from clawing himself repeatedly until the sun rose. Tomorrow, it was likely Remus would be missing the entire day of classes to have his scars healed as best as they could in the hospital wing. The Healer was the only person on the staff apart from Dumbledore to know of Remus’ affliction—it was a necessary sacrifice in order to maintain something resembling a normal existence at Hogwarts, but even then Remus always felt a little off going to them the next day, occasionally still bleeding, and needing to be mended under their stern and rather disapproving gazes. It was nearly as painful as the transformations themselves.

But the sun was setting, and the full moon that had inconveniently enough decided to crop up right at the beginning of November was starting to ascended, and the tugging in his skull and chest that always accompanied it was growing in intensity. He needed to get to the willow, and fast. The thing that lived inside him was starting its monthly fight out of the burrow in his chest up to the controls in his brain. It was pretty dark, considering the time of year, but Remus still figured he had ten, maybe fifteen minutes to get from the doors of Hogwarts into the Shrieking Shack. He practically ran outside and didn’t bother to check if there was anyone around as he moved quickly for the tree.

There was, however, someone at the tree.

That was new. People knew very well that the Whomping Willow was not the kind of thing you got close to if you wanted to avoid getting your bones snapped and your face turned to pulp. And to make matters worse, she was standing right in front of the knot that only Remus, the other marauders, and Dumbledore knew about at all—the one that would calm down the killer tree long enough for him to slip into the passage way. In the theme of the day, the matter managed to be even worse than that when Remus realized the onlooker was none other than Ms. McKinnon, or “Blondie” as she was so affectionately referred to by Sirius. That was not good. Although Sirius would probably never admit to it, Remus felt his friend would kill him if he say… accidentally maimed the girl beyond recognition, even if it were out of his own power. “Marlene! Hi.” Remus called through clenched teeth, feeling another harsh tug in his gut from the beast fighting its way free. “I don’t mean to be rude but you need to leave right now please.”

============================================================

tag: Marly
word count: 692
outfit: untucked, disheveled white button down /slacks
notes: wolfy.

[MARLENE ELISABETH MCKINNON]

She’d been so intent on watching the tree’s brutal assault on the flock of birds – and torn between being horrified and feeling somewhat twistedly appeased that there would be a few less things around to turn her into a swollen, sneezing mess – that she hadn’t realized she wasn’t alone anymore. Turning around at the sound of her voice on someone else’s lips, she caught sight of Remus, who looked...

Well, he looked an absolute wreck, if she was going to be perfectly honest. Furrowing her brow, she folded her arms across her chest, tilting her head to the side as she studied the slim, dark-haired boy now in front of her. “Remus, you look awful,” she said simply, although his name was barely out of her mouth before he had rattled right on, telling her…to leave? What was he talking about? With a mildly affronted expression taking its place on her features, she shifted slightly from one foot to the other.

It wasn’t like someone told her to take a hike every day, after all, and no matter who Remus Lupin had chosen as his friends, she couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever been rude to her. So, the shortness of his tone, and the expression on his face were enough to raise a couple of red flags in her brain, and the blonde took a few steps away from the tree and towards her classmate. “Are you okay, Remus?” she asked carefully, becoming more and more aware as the seconds ticked past that not only was he just disheveled, he looked terribly uncomfortable. “I’m not so sure I should leave you here by yourself…I think you look like you need to go to the hospital wing, to be perfectly honest with you.”

Despite the fact that she hadn’t really had a proper conversation with Remus for quite awhile – and certainly not since the morning she’d blown up at Sirius over breakfast for his insensitive and idiotic comments – she closed the last bit of space between them and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. “You shouldn’t be by yourself,” she repeated, continuing her assessment of his current state. “I’ve never seen you so…unkempt…” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes narrowed. “Did that bastard charm your clothes so that they don’t tuck in or something?”

Even as the words were coming out of her mouth, she was aware how ridiculously stupid they sounded, but it also seemed like precisely the kind of thing Sirius would have done to heckle his much-neater and much less careless friend. Allowing her hand to drift to his forearm, she closed her fingers carefully around his wrist, tugging softly. “But really,” she said, the corners of her mouth turned down in a nervous, concerned little frown, “you don’t look well at all, and I’m afraid that I don’t think I can leave you here in good conscience.”

