Killer Queen

Chapter Three: Wild Kingdom

Remus Lupin was trying very hard to change his life, completely.
It wasn’t the first time.
Remus was by no means a Goody Two-Shoes, and her certainly didn’t want to be seen as a hypocrite. After all, he was a troubled young man in the seventies; he’d had more than his fair of sex, drugs and rock & roll. He’d cut his teeth on English Ovals and home-made laudanum and bathtub speed cooked up by Severus Snape in the Hogwarts bathrooms before either of them were even thirteen, and they broth graduated to the hard stiff with a vengeance.
Cheap thrills, cheap booze, cheap women, that was the way it had been, or at least, insofar as he could remember. Very freaky girls who liked to dress all in black coming around close to the full moon, whispering in his ear for him to bite them, bite them, sink his teeth in all the way to their bones.
Not that he ever made them werewolves, bless their freaky hearts. Still he was hands down, the most addicted member of WAND. Coke, speed, smack, sleepers, leapers, Doom, creepers, nitrous, shrooms, acid, pot, hash, you name it, he did it. He’d gone through a punk phase where he mainlined Purple Doom, cocaine and oven cleaner, wore five inch liberty spikes on his otherwise shaved head, pieced his ears, nose & nipples with safety pins and started going around with Muggle birds who were both punks and werewolves.
Well, as they say , it’s all fun and games until somebody stabs you in the head with the jagged end of an empty bottle of Southern Comfort and steals your wallet and leaves you to bleed to death in a pay by the hour hotel room.
But if Remus’ suicidal flirtations with degeneracy had taught him anything it was that that there were really such things as good and evil, and right and wrong, and there was no harnessing what was evil and wrong to do what was right or good; the twain did not meet.
After his performance at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, a Centurion of the Knights of Albion visited him, and asked him to join.
To that end, he had isolated himself completely in a lonely cottage on the windswept moors that surrounded Hogwarts Castle, in a final attempt at redemption
It was quite an honour for one so young, especially one who wasn’t a hereditary shape-shifter. Still, although he didn’t like to toot his own horn, Lupin was quite a powerful wizard. He could do most of the spells the average fifth year could easily without his wand, and he was steeped and well versed in the history, lore and occult practise from which magic sprung.
As such, he knew all that an un-inducted wizard could know about the Knights of Albion. They had existed, and yet not existed since before the One Ring was forged in Mordor.
They were an ancient and secret fraternal order of shape-shifting or hybrid beings. Animagi, were-wolves and other were-animals, both wizards and Muggles, fauns, satyrs, merpeople, centaurs, veelas, that sort of thing. They committed themselves to working for peace and harmony between witches, wizards, Muggles and hybrid and shape-shifting beings. The highest ranking member is the Doge, then the Centurions, then the Knights, and then the thousands of members in the lowest order, the Yeomen, who have renounced their predatory or anti-human nature. They secretly worked in-concert with Muggle and Wizarding society.
A lycanthrope had to be a powerful wizard to be asked to join the Fraternal Order of the Knights of Albion. Through the use of ancient and very complicated rites, spells, and great discipline, a shape shifters could learn to control their transformations and even retain their won sensibilities and control of themselves in their animal form.
It had only been a few months since he had their symbol, the Eye of Horus, tattooed in the usual place in the palm of his right hand.
Lupin was used to privation and hard work, but the Rites of Transformation were exhausting and consumed most of his waking hours.
He had passed the first hurdle already, quite an achievement for such a new member; he had been able to prevent one transformation at the full moon.
The next step was to try and retain his sense of self during his next transformation.
Remus wasn’t looking forward to it.
Sirius had been a Knight, it would have been good to have a friend in the Knights to help him.
But Sirius was dead, and Remus was alone.
He was still keeping Tonks at arm’s length; until he could complete all of the Rites he couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t be in danger.
Or, at least, he wanted to be alone.
But there was a certain Gryffindor lioness who refused to abandon the mentor who had painstakingly trained her to become an animagus.
Remus intended, if and when he became a Knight, to propose Ginny for membership in the Knights, or, if he didn’t, to ask the Knight who had proposed him to propose Ginny.
She was his link to the outside world, bringing him news of what was going on at Hogwarts, with the war effort, and news in general.
Lupin was aggrieved to hear that what he and the other Order members had hoped was just youthful high spirits on Harry’s part was beginning to become a drugs and alcohol problem. He was, however, even more aggrieved to discover that Ginny had become one of Lucius Malfoy’s mistresses, on the condition that she could kill him at any time she wanted.
That kind of twisted head game was typical of twisted Malfoy. Remus felt pity for his enemy; he knew that Malfoy was a damned and broken man going through the motions of loyalty to a Dark Master even he feared and hated in order to save his son from the fate he had suffered. Yars before in the demented days of their misspent youth, he and Lucius Malfoy, as well as Sybil Trelawney, Narcissa Black and Arabella Baxter had been members of a cabal founded by that Prince of debauched druggie degeneracy, Severus Snape.
