Hey.

This was written for Transfiguration in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. My task was to write about a Werewolf, and what happens when they turn back into a Wizard/Witch.

I used the prompts 'blood', 'walk while ye have light, lest darkness come upon you', 'sawdust' and 'bare-skinned'.

If anyone would like me to continue, I will happily oblige. Enjoy!

Edited as of 2nd August 2017

"Walk while ye have light, lest darkness come upon you." - Unknown

Chapter 1: Guardian Angel

When the full moon was out, I was a runner. I was a climber, I was a jumper. I howled at the faintest sight of any humans or civilised animals, I couldn't feel any of my pain, my anger, my disgust…

Was it wrong, that sometimes, I didn't want to wake up? That sometimes, it all felt like a dream in which I was flying, never falling, and that I could never feel the pain of knowing the anger and anguish I went through before and after each transformation? A stupidly wondrous dream.

The reality was waking up to find fur in your teeth, maybe a scrap of raw meat in your mouth. I had often emptied my stomach on patches of grass after finding such things, which did nothing to satisfy my hunger. Once a werewolf, always a werewolf. The wolf part of me was always there, under the surface. And it stung me like a wasp.

When I awoke, the sky was bright blue under my gaze. I whined slightly and turned over to banish the sight from my view. It was too blue, too bright, too vibrant, too everything. My face landed in a pile of slightly rotten leaves, and I cowered away from the smell.

I sat up, feeling the taste of blood in my mouth, and idly picked at what was left with a long fingernail. It wasn't too bad this morning – this morning after. There was no need to vomit.

I often wondered what it would be like, to be loved, and to love in return. Unfortunately, as you may guess, walking down Diagon Alley with a scarred face and heavy eyes doesn't do much for my love life. I'll just die alone. Watch my sister have kids, watch those kids cry in fear like my family did when they find out what happened to the girl in the photo album from so long ago.

Sorry, I am a dreadful pessimist. But when all you have to look forward to is hell on Earth, you tend to stick to your guns. So, then I rose from the rotten, pungent leaves, dropping my hand from my mouth, bare-skinned, and made for the tree hollow where I always hid my extra robes.

You see, this routine is natural for me nowadays, especially as I've been a Werewolf since I was ten. When the full moon rises, and I feel the wolf within me begin to howl, I apparate to the wood on the hill (no Muggles go there, not lest because some say it is haunted), and I hide my spare robes in the oak tree closest to the red mark I once made with some unfortunate rabbit's blood. Then my wolf takes me over, and I know nothing until I wake, hours later, sometimes miles from where I began.

I pulled the smooth fabric over my head, feeling where my fingers brushed the hair on my head, still plastered to my head in sheets, feeling blood where I ripped and cut myself, and feeling numbness where the cold has driven me to shivers.

The wind was less noticeable now I was clothed, and that made my tense mind relax. When I looked down, I couldn't see pale, scarred, bare skin. And that soothed me. My feet were still bare, but they were calloused enough for me to walk to the edge of the wood, and disapparate. I hated not knowing where I was, and even hunger after a transformation did nothing to help my need for knowledge.

As I walked, I wrapped my thin but muscly arms around my torso, as slight extra protection against the wind, and sighed deeply. I would be lying to say that my bones didn't ache and that I longed for simplicity and the dream of flying and laughing and running again. But my wolf wouldn't allow that, and it howled and taunted me as I walked, trying to get my weary bones to a vision of semblance and calm. Sleep.

Now that my real, human mind was back in full gear, I could appreciate beauty again. My skin was perfect pale, any girl would want it if it weren't marred, and it was. And the sky that had seemed to hurt my eyes and my ears when my wolf first gave me back control, it now seemed cobalt-blue and pigmented in the most intricate of ways.

I raised one of my arms to the sky and tried to trace a swirl in the pattern. That made me smile, which made me laugh, which made me relax once more.

There was something about a laugh that made the world seem rainbow-coloured. Even then, I could remember my sister's laughs of childhood. My father's when he picked me up and swung me around. My mother's when she cooked the breakfast porridge.

I stopped thinking about them, fast.

The sun seemed to shine though the bare branches of winter in a way that words couldn't compare to. My wolf seemed to like the sun too; he stopped his howling and screeching for the meanwhile. I had ready plenty of books that examined a Werewolf's link with his Human, and none of them were accurate. My wolf was my soul mate, my twin, my curse and my blessing. I hated him, but yet he was the tether to the OtherWorld.

We co-existed. I was grateful for that. I plodded through life, he ran through forests. We were each other's polar opposite.

"Hear that Moony?" I tensed again, my hands flying up to my face. I backed against the nearest tree. I didn't care who 'Moony' was; I didn't want the townsfolk gossiping about me any more than they already did.

Slut.

Harlot.

Scarlet-woman.

"I know," another voice said, and I tried to blend into the oak tree I was pushed up against. My hair was plastered to my scalp, I was wearing nothing but a torn Wizard's robe, and I looked like I had been starved for weeks. "Hello?"

I clapped a hand to my mouth, covering any trace of my breathing. When you are joined to a wolf, they give you gifts, of sorts. The one all of us get is enhanced hearing, and that made my breathing sound like drumbeats. There was a cracking of twigs, a few steps (they were male, although one of them walked lightly and the other dragged his feet), and I could hear them both breathing, just behind me.

"There's definitely someone here, Prongs," the unknown second man said, his voice wary. "Hello?"

Should I step around the tree? I had a mental war with myself, the final outcome only decided when I looked down at my bare feet and ripped robe, the scars on my pale arms, and accidentally sighed.

"A woman," second said, which piqued my interest. "Hello? Come out, we're not going to hurt you."