Her frown deepened as she realized how clammy his skin was. “You’re soaking wet, Remus, you’ll catch cold, if you haven’t one already. Did you see Madam Pomfrey? You could have the flu or something…”

To be honest, she wasn’t really sure what to do; part of her knew that the prefect wouldn’t have all but demanded that she leave if he didn’t have a good reason – had he not looked as sickly as he did right then, she might have made a joke about him being down here to meet a girl (perhaps Dorcas?), but the way he looked? She doubted that was even close to the reason – but the other part of her also knew that she couldn’t just walk away without trying to do whatever she could for him. (People might not have been willing to believe it very often, but Marlene cared quite a bit about the people she considered friends, and she didn’t particularly like to see them in any kind of discomfort.)

“Remus?” she asked, voice barely more than a whisper. “Tell me the truth…are you okay?”

[REMUS JOHN LUPIN]

Remus Lupin
============================================================

Merlin, she wasn’t leaving. Why the bloody hell wasn’t she leaving? Couldn’t she see that he was—wait, no, of course not. Sirius would never have told her of his condition and of course Remus himself hadn’t mentioned it. On top of that, the blonde was just as if not more stubborn than Sirius, so it was only natural that she wouldn’t leave with only one attempt from Remus to get her to go away. Hopefully, he could find a way out of this without needing to tell her what was happening—or worse, without some sort of disaster that would no doubt get him expelled. Remus choked down a less than polite retort at Marlene’s comment regarding how shitty he no doubt looked and went right back to the matter at hand. “Y-Yeah, I’m a little sick, Mar.” That was hardly a lie; lycanthropy was a disease, wasn’t it? A terrible, incurable condition that had consumed his life since such a young age. The fact that his statement was barely a lie made it easier for Remus to say, since he always was such a terrible liar. “I was just going for a walk, but now—ah!” Remus choked on his words, doubling over and retching as a powerful wave of transformative energy shot through him. It took a few seconds to gain enough control to stop the painful sounding groan, but he managed to get it back, if only just enough to silence the noise.

“I’m fine.” Remus lied through clenched teeth, still determined to get through this without having to explain to her what was happening, if he could. He knew the lie wouldn’t take, the little episode he’d just barely conquered made it clear that he was severely less than okay. The truth was, the monster inside of him was winning the battle as the tendrils of light from the full moon bore through his eyes and deep into his brain, like a beacon drawing the beast from below into the control center of their shared physical form. It was starting, and there was no way Remus was going to be able to fight it back anymore. He could feel the hunch in his spine cracking and pulling itself into new positions, to better accommodate the creature he would soon become. “Okay, I’m not.” Remus spoke quickly, wincing as more of his bones and muscles started to shift. For now, it wasn’t anything that would give him away or put Marlene in danger, just under the skin stuff that was more painful than Remus could ever explain—which did alter his appearance, but no more so than any other form of severe discomfort.

“But Marlene you really do need to—gah!—l-leave.” The shifts started to gain more momentum, twisting and morphing severely enough now that the cracking sound of his body reforming was audible. Great. There was no more time for beating around the bush then. “Th-This has nothing t-to do with P-Padfoo—bloodyhell!” Clutching his sides, he stumble backwards away from Marlene, hoping that if things did go wrong there would be enough distance that perhaps the beast wouldn’t notice her. “Listen, Mar, I p-promise I’ll explain but you have to leave now, just trust me!” Remus doubled over again with a whimper that sounded a little less than human. Final stages of the transformation were moving into full swing as the tendrils in his skull wrapped around his brain and started to strangle him out.

And she still wasn’t leaving. “Marlene, you need to go! I c-can’t stop it, I’m a were—waaargh!” Just like that, Remus’ capacity for speech was stolen from him. It was happening. He could feel the fur growing from his skin like a million needles taking up residence on flesh they weren’t meant to be on. His legs bent and snapped and stretched along with his arms, and his spine pulled up and curved and pushed back, tearing open the back of his shirt. With all the human energy he had left, he forced out a word, barely comprehendible, what with his jaw starting to stretch into a snout. “Run!”

