Chapter Text
Here the table is not bare
I am full but feeling empty
For all the warmth it feels so cold
For one so young I feel so old
Watch me bleed
Bleed forever
- “Watch Me Bleed,” Tears For Fears
Thursday 8th November, 1984
The moon’s rising. Sirius watches it through the trees, pale fingers of splintering light, shadows that dance with the leaves. The wind bites at his hair, his cheeks. His wand jabs into his hip, tucked tight into the pocket of his muggle jeans.
He tilts his head back. Sighs.
He is so fucking bored.
“Sirius!” hisses a familiar voice, rough-edged, like a chipped tooth. Sirius turns, and watches Evan Rosier stumble through the border of the trees, glancing over his shoulder all the while just in case this time someone’s finally discovered their meeting place. As if anyone would ever care enough to look.
“Rosey,” he drawls, one eyebrow imperiously raised, “You’re late.”
“I know, I know,” Evan grimaces, out of breath, “The dinner ran late, and then my mum started talking about that Greengrass girl again—you know how she gets—and—”
“Whatever.”
Sirius yawns, not bothering to try and hide the absolute lack of interest in his voice. He could probably spit in Rosier’s face, and Evan still wouldn’t bat an eye—the bloke’s been dying to shag him for…what? Five years, now? Which is perhaps a bit fucked up, as Sirius is pretty sure that they’re related—third cousins, maybe, thanks to some tangled branch in the family tree. But it’s not like it matters. Rosier’s so deep in the closet that it would take an entire team of Gringotts’ safecrackers to break him out.
Still, Sirius can feel the other man’s eyes on him, crawling over the tight muggle jeans, the shirt with its top three buttons undone. And he’s a Black—once he’s seen someone’s strings, he’s not above pulling them. He just hopes that Evan makes it worth his while tonight. There’s only so much eye-fucking he can take from his straight-friend-slash-possible-cousin before he starts to get so bored that he begins contemplating some truly stupid decisions, like kissing Evan just to see how he would react if all those tantalizing little rumours that he’s surely heard about the Black Heir were actually proven true.
Even that would likely be boring, though. All these pureblood boys are the same—hungry, searing gazes in private; puffed-out, sputtering denial the moment anyone so much as breathes the suggestion that their interest in the bedroom might lie somewhere outside of producing heirs. As if they all don’t know the sorts of things that purebloods get up to behind closed doors.
Case in point—Rosier digs in the pocket of his muggle jacket, pulls out a vial full of glittering blue dust. He grins, giving it a little shake before uncorking the vial and pouring out a fingertip’s worth of powder.
“Pixie dust?”
An acceptable offering. Sirius grins as he watches Rosier lick the powder off his finger, a crocodile smile, all teeth.
“Go on, then.”
Evan moves closer, lifting the vial, clearly expecting Sirius to hold out his hand. But Sirius remains leaning, casually, in his spot against a tree, arms folded tight across his body. Instead, he quirks a brow and sticks his tongue out, waiting. Evan swallows, visibly, and spills a bit of the dust as he pours more out onto his fingertip. When he lifts the hand to drag his finger over Sirius’s tongue, Sirius closes his mouth, sucking off the powder.
“Going all out tonight, I see,” he observes, once he’s swallowed. Rosier rips his gaze away from Sirius’s mouth, offering a slightly belated smile.
“Well,” he laughs, nervously, “It’s not every day that a man turns twenty-five!”
Sirius hums, enjoying the familiar fizz of magic as the pixie dust works its way into his bloodstream.
“My birthday was last week.”
“Yeah, but—this place is only open certain days. Really exclusive. You’ll see.”
“It’d better be good.”
“It is,” Rosier assures him, overeager, “Trust me, you haven’t seen anything like this before.”
Sirius sighs, unsure whether he believes that statement. He’s lost count of the number of times someone promised him that the place they’re going is really exclusive, really edgy, really different—only for it to be another underground club full of wizards sweating off their glamours, playing dress-up in muggle clothes and dancing to muggle music and feeling oh-so-rebellious, despite the fact that none of them have ever so much as spoken to a muggle in real life.
Not that Sirius has much of a leg to stand on, in that respect—when he does manage to sneak out into muggle London, the clubs he visits are the sort where there usually isn’t much conversation involved.
