Writing Date: 2018-02-27
Author: Mari92
Words: 2318.
Wolfgang: The begining
Such a wonderful night, with a sky so clear that you could see the stars upon the velvet background. Upon one such night, a young lone man walked steadily across the street walks, seemingly with no destination in mind. He seemed to be the only one out at this late hour of the day and every so often the light from the full moon would brighten the surroundings of the suburban neighbourhood of Privet Drive, Surrey.
On the same street laid the house that had confined him from the rest of the world for many years, Nr 4 Privet Drive, which also housed his mother's relatives the Dursley family. It wasn't a home, at least not to the young man who walked away from it. It had gone from a place in which his life almost went through to become true serfdom and into the holding cell of a prison today. A holding cell in which his friends and teachers could ditch him and never really keep in contact with.
A home isn't just a house with a bed to sleep in during the night. A home should be warm and full of life, something which the young man sadly lacked at the moment. However, that didn't seem to be what was bothering him anyway or maybe the thought had never occurred to him, after all the young man was just fourteen soon to be fifteen years old. Not all teenagers think about such philosophical thoughts of what a home should or should not be.
The silence and calm during this summer night felt incredibly calming and not so frightful as other nights are insinuated to be. The young man who had restlessly walked in circles through the neighbourhood, suddenly started to change the direction and at this time his confidant steps gave the feeling that he had found a particular target destination. A park, the only park in Little Whining really, but who would argue the semantics? The young man's eyes searched and there it was, the swings on the playground. At first, he just stood in front of them not moving, then he turned around and sat down on the very old swing made out of a tire.
It had been a long time since the young man visited this playground. A very long time, so long ago that he could barely remember the last time he visited and that wasn't a very happy memory. The young man snorted slightly with a small smirk when that thought hit him. He honestly didn't have a lot of good memories as most of them were tainted with fear, self-disgust or bitter cynicism. When was the last time he laughed? Not one of those fake laughs he did in order to calm those around him, but one in which he laughed from the heart?
The young man couldn't remember. There was so much in his life he couldn't remember and no it probably wasn't his depression ghosting through his mind. Although he had every right to be depressed, his first love, or the love of his life as he had roared at Hermione during the day before leaving Hogwarts, had recently died in front of his eyes. No one, no one would know how that felt and at the same time be faced with the knowledge that his love would probably be alive and well if he hadn't made that suggestion!
Why?! Why had he made that suggestion that they would both grab the cup of the tournament? He had known that something would happen, felt it with an intuition of danger that living in Hogwarts had created within him and he had ignored it. He would never ignore a "bad feeling" again. But most of all… he whished that he had never met Cedric. If he had never met Cedric, then maybe Cedric would still be alive. Yet, if he had never met Cedric he would never have known what a relationship could be or what love felt like.
The young man sitting there upon the old swing, cried as memories of Cedric flushed like pictures behind his closed eyes. Memories of talking, flirting, hiding and kissing, playing quidditch together. All of them were precious to him and they hurt all the more because Cedric is gone. He will never know what it would be like sleeping in the martial bed together. He would never know of their future together. He would never feel that touch or get that hug from Cedric again.
Tears flowed down like a river and it took the young man everything he had to hold his cries inside the body and not make a single sound of his grief. He didn't make a sound even when his body started to vibrate of emotion, he just sat there and cried silently in the summer night.
By now, many of you should have guessed it right? This young man was no one else but the young Harry Potter, a wizard and human. Who said men can't feel emotions? They do, they just hide it better than most women would credit them for.
Harry and Cedric's relationship were deeper than anyone else knew... On the surface, casual friends who met in the library, perhaps discussing the death-defying tournament they were both involved in. Underneath all that, they met in secret by the lake at midnight, telling each other about themselves. They talked about friends, likes and dislikes, their dreams for the future and every other subject under the moon which now gleamed so brightly above him.
Unlike Ron or Hermione, Cedric never mentioned Voldemort, his parents or his status as the Boy-Who-Lived. That was why he cherished Cedric so much, because he treated Harry as Harry and nothing else. This was also the reason that their relationship grew until it was more than only friendship. Slowly as time passed by, instead of having conversations they began to kiss and share heated glances across the corridors.
They knew if they had trouble the other would help, but they still held a small fear of either of them dying. They had gone through dragons and mermaids so far and they didn't know what they would do if the other one died in the last task. Cedric promised that after the tournament was over, that they would officially be a pair and that he would celebrate their victory in a bed for the first time.
However, Cedric died that night and Harry survived.
Again. Harry was alone again and this time he didn't believe that he could climb out of the emotional pit of despair on his own. He needed help, this at least was clear to him. However, who to ask? Is there even one single person in this world he could honestly go to in his time of need?