It was called the Order of the Satyr. An in-joke, considering that Snape’s grandfather, Severus Prince, was half-satyr. Their motto was “Those who will die together can get high together.” Nominally, they were a cabal of Initiate and First Degree Master Sex Magi led by Master Magus in the Second Degree Snape practising Sex Magic rights, but it was mainly an excuse for them all to drunk, get high, and screw.
Remus had shared women, needles, bottles and troubles with Lucius Malfoy; he knew the special kind of Hell that the man burnt in every day. Luke wasn’t all a bad man, there was good in him, twisted though he was. He even managed to do a fairly decent job at the Welfare Office, and didn’t use that particular position to put any child in care whose family he didn’t like.
Lupin, however was not fool enough to play with fire and think for a moment that his enemy was not dangerous. Malfoy was not evil, in order to do evil he would begin drinking heavily and using Purple Doom, again, and find a way around the oaths he had sworn to Ginny, and then he would kill her.
Even if the treacherous Slytherin did not find some way to physically destroy Ginny, there was still her soul to worry about. Newly 16, Ginny was on the threshold of adulthood, and she had developed some disturbing qualities. She was cheerfully violent, and seemed to have little or no feelings of remorse, and suffered from a general lack of conscience. She lived by her animal instincts, according to her whims of the moment, as if her true form was animal and not human. She was, essentially a creature of pure lust, living on a combination of human whim and animal instinct, without rhyme or reason, or thoughts of the future, whether it was twenty years from now, or tomorrow.
A twisted, emotionally crippled psychopath like Malfoy would only reinforce those qualities, and, under his influence Remus’ pupil might be similarly corrupted, and possibly even turned to the other side.
Remus stopped discouraging Ginny from coming to see him.
He had to get her away from Lucius Malfoy at any cost, and find some way to force her to confront the fact that, as much as she wished it not to be so, she was a complex human being with the complex emotions of a human being, not a simple animal living on instinct.
***
The sun was setting on the night of the harvest moon when Remus heard scratching on his door and he opened it to admit a huge lioness with a reddish tinge to her coat.
He observed that there were no bruises, scratches or other marks of violence on the great cat’s coat. The fact that Ginny had gotten and followed some good advice from Lucius Malfoy disturbed and intrigued Remus. Was it possible that the shred of decency in him was struggling to take over? Or was it a ruse designed to ensnare them all?
He thought to himself that it might be a good time for Albus to send Snape to test the waters.
If they could turn Malfoy, it would be a great coup for The Plan.
Still, that was Snape’s work, not Ginny’s.
She transformed, stretching lazily across the floor.
I am not a man. I am a teacher. She is not a naked girl of the age of consent, she is my student.
“Change back into a lioness, Ginny. It’s not safe for you to be human around me, I’m not sure if I can perform that part of the rite successfully.”
“Yes, Professor Lupin.”
It was funny, really. After thirty some years of being almost totally ignored by women, unless they were freaky, bless their freaky hearts, he had two beautiful young women lusting after him.
It wasn’t the sort of thing that was good for a werewolf, especially not around the Full Moon. There was a reason some women would brave the chance of getting bitten to cultivate the affections of a man who was a werewolf and Remus was no exception, if anything, as a lycanthrope and a Sex Magus he was nearly as goatish as a satyr.
When he had to, though, Remus was perfectly capable of restraining himself, but Ginny Weasley was not interested in restraint. She was all lust. Watching her stretch lazily across his floor, he could see the lack of guile and guilt in the violet eyes that invited him to do what he liked with her. Or what she liked, more like it. As a man with the heightened senses of an animal, it was something Lupin could discern and understand better than most. Bloodlust, lust for life, lust for revenge; it all boiled down to lust.
That was most likely what Malfoy was taken with, in her.
At least he didn’t have to think about such things when she was a great cat, prowling around his kitchen, and that was why he made her transform, again.
He had more important things to worry about, tonight.
***
As night fell, Ginny dozed contentedly by the hearth.
When she was in her lioness form, she retained her human behaviour and emotions, but to a great extent animal instinct took over. Though Ginny was largely a creature of animal instinct in her human form, it was nice to have her human consciousness quiet and completely submerged, and to just lie there and be a lion. Some animagi fought the intrusions of their animal consciousness when they were in human form and vice versa, but Ginny embraced both.
She was eyeing what looked like a rat peeping out of a hole behind the stove when she heard a crash from the bedroom and a scream that turned into a horrible howl. More horrible than the usual sound of her mentor joining her in the animal state.
Ginny got to her feet, her shoulders raised, tensed to spring.
She relaxed a little when the werewolf entered the room.
As a lion, Ginny had nothing to fear from the strange, wolfish creature, even though it walked on two legs instead of four.
