Chapter Twenty Five

A/N: No reviewers.

Charlotte did not know how long she sat at that tree trunk, running her harsh words through her mind over and over again. The moon climbed slowly in the sky, the sky going from navy to inky black with only dots of white light to break up the darkness. Clouds were beginning to gather above her, covering the moon with a blanket of grey and threatening to break open into rain. If ever she had believed in pathetic fallacy, it was now.

No one had come looking for her, though that did not come as much of a surprise. Remus was a peacekeeper among the group, the teenagers did not really know her, and as for Sirius, it would not shock the girl if he never came looking for her again.

Eventually, her legs stuck with needles, she stood, almost falling back down to the tree stump again. Her arms were alive with goosebumps, despite the thick sleeves of her woolen jumper. 'I must have been out here for ages.' she thought.

The wind was picking up now, howling through the branches and whipping her dark curls around her face. The once-peaceful silence of the forest was gone now, and as the trees creaked around her, Charlotte's mind was flooded with the dozens of tales passed down through the school, of the monsters that lurked in the darkness. All of a sudden, it became clear to her why this forest was forbidden.

"It's just the wind." she whispered to herself, pulling her jumper a little closer around her. The empty words were just enough to calm her for a few minutes, to reassure her that all the bumps in the dark were just figments of her imagination. But then she heard a sound so vivid, she could not believe it was not real.

A howl.

Sometimes in bed at night, she would hear the howls of the small pack of wolf cubs that lived on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. They sounded almost like dogs in their cries, pitiful but not dangerous. This howl was different. It sounded almost like a man's scream.

Unsure what else to do, Charlotte continued on the path back to the Whomping Willow. She had heard plenty of tales about the Forbidden Forest, after all, enough to know there was far worse than wolves lurking further in.

At least, she had thought it was the path back to the Willow, but the twenty minutes she spent wandering, seeing nothing but trees, seemed to imply otherwise. Charlotte breathed heavily, her breath misting in the cold air in front of her. She was lost and alone, in one of the most dangerous places in the Wizarding World. Surely this could not get any worse.

And then she saw it, out of the corner of her eye. The creature's fur was a dusty brown, just a little too light to blend in with the forest floor. It was pacing slowly forwards, almost dejectedly, with a hint of a limp in one of their front paws. If she had not known any better, she might have thought it was one of those wolf cubs. But then the creature looked over at her, its eyes glowing green, she knew that this was no ordinary wolf.

It took a few moments for the werewolf to realise she stood in front of him, but when it did, it let out a piercing howl. Charlotte dove behind a nearby tree, taking a moment to lean against the trunk and calm her racing heart, before she began to run.

She knew very little about werewolves, being only a first year, and she could not help but wish this incident had happened a couple more years into her schooling. That way, she might have known a little more than merely impaling the beast with silver bullets, which she neither owned nor had any idea where she could obtain them. For now, running would have to do.

The forest was treacherous underfoot, the ground wet with recent rain and small branches seeming to creep along the undergrowth from each tree she passed. The path between the trees itself was a maze, and she could hear the wolf running behind her. An eleven-year-old girl could never outrun a wolf. It was going to catch her.

Charlotte threw a glance over her shoulder, trying to gauge the beast's distance from her, at what seemed to be just the wrong moment. She felt her foot catch on the branch, and experienced the briefest sensation of dread before she went tumbling to the ground, rolling a few feet across the undergrowth before she came to a stop. Her whole body was aching, a cut on her ankle bleeding fast from where the skin had torn on the branch, but they seemed like minor ailments, given she was being approached by a werewolf she had no more chance of escaping.

Her whole body seeming to tremble, Charlotte rolled over, deciding to face her death instead of waiting blindly for the wolf to strike. It had slowed now, no need to run now that its prey was brought down, and paced towards her at the speed of the human form it would return to when the moon fell. 'I wonder if he'll remember me,' Charlotte thought idly. 'I wonder if he'll ever know what he did.'

The wolf seemed to be moving even more slowly now, it's green eyes studying her as she lay there, trembling. Charlotte had never known a werewolf to be so observant before killing their prey; she had thought they were merely slaves to instinct, with no control over themselves at all. For a moment, she wondered if that was the man inside, balking at killing a child. Oh, how she wished that the human side could win.

Soon, the wolf returned to its task, and began to bound towards her, but it had barely taken a couple of steps before another beast appeared out of nowhere. This one was smaller, a dog, with dark shaggy fur and a fearsome growl. But there was no animal nature in his eyes, unlike the wolf, they were same as they always had been, the same smoky grey as her own.

"Dad." she whispered, her jaw going slack with realisation. Her father was an Animagus- of course, she had heard that somewhere, that he and his friends had taken on animal forms for fun during their time at Hogwarts, Sirius a dog, James a stag, Pettigrew a rat and Remus…

Suddenly, the girl's eyes began to fill with tears. The dusty brown fur, the green eyes, the moment's pause before instinct took over because he did not want to hurt the girl he had raised.

Remus was the wolf.

A/N: I was quite excited to do the werewolf scene, so I hope it turned out okay! Please review!