“Alright,” he sniffs, riding the pleasant buzz that comes with the pixie dust. At least he doesn’t have to show up sober. “What are we waiting for, then?”
Evan grins, reaching out to grab his arm—there’s the CRACK of apparation, and they’re whirling away.
They land in what appears to be some sort of wharf, sea spray and salt air and black water that catches the light of the rising moon. Sirius breathes in, deep. His tongue still feels a bit like it’s fizzing.
“Come on,” Rosier gestures him forward, “This way.”
The warehouse is nothing special, from the outside. If anything, it looks a bit seedy—dilapidated, abandoned, on the outskirts of the wharf. But Rosier stops at the door, glancing over his shoulder once before leaning forward to tap his wand to the knob and whisper a password that Sirius doesn’t quite catch. The door goes hazy, indistinct, and Evan steps through.
Sirius blinks, and then follows.
His senses are immediately assaulted—light, smells, noise. There’s a familiar crush of bodies jumping and writhing on what appears to be a dancefloor, colourful balls of light flashing overhead. On the left, there’s a bar, slightly less crowded than the dancefloor and yet still crammed. Drinks go zipping through the air left and right, flying into waiting hands.
Sirius sighs, thoroughly unimpressed. For all that the place seems popular, it’s no different than any of the others he’s been to. Muggle clothes, glamoured wizards—at least the muggle music they’ve chosen is good. Stuff that was actually made in the last few years. Sirius is going to miss the muggles’ music, once Voldemort figures out how to deal with the American problem and actually starts following through on all the promises he’s made about the statute of secrecy.
“This is it?” Sirius drawls, raising his voice to be heard over the music. Evan turns to him, smiling and eager, pupils blown wide from the dust.
“Just wait!” He shouts back, leaning in close, “The show hasn’t even started yet!”
“Show?”
Sirius turns back to the dancefloor, squinting. There doesn’t appear to be a stage anywhere, nor is there room to conjure one. He surveys the crowd, the bar—nobody’s being led off to private rooms, as far as he can tell. The scene in front of them seems to be all that there is.
“You’ll love it!” Evan shouts again, too close to his ear. He sounds giddy, like a kid out of bed after midnight—though whether that’s the thrill of the taboo or the pixie dust or some combination of the two, Sirius doesn’t know and doesn’t particularly care to find out.
“I want a drink,” he shouts back, and Evan goes scampering off towards the bar. Sirius rolls his eyes, sighing, and begins to make his way towards the dancefloor. Hopefully, he’ll be able to get lost in the sea of bodies before Rosier gets back. Now that they’re inside the club, Sirius has very little use for him.
The dancefloor is a sweaty mess, an endless, writhing snake. The ground is sticky with spilled drinks, and Sirius catches the flash of shimmery blue out of the corner of his eye as he worms his way into the crowd, a sign that somebody’s passing around pixie dust. The hit he took earlier is really starting to kick in now, making his limbs feel weightless and his blood fizz like champagne. He almost doesn’t mind that he’ll have to spend the night dancing with women, if he wants to dance at all—however taboo with its muggle music and muggle clothes, this still isn’t that sort of club, after all.
But just because the club is straight doesn’t mean that everyone inside of it is…
Sirius moves with the flow of the crowd until he finds himself in the arms of some blonde witch with her hair teased up in true muggle fashion, glamour flickering slightly under the flashing lights. She could be anyone—one of the pureblood princesses who are always sneering in the corners of Ministry galas or gossiping in hushed voices at the formal dinner parties that Sirius detests; a half-blood nurse from Mungo’s or a clerk at one of the Diagon shops who’d get called a mudblood any other day for wearing her hair that way; maybe even a foreign witch, a daughter of one of the European ambassadors that Voldemort keeps welcoming into his office like a snake unhinging its jaw to swallow a rat. The not knowing is all part of the thrill—or at least, it’s supposed to be.
Rather than focusing on the woman in front of him, though, Sirius grabs her hips and spins her around, pressing up behind her so that he can scan the crowd over her head. The woman leans back against him, oblivious, too drunk or high to pay much attention as she laughs and sways to the music. Sirius sways with her, allowing his body to fall into the familiar rhythm of the bass as he searches for someone—anyone—interesting. Surely, there must be at least one bloke in here worth his time…
There.
