~I'm Scared~

It's a losing battle we're fighting. There are deaths everywhere we go, people turning to Voldemort simply because the side of the Light no longer has the strength and power to keep them safe, bodies lying in the streets because there's no time or money or people to spare in moving them. I saw a mother and her baby killed by the Avada Kedavra curse last week, and just Apparated away calmly. We're all losing our terror of death. Death would be a blessing, albeit a sullied one because it would mean giving up and letting evil prevail. What we all fear most now is Life.

Voldemort is summoning more followers to his vast army. Vampires have flocked to him, giants, hags, ogres, trolls. And werewolves. It's some sort of charm, similar to Imperius and forced Apparation. He calls, and if whomever he calls isn't strong enough to resist, they go.

Werewolves have little or no success when we try to overcome a certain Unforgivable curse. It's something to do with being metamorphic. Something about my body's structure won't let me conquer Imperius, and therefore I have no way of defending myself against Voldemort's call. I know it's happening. I think Sirius knows it too.

I love him. I can't bear the thought of living without him and I know from the haunted look in his eyes that he feels the same way about me. But nevertheless... there's a gun in the attic, with a single silver bullet in the chamber. I think I'm going to ask him to use it, because something happened last night.

Sirius was away with Dumbledore, planning a desperate attack strategy. I can see the despair in their eyes when they speak of hope and God and the 'fact' that good will triumph in the end, no matter how dark things get. They know it won't be long now.

Will you be okay, he asked me before he left. I said, Yes, love, I can transform without you, I did it for twelve years with no problem. He kissed me, and I pretended not to notice the wetness on his cheeks before he flew off to the castle on the other side of the Forest.

I woke up on the cold stone floor this morning, but I could remember nothing. It must have been a bad transformation -- particularly painful ones send my mind into some sort of trance, I think. I've been cursed with this strange amnesia for as long as I've had this monstrous lycanthropy flaming its way through my blood with every heartbeat.

It is a curse. I can't remember the metamorphosis... but there's blood under my fingernails. It must be mine. I often scratch myself when I'm a werewolf. It wasn't as bad when Severus was still alive, but there's no one else I know who can make the Wolfsbane Potion, so I have to suffer again. I always lock myself in the cellar. There's only one door... plus a barred, thick-glassed window, through which the mocking moon shines on the coarse fur as it sprouts through my skin like a million needles.

Harry came back with Sirius this morning. His eyes were wild with worry. What's wrong, I asked him. Other than the obvious. He began to cry. Hermione's disappeared, he said. Fred and George turned up at school last night and attacked us... they chased us into the gardens and started cursing us. We split up. Ron and I... god, Remus, we killed them... but Hermione ran and hid at the edge of the Forest because they broke her wand. She never came back. I'm so scared.

He threw himself into my arms and I instinctively put my hands on his back, clutching him close and trying to let him know through my touch that I loved him. I do. Sirius and I love Harry like he's our son. We hate that we can't do anything to help him. He's going to die with the rest of us. The Boy Who Lived is going to die, and there's nothing we can do to help him. We've failed James and Lily, failed Dumbledore. Poor Harry... we've failed him, and failed ourselves.

I'm so scared, Remus, he cried again.

So am I, Harry. I didn't say it, though. How could I tell him?

I'm scared because there's only one scratch on my body but there was blood under all my fingernails. I'm scared because my jaw aches. I'm scared that I couldn't eat any breakfast. I didn't feel hungry this morning.

I'm scared because I suddenly felt nauseous, and the copious amounts of lumpy vomit were laced with blood.

I'm scared of losing my self-control. I'm scared of Voldemort. I'm scared of dying. I'm scared of living. I'm scared of leaving Sirius alone. I'm scared of being forced to betray everything I hold dear.

Most of all, I'm scared to go into the forest. I'm scared because I think I know what I'll find. I'm scared because I can't remember what I did last night, after someone cut the bars and broke the window and perhaps tempted the snarling wolf with a helpless virgin, beautiful and ethereal and lost and crying under the silvery light of the hateful moon.

~END~