Wolfish

Chapter 3: Thursday and Friday

Warning: Descriptions of violence.

For the second day in a row, Teddy was awoken by his wife. This time there was no tea, and she looked upset. Teddy sat up straight immediately and reached for her hand, to which she held on tightly.

"There was an... attack," she said softly, biting her lip. "Last night. I read about it in the Prophet. They haven't named the victim yet, but they think it was a..."

"Werewolf?" Teddy asked, his voice almost cracking. Victoire nodded and he felt dizzy. "There hasn't been a werewolf attack in Britain in about two decades."

"I know. Are you alright? Do you want to go to work today? I can send Uncle Harry an owl if you want."

"No," Teddy shook his head. "I have to go in."

He stepped out of bed and almost stumbled, but quickly steadied himself. He didn't want Victoire to worry.

Werewolf attacks were extremely rare after the war. Most werewolves wanted a peaceful life and to be left alone, and the ones that didn't were aligned with Fenrir Greyback during the war. When it ended, most of them had died during the Battle of Hogwarts or were arrested afterwards. The ones who escaped had gone into hiding. Greyback in particular was thought to have either died in the battle and been buried by his followers or gone into hiding. Teddy preferred the thought of the former.

He knew that Greyback was the werewolf who had both turned his father and attacked Bill. He read both of those facts in a book in his second year at school and had nightmares about the werewolf for weeks afterward. No books had pictures of Greyback, so Teddy's 12-year-old imagination had filled in the blanks in the scariest way possible.

At work, he made his way to his desk with his head down. Anyone that knew him at work knew that his father was a werewolf, and could assume that anything to do with werewolves might be upsetting for him. The last thing he wanted that morning was someone giving him a pitying or weary look. To his chagrin, Lysander was already waiting at his desk.

"I don't want to talk about the werewolf thing," Teddy said, flopping into his desk chair.

Lysander gave him a sad smile. "Unfortunately, I think we have to. Oran Alderton was killed last night." Teddy groaned, leaned forward, and put his head in his hands as Lysander continued. "His wife was out of the country, and his two kids are both at Hogwarts right now, so no one else was hurt. But Alderton was killed the night after he published an article about Kilgrave potentially being a dark wizard."

"Do you think Kilgrave, either Kilgrave, had ties to whatever werewolf did this?"

"Or Jamison is a werewolf. I mean, we don't know," Lysander said grimly. "But it sounds like this was done as revenge for that article."

Teddy sighed and sat up straight. "Okay. Okay. I just... I don't want to talk about the werewolf thing. I don't want to talk about how terrible it is, or how scary werewolves are, or how the werewolf registry should be reinstated, or-"

"Teddy. I'm not, like, prejudiced against werewolves. You know that, right?" Lysander said, looking at him with concern. "You've met my mums? You think they'd raise us to think werewolves are bad?"

"I know, I'm just saying..."

Lysander pulled a chair away from a nearby empty desk and sat down in it beside Teddy. "Did I ever tell you that your dad was their teacher at Hogwarts? Only for a year, but they both say he was the best teacher they ever had. That's what they told us when we first learned about werewolves, that they knew one and he was the best DADA teacher they ever had. And that he was a good man."