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tag: Marly
word count: 693
outfit: untucked, disheveled white button down /slacks
notes: wolfy.

[MARLENE ELISABETH MCKINNON]

No matter how Remus tried to convince her, there was no way that Marlene planned on believing that he was okay. First of all, she’d never seen him look this bad – she’d never seen anyone look this bad, now that she thought about it – and secondly, well…she just wasn’t stupid. She could see that there was something wrong. Had the situation been different, she might have given a pleased little smirk that she’d gotten someone to admit something, but as it was, even the glee she generally derived from being right was silenced by the deafening concern for the boy in front of her. She’d always known that she didn’t like feeling helpless, but she’d never been given reason to apply that situation to someone else: watching Remus standing there, so obviously in pain and looking so sick, she realized that as bad as feeling helpless herself was, that horrible feeling was magnified significantly when you felt helpless as far as not being able to do anything for a friend who looked like they needed it.

“What can I do?” she asked, stepping towards him again, tentatively. But she’d barely taken those small steps when he widened the gap again, and her brow knitted even further. Popping and cracking sounds reached her ears, and it took her a moment to realize their source. Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open, a sound between a gasp and a sob squeaking out. “Oh, God…” she murmured, hands flying to her face. “I…Remus, you’re in pain, I can’t leave you here, I’d never…you’re…” Every muscle, every nerve in her body wanted to move to him, to put her hand on his shoulder, even hug him, hold on if it meant easing some of the agony he was enduring, for whatever reason.

As she stood, standing, staring in horror, the reality of the situation began to dawn somewhat. Watching him doubling over, shifting, she realized that it wasn’t exactly that he was moving so much as his body was changing, shifting, becoming something else. “You’re where?” she asked, still not completely cognizant of the true nature of the statement he had begun to choke out, her brain still trying to convince her that someone was responsible for this, behind this with a hex or something that had rendered him writhing and contorting in pain, changing into something else. But then, her gaze flickered upward to the moon, drifting out from behind the clouds that had concealed it thus far, and realization sent a shock through her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “Oh, my God…oh, Remus,” she whispered, hands over her mouth. The blonde knew, with every fiber of her being, that she should heed his warnings to run, that this had quickly become something far worse than just a friend in pain, something far more dangerous, but try as she might, she couldn’t coax her feet into motion.

It was like a trainwreck; watching as he became something so unlike himself, more animal than man, was something she couldn’t tear her eyes away from no matter how terrible it was. Wincing with every gruesome step of the transformation, she wanted to curl up and disappear, she did.

Why? was the most prevalent question in her mind; why Remus? How could someone she’d thought she’d known fairly well have been dealing with something like this without anyone knowing? How could a friend be a monster? How could anyone have let this happen? Why, of all the people in the world, had the kind, studious boy been cursed with this? And if those questions weren’t enough, the most pressing one of all at the moment -

Why couldn’t she do as he’d asked of her, and run?

A pained moan – fearful and full of hurt for him – escaped her, and she managed to get her feet to move enough that she took a few stumbling, clumsy steps backwards, though her eyes were still trained squarely on him. Her heart was pounding, and a chill washed over her as she tried to urge herself into motion.

…This was not good.

[REMUS JOHN LUPIN]

((i messed up and accidentally edited over a post that was here but it was really good and now its gone so))

[MARLENE ELISABETH MCKINNON]

As suddenly as Remus had appeared out of nowhere, he was gone again.

Well, that obviously wasn’t entirely true, because there was definitely still someone – something – standing in front of her, right in the spot where her friend had been only moments before. But it couldn’t have looked less like the quiet, oft-sad-eyed, handsome boy she knew. What stared back at her was something unlike anything she’d ever seen in person – the phrase seemed so silly, because it was as unlike a person as possible – and despite the fact that her brain was screaming at her to run, that it wasn’t really Remus standing there, she couldn’t help but think about the reality that while Remus might have been obscured by the werewolf, he was still inside there somewhere. His name escaped her in a frightened whisper once more, and she watched in horror as the monster began moving slowly towards her after a few seconds’ worth of looking…almost dazed?