"Moony, it's just been a Full Moon," first said, which made me shift my stance. Another Werewolf? With what sounded like…

A friend? For all of my life, everyone that knew my secret, my curse, had been too scared to come near, and that prejudice had extended to my adulthood. My breath caught in my throat, and I second-guessed myself for the very first time.

If I stepped out… Then that would be me willingly exposing myself for who I am. But if I stayed, close to the tree, then I would still be camouflaged. Like a chameleon – those lizards that I used to see in the Muggle zoos that my father would take my sister and I to.

I always liked the lions best, with their powerful roars, and the koalas with their droopy eyes. They seemed to my eight year-old mind, like two flipsides of the same coin. When I voiced this to my father and sister, they just laughed. Too eloquent for an eight year-old to be taken seriously.

Had I truly ever been taken seriously? If I could have, I would have scoffed. Of course not. I was turned too early for that. With that thought, emblazoned brightly in one of the furthest reaches of my mind, subduing the wolf howling for blood, I looked down at my pale, scarred skin, my bare feet, and the robe covering my nakedness, and I stepped out.

I must have looked a frightful sight. But I was too entranced by the two people that were the first to approach me in years to care. My eyes looked first at the boy on the right, who had messy black hair, circular glasses and a slouched position, his hands in his pockets and an amazed look on his face. I watched him, as he looked me up on me, noting how his eyes lingered on my scars and my eyes. Maybe he could see my wolf. I sometimes could, when I looked in the mirror at home and saw him howling in my mind. And I tried to not let my gaze waver, using my wolf as protection, erecting my brick walls and my barriers instinctively. He was not the other Werewolf. He was clean.

And so, once the right hand boy had stopped to stare once more, his gaze still, I turned my curious attention to the other. My breath faltered again, as I saw his wolf behind his eyes. He looked exhausted, like I must be, but he almost had the same disposition as I. His wolf yelled and howled at mine, and I could hear mine calling back, just as loud. The Werewolf was standing up straight, and looked looked-after. He had shoes on, for one thing, and his skin was not pale, as mine was.

His scars looked properly treated, whereas I did what I could do with spells and Muggle remedies. Some of them were so faint, even my wolf's eyes could barely see them. His eyes were somewhat bright, a dark green colour that I logged in my mind. The colour of glass bottles. "Um… hello," he said anxiously, and I flinched at his tone.

He looked so kind.

"I didn't know anyone else used these woods," the Werewolf said, no anxiety left in his tone now that he knew that I wouldn't bite. "In fact-" his face darkened, and took on a degree of confusion. "My parents said no other magical people lived in the village."

I blinked, and opened my mouth experimentally. I was unused to speaking so soon after sunrise. I tended to rest my vocal chords until I had to use them. But, I supposed, I owed these boys the courtesy of at least hearing my voice.

"They're wrong," I began, wincing at the grating sound that was my voice. My throat physically ached at the exaltation, but I pressed on before the strength left me. "You wouldn't know me."

"Did you go to Hogwarts?" The first boy, the clean one, asked me, and my gaze snapped to him. "Uh, sorry, did I offend you?"

The Werewolf laid a careful hand on his arm. "Transformation side affect," he said quietly. "I can control it. Some… aren't so lucky."

"No," I said, my voice now laced with a touch of malice. "But I got the letter, when I was eleven."

I didn't offer explanation more than that, but neither of them seemed satisfied. "Can you at least tell us your name, your age?" The Werewolf asked, somewhat helplessly. "Please, I've never met…"

"Another Werewolf?" I scratched a laugh out of my parched throat. "I have. You don't want to."

"Your name?" The clean one asked me quickly. "Whoever you are."

"I don't have a name," I lied, closing my eyes slowly, and then opening them again, just as gradually. "Call me Wolf. I'm twenty-one. You won't see me again."

When I turned to leave, I was stopped. The Whistle. I snapped around again, staring straight at the Werewolf, whilst the clean one looked puzzled. "I'm Remus Lupin," the Werewolf said to me, holding his calloused, scarred hand out to me. "This is James Potter. We're both fifteen."

I stepped forward, applying caution to my every move. Then, when I was close enough to sniff the pair of them, I took Remus's hand abruptly. "Good to meet you," I said curtly. "Be grateful it wasn't any other Werewolf you met tonight. Don't hunt here again."

"Why? It seems perfectly safe," the idiot – James – asked, his tone cocky. "You're this woods' 'Guardian Angel' or something? You're full of shit and sawdust, you know that?"

Before he could scoff again, or move towards or away from me, my hand was closing around his throat. "Listen here," I hissed, letting my wolf shine through, leaving a little of my human spirit behind in the dust. "I know more than you will ever do James Potter, and trust me, you don't want to meet the others who haunt this forest."

"Others?" Remus cut in, his tone panicked. I let my hand fly down from James Potter's neck, and he staggered backwards, gasping for air. "You mean, there are others?"

I barked another grating laugh. "Haven't been here lately, have you?" I said, with no humour in my tone. "Don't worry about it Remus, just stay away from these woods."

"At least come back home with us," Remus tried, in vain. "My mother and father will surely understand."

I froze. He… his mother and father hadn't abandoned him? He was still their son, their little boy? The shock and confusion must have shown on my face, as Remus's expression darkened. "And no, they're not prejudiced," he insisted.

"I can't," I explained suddenly, whirling around from them robotically. My sweaty hair still clung to my forehead, leaving trickles of sweat down my face. "I'm not someone you want anywhere near you."

I walked away, my bare feet getting ripped and torn by the twigs and rotten leaves on the ground. I no longer felt the need to know the truth anymore, so when I looked back, and could not see the faces of the two boys, I disapparated.