Maybe it’s just the pixie dust wreaking havoc on his bloodstream, but Sirius could swear that he feels his heart stutter, once, as their eyes lock.
The man is tall—tall enough that he towers over most of the crowd, sticking out even as he leans unobtrusively against the wall. He isn’t dancing, just watching the crowd, eyes glinting with a hungry spark that sends a shiver down Sirius’s spine. His face is a riot of shadow and light, sharp and crooked angles that make Sirius feel dizzy, like he’s looking into a trick mirror. His hair is mussed, shaggy, like he’s just rolled out of bed or somebody’s been running their hands through it. Maybe both.
And he isn’t wearing a glamour. Whoever he is, he leans against the wall surveying the club like he doesn’t give a shit who sees him, doesn’t care who recognises him once they’re no longer hidden behind these walls.
Dangerous, whispers a voice in the back of Sirius’s head. His skin feels like it’s humming.
A new song is starting, something dark and thumping, music that makes Sirius want to tilt his head back and open his throat. Music that makes him feel hungry. The man doesn’t look away when their eyes meet, completely unabashed to have been caught staring. Instead, he raises a single brow, as if to say,
Well?
Sirius grins.
He spins the witch around, hands snaking up, running along her waist, her shoulders. She beams at him, laughing, and presses closer. Sirius shuts his eyes and tilts his head back, feeling the drumbeat all the way down to his bones as the woman grinds against him, sliding her hands beneath his shirt, nails scraping along the skin of his back. He can feel her lips at his neck, tongue flicking along his collarbone as she begins to suck a bruise next to the hollow of his throat. The pixie dust makes the heat into a starburst, something that spirals through every nerve ending. He twists a hand into her fluffy hair, laughing breathlessly. When he opens his eyes again, the man against the wall is still watching, gaze so intense that it kicks adrenaline into Sirius’s blood, like some instinct is telling him to run.
But Sirius doesn’t want to run.
He keeps dancing, time blurring and bleeding, lights flashing, music thumping. At some point, the witch twines her arms around his neck, kissing along his jaw until she finds his mouth. Sirius kisses her back, lost in the heat and the noise and the drugs. When they break apart, laughing breathlessly, Sirius turns back to the wall where the man has been watching him.
He’s gone.
Sirius’s heart drops. He scans along the wall, wondering if he’s somehow misread—but no.
There.
The man is just moving into a shadowed doorway between the bar and the dancefloor, turning once so that he’s pushing the door open with his back. His eyes crawl along the dancefloor, zeroing in on Sirius. The moment their eyes meet, he smirks—
And then he’s gone, disappearing through the door.
Sirius doesn’t waste any time. He extricates himself from the arms of the blonde witch, who begins to pout until the man next to her pulls out a bag of pixie dust to pass around, after which she appears to promptly forget that Sirius has ever existed. He shoves through the crush of bodies, panting slightly once he finally reaches the wall. His entire body is covered in a fine layer of sweat, hair sticking to the back of his neck, and one of the buttons from his shirt is missing.
No matter.
The cold air is a sweet relief after the sweaty heat of the dancefloor. Sirius sighs as he pushes through the door, exiting back out to the wharf. The scent of the sea greets him, salt and brine, the thumping music of the club muffled completely by whatever silencing spells are layered over the warehouse. In its absence, the quiet feels loud.
The man from inside is leaning against the wall again, although this time he’s staring out at the sea. The sky is overcast, but the weak light of the moon still filters down, a pale glow that spills over the shadows. It’s still rising in the sky, not quite yet at its peak. The night is still young.
“Party’s that way,” the man grunts, not looking up as Sirius moves towards him. He’s dressed in muggle clothes, too, although decidedly less fashionably so—baggy jeans and a grey, faded t-shirt. If he feels the cold, he gives no sign; he seems entirely focused on digging around in his pocket.
“Is it?” Sirius muses, leaning against the wall beside him. He feels a sharp thrill as the man pulls out an entire pack of muggle fags—Dorcas managed to procure two cigarettes for his birthday last weekend, and Sirius told her that she could start an underground smuggling ring. A whole pack? Either this man knows muggles or he’s going into the muggle shops himself—could he be a mudblood?
