A/N — Written for QL — write a tragic story about Next-Gen characters — with the optional prompts [word] Masquerade, [style] Memoire, and [quote] 'It's easy to make a decision if you already know what the outcome will be.' Armin, Attack on Titan.

And I'd like to thank Dina for beta'ing this :)

She picked up the old scroll, dust sticking to her fingers and cobwebs trailing from the roll of parchment to the table. There was a scuttling outside the door, like claws on stone, but she pushed her worry to the back of her mind; it was probably just rats. It didn't help to calm her racing heart, but she pulled the orange strip of fabric tied around the scroll, dropping the frayed material to the floor.

The parchment unfurled slightly, but it was obvious that it hadn't been touched in a very long time. She unrolled it fully, revealing rows of neat script, and began to read:

Date: 08/06/2034

This being the unofficial account of events, I am free recount everything as I remember, regardless of its relevance. And so, for accuracy's sake, I will be starting at the very beginning, before these experiments were even conceived.

My name is Edward Remus Lupin, and my father was a werewolf.

Naturally, this led to my fascination with the creatures; my hopes to find a way to, if not cure, at least alleviate their suffering.

It was the summer after my last year at Hogwarts when I first met Mike Kusanovski and Orla Deevy, two like-minded individuals who, whilst not sharing my personal connection with the subject, certainly shared my passion. I learnt a lot from those two in the following years, but it was Erica Johnston who connected us, who gave us a purpose, a goal.

Before Johnston, we had mostly been communicating via letter, with the occasional fire call if time permitted. But Johnston, with her theories and plans, contacted each of us separately — we were all pioneers in our field; it made sense for us to officially work together.

She founded Lupus ad Remedium and brought us all into her study, so that together we might one day see a society where lycanthropy was entirely a thing of the past. Of course, it would take some time, and more effort than any of us had needed to give to a project before, but with such a dedicated team that was not an issue.

And, for a while, things were good. We had developed a vaccine that, whilst it didn't reverse the effects entirely, softened the transformation.

Deevy believed that, by upping the dosage, we could create a complete cure, and she had the full support of the team. Increasing the dosage would surely increase its effects, and we were already so close to the cure! The creatures we had tested on retained some of their human features upon transformation; a more upright stance, less pronounced jaw. The only drawback was that it rendered the effects of the Wolfsbane potion entirely useless, but that had seemed like such a trivial matter when the cure was in sight.

We spent months perfecting the newest formula, ensuring that it was safe for consumption, but when the time came, permission was denied. The Ministry decided that our funds were better spent elsewhere, despite the fact that the project had become mostly self-funded over the last few years, and withdrew their mediocre support. That in itself wasn't a problem, but it was the consequences of not having the Ministry name behind us that really put a halt to our plans.

We could no longer offer our remedy in St Mungo's; werewolves had to seek us out, and without the Ministry's support we no longer seemed like a legitimate operation. We were out of options.

Which led to Kusanovski's decision.

No one had heard from him for a few days, which in itself wasn't unusual — he had never been one for talking. When he returned, he was pale and shaking, his skin clammy and eyes bloodshot.

I can vividly remember him saying: "I'll take the cure," simply because of the silence that followed. Not a shocked or worried silence, not even a silence brought about by fear. Johnston wordlessly handed him the latest version of the formula, the liquid a sludge grey colour that definitely did not look to be something you would want in your body.

"You need to take the dosage the week before the full moon," broke the silence, but I cannot recall if it had been Johnston or Deevy who had spoken. Kusanovski simply nodded, placing the small bottle in his desk drawer.

The weeks leading up to that moment are vague in my memory; very little of note happened, and we were all highly anticipating the latest test, during which we all took separate notes. Here, I will only be including my own, as this documentation is more for my own personal use, but all four can be found in the official Lupus ad Remedium records.

Kusanovski sat still, having agreed to let Deevy administer the final dose just hours before the full moon was due to rise.

"It's unlikely this will be a complete cure," she said, gently extracting the needle from him arm. He nodded. "But, because of this, we'll reach it much quicker." He nodded again, and quietly said:

"I know, Orla. We've been working on this together." She nodded, eyes flicking away from him.

"Perhaps," Johnston said quietly, "we should wait outside." We followed her out, leaving Kusanovski alone in the room — an old bunker that now had added safety measures for us to carry out our experiments in.

His change occurred slowly — much slower than any of the previous subjects — but, due to the lack of Wolfsbane, it was clear that he felt very broken and re-aligned bone. We watched impassively through the one-way glass, treating him as any other test subject.

The change affected him physically even less than it had the previous subject: his claws were less obvious, looking more like unkempt nails, and his eyes were entirely his own. One might almost suspect there was human intelligence behind them, but that was not the case. He had obviously retained some of his memories, for he threw himself against the glass as if he knew we were on the other side, but he did so with a singleminded doggedness — constantly repeating moves he knew did not work — which belied his currently lesser intelligence.

He transformed back before the new day could break, making it the shortest transformation we had yet to see. It was promising, proving that there were some benefits to our newest formula, but it wasn't concrete proof that this would lead to a cure. We would need to test it for the next few months, hopefully garnering similar results, and on other patients — though that seemed unlikely at this point.

Deevy rushed to him as soon as Johnston gave the all-clear, checking him over for injuries. His entire right side was a mass of already forming bruises, some of the skin even having torn from the impact of him hitting the glass, but otherwise he had seemed okay.

I had left then, along with Johnston, to compile my report; the sun had risen, and so the experiment was over, but a muffled scream had us rushing back over to the bunker.

Through the glass, we could see Kusanovski crouching over Deevy, who was holding herself strangely. I stepped forward, intending to enter the bunker to see what was wrong, but Johnston held me back with a small hand placed to my bicep and a soft shake of her head. Deevy's sobbing could be heard through the thick glass, her lips moving in words that we could not hear.

Kusanovski turned to face us then, and we could see the blood covering his lower jaw, dripping from his lips and chin and trailing down his still bare chest. He grinned at us, a wide smile with too much teeth, something entirely feral.

"It didn't work," Johnston muttered, repeating the three words to herself. She showed no concern for either of the people who she had spent nearly a decade working with, ignoring the wolf masquerading as the man we had once known and the softly spoken woman who was entirely at his mercy. "We're going to have to start again," she said, turning to face me. "From scratch."

I shook my head and did the only thing I could: I opened the door. It's easy to make a decision if you already know what the outcome will be, and I knew that we could not let these experiments continue further. Not if something like this could potentially happen again.

We know nothing of this mutated branch of lycanthropy, and this disease of our own making should not be allowed to spread further than this building, so if you are reading this, I can only give you one piece of advice:

Run.

.oOo.

She dropped the scroll; the scratching could still be heard, but … surely it was just rats? It wasn't loud enough to be these creatures. A howl permeated the air, three others quickly joining in a chorus.