Harry was alone, as he always had been and his grief didn't mind to remind of this fact constantly from the moment he left the Hogwarts train. His relatives were unreliable, not to mention unfriendly if not outright hostile towards him. His friends, well when have they ever actually done something for him? Sure, they do exchange letters over the summer holidays. But have they ever really visited of their own accord? It's true that he had discouraged them from doing so, he didn't want them to see the truth of how his life with his relatives were. Perhaps it's true what they say, "pride goes before fall" and it might just be his useless pride that kept him from being the one reaching out to his friends, then again, they are just kids like himself. What could they realistically help him with, if we stick to the matter at hand?
Absolutely nothing. The surrounding adults would simply ignore or even go so far as diminishing the issue, and they would do that because they didn't want to handle the "problem". The "problem" being he himself, a child needing a helping hand and slight guidance to see the road ahead. At the same time, Harry might not be receptive for that kind of parental help anymore. Trust is a fragile thing and after so many disappointments trying to trust the adults in his life, it was no wonder he started to become suspicious of others.
Crying helped to let the bottled emotions out. Still the grief he felt inside didn't let up and if Harry was honest with himself it probably wouldn't go away that easily, because nothing really did. He was slowly calming down from his momentary hysteria and breathed deep breaths to further expel the bad air in his lungs, even though it felt like a great lump of ugliness in his stomach. His face lifted from the ground and he looked up into the night sky. Something about watching the stars brought a sense of wonder and the light from the full moon illuminating the park in a rather strange magical way.
''Full moon, huh...'' He murmured quietly to himself. He wondered if Remus was alright and maybe Sirius was with him. The thought made him wince slightly. Sirius, his godfather and the best friend of his father's, didn't want him. Or at least that was what Harry thought, because Sirius never mentioned to Harry about if they would live together again since that time Harry helped Sirius escape the wizarding authorities. Sirius was just another adult that never lived up to his promises.
"It's beautiful." Harry admired the round shape of the moon and childishly wondered if there actually was a man on the moon making cheese. After all wizards, vampires, werewolves and many other fantastical creatures exist, so why wouldn't there be a man on the moon? Everything seemed to be possible in that moment in time. Alas, the trance broke with the sound of a growling noise.
Harry straightened up and listened with rapt attention. What was that?!
That was the last thought Harry had before his neck throbbed with pain and everything turned dark.
oOo
In the middle of the night, a strange scene unfolded and if anyone had been awake to behold it they would not believe their eyes. A young man laid unconscious in the sand with a small bloody wound, located at his neck which was bleeding profusely, with the indentions from small teeth which belonged to the small creature on top of the young man's back.
The small creature looked eerily like a dog with its snout, ears, eyes and teeth, yet it also looked like a humanoid creature too in its body structure. A werewolf, is probably the conclusion an observer might have made if they were there.
The small werewolf started to push and poke the young man beneath it. The young man remained unconscious. The small werewolf's head tilted slightly sideways as if it wasn't sure about what it should do with its catch. After a few moments, the small werewolf seems have come to a decision and starts to drag the body slowly across the playground and through the underbrush. Slowly and carefully until the electric lights disappeared from view.
Suddenly a shadow appeared in front of the small werewolf and then another shadow after another showed up. They were bigger and stronger than the small werewolf, but the small werewolf wasn't afraid because they were all its packmates. The biggest one growled in a menacing way and the smaller one, who still held the body of the young man, yipped back cheerfully and were oblivious to what the biggest one thought of his decision of bringing the young man with him. Apparently the biggest one saw that and seemed to helplessly watch as the small werewolf continued to pull the body of the young man forward.
The biggest werewolf growled again and then shooed the smaller werewolf away before tugging the even bigger body of the young man over one of his shoulder, then they all started to run quickly. They didn't want to stay in case other predators began to hunt after the fresh bloody scent.
They ran for quite some time, dawn was almost upon them and they needed to reach their hideout before then. It would be harder to transport the young man if they transformed so they raced against time. Would they or would they not reach their safe place?
Soon a lonely three-storied brick house came into their view, the house being on a small plateau overlooking what seemed to be an abandoned neighbourhood and surrounded by forests in all directions. The road being of gravel, made one suspect that this is a place that society forgot and abandoned quite some time ago. No to mention the overall sight of degrading houses, with walls of rotting wood and some stone foundations here and there by the gravel road. Not that the young pack of werewolves cared for those kind of details, after all this place provided them with exactly what they needed. In this case, a roof and a bed for the night and as no one from civilization ever visited, it also provided security for who and what they were.
Just about when the dawn light passed the horizon, the young pack entered the three-storied brickhouse on the plateau and placed their "catch" in one of the rooms, before they went into their own rooms to doze of the last of their transformation and maybe get some sleep before getting up to face the day ahead. None of them noticing that the young man had also transformed, although not quite like them. The young man's body became taller and slightly more muscular and his hair became slightly longer, however this was all the outside physical changes. Who knows what kind of changes that went on inside during that dawn?
A dawn of transformation and maybe a dawn of new beginnings…