The man smiles, dryly, like he can sense what Sirius is thinking. He lifts one cigarette to his lips, then holds out the pack.
“Smoke?”
“Please,” Sirius breathes, reaching for a fag. He tries to remain casual as he places it between his lips, imitating the man beside him. He can count on one hand the number of times he’s actually gotten to try muggle drugs.
The man slides the pack back into his pocket, and then, in one smooth motion, lifts his hand, snapping his fingers beneath the end of his cigarette. A tiny flame appears; he sucks in, and the paper glows orange.
Sirius blinks, trying to swallow his shock. He settles his face into a wry smile, lifting a brow.
“Wandless casting?” he tuts, shaking his head in mock-disapproval. The man shrugs.
“Don’t have a wand,” he responds, blithely, before raising a brow of his own. “Why—you gonna report me, pretty boy?”
No wand? Another shock—Sirius blinks, swallowing. He has to be a mudblood, then—a mudblood or a criminal. But then what is he doing in a place like this? How would he even get here, if he doesn’t have a wand? A measly little flame might not be enough unregistered magic to put him on the Ministry’s radar, but anything more certainly would be. No wonder he isn’t wearing a glamour (if he’s even capable of casting a glamour without a wand. Merlin.)
“No,” Sirius says, doing his best to keep his voice casual despite his surprise. He flips his hair out of his face—the curls are gone, thanks to his glamour, but he’s left it at its usual length. The motion draws the man’s eye down to his neck, and the bruises there. That witch on the dancefloor was quite enthusiastic.
“I will ask you to light my cigarette, though.”
He holds the fag between two fingers, leaning forward expectantly, feeling a triumphant thrill as the man’s eyes move from his neck to his mouth. For a long moment, he does nothing but stare, and Sirius is almost worried that he might refuse—but then he opens his mouth, exhaling smoke, and says,
“Sure—c’mere.”
Before Sirius can even move, there’s a hand wrapping around the back of his neck—warm palm, rough fingertips. He shivers as the man drags him a bit closer, leaving the lit cigarette between his lips as he leans in. Sirius hurriedly shoves his own cigarette back into his mouth, raising his chin so that the burning tip meets his unlit one.
Sirius sucks in a breath. They’re now so close that their noses are almost touching, so close that he can feel the body heat radiating off the other man’s skin. His nose is crooked, like it’s been broken and healed wrong, with a long, pale scar running over the bridge. And he feels like a fucking furnace—no wonder the cold doesn’t bother him. It must be a trick of the moonlight, Sirius supposes, but as the man’s eyes bore into him, he can’t help but think they look molten, like something gold and burning.
The cigarette in his mouth catches flame, and the man leans back, hand sliding away from his neck.
Sirius nearly chokes on smoke in his hurry to inhale, sucking in a breath before releasing it all at once to ask,
“Hey—d’you wanna get out of here?”
The man exhales much more slowly, an amused smile on his face.
“Sorry, sweetheart—I’ve gotta stay for the show.”
Sirius blinks, thrown. He remembers, vaguely, that Rosier said something…
“The show?”
The man nods, raising his eyebrows like Sirius is being slow.
“I’m one of the performers,” he says, meaningfully. Or, at least—it’s clearly supposed to mean something to Sirius, but fuck if he knows what. And anyway, he doesn’t give a toss about whatever show Rosier’s brought him here to see. He’s already found his entertainment for the night.
“Just skip it,” Sirius breathes, leaning in to trail a hand up one of the man’s bare arms. His fingertips brush across scar tissue—there are a few old, healed wounds, a rough contrast in texture that makes Sirius’s heart race. Dangerous, his brain reminds him—but when has that ever stopped him before?
He tilts forward, exhaling smoke across the taller man’s neck, and murmurs,
“I bet I can give you an even better show…”
A series of conflicting expressions flicker over the man’s face. He huffs a laugh, but there’s something new in his eyes as he looks down at Sirius—something guarded, wary.
“Sorry, I…” he shakes his head, eyes darting down to where Sirius is toying with the hem of his sleeve, then away. “Didn’t you, er…come here for the show?”