The blonde took a few more tiny, stumbling steps backwards, blue eyes trained on the creature advancing just as slowly on her, though she had finally begun to reach for the pocket of her jacket with every intention of closing her fingers around her wand. While she was still extremely reluctant to send a hex the monster’s way – it might have looked like a monster, might have behaved like something terribly dangerous, but somewhere inside there, her friend was still there, and the last thing she wanted to do was injure the thing and have it hurt him badly – she was mostly operating on the hope that somehow, the sight of the wand might deter the beast. (Magical creatures had to have some kind of understanding when it came to other magical things, right?) As her hand closed around the thin slip of wood, the sound of a whimper reached her ears, and she looked back at the wolf in alarm and uncertainty.

“Remus…” His name had barely left her lips when it was replaced by a terrified shriek and she was knocked to the ground by the creature’s lunging weight despite her last-second attempt to move out of its path. Its howl echoed in her ears, and she wasn’t sure she could discern between her own scream and the unearthly sound that had come from the creature. Instinctively, she rolled to the side to protect her face, chest, stomach, and throat from the creature’s claws – she couldn’t think of it as Remus anymore, not right now, not when she needed to detach and do whatever she could to get out of this relatively unscathed – and cried out as she felt them bite into her skin, scraping the length of her side as she threw an arm over the side of her face. Wriggling beneath the creature’s weight, she forced herself to swallow back any further screams.

She had to get out of this without drawing attention – she couldn’t let Remus get into terrible trouble just because she’d been too stubborn to listen to him when he’d told her to get back to the castle – and as she rolled to the side further so that she lay on her stomach, in a more opportune position to get her feet under her and get out from under the wolf, she let out a strangled scream that became more of a whimper than anything else as she heard the monster’s claws slice through her jacket and the shirt beneath before raking through to her skin. She could have sworn she felt the claws slip underneath her skin, and she closed her eyes tightly. After a few seconds to gauge how much pain she was actually feeling – not as much as she would later, when the adrenaline stopped pumping – she pulled her wand fully from her pocket and, over her shoulder, managed to point it at the creature.

“Stupefy,” she whispered, and as soon as the opportunity arose, she clambered clumsily to her feet. Still pointing her wand at the creature – Remus, the little voice in the back of her mind kindly reminded her – her hand shook, and her lip quivered slightly as she did her best to ignore the scratches it had left on her body. “I’m so sorry, Remus…I’m so sorry…” she said quietly, though she couldn’t be sure if he could hear or understand her right then, her hand still closed tightly around her wand.

[REMUS JOHN LUPIN]

Remus Lupin
============================================================

Remus could see as she was reaching for her wand, and was practically cheering in the little corner of his head. Sure, whatever she did, provided it was non-lethal, would surely ache a bit in the morning if it were powerful enough to deter the beast. That, however, was a sacrifice Remus was more than willing to make—with the violence of his transformation, he’d likely be spending all the next day in the hospital wing regardless of her actions. A little bit of achiness wouldn’t kill him any more than the cuts and bruises. The issue at hand remained this, however: she had to pull her wand out before the creature made the effort to attack. Why are you still hesitating? Remus wondered, finally resigned to the fact that he was completely out of control. This was all in Marlene’s court now; she had to save herself.

But no, of course she wouldn’t just do it. Remus could see it in her eyes—she didn’t have the ability to differentiate the same way he did. She looked at the creature and saw the boy underneath, and that attitude was getting remarkably close to killing her. By the time the thing attacked, she still was debating, and now her life was hanging in the balance. C’mon, Mar, just do it. Remus begged to no one, He wanted her to blow him off, maybe even knock him unconscious. It would be a favor, meaning less scarring come morning if the creature was blacked out for a long enough amount of time.

