The Nature Of The Beast
When the world ends, only the monsters remain. Five billion dead, and five hundred thousand living, and none of them fully human. Werewolves, centaurs, Animagi, vampires, veelas, Voldemort: it is always night because the bomb the Muggles ignited just before the end created clouds that took away the sun. Nothing can grow, and in the end they are reduced to hunting one another for food. The decent ones die first. Remus discovers that he wants to survive, and that, more, he wants to kill.
Something has changed in him, or in all of them; they hunt in animal shape, more often than not. They kill with their teeth and not their hands, and the moon is always full. Remus takes down big prey at first-stags in man form, men in stag form, fellow predators, threats- but there is little challenge in it. There are no longer any true animals left, only monsters. No innocents, not any longer. Remus hunts birds, mythical creatures he's only seen pictured in books; he hunts for the thrill of it and not for food.
One night as he runs as a wolf below the bloated red moon he finds a small shabby grey rat, a lame grey rat, so intent on a nest of Veela eggs that it does not even notice Remus. He almost throws it up in the air and breaks its back; it will not be much of a meal but there is no sense in wasting it. But then he notices that one of its paws gleams silver. He takes the rat in his mouth and carries it back to his den, awkward as a dog learning to retrieve.
Remus had a mate once, a gaunt one-eyed bitch of a woman with the Dark Mark on her arm. Bellatrix. She left him, and now he hunts alone. But her scent is still heavy in the big rough cave in which he lairs; she smelled of female-in-season, and of something like Sirius. He drops the rat on the floor and lets his wolf shape go. He's gained a measure of control over it; they all have, now that it no longer matters that they cannot pass for human.
The rat transforms too, a little reluctantly: Peter Pettigrew, the rodent prince. Remus finds himself thinking, with longing, of closing his jaws around the thick throat, biting down with his dull man-teeth until he crushes the jugular. The more control he has over his body, the less he seems to have over his mind. The wolf in his nature must come out somewhere.
He asks Peter why. After all these years and all these wars it is the one question he has never found an answer to. He can understand what Voldemort did, what Sirius did, what Bellatrix did. He can understand monsters, and how they have all come to this, because he is a monster himself. What he cannot understand is Peter's part in it, Peter who began it. Remus is no true wolf-not even now-but he is bound by a wolf's worldview, by the idea of pack. Peter's betrayal is still inconceivable to him.
Peter has no answers for him. This night beneath the bloodless stars and the blooded moon will be Peter's last, and after this night perhaps Remus's dead-all that is left to keep him human-will leave him in peace. Remus is tempted to kill Peter there in the dark, and leave him to rot among the bones of his other kills. But something in him whispers that there is more use for Peter than that. Not food, no: Peter is poison, and Remus cannot eat him without growing infected.
He contemplates breaking Peter's wand and setting him free, and hunting him in man-shape. But Remus has brought down unicorns and chimeras and things so rare and so wonderful he cannot give them names; before Bellatrix went away they killed a broken-winged dragon as big as a castle against the red moon. Peter is less than nothing.
And something in Remus that is no wolf at all is restless; he has been a long time without one of his kind. Peter is not a bitch, he is weak in a way that no bitch ever is; he is Remus's for the taking. There is no smell of bitch-in-heat, nothing to guide the wolf at all, and yet it wants to play. Remus lets it come. He can remember when the change was painful, but now it is no worse than growing hard is for a man.
Peter stands, staring, and his hands at his sides, too stupid yet to be afraid. Remus circles him, and now he cannot stop himself from salivating, cannot stop his lip from curling so that his fangs gleam. His mind is his own, but it has no dominion over his body, and for once the two are nearly in accord. He pants, a little, thinking of what will come.
His prey is clad only in rags, the remains of his Death Eater's robes; they do little to hide his body. He is not pretty but his fear gives him a certain charm. Remus lunges, catches him by the nape, and they roll over and over in a flurry of pale, clawed hands and fur. It ends all too quickly, with Peter flat on the carpet of bones, and Remus looming over him with Peter's blood in his mouth.
Even then Peter doesn't understand; even then he begs for his life. The part of Remus that is still Remus finds a certain macabre humor in the thought that he will be able to give Peter something worse than death. He holds Peter down with a single paw and tears off his clothing with his teeth, and all the while Peter twists and squirms against him.
Remus has done a good deal of his fucking in wolf form; both Sirius and Bellatrix found the ferocity of it appealing. But they were animals, and big animals-they were hunters and Peter is a scavenger. Remus has never fucked a human in his wolf-shape and he is not sure how it will work. He bites down almost gently on the back of Peter's neck, careful not to break his spine.
Peter tastes of fear and iron; he has been feeding, and feeding well. It disgusts Remus to think of it, but not so much that he loses his erection. Indeed, he is as hard as he can ever remember being, hard at the thought of Peter screaming writhing and bleeding beneath him. This thing-this rape-this is something that only monsters do. He thrusts too hard and misjudges; his penis doesn't go in and it hurts. Strangely this only makes him more determined.
Remus pushes against Peter almost gently. This time the head of his penis slides into Peter's rectum and it's tight, so tight he growls with the pain of it and the pleasure of it. Peter clenches around him and Remus pushes in another inch, releasing his grip on Peter's neck to do so. He's left tiny ridges and dents, and he licks them carefully, making Peter shudder. He manages another inch; he's halfway in. He can feel himself drooling just a little bit.
Beneath Remus Peter has begun to beg. It touches Remus in a place he didn't know existed and he feels his tail begin to wag. He forces the rest of his penis inside Peter and for a moment it's too much, there simply isn't room, and then something inside Peter tears and he makes a terrible shrieking sound. There's a trickle of something warm and wet from inside Peter and Remus pulls back and then pushes in again. He can hear himself making little growls, even as his body readies itself for climax.
He's inside Peter, raping Peter. He's become the thing they always said he was, and he loves it. Difficult now to get enough friction, but he's so aroused it doesn't matter, his penis swelling impossibly. As he comes he bites down; it is a reflex, and it severs Peter's spinal cord. He lies, panting, on top of Peter, tied to the dead man by the knot at the end of his penis. He thinks that if Sirius could see him now, if Bellatrix could see him, they'd be proud. He's become as monster that other monsters fear, and he's taken a monster's revenge.