Sirius shrugs, sucking on his cigarette. He exhales again, watching the smoke dissipate into the night.
“I came here because I was bored,” he drawls, “And a friend brought me along. I’m sure your little performance is wonderful, darling, but I’d much rather whisk you away. I’m incorrigibly selfish, you see, and I do hate sharing ever so…”
“I—” the man breaks off, swallowing.
This is usually the part where they’d apparate away into whatever fancy hotel first comes to mind and proceed to ravish each other all over the poor feather pillows and fluffy duvets. So Sirius really doesn’t know why the man is now staring down at him with a slightly pained look, a far cry from the devilish smirk he was wearing just a moment ago.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think—”
The door bursts open, and a wizard stomps outside. He’s older, balding, wearing a crisp muggle suit and scowling like his face was made for it.
“Lupin!” he barks, as the two of them hurriedly separate. “Come on—showtime!”
Lupin? Sirius looks at the man beside him, who’s currently crushing his cigarette underfoot. He grimaces, waving a hand at the older wizard.
“Yeah, yeah…I’m coming…”
The grimace is still on his face when he turns back to Sirius, shoving his hands into his pockets, all trace of flirtation completely erased.
“Hope you enjoy the show,” he mutters. And then he’s gone, following the other man inside and leaving Sirius alone with nothing but the muggle cigarette still burning in his mouth.
The door clicks shut.
It’s quiet.
Sirius slumps backwards, letting his head fall back against the warehouse wall.
“Fuuuuuuuck,” he groans, kicking at the ground in frustration. There are almost certainly other men back inside the club who would jump at the chance to apparate away to a hotel room with him, but somehow Sirius can’t bring himself to find that thought appealing. He doesn’t want to find another man. Not with the ghost of that touch still lingering on the back of his neck.
Sirius sighs. There’s nothing for it; he’ll just have to stay and watch this show that everyone keeps talking about, then see if he can catch the man—Lupin—afterwards. It’s later than he planned to stay out, but…
Well. Needs must.
He finishes his cigarette, dropping the stub on the ground to crush it with his heel before heading back inside. The door clicks open beneath his hands, and Sirius braces himself for the assault of light and noise once more—
Only to find himself confronted with an entirely different scene, something that he doesn’t know how to make sense of.
The previously crowded dancefloor looks, at first, as if it’s caved in—but Sirius quickly realises that it’s been transformed, somehow, as if a giant palm pressed down on the floor to drive it deeper into the ground. Where the dancefloor once lay is now a pit, a few feet below ground level and surrounded by stadium seats which contain the jostling bodies of the club-goers. Sirius can feel the hum of magic surrounding the entire arena, layers of wards and spells so thick that they crackle in the air. He blinks, trying to understand what it is, exactly, that he’s looking at.
“There you are!”
Rosier materialises at his side, throwing an arm around his shoulders with so much force that he nearly knocks Sirius over. He’s swaying, breath smelling of firewhisky, clearly drunk. Sirius wrinkles his nose, trying to shove the other man off, but Evan doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he stumbles closer, leaning heavily against Sirius’s side.
“Been looking for you!” he shouts, overloud, too close. “Show’s about to start—c’mon!”
Sirius resigns himself to bearing the brunt of Evan’s unsteady weight as they make their way over to the newly-materialised arena. Evan insists that they go all the way down, as close to the front as they can get. Sirius briefly contemplates pushing him down the stairs.
They’ve just managed to squeeze into the third row from the front when a magically amplified voice booms out,
“Ladies and Gentlemen—please, take your seats!”
When Sirius searches for the source of the voice, he finds what appears to be a small announcer’s box on the opposite side of the arena. Inside stands the older wizard from earlier. He’s still wearing his crisp suit, but he’s switched out the sour scowl for a plastic grin, stretched across his face as though somebody’s pinned it there. The man clears his throat, allowing the crowd a moment to quiet down.
“Thank you, thank you—thank you for joining us tonight! We have quite the show in store for you. Allow me to introduce our competitors—on the right, one of London’s own: Terry ‘the Tooth’ Iverson!”
