Remus Lupin sat in the Shrieking Shack, in a chair and ottoman he had conjured himself. In his palm, he held a pocket watch, which he stared at, watching the second hand move across the stark white face of the clock. His hand shook as the time crept on, ever closer to the setting of the sun. The rays of light that snuck between the cracks in the broken shutters were becoming warmer, more orange-gold then yellow, and the dust seemed lower to the ground than when he had first come into the shack.

He closed the watch, his palm tightening around the piece. He had removed and folded his raggedy suit coat jacket and left it on the table. He got up now and walked, slowly and painfully across the old floor, wincing with each step, and slid the watch into the pocket of the jacket. There was a clinking and he removed the small bottle that was sharing space with the watch, turning it over in his hand as he studied it. Purple liquid sloshed about inside and he hesitated, biting his lip.

Remus knew he ought to take the wolfsbane potion - after all, he was safest and most in control when he did. It was rather foolish to consider not taking it. He could remember himself, even when in wolf form, if he took the potion.

But that was precisely why he hesitated to do so.

After all, himself was not all that he remembered. He remembered other things - the past, the way things had been, what had changed, and what this night was.

His hands shook all the more and he glanced at the small cracked window over the sink, a round porthole-type view into the world outside.

With the wolfsbane, he could have remained comfortable in the castle as he'd done the month before. It had been nice, being able to lay in his wolfish form before a warm fire on a soft rug, his sore bones and muscles comforted as he rested and slept through the worst of the effects of the moon. But tonight... Somehow being comfortable had seemed to be a luxury the night couldn't offer. He didn't trust the wolfsbane enough to hold back his werewolfish tendencies when they had a powerful melancholy driving them from deep within him.

Furthermore, he rather thought he might want to lose himself tonight.

Remus had contemplated so long while holding the bottle that the rays of light had slowly turned from orange to pink to purple and now a pale lavender and now were brightening to white... His fist spasmed around the glass bottle so suddenly, so tightly, that the bottle shattered and the purple potion within dribbled between his fingers like veins over his sin before dripping onto the floor. He stepped back from the table, staggered, and his knee gave out. His body fell onto the hard wood, his jaw cracking as it changed, the wind knocking out of him as his chest hit the floor and reshaped itself. His fingers clawed at the floor, curling into gruesomely sharp nails protruding from heavy padded toes... His voice choking as though being strangled...

His green eyes were still human as his nose was twisting, elongating, rounding ad protruding... and he threw his head back, his eyes falling on the front door, which creaked, opening....

His heart leaped to his throat.

Who was coming in?

The change nearly complete, there was nothing he could do, nothing that could stop what was about to be complete... whoever it was, they would be killed, or at the very least turned, and his stomach knotted up at the thought as he gargled out as close to a warning as he could in his state:

"No."

It came out a growl... a howl... and the last thing Remus Lupin thought before he had completed his transformation, was that he was a selfish fool to forego the Wolfsbane Potion.

When Remus next opened his eyes, he was laying on the couch in the living room of the Shrieking Shack. He felt dizzy and weak and sore in every bone and muscle of his body. He lay still, breathing through the agonies.

When he sat up, he realized he had been laying with a torn pillow beneath his head as it slid to the floor beside the couch. He didn't remember having put it there. Could he, as a wolf, been laying upon it before he changed? Odd enough to awaken unaided on the couch but must less on a pillow!

He reached for the pillow.

His hand - the one he had broken the potion bottle in - was neatly bandaged.

Remus stared at the linen wrapped around his hand in astonishment. It was a torn bit of striped cloth, a fragment only big enough to serve its purpose.

His stomach turned as he looked around the room.

"'ello?" Remus's voice was low, gravelly from exhaustion.

There was a sound in the kitchen. Like footsteps.

Remus struggled to turn that way, his heart pounding in his chest uneasily.

"Sirius?"

Definite footsteps now, hurried, scrambling... Then the sound of the door as it opened.

"Wait, I - Sirius, if it is you ---"

The door slammed shut.