A/N: ok, ok, I know I said hereditary, but I thought that this would be more interesting. Hope that u enjoy it! Sorry about the long wait, I don't have that much access to the Internet! I take what I can get! Tanks for all of ur reviews, the good and the bad! Thanks heaps! And thanks to all the people who PM me as well! I really have great fun talking to u guys, please don't stop! And anyone else! Please, talk to me about anything, I don't mind! I promise that I will always write back!lol, thanks for everything!
Luv Ella xXxDaniel couldn't remember a full moon when he hadn't transformed. He had grown up that way. It was life for him, as it was for his father. It was painful to turn into a werewolf. The wolfsbane potion made it a lot better. He heard stories from Remus about what it had been like before the potion was invented. Daniel shivered at the thought.
But he hadn't taken the potion tonight. He was still circling, in the air, watching as Gryffindor climbed higher and higher up the scoreboard, and yet the game continued. The sun was getting dangerously low in the sky. Marly Jones was circling also, up a little higher than Daniel, her eyes peeled, frustrated, for the evasive golden snitch, was still nowhere to be seen.
Remus was looking for the snitch now, as well. He didn't even notice when the quaffle soared his way, and it fell short, by about a metre, dropping down to where a waiting Ravenclaw hovered, with surprised, grateful arms.
There were cried of alarm from the crowd. Daniel groaned. He had missed a pass, and the crowd was screaming. Whether they were supporting him, or they were Ravenclaws cheering at the sudden burst of luck, Daniel didn't care, or notice. They blended together gracefully; a jumble of sound, and Daniel cringed apologetically at the rest of his team, who put his distraction down to tiredness. They were all exhausted as well. At least none of them would grow fangs and maul the spectators if the game went past dusk. They were probably just worried that the prolonged game would cut into their partying time…
Daniel hadn't even been one year old when he had received the bite. The war was almost over. No one knew that, at the time, of course, but it was coming to an end. Daniel was always bouncing around on a toy broomstick, or changing the colour of his hair, and the shape of his face, so that his parents couldn't find him in the park. He was a right little prankster, and he knew it.
Remus Lupin, meanwhile, was worried. He knew that Greyback still he'd a grudge. Greyback does not forgive. Greyback does not forget. And Fenir Greyback would not willingly pass up the chance to contaminate a small child, should one stray across his path. And Daniel did.
Greyback didn't come for Daniel, originally. He was ordered, by the Dark Lord, to go to Remus Lupin's house, and take him for the other side, once and for all. If he couldn't come, even by force, then he was to be killed. That was the end of the story.
And the story would have ended there, had Remus Lupin been home. The werewolf, instead, blew down the door of the Lupin manor to find Tonks, and young Daniel who was amusing himself by changing his hair colour to the same as his Merlin doll, so that long white locks sprouted out of his tiny head, making him giggle, his fathers wizard hat falling over his eyes.
"Where is he?" Fenir sneered, scanning the room, not noticing the small boy on the floor, covering in snow-white hair.
Tonks had turned a colour much paler than Daniel's hair, and she scooped him up in her arms, and clutched him tight to her chest. She drew out her wand, and pointed it at Fenir's chest. She wasn't an auror for nothing-
Fenir wouldn't have noticed the child, had it not been for the sudden movement. However, now that Daniel was level with him, he could almost taste the flesh, in his gruesome, sneering mouth. This would hurt Remus much more than killing him would.
But Fenir, though he may not have been witty enough to catch Remus when he was at home, was not stupid. If he killed the child then there would be no means of blackmail for the man. He would have to do what he considered the next best thing.
Before Tonks could blink, Fenir had lunged forward, thrown her to the ground, and seized the baby, snapping Tonk's wand with his foot as it fell to the ground. Her head hit the side of a table, and she knew no more.
Daniel gagged on the smell that filled his nostrils. The smell that now haunted his nightmares, and flitted in and out of his life like a permanent bad dream. Fenir breathed in the scent of the child hungrily. Daniel's white hair had gone now. He didn't feel like Merlin anymore. He felt scared, and powerless, and he was much too scared to make a sound, let alone cry. His hair was a dark black, and his eyes a bright red, scared, warning everyone of danger. They beckoned like bright stop signs, do not come any closer…
Fenir paid no attention to the colour of Daniels eyes, or the message that they were sending out. He wouldn't have listened to that message had it been shouted at him through a megaphone.
Tonk's alerted by the screaming of her baby, grabbed her wand, and cast it at Fenirs chest, screaming all her petrified anger into one spell, which shot across the room like a disease. Fenir didn't flinch, just stepped away, slowly, from the blood covered child, and licked his lips.