The crowd erupts into wild cheers as a barred door cut into the right side of the arena swings open. Sirius frowns, unsure what sort of competitor the announcer is talking about—if the show everyone’s been going on about is just some sort of duelling tournament, he really is going to push Evan down the stairs.
But it quickly becomes apparent that whatever competition this is, it isn’t a duel. The man who steps into the arena isn’t holding a wand—he isn’t holding anything, because he’s completely naked, bare-handed and bare-skinned in front of the entire crowd. This fact doesn’t appear to bother him in the slightest; he grins at the cheering stands, a charming, handsome smile, and lifts a hand to wave. If not for the scars scattered across his skin, Sirius thinks, he could probably be some sort of model; chiselled jaw and bright blue eyes and butter-yellow hair.
“And on the left!” the announcer shouts, raising his voice to be heard over the boisterous crowd, “The upstart from Cardiff—Remus ‘Moony’ Lupin!”
Lupin.
Sirius’s breath catches, and he continues to hold it as an identical barred door on the opposite side of the arena slides open.
Lupin is naked, too, when he steps out. Like his opponent, he doesn’t seem to be embarrassed by this fact—but unlike his opponent, he offers no charming smile to the crowd. Instead, he ignores them completely, staring blankly ahead at the blonde man standing across from him.
A shiver of unease crawls down Sirius’s spine. The crowd is jeering now, cat-calling and cackling with laughter. He doesn’t know what sort of show this is supposed to be, but he doesn’t think he likes where things are going. Iverson isn’t a particularly large man, but he looks big standing across from Lupin, who is all jutting hipbones and knobby spine and limbs that look too stretched for his body. Even more concerning—while Iverson bears a scattering of scars across his body, Lupin is absolutely covered in them, pale, jagged lines that crash like a lightning storm over his back, his legs, his arms. It would be beautiful, Sirius thinks, if it wasn’t so terrifying.
“Place your final bets, ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer crows, “Because the show is about to begin!”
He waves his wand, and suddenly, the ceiling over their heads disappears. Sirius doesn’t know whether it’s vanished entirely or whether it’s just a transparency spell; either way, the inky black of the night sky is now perfectly visible, along with the glowing moon.
Oh, Sirius thinks, looking down at the scars on the bodies of the men.
Oh.
The show.
The moon is nearly at its peak, which means that in just a few moments…
There’s a horrible, shattering CRACK from the arena below, and Sirius turns back, unable to look away as the transformation begins.
He’s never seen a werewolf turn before. For good reason—the Beast & Creature Self-Defence Act states that any werewolf who comes within one mile of a wizard on the full moon is in violation of magical safety laws, and that the wizard in question therefore has full legal right to any form of self-defence, up to and including lethal force. Werewolf poaching increased exponentially after the law was passed, moving from the fringes of underground illegality to a legally-sanctioned, lucrative business. Most werewolves go into hiding as the full moon approaches—it’s a common hunting tactic for poachers to capture and imprison wolves in their human state, then wait for them to turn on the moon before killing them.
In the arena below, Sirius watches as Lupin’s bones crack and shift beneath his skin, muscle rippling like moulded clay. His jaw snaps, elongates; blood drips from his mouth. He falls to all fours, then to the ground, writhing as his skin splits like overripe fruit and fur bursts through. He screams. He doesn’t seem to be able to stop himself from screaming.
On the opposite side of the arena, Iverson is screaming, too. A hushed, excited murmur spreads throughout the rapt audience, punctuated by disgusted shrieks and shrill laughter.
“I bet on Iverson,” Rosier says, and Sirius jumps, startled. He’d forgotten that Evan was sitting next to him.
“Apparently Lupin’s supposed to be good, too,” Rosier continues, leaning forward as the screams begin to sound more like howls, “But I mean—come on. If I’m betting, I’m not betting on that.”
“Shut up,” Sirius mutters, not bothering to hide his irritation. Evan laughs.
“Trying to watch the show, eh?” he nudges Sirius, sounding smug as he says, “Told you you’d like this.”
Sirius feels sick. He’s never given much thought to what a werewolf transformation might be like, but…
Not like this.
He didn’t think it would be like this.
“Looks like they’re almost done now, folks!” calls the announcer, voice bright with gleeful anticipation, “Betting will be officially closed in 5…4…3…2…1!”
