I forgot to add the disclaimer: yada, yada, yada… it's obvious these are not my dudes and dudettes (characters) – I AM posting on fanficdotnet! but credit goes where credit is due: Warner and Rowling. Good stuff.

THE QUIBBLER

Love Bites by G.M Weasley

It has been mentioned previously in the Quibbler about the dangers of werewolves in our wizarding community - but here is a touching story that will make you think twice about the dangers commonly involved.

That's what Nymphadora Lupin did (daughter of Andromeda and Ted Tonks). She fought courageously in the Order of the Phoenix with her werewolf husband - RJ Lupin and then again another trying battle within the ministry over werewolf marriage rights.

It didn't end there - despite a happy and fulfilling one-year marriage she still felt she was missing a certain connection to her beloved and one she was determined to rectify. For a long time (certainly since she joined the Order) she had watched Remus Lupin suffer at the hand of a curse given to him at a young age by one of Voldermorts' highest supporters – Fenir Greyback – a name in which inspires fear in any that have heard of the horror he once caused (to date 58 counted mauling over 20 years).

Month after month of feeling his loneliness at being eternally segregated from other wizards and herself while he struggled to regain normalcy after transforming and just before having to do it all over again in a few short weeks.

Struggling with this, Nymphadora became increasingly closer and closer to her husband in werewolf state. Physically a dangerous move but she wanted to see the human in the wolf that she loved so much.

The reaction when he found out later she'd been taking this risk (of breaking the invisible boundaries on the room on the bottom floor of their house which he transformed in) was complete distress that she would willingly disregard the serious promises they had made to each other before they were together (he made her swear that she would keep herself from danger at all times, even if it meant leaving him).

However, what Nymphadora was about to embark upon next was nothing compared to what horrors her risky behavior could have caused previously, to their relationship and to her own safety. No, she was going to go that one step further and dive right in, in order to purposely receive her husband's bite so the next full moon and then the next, and the next... she would not have to miss out on feeling his pain and being beside him every step of the way.

She knew he would not approve but had her mind set on making this momentous step towards their relationship anyhow, knowing full well she might miss out on a chance of one day conceiving a normal family with very little contamination some day in the future.

As a metamorphagous she assumed she would be a little more comfortable with the changes made to her body during transformation the following full moon.

Not desiring to be savaged (as a mere bite would do) she closed her eyes and stuck her arm through the boundary with much less caution as she had done before – vowing not to pull away this time around. Instantly she felt the enormous strength he exhibited pulling at her to get every inch of flesh she left exposed but even still she knew it was worth it to be a friend instead of foe to Remus once a month. Casting the boundaries back up on the room, she barely scrambled away before passing out from the pain.

When she awoke in St Mungo's, the husband she had left behind the night before was sitting beside her and indeed showing a similar type of fury to the one she had last remembered of him.

"Don't you know what you've done?" He had shouted at her, more than just a little upset now at her recklessness – she may have just thrown away her job (as an Auror) and their future on (what he thought was) one stupid, impetuous whim.

After a day of topical applications to her wounds, he decided to let the young witch experience the brunt of what damage her choice would make to her, what it would cost her socially and amongst her family in her pureblood line.

Sure enough, she was strong enough to get through the month, and many friends or hers and Remus' remained true. She relied on them for the comfort that him, her own husband had refused to offer.

Despite this – they had had their rough times before previously and Nymphadora knew he had not given up on her then. Sure enough on the afternoon before the full moon Remus came back...

To read more turn to page 42.