Stand Against the Moon // Tomarry

•Chapter 1 • Prologue - Like a Ghost in My Town

Harry Potter had...pretty much everything a wizard could ask for. He had a beautiful fiancée, two amazing best friends, and an adoring adopted family. He had survived the man who'd killed his parents and tried multiple times to kill him, and he was a decorated auror, shoe-in for the Minister seat, should he care to reach out for it.

Which wasn't to say there weren't bad moments, because he had a godson with no parents who he shared the care of with the child's grandmother, and there were moments around the table during family meals when the figurative empty chairs were all too obvious.

And then, of course, there were moments like today, when he found these sort of orders waiting for him on his desk.

"I'm not doing this, Gawain," he informed his boss when he poked his head into the man's office.

Gawain Robards raised his head and offered Harry a tired look out of his one good eye, the other one rolling off to one side in the manner of the late Alastor Moody, though Harry knew Gawain's eye was both real and nowhere near as useful as Moody's had been. "Which assignment do you have a problem with this time, Potter?" he requested, voice as tired as his appearance.

Harry resisted the urge to sigh as he stepped forward and set the parchment on the overflowing desk of the elder wizard. "Report of a rampaging werewolf up north," he explained.

Gawain glanced over the paper and let out the sigh Harry had held back, then looked up at him. "There's no one else I can send right now. If you didn't want to get stuck with the creature jobs, you shouldn't have mucked about in the creature department."

Harry ground his teeth against that particular descriptor for magical non-humans; he may have managed to have the late Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures largely abolished (what was left was being manned by his friend Hermione and some other non-human friendly souls), but there was little he could do to change the way most witches and wizards viewed such. "Fine," he bit out, trying to hide how irritated he was and knowing he was failing miserably. "But I'm not bloody well hunting anyone down."

Gawain held the parchment with the assignment back up to Harry. "Potter, I don't give a fuck if you decide to dance around a campfire with the bugger, just so long as it's fucking handled."

Harry snatched the parchment away and stalked from the office. He really didn't mind working under Gawain most of the time, but the man's all-too-common non-human hatred rubbed him entirely the wrong way.

Ron found him while he was getting together an anti-werewolf kit; just because he had no interest in using it, didn't mean he was fool enough to chance going out to meet with a werewolf on his own without the bloody thing. "Rough luck, mate," Ron said, reading over the parchment Harry had left on the table near the door.

"I feel like a traitor," Harry muttered, certain that Ron, out of everyone in the department, would understand why he so hated the idea of going after werewolves in particular.

Ron touched his shoulder and offered Harry a smile that was a little too dark around the edges. "At least this way you know the werewolf has a fair chance?" he offered.

Harry stared down at the silver knives of his kit, glinting in the firelight that lit so much of the magical world. "There is that," he agreed quietly before shoving the knives home in his belt.

Ron nodded and offered a hopeful smile. "Need a hand?"

Harry glanced towards the clock hanging over the door and shook his head. "No. I'll be fine. Don't go extending your shift on my account."

"Oiy, who should I be extending my shifts for, then?" Ron joked as he led the way out of the room and back into the hustle and bustle of the department.