Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

A/N: So I suddenly had this idea the other day, and it just wouldn't let go of me. For the record, I have an incredibly disturbed mind. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Written for different challenges/competitions on HPFC:

The Star Challenge, Polaris - write about Remus Lupin

The "So you think you know your character" competition - question 2 (What are your hobbies?)

The Acrostic-y Challenge of Chapter Titles Competition - Letter S, using the prompt Shrieking Shack

Stains

Some people enjoy cooking, or writing, or dancing on the turrets of the Astronomy Tower on the very windiest evenings. Remus likes to draw.

He supposes that if his friends knew they would call him girly or weird (which is rich, really – coming from them) but if they asked him why, he would quite simply say that he would like to do his part in adding a bit of beauty to the world.

It started in the long, dull years before he came to Hogwarts, when he often spent days at a time in bed recovering from full-moon injuries. Once, his father brought him a sketchpad, and he found it a pleasant enough way to while away the time. He has no great talent at drawing, but still a fair amount of skill, and he loves the way a few lines can capture the essence of a person or object.

Lying in a pool of your own blood is rarely an enjoyable experience, and although Remus does it on a regular basis he has not yet developed any great love for it. The post-transformation fever has settled onto his brow, clouding his thoughts and draining what little energy he has, but he can still tell that this has not been an ordinary moon.

For the past few months, he has become used to the soft sounds of three other animals snuffling around him as he lies there, begun to rely on the fact that he will no longer wake in unendurable agony. But this – this is something entirely different.

He props himself up on one arm, stifling a hiss of pain as he realises that it is badly torn, and takes inventory. There are deep fang marks on his right knee, which is throbbing insistently. Breathing hurts badly, by which he deduces that his neck has also been ravaged. Most worrying of all, however, is a huge gash that stretches from his left shoulder to his right hip, sending little white-hot flames rolling through his torso. No doubt, this is the source of much of the blood staining his naked body and drying in his hair.

He dips his fingers thoughtfully into the red liquid and swirls them around, watching detachedly as small ripples break the surface. When he pulls his hand out again it is stained a deep, brilliant scarlet. Little splashes of crimson fall onto the creaky floorboards of the Shack, and almost as if prompted he moves his hand in a five-pointed star shape, spraying blood in a neat geometrical pattern onto the floor.

This is too fascinating to not explore further, so Remus dips his index finger in the pool again before sketching out the outline of a face on the wood. It has a strong jaw and high cheekbones, so Remus decides that it might as well be Sirius. He gives his friend a mass of wavy blood-red hair and an aristocratic nose, and uses the edge of his fingernail for detailing. Eyes – lips – lashes – all done. He's even managed to capture Sirius's stormy personality and vivid energy in a few scarlet strokes of the finger.

(Right this moment, Sirius is curled up in Professor Dumbledore's office and shaking with terror and guilt, but Remus doesn't know that yet.)

He draws James, giving extra attention to his messy hair and wide smile, and Peter, with his round cheeks and warm eyes. The next face is his father, and every line on his too-tired forehead is carefully reproduced; then his mother, angelic and sweet.

He draws the full moon, rising from the clouds in all its glory, its rays brightening the world as the darkness takes over Remus's mind. Then he draws a stag and a dog and a rat, giving texture to the stag's antlers and the dog's fur and the rat's long, winding tail. As an afterthought, he sketches out the rough outline of a wolf with a tufted tail and short snout. It does not have a place here.

He absorbs himself whole-heartedly in the art, and eventually a combination of fever and determination drive away the questions buzzing around his head: why is he so badly injured? Where were his friends this month? And where, where is Madam Pomfrey?

If he wasn't so ill and tired, he would be able to remember a dark head popping through the portrait hole, followed by a hooked nose and a sneer. He would remember screaming in horror, scrambling away from the intruder even as his bones began to snap and lengthen, and he would remember the blank hopelessness as the wolf-mind emerged. But for now, he is oblivious.

He draws Lily Evans, with her long blood-red hair and sparkling eyes, head thrown back and laughing. He draws his bed in Gryffindor Tower, deep crimson curtains with their myriad of folds, and his books in neat piles round the outside. Periodically, he dips his finger in the dark puddle surrounding him, and the lines always come smooth and crisp under his finger, staining the wood on the floor.

He draws the fire in the common room, all its merrily dancing shadows and warm flickers of light. He draws Professor Dumbledore sitting in the Great Hall at breakfast, his long beard streaked with something that is not ketchup, and he draws the Whomping Willow whipping its arms out against the starry sky.

Remus draws and he draws and he draws – and he will draw until all the blood has drained from him and not even care, because that is who he is. Meanwhile, the red sun dawns bloody in another day, a day that will be filled with pain and the shock of betrayal. Madam Pomfrey tends to a hysterical Severus Snape but thinks only of another patient of hers, lying silently and waiting for her to save his life yet again. Sirius Black sits silently on his bed, his eyes too broken for tears and his heart too sore for screaming. Peter Pettigrew paces restlessly, up and down and up and down, and James Potter rages at his best friend because it is the only thing he can do, now. Lily Evans stares unseeingly at the lines of her Astronomy textbook, knowing something has happened but not knowing enough. And Remus draws.

The floor of the Shack is decorated with a thousand different pictures and patterns, and it is only a shame that when she finally arrives Madam Pomfrey will be too busy screaming in horror to notice them. And still, Remus's finger moves up and down in graceful lines, adding a little more beauty to a harsh and ugly world.

He coughs and the biggest wound starts to bleed again, but that doesn't matter – it's just more ink for his swiftly moving fingers.

Well. Was it horrendously creepy? Please tell me in a review! Oh, and just to clarify - this is the morning after Sirius's nearly-fatal prank on Snape.

~Butterfly