Coming out of the forest, it wasn't immediately obvious where the 'town' of werewolves was. The main structure of the town was surrounded by so many trees that one had to know it was there before they picked it out. Even then, they would be excused in not giving it much thought. It was built like a crude two-story barn that wasn't noteworthy even in the daylight. Well, except the word 'clubhouse' painted across the front of it. The Alpha apparently thought it would be more welcoming that way.
It just made Teddy feel like an adolescent every time he came to sleep here. It also exaggerated the strange dissonance of having so many middle-aged people gathering there to eat like they were back in Hogwarts.
The Alpha ignored them clubhouse and instead led them around to the footpath behind it, barely noticeable in the dark. The werewolves had chosen to build their homes here every half-kilometer or so. The farther the Aurors walked into the forest, the more tense the group became. Teddy was probably the only one who picked out the werewolf homes hidden among the trees. The rest nervously glanced in the forest, probably wondering where the Alpha was leading them.
They had passed Jane and her husband's house several minutes ago. There was only one more home where a female lived this far back. So Teddy knew whose house they would stop at. That didn't stop cold, heavy dread from coating his insides when they stopped at Lilith's family cottage. Couldn't she have gotten off just this once? They had been assigned a god that was unfeeling and cruel, or maybe it was just the universe that hated them. Why did it have to take Lilith away?
He wanted to scream and pound on something until his hands were bloody and his mind was oblivion. But he couldn't. Not now. Due to another twist of those same unfeeling fates, he couldn't show anything without risking his colleagues realizing what he was. He held his breath until a sheen of numbness coated over his anger.
Lilith's cottage was small like the others, only having ever meant to house her and her parents. The light bricks they had used barely peeked out through the massive amounts of ivy that had taken over the front of the house. Lilith had only ever bothered to cut it back from the large rectangle windows. The ivy choked chimney, usually puffing smoke, was dead. The whole house was dead, not a single cheery light to push back the darkness.
