Author's note: Enjoy, and please send me feedback. Thanks for reading! and without further ado...
PROLOGUE...
It was in the last hour of the last moon of the second year that the system finally failed.
The captive escaped into the night in that last hour, when vigilance had lifted, when the end was in sight.
For two years, Dumbledore had managed to control that which was uncontrollable, that which was beyond the reaches of reason. For the first time, his faith had betrayed him.
The undeniable truth was that the captive's eventual escape had been inevitable, despite keen foresight and the best of intentions. He had known this. He had known that precaution could not always guard against the macabre dances of fate and chance.
Yet he had hoped. A fool's hope, perhaps. A man's hope, flawed by mortality, distorted by sentiment, blinded by resolve.
How he would berate himself later! Not out of regret for his actions- no, he was still convinced he had acted rightly, though many would disagree - but for obtusely hoping against his own better judgment that nothing of this nature would occur.
And for not being prepared when it did.
He prowled, low to the ground, hunching in darkness, slinking through shadows. An icy wind, unusually cold for a night in June, rippled the ground before him, heavy paws pounding the cold earth, breath coming in frozen puffs of heavy steam. Glowing amber eyes searched the darkness for whispers and concealment.
In his mind, there was no malice. He did not hunt out of greed or out of spite. His mind was blissfully blank, impulse his only guide. Freedom thrilled him and the fingers of moonlight on his back made him shiver with pleasure.
On instinct, he raised himself to the sky. The giant silver orb filled his vision, filled his soul and his mind. It dominated his body completely, beyond thought, beyond reason.
He raised himself higher, and let out a wild, wailing cry in tribute to his master, echoing against the earth itself and the walls of the sky.
He was the fugitive. He was the hunter.
A small dark shape flitted across the rolling open grounds from the castle, silhouetted against the silver-tinged grass of the small knolls and smooth slopes.
Wrapped in a black cloak, the girl could have been no older than twelve, small and pale for her age. She walked quickly and silently, each light step bringing her closer to the shores of the lake. Her breaths were quick and short, her eyes alert, searching dark shores for anything that might intrude on her solitude.
She was not afraid of the shadows or the darkness, the vastness of this empty landscape. She reveled in her own insignificance in proportion to the trees, the sky, and the huge moon that filled it.
It was freeing, to put her life back into perspective. The emptiness of the night reminded her of the boundlessness of her possibilities.
This was why she took these walks alone: without being able to put it into words, the night freed her from herself, something she couldn't do constantly surrounded by people. It was her chance to be introverted without constantly having to be called back from her thoughts through the intrusion of others.
The lake was a placid, elliptical basin, its shining surface betraying nothing of its turbid depths. The frosted blue-grey surface reflected the night sky like a mirror, as if the sky was drowning in watery depths, rippled by the occasional chilled breeze.
The girl sat on the lakes' shore, idly picking up the smooth, spherical pebbles that covered the beach. She absently rolled them in her hands, dropped them through her fingers, wetted them in the lake so that they glistened like jewels. Then, one by one, she would release them in a high arc over the reflective water. They broke the lakes surface, producing minuscule geometric ripples, before drifted down and out of sight.
She lightly hummed a fragment of some half-forgotten melody, simple, wistful and wild in its harmonies. A ballad, she remembered, though the details eluded her memory. The lilting music spoke of love and death, loneliness and regret…war and peace, honor and vice…of exquisite beauty.
Her mouth, blood-red from the cold, curled up slightly as she smiled to herself: those were the stories she loved best. The notes were swiftly wicked from her lips by the wind and carried off, up into the clouds to mix with the particles of rain and then precipitate soft euphonies down onto the world.
Unexpectedly, she heard a cry echo through the vacant landscape coming from the Forest to her left, the reverberating sound jarring with her musings. A few winged shapes lifted off the top of the trees, starting upwards before gliding gracefully out of sight. The cry echoed off the water and the stone walls of the castle.
It was not the call of some creature of conscience. No, it was the call of something wild and untamed, something primitive. She was unnerved, suddenly conscious of the cold, of the steely quality of the water before her.
Mostly, however, she was conscious of the sepulchral silence of that had fallen over the entire landscape. She shivered and shrugged her shoulders in an attempt to hunch deeper into the folds of her cloak while shaking off the feeling of apprehension that was creeping up her spine.
The silence stretched on as she crouched, immobile, straining her senses, reaching out through the darkness for some form of desperate certainty.
But as each moment languished on, doubt began to eat away at her certainty and her guard began to slip. Her reason began to overpower her initial foreboding, arguing against her alarm. She had nearly convinced herself of her own absurdity and paranoia.
Slowly, the tension in her body began to relax and her thoughts to wander. With the forgetfulness of an innocent mind, she quickly forgot her momentary fear.
But then she heard it. Soft, but distinct: the muffled thud of heavy steps coming from the underbrush behind her. Instinctively, she froze, only conscious of her heart knocking against her ribs.
She could feel eyes on her back, boring holes through her. Her breath caught, and she was sure whatever it was that was following her could smell the fear that was emanating from her entire body.
Still, she did not move, and for a long stretch of time after, time that was frozen as still as the night. Soon, the silence began to play with her mind again: was it still there, behind her? If yes, why hadn't it emerged yet? Had she imagined it again, foolishly jumping at every little stir?
Curiosity was also beginning to come into play, the initial shock of fear having abated slightly. Unconsciously, she flicked her eyes over her shoulder, causing her head to move at the same time as a gust of wind caught her hood and blew it off.
Bright red hair exploded from under the muted drapery, swirling and fanning in the wind. Within the same instant, she started up in fear and something dark propelled itself on her from the behind.
Snarls and growls met desperate screams. In the second it took for both figures to tumble backwards, claws and teeth shredded heavy cloth, scratching and pulling, only to be repelled by frantic kicks and outflung arms and hands, reaching desperately for anything; reaching for salvation and finding none.
But in the moment that they landed, the beast on top of the girl, emerald green eyes met mad, amber colored ones. They locked, and for a fraction of a second there was a pause.
And in the back of the amber eyes, the girl saw something flickering there she didn't understand. She had seen it before, but not here, not like this…this was the wrong context, it couldn't possibly be…
"Remus?"
The word escaped her lips and hung in the silence. A second later, there was a bloody gash across her left cheek, left by an enormous claw and a vicious snarl told her the wait was over.
The beast reared at the same time as her fingers closed on a stone. She struck its' head with the stone as a heavy paw came down on her own.
In themoment before the second darkness, she saw the sun break over the horizon.
The small unconscious bodies of Lily Evans and Remus Lupin were found by the lakeshore an hour later. One look told Dumbledore everything he needed to know.
Author's note: more to come, hopefully soon but it may take awhile. Please keep checking for an update. Also, please let me know what you thought, did it make sense, was it engaging etc.? I hope to hear from you soon!