The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

The Werewolf Restriction Act

It was a crisp-aired, early autumn evening, the sun setting in the western sky, turning the clouds hues of gold and hot pink. In the shadow of the woods, on the edge of a small village, there was a little cottage, and the family that lived there were enjoying the night. A couple of leaves had fallen, spotting the yard with bursts of color here and there, illuminated by the fading sunlight and by fireflies that flew about, the prey of the boy who chased them, holding aloft an empty marmalade jar. The boy was shouting excitedly as he ran, his face happy, without a single line of worry upon it.

The boy's parents watched him running from the porch of the cottage, sitting side by side on a swinging bench. Hope, his mother, was knitting a scarf for the boy for that winter while Lyall, the boy's father, was reading the Daily Prophet, a newspaper for the wizarding community. The front cover story, and the article which he was reviewing, was coverage of the project he'd been overseeing at his job at the Ministry of Magic. Lyall and several of his colleagues had been selected to be on the board for the Department of Magical Community Welfare and the Interspecies Liaison Office to write and propose a new decree that would work to protect people from attacks of werewolves, which was a growing concern as lycanthropy had suddenly seemed to blossom quite wildly throughout Britain in the late 1950s. The Werewolf Restriction Act of 1963 had passed only that week, and the Daily Prophet was already reporting a great resistance from the werewolves that didn't like the finer points of the Restriction Act - such as having to register and surrender to be quarantined for several days each cycle until the full moon had passed. Some of the werewolves were revolting, trying to get the Act cancelled, but there were too many supporters that rallied against them. The Act was sure to be upheld and the werewolves would be forced to abide by the laws that Lyall, as the head of the committee, had set to protect the people.

The sky was turning purple at last, and Hope stood up, her lovely blonde curls settling upon her shoulders as she tucked her knitting into a bag at her feet. She was a muggle woman with such a beautiful face that she'd once been told she should be in the movies, but she'd fallen in love with Lyall and didn't want to leave the UK for the glitz and glamour that was Hollywood. She was quite glad, too, once she'd married him and Lyall revealed to her that he was a wizard. Her life had been turned upside down at the revelation at first, but since then she'd settled quite happily into her life with Lyall and couldn't picture having chosen any other path for themselves. Especially since they'd had Remus. He was her pride and her joy, and Lyall's, too.

Never had there been a boy more loved than Remus John Lupin.

"Remus," called Hope, her voice ringing across the yard, "It's time to go inside."

Remus was busy, cornering a frog in the corner of a tree's roots, and did not hear her.

Hope started down the steps of the porch and was just taking her first stride toward Remus when she stopped short and gasped. "Lyall," she choked the name.

Lyall Lupin was already standing up himself, having folded over the newspaper and dropped it onto the swinging bench. He moved quickly down the steps of the porch and stood before his wife in a protective stance as the gate latch was lifted and it creaked opened and a most fearsome stranger stepped within the confines of the yard.

Remus looked up from the tree and was transfixed instantly by the appearance of the stranger. The man wasn't tall so much as foreboding and his hair was messy and dirty... shaggy, even. His face was lined with a wiry scruff that framed his jaw and traveled down his throat, peeking from beneath the V neck of his shirt. As he walked by, the long trench coat that he wore moved in the air and a scent like dirty copper followed him - the smell of blood.

"Fenrir," Lyall said. His knuckles were white, he was gripping his wand so tightly, arm pressed to his side, only just barely resisting taking aim. "You shouldn't be out tonight." He glanced nervously up at the deepening shade of the sky above.

"Shouldn't I?" Fenrir asked, voice barely more than a growl. He eyed Lyall from beneath thick eyebrows and over a shaking sneer that bent his upper lip into a grimace.

Lyall's voice shook. "The Werewolf Restriction Act clearly states that --"

"You think I'm goin' to obey that rubbish Act of yours?" Fenrir hissed between his teeth, which showed as he smiled now in a false sort of way, revealing the awful yellowed fangs. "Who're you to tell me what I can and can't do, Lupin?" he asked thickly. "You think I'm some how lesser than you? That I'm some kind of dog?"