Where men once stood, all traces of human flesh are gone. Now, two wolves circle each other, hackles raised, teeth bared. One is a light grey; the other, tawny brown. Their tails are tufted, and there’s something off about the eyes—something not entirely animal. But other than that, they look almost indistinguishable from regular wolves. Bigger, though.
A lot bigger.
The crowd is jeering, shrieking, calling out for one of the wolves to make a move. But they continue to stalk around the edges of the arena, growling, watching each other with wary eyes. They shy away from the barred doors—the bars must be silver, Sirius realises. He wonders what other sorts of enchantments have been laid around the arena, keeping the wolves caged in.
The grey wolf snarls. The brown wolf holds its ground, ears twitching. Sirius holds his breath.
Then the grey wolf lunges forward, and the fight begins.
It’s brutal. Brutal like nothing that Sirius has ever seen. He’s used to magic, to wands, to duels fought at arm’s length, flashes of light and bloodless pain.
This fight isn’t bloodless.
This fight is teeth. It is claws, and fur, and animal, and gouging wounds and spraying blood and snarling and snapping jaws. The wolves move so quickly that it’s almost impossible to follow, bodies shifting and twisting like river water. They crash together, draw blood, leap apart, crash together again.
“Oh—deep cut on Moony, there, and that looks like a broken rib—that’ll be dangerous, could puncture a lung—”
Sirius stares down at the brown wolf, thrown off-balance by the wound, limping. His heart crawls up his throat, entire body strung tight with adrenaline. Whatever pixie dust was left in his system has worn off—he feels cold, heavy, far too solid. He sits like a stone in the roaring crowd, unable to tear his eyes away.
Come on, Lupin. Get up, get up…
“And it looks like the Tooth is going in for his signature move—you do not want those jaws around your neck, ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you that much…”
Sirius can see why they call him the Tooth. The grey wolf has his jaw open wide, teeth vicious and shining in the moonlight, lunging for the brown wolf’s unguarded throat.
He’s going to kill him, Sirius thinks, numbly, This is the show. He’s going to kill him, right here, right now.
And then—
And then Lupin moves, transforming into little more than a blur of teeth and fur as he twists, suddenly, without warning. His own jaw snaps open, and it almost looks as if the wolf is trying to create some sick imitation of a human kiss, except—
CRACK!
There’s a bone-chilling howl, a sound of such raw pain that it freezes the blood inside Sirius’s veins. In the arena, the grey wolf scrambles backwards two steps before collapsing, voice somewhere between a howl and screech. Blood pours down his chest, his neck, staining the pale fur like spilled wine. His tongue is a fish out of water, limp and flapping.
Two steps away, the brown wolf spits a broken jawbone onto the floor, vicious teeth and all.
The crowd goes wild.
“Well, well, folks!” crows the announcer, sounding positively giddy, “This certainly is unlike anything we’ve seen to date! Hard to come back from an injury like that—will Moony go in for the kill, or—oh, no, looks like the Tooth is submitting…”
On the floor of the arena, the grey wolf has lowered itself down, ears pressed back, howls faded into excruciating whimpers. It whines, baring its neck, as the brown wolf stalks forward.
“Kill him!” shouts someone from the audience. A wave of voices chime in, jeering,
“Finish it!”
“Go for the throat!”
The brown wolf gives no indication that he can hear them. Instead, he growls, once, before backing away, moving to pace in front of the silver door. The crowd groans, disappointed, and the announcer’s voice rings out again,
“Well, folks, it looks like we have our winner! Show’s over for tonight—if you placed a bet, please be sure to stop by the bar to collect your winnings…”
“Ah, fuck,” Evan groans, pushing to his feet. The crowd is dispersing, bodies streaming up and out of the arena stands now that the show is over. Evan shakes his head, huffing in irritation,
“Stupid fucking mutt. Cost me fifty galleons…hey, Sirius,” he turns when he realises that the other man isn’t following, “Are you coming?”
“Yeah,” Sirius mumbles, standing slowly. In the arena, the silver doors slide open. The brown wolf turns, sharply, and paces through, disappearing into the shadows.
The grey wolf remains on the ground outside, bleeding.