Normally, it was an animal with the yellow eyes of an animal and no hint of humanity in it.
This time was different.
As if in a daze, the werewolf staggered to the door and walked out into the moonlight to howl.
Ginny was about to follow it out on their usual hunt when it came back and opened the door for her.
She growled, questioningly, and the werewolf nodded its head, and barked.
She looked into its eyes and saw Remus Lupin there.
He had done it.
Ginny roared in triumph and Remus howled.
Then they ran across the moor, heading for the woods.
***
As they were heading back to the cottage just before dawn, Ginny transformed back into her human form.
Remus growled, sharply.
“Don’t snarl at me, Professor. You’ve mastered the second part of the rite and I know an animagus in human form is safe around you, now. Nobody can see I’m naked. Not even you, my hair covers most of my body.”
But there were flashes of white in with the red, and the sun was coming up.
By the time they got to the cottage the first fingers of dawn were creeping across the sky, and the transformation of sound from howl to scream let Ginny know that Professor Lupin was human again.
He saw the sun rising through his bedroom window, as Ginny opened the shutters, and he also saw that she was still naked.
Ginny knew more about werewolves than most students did. She knew what they didn’t put in the DADA books about the state a man is in right after he transforms back into his own body.
Tonks knew about it as well, that was why Lupin warded himself away from her the morning after a full moon. She would not have hesitated to take advantage of him, and now, Ginny Weasley, a witch of pure lust, wasn’t going to hesitate to, either.
“I suppose it will do me no good to tell you to put your clothes on and be a good girl.” Remus said.
“No, Professor, it won’t.”
He could smell the heavy, musky scent of her arousal, it was an intensely female smell, untempered by the smell of fear, or the tremours of guilt. He couldn’t help put growl a little bit in his throat when she lay down next to him.
Ginny rubbed her hands across one of the scars on his chest.
He was a lot hairier than Luke was, coarse, wiry, sandy-coloured hair, and there were scars all over his body, and calluses on his palms and fingertips.
She purred when he touched her, a low, thrilling sound from deep in her throat that made the hair on Remus’ neck stand on end and filled him with inordinate, untempered animal lust.
“Wow. Blimey, Remus, you’re bigger than Luke Malfoy is! I guess it’s true what they say about werewolves.” Ginny observed, chuckling, throatily.
She reached down to caress the object of her admiration, and Remus Lupin’s last coherent thought was that he had decided to get her away from Malfoy at any cost, and if this was it, then, well he was happily obligated to do the right thing, wasn’t he?
Remus turned Ginny’s face towards his and kissed her with a violent intensity. Luke wasn’t much for kissing on the lips, and most of her groupies had been lousy kissers, so Ginny was struck by what a good kisser Remus was.
His calloused palms and fingertips caressed her with a greater urgency and intensity; he didn’t want to orchestrate an orgasmic experience like Luke did, he wanted to fuck.
Ginny found herself gasping and parting for breath; Remus kept making this noise in his throat that was half a growl and half a moan; he didn’t tease her body idly; he sucked hungrily at her nipples, weaving his tongue in furious circles, he thrust his hand between her legs and rubbed her nub with great urgency as she rode his fingers.
She came off quickly and explosively, and while she was still coming he went down on her, still making that growling, moaning sound and she came off again, roaring like a cat in heat.
Ginny turned over on her back, stretching and arching.
She’d never been had from behind, she didn’t trust Luke not to take the opportunity to give her one up the bum.
Remus bent his body over hers as he settled his flanks between her thighs.
“I know you’re going to like this.” He whispered in her ear.
He gave it to her all at once, all the way, as deeply as he dared, over and over again, giving her the occasional playful smack on the bum.
She found herself moaning and keening and laughing all at the same time. Pushing back against Remus and shouting out terribly filthy things.
She came again before he did, violently, harder than she’d ever come before and melted into the mattress.
She was scarcely aware of him gently turning her over onto her back.
He kissed her as he eased himself in once again, and although it felt nice Ginny felt like she was somewhere in another world, and then Remus shifted his weight or rolled his hips or did something because all of the sudden she was incredibly hot again, and she had her arms around him and her legs around him and she had to have him, had to have it all, had to have him again, and this time they both came.
Remus howled into the cool morning air, and they both melted into the mattress.
“Are you always like this, Remus, or just when you’ve recently transformed?” Ginny asked.
“You’ll have to come back again and find out. Close the shutters, luv, I’m knackered.”
Ginny closed the shutters and returned to bed.
Remus was already half asleep, but he rolled over and moved his body close to hers and put his arm around her.
Then he fell asleep.
She and Luke slept in the same bed, but he was not one for cuddling. This was Ginny’s first experience with same, and she nestled tentatively against her new lover.
She felt sort of warm and happy and nice, basking in a rosy afterglow.
“I could get used to this.” She said, to no one in particular, and fell asleep.