Lyall took a deep breath, "It's not a matter of - of inferiority," he stammered. "I'm simply thinking of what's best - what's safest - for everyone, Fenrir. You're dangerous under the full moon. I understand you can't control it, but that's why we must lock your kind up when you've become a threat, so that others don't get hurt and --"

"Can't control it?" Fenrir's laugh was more like a bark than a true laugh. "I can control it enough." He glowered at Lyall.

"But you can't! It isn't your fault; none of you can control it!" Hope exclaimed from behind Lyall's back, "Only a month ago a werewolf bit a young girl in Surrey, didn't he? She's still at St. Mungo's according to the article. Critical condition, she may not live and if she does it'll be... with... your... your condition."

Fenrir's eyes flashed and looked at Hope with a lustful stare. "Wouldn't I like to bite you, gorgeous?" he growled, miming nipping at her by snapping his teeth, "Right in your pretty little neck... or maybe your thigh... draw the blood and suck it from your veins..."

"Enough!" shouted Lyall as Hope ducked behind him fearfully. He raised the wand with a shaking hand. "You need to leave, Fenrir. The moon will be out soon and it's full tonight. You need to go home and lock yourself up, keep the community safe from your rampage."

Fenrir chortled at the wand and lifted his palm, pushing the tip of it away from him. "Calm yourself, Lyall," he drawled. "I haven't even given you the present I came to deliver yet." He grinned as the clouds shifted and the deep velvet sky was revealed and the bright light of the full moon overhead burst upon them.

If Remus had been fascinated by the stranger before, it was nothing compared to what happened next. Shaking, Fenrir had stumbled back a couple steps from the porch of the house as the moon struck him, and he dropped to his knees as hair sprouted up the length of his arms and burst from the skin of him all over as his clothes fell away from his body and he was transformed - snout and all - into the largest wolf that Remus could ever have imagined. Fenrir's wolf form was silver and his back had coarse hair that seemed to ridge along his spine with black tips that made him look even more menacing as a wolf than he'd seemed as a person. He let out a long, low howl, his face tilted upwards at the moonlight.

"Hope, get inside," Lyall had said quickly, adrenaline rushing through his veins as he pushed his wife towards the stairway of the porch, his sole thought on getting her out of sight as Fenrir had already expressed an interest in biting her.

"But - but Remus!" Hope wailed and she struggled against Lyall and rushed without a second thought past the still transforming Fenrir to where Remus stood in the dark yard, several feet away from the wolf. If she hadn't rushed to him, perhaps Fenrir never would have noticed him at all, for he'd been impossibly quiet through the entire affair. But Hope had run toward him, facing the danger of the werewolf and betraying the thing which they loved most.

She didn't move fast enough, though.

Fenrir's transformation completed before she'd made it to Remus's side and he lunged ahead of her, teeth bared, and Remus was too shocked and unprepared to defend himself, being only three years old, and before anything could be done, Fenrir's teeth had sunk deep into the flesh of Remus's shoulder.

"No! No! No, please!" Hope wailed, "Not my boy! Please, don't kill him!"

But Fenrir had never meant to kill. He brought his teeth away, mouth dripping with Remus's blood and stared at Lyall with his intensely piercing wolfish eyes as Hope dropped to her knees,r pulling the jumper from her shoulders to wrap around Remus's wound as he lay on the ground, convulsing as the venom of the werewolf blistered it's way through his bloodstream, changing everything about him, rewriting his cells and infecting him permanently with the lycanthropy.

Lyall, staring across the lawn at his beloved son, knowing the fate that would await him, fell to his knees, letting out a low, guttural sound of despair.

Satisfied that his revenge was severe enough, Fenrir Greyback ran away, jumping the fence and disappearing into the trees.