Chapter Text
Prologue: Golden Hour
Remus stood. One figure amongst lines and rows of many. Once a rabble now they were ordered, almost regimental. Every tired, hungry face was staring up into the yellowish eyes of the one who paced the wooden platform in front of them. The boards groaned under every step. As he walked, the curved, lumpish muscles of his shoulders strained against his clothing. The crowd rippled with each word: a silent, contagious tremor of anticipation. Remus felt himself - every inch from aching feet to dirty beard - absorbed and anonymous in the crowd. They were all alike in their frayed clothes, in the smell of smoke and charred meat that clung to their hair and skin, in the pain that swelled in their bones with the dying of the light. He had wished so many times to be able to see into the hearts of his fellows, but never more so than in this moment. How he wished he could know whether the craving for blood and atavism was what made the air around them hum or whether they, like he, felt a terror and disgust so strong he could die just to be free of it.
Remus’ hand went to his pocket though he knew there was nothing there that could help him. No potion. No rescue. How could he have been so stupid?
“The night has come. The night you so richly deserve. Tonight we will avenge the insults. We will avenge the abuse. We will show them our power and they will be cowed by it. Tonight will be a reckoning! The first night of glory for our kind!”
Every proclamation was met by throaty cheers. The ache between Remus' joints deepened, his mouth was dry and his stomach rolled with bile. As the sun burned the horizon behind him, Greyback’s matted grey hair seemed to rise up around his head like golden flames. He began to recite his plan and the knees of the man in front of Remus started to tremble.
Remus’ skin flushed hot then cold. His pulse thumped.
He knew what he needed to do.
It was time to take up his true name again. The name he’d borne through every trial of his life until it brought him to this place. The same name he’d worn when she - so far away now and surely despising him - had sworn that she loved him.
He knew he had likely reached the last moments of his life and so he allowed himself - just for these few, sweet final seconds - to remember her. Dora. Dora whose memory now filled him with courage like a blaze of phoenix fire. Dora's sleeping breath on his chest…Dora gasping between kisses in his arms…Dora in all her ferocity telling him “I get more fucking in love with you everyday"...
But Remus had to grind his back teeth together as pain flashed suddenly in his temple. Time was running out.
He knew what he needed to do.
But when he raised his head, defiant, ready to step out of line, another pair of eyes met his. Fenrir Greyback was looking directly at Remus. And he was smiling.