At the very least, she managed to get herself relatively well covered by the time the beast got to tearing into her—all of her squishy important bits and her face that Sirius would kill him for mauling were covered by limbs. A necessary sacrifice. Marlene always was smarter than a lot of people seemed to give her credit for—or at the very least much more intuitive. In the (rare) occasions in the long over past where Remus had run into other people while in his monster form, they rarely took a defensive position… Although, he’d been much younger in those days, and the beast much smaller, like a real wolf.

And then, there it was at last; the wand. Remus would’ve hardly noticed if the wolf hadn’t noticed it himself, turning down towards the stick, as if drawn by some form of familiarity. The instinctual shiver that went down their collective spine was sign enough that he recognized the tool. The blast came before Remus could recognize the spell she’d cast, but the feeling was recognizable enough itself. The wolf had been stupefied, being launched off of her a few meters away, twitching in the dirt, its growls turned into whimpers. As his consciousness started to waver, Remus thanked Merlin, or God, or whoever it was decided this stuff that Marlene would be able to get away with little more than cuts.


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tag: Marly
word count: 494
outfit: nekkid and wolfy
notes: short and crap but DONE

[MARLENE ELISABETH MCKINNON]

Fear and adrenaline and sympathy and concern all fighting their way through her veins, Marlene held her wand aloft, watching as the charm hit its mark and sent the wolf flying back, off and away from her. For a moment, she stood there silently, breathing heavily, trying to calm herself enough that she would be able to move without her legs feeling like jelly. As her heartbeat slowed enough that she didn’t feel like she would faint, she became vaguely aware that there were parts of her that really hurt, and she immediately glanced down, hoping that she could at least conceal the injuries until she was safe in her dorm room and could take care of them without having to field any questions from any passersby or from her roommates.

She didn’t exactly want to explain that she had watched Remus Lupin turn into a werewolf, and that he had been responsible for her current state. Blessedly enough, the injuries were only of the scratch-and-gash variety, and he – it, she reminded herself, the thing that had attacked her and was now lying a few feet away in what looked like a daze had not been Remus, but a monster that had overtaken the kind boy’s body and mind, something that he’d been cursed with – hadn’t been able to land a bite. Not that the blows and claws he’d landed didn’t hurt, because they did sting like hell, but if she was going to look at the bright side, he hadn’t bitten her.

He hadn’t cursed her, in turn.

When a glance revealed that her jacket had been ripped rather beyond repair, she shrugged out of it and set it aflame with a quick mutter of a charm. Better to burn it and get rid of all evidence than trust it to disappear on its own, one way or another. The less that pointed to the werewolf attacking someone, the better. She’d never have forgiven herself if he got in trouble for this. He hadn’t been able to help it, and he had tried to warn her. Grateful that she’d at least worn a black shirt that night, so any blood wouldn’t show as much, she took a few steps backwards, eyes on the fallen wolf at all times, and turned on her heel, heading back towards the castle. As she put more and more distance between them, she couldn’t quite clear her mind of the sounds of his whimpers and growls, or the expression on his face just before the transformation had ripped through her, and to her dismay, she realized that somewhere along the way from the Willow to the front of the castle, she had begun to cry.

Merlin, she really needed to stop this crying thing, she’d done it more in the last few weeks than she’d done her whole life, she was willing to bet. As she entered the castle, she looked around furtively, praying that she wouldn’t be seen by anyone, and made her way up to Gryffindor Tower, muttering prayers to anyone who would listen that her trip would be uneventful, and free of interaction. When she finally slipped through the door of her dormitory, she swiftly ducked into the bathroom, where she promptly began to clean and bandage the wounds; any injuries looked bad when they were yours, but she had a feeling that really, they were pretty insignificant when one took into consideration what they could have been, A short while later, she had cleaned and bandaged herself, and she’d gotten rid of the ruined clothes, and she’d curled up in her bed after taking a shot of Firewhiskey.

Her thoughts strayed back to Remus, and she closed her eyes, offering one more prayer for the night: that he would be okay. And that their friendship hadn’t just suffered a terrible blow; not because she wouldn’t be friends with him – she would, she couldn’t fault him for something he couldn’t help – but because he wouldn’t want to be friends with her anymore. With that, she drifted into sleep, blankets pulled tightly around her.