"No you stupid woman. It doesn't work unless you mean it. You are not a killer. Not even for this…"
Tonk's ran for Daniel, and broke down into sobs. Fenir kicked a great hole in the wall.
"Tell Remus that we'll be coming for him. Or the child will be much worse than one of us…" He spat, and strode out of the house, the door swinging on it's hinges, the child crying silently in Tonk's arms, her heaving body protecting his from the horrors that awaited him…
Daniel couldn't remember any of this. Not vividly. He remembered little things. He could smell the breath of the werewolf, wafting, strong. He could still remember the evil glint in the werewolf's yellow eyes. He could still, just, remember his father's devastation, the tear-filled eyes which were usually so full of pride, when he entered the house, and embraced Tonks.
Apart from that, the only reminder of that night, eleven years ago, was the tiny scares on his neck, left by Fenir. And the monthly transformations that he went through.
The war had ended one month afterwards.
No one knew of this condition. No one, and he wasn't soon going to tell them. He was very ashamed of what he was, even though his father told him not to be. He always said, that if you spend you whole life pretending then you begin to pretend to yourself. He was right, of course. Daniel once tried to use the fact that he was a metamorphmagi to transform so that he didn't look like a wolf in his monthly transformations. It didn't work. It was painful too. He ended up in St Mungo's, for a week.
The sun was still setting, and quickly too. The sky had begun to get an orange tinge around the edges of it's bright blue.
There was a loud cheer from the crowd. The stood up as one, their arms in the air, agreeing and disagreeing with whatever was happening in the crowd. Daniel groaned. For a moment he thought that he had done something stupid again.
It was a second before he realised that the jeers and cheers were not aimed at him. Marly Jones had gone into a spectacular dive, plummeting for the ground. Daniel turned the nose of his broom towards the ground as well. He needed to get out of the air. The game was almost over…
Their was an ear-splitting roar, and tears of joyful relief sprung up into Daniel's eyes. It was over. The game was over.
Excited Gryffindors bubbled over, and flooded the pitch in a score of laughs and squeals, the length of the game only making them more thrilled at the win, hoisting Marly up onto their shoulders, and bouncing around.
Jessie and Jade, however, did not join the throng. They ran onto the field, and, aft5er a minute of scanning the crowd, realised that the person they were desperately seeking out to congratulate was not there. He wasn't even in the stadium anymore…
Daniel ran up to the castle, puffing and panting, a stitch in his side, as he ran up the sloping lawn of the school, and through the front door, making his way desperately to the hospital wing, to take the potion. He was safe now. It was ok.
The girls, meanwhile, their elation at winning the first Quidditch game of the season mingled strangely with their disappointment at Daniel's absence, and they allowed themselves to be gobbled up in the hugging, screaming, bouncing crowd.
The after party was massive, as all Quidditch after parties were. Jessie, Jade and the rest of the first years stared with opened mouths as the older students somehow produced masses of butterbeer, food, and sweets, as if from nowhere. They did, however, try their best to act nonplussed, and fit in with all of those more accustomed to the goings on of the Gryffindor common room. The twins, for example, seemed to be prominent amongst the group of students somehow finding the food and drinks, and they bounded up to the girls with broad grins of their mischievous faces.
"You girls seen young Daniel?" yelled Carter, over all the noise. Jessie shook her head, her forehead creasing.
"No! Have you? We're really worried!" she screamed back, her eyes darting, out of habit, towards the portrait hole, which they couldn't help watch, expecting Dan to come bursting through, full of pride, any moment.
"No! Why would we be asking you two if we had?" Arthur roared back, with a hint of a laugh. Jessie and Jade rolled their eyes.
"Well, when you see him, tell him that we want to see him! He's a legend!" they yelled, and disappeared into the crowd.
"Yeah, if we see him." Jessie muttered. Jade, under all the music and talking, was the only one to hear her.
"What do you mean?" she asked, biting her bottom lip nervously.
"I mean, why would Dan give up the party? He was practically the star of the game! And he didn't even stick around after the snitch was caught. He was gone by the time Marly got to ground after her victory lap! I just hope that he's ok. I can't imagine a reason for him to do all that when he was fine, that's all…" she said, trailing off.
"Mmmm. I know." Jade agreed, scared now.
"I guess I'm just being paranoid…" she said again, not wanting to worry her friend over nothing. "There could be lots of reasons, right?"
Jade nodded in agreement, however, as the party raged and the crowd grew more and more boisterous, the full moon shining brightly, flooding the room with an eerie light from outside, neither Jessie or Jade could come up with any reason at all.
A/N: well, hope that you enjoyed that chapter! Sorry for the slow updates! I'm really trying, and I am still trying to give replies to my reviews! So thanks heaps for reading this far into the story! Please please please tell me what you think of it!
Luv Ella xXx
