He didn’t. But an agreeable nod, a distant “oh, aye,” that would do. Didn’t mean anything. Didn’t have to. PThis was just so much shoptalk. With a Death Eater. Merlin.
He’d done it before, or something like it, anyway. Those packs Dumbledore sent him out to, most of them were half-gone to the Dark Lord as it was. Half or worse. His mission hadn’t, in fact, been anything like secreting refugees away. The headmaster had needed a fucking spy. Remus was there to listen, notice, and learn. Whoever he was pretending to be was there to find a way forward, to follow whatever path seemed surer, safer, stronger. He was reaching for them, now, those people he could be. What made it so crushing was this: how close they were. How much sense they could make.
Good thing, too. Because what came next hit like a beater’s bat, and that simple, awful sense was all that kept him in place. That, and the white-hot, feverish knowledge that he couldn’t fuck this up, for the sake of the Order, and their work, tonight. Couldn’t.
It rung in his ears, the way a concussion would’ve. “That’s right, yeah.” With a solid, hard nod, Remus cracked out something like a grin; like someone’s, maybe, but not his. This was bolder - made for those pack animals who wouldn’t trust a new member until they saw you riled up for the moon, eager to run wild. Until they saw you proud, ferociously one of them. Fearless. Ready to fucking hurt something. Made him sick enough to shake, those nights did. Every time. Grateful for the gloom, Remus fought the frantic urge to look back for Mary, hoping, desperately, that she wasn’t close enough to have heard. Best to stay watching that Death Eater, though. Might be a drunk, but if his spellwork was half as quick as his connections, Remus was far from sure about his chances. Far.
With that smirk on, holding his ground was easier - he’d had to, with the wolves. To keep his throat intact, and earn what passed for trust, out there. “Suppose so,” Remus huffed. “Pity, us missin’ out on the hunting.” That’s what they wanted from their werewolves, yeah? What they expected? Some appetite. Bit of bloodthirst. Had to live up to Greyback’s example, after all. But what the fuck would Fenrir Greyback do, here? Remus stayed put, stock still, as the space between them burned off to, well… very nearly nothing. Wasn’t at all what he’d figure would follow someone, anyone, nevermind one of the Dark Lord’s own, sorting out his secrets. Couldn’t decide, really, if this reaction was worse than the one he’d expected. Mostly because he wasn’t entirely sure what this was.
“How do I like it?” What had they said, those believers? The ones that turned his stomach. The ones he’d had to sound like. Remus wrung out a laugh, shaking his head. “It’s - been a revelation, hey? You grow up, you go to school, and all the while - you do what you’re told. Think you understand what’s possible, think you know what can be done. Until the world turns. And you realize how bloody wrong you were.” How stupidly hopeful. “Then, after everything, you’ve got fuck all to show for playing by all the rules. So you take it, or… or you’ve got to find yourself some new rules, don’t you?”
The best lies were based on truths. Saw that in a book, somewhere. Remus knew he couldn’t have managed it any other way; he didn’t have it in him to spin stories out of nothing, like some people. Too much self-doubt, for that. No, he had to start with a scrap of something real. Like anger. That had been it, more and more, as the months went on. Because he had so fucking much to spare, welling up. Seemed like if you sunk some genuine piece of yourself into the foundation, you could build some hideous, unfamiliar things, and still have a hope of them holding at least a while.
That’s what he needed, tonight. Just an ugly while. He swallowed - chalkdust dry, sour - and finished. “I like these rules. Think they suit me better.” That was the answer Castor had come to. With such certainty. Funny, when your fake selves see it all clearer than you do. Castor had found himself a horrific alternative. Remus? His fingers were slipping around hope, these days. But it was Castor who lifted his chin, met those roaming eyes, and smiled, right back. That conjured, canine smile. Quizzical, but sharp. “Now, if I might ask…” Polite, yes. Couldn’t forget who he was talking to, here, or fail to account for the lines they were likely to draw. There were Dark Wix, and Dark Creatures, after all. Lines he couldn’t threaten if he was hoping to keep this unremarkable. “Who wants to know?”
The werewolf didn’t look happy to be called-out -- or maybe he just didn’t like being labelled as subservient to Fenrir Greyback. (Was there dissension in the pack? Some jockeying for power, maybe, or just general discontent? Interesting. Antonin filed the possibility away to consider later.) For now, he focused on Castor -- his grin more like a baring of teeth, which was so appropriate it almost felt overdone. Antonin replied with a matching grin of his own anyway. Maybe Castor was playing-up his part on purpose; maybe the man just had a natural flair for melodrama -- or maybe that was Antonin’s sense of drama at work, adding nuances that reality didn’t support. Did it matter? Either way, it was fun.
Antonin barked a laugh, harsh and pitiless. “Not much of a hunt, if all goes as planned -- more of a slaughter.” His grin widened, sharp and blood-hungry, and he found himself wishing that he had gone with the others tonight. He wouldn’t have minded a chance to throw some Curses at those self-righteous, anarchist hypocrites...but at least he had some entertainment of his own here, instead. “Don’t fret though, puppy,” he continued cheekily. “Orders are for survivors to be dragged along so we can poke and prod and rattle their brains around until they give us the keys to finding the rest of their filthy friends.”
That was, of course, only if all did go according to plan, and one could never be sure of such a thing when there was a battle involved...but this wasn’t a battle; it was a trap. All his fellow Death Eaters had to do was spring it, and then overwhelming numbers and skill would take care of the rest. The two or three targets they were expecting wouldn’t stand a chance; the only real kink in the plot would be if over-enthusiasm got the better of the others, and they killed them all before they could remember to take one alive.
Still, even that outcome wouldn’t be anything to cry over; there would always be another day, another fight, after this. (As long as she wasn’t there...but she didn’t seem to stick her head out very often, did she? Not that Antonin could track, anyway. Besides, she was canny enough to get herself out of danger, wasn’t she? Had been canny enough to kill Antonin, and that couldn’t have been easy; Antonin had spared with Antonin often enough to know the younger wizard’s skills...) Realizing he was letting his thoughts wander, Antonin shook himself back to the present -- bloody brain-fogging potion -- and ran a finger lightly along the shoulder of Castor’s robes, almost like he was checking for dust on the furnishings.
“A revelation, hmm?” Antonin dropped his voice a little, tone still too rough to be considered soft but quieter. More intimate. The kind of low-volume half-whisper that made a person lean-in instinctively to hear better. “I feel the same. Funny.” He did, that was the odd part -- odd, to find himself in such genuine commiseration with a beast like a werewolf...but Castor spoke true. Fuck all to show, indeed. All Antonin had was a dead friend and a life in tatters. “You’d think eventually they’d stop feeding people that bollocks, all that rules and fairness bullshit and just start telling it like it is from the start.” A shadow of grief moved behind Antonin’s eyes, leeching the smirk from his face and leaving in its place nothing but the aching emptiness that was slowly eating him from the inside-out -- but that grief was a constant now, and while it was impossible to banish it was getting easier and easier to shut it away behind the mask he wore now even when the Dark Lord’s silver one remained unconjured.
He smiled again, sharp and jagged and on some fundamental level broken, and suddenly the grief was gone and the game was back in its place. “How rude of me though, not to introduce myself.” Wearing a grin smug enough to give Lucy pangs of envy, he caught one of Castor’s hands -- paws? -- the one without his wand, of course, because Antonin wasn’t an idiot nor quite that rude, as to manhandle someone’s wand-arm without asking; he bent over it to drop a kiss, as though Castor were some delicate witch at the latest gala ball. “Antonin. That’s me. And let me say, it’s a real pleasure to meet you.”
