School: Ilvermorny Year 4

Theme: Write about the lengths someone would go to to achieve their goals.

Special Rule: You must set your story in a single location. The location has to be small and specific (eg. Hogwarts wouldn't count, but a single classroom would).

Main prompt: [Word] poison

Additional prompt: [Physical appearance] A jagged scar

WC: 1509

"Here, boy." Fenrir's voice cuts easily across the small clearing, amplified by his sharp grin to hook onto his target. "You lost?"

The young man starts, his cheeks flushing the same brilliant red as the leaves that have cascaded over the packed earth all morning. He seems fragile, the delicate bones in his wrists threatening to break through the skin where his jumper fails to cover them, the fabric riding up with every twitch and fidget. His gaze hadn't settled on any one thing until Fenrir called to him, skimming over the developing bonfire and peering into the tree line as if trying to count the shadows that lurk there.

Now, he turns towards Fenrir, confusion and apprehension colouring the air around him, and tips his head in a silent question. His eyes blaze golden and Fenrir smiles.

"Come here. It'll get you out of the way."

The man flushes again, the colour travelling to his ears and setting them ablaze, but he walks towards Fenrir without a moment's hesitation. Someone had trained him well, a school, maybe? Trying to force himself into a shape that would never grow easier with the slow passage of time? Burdened under the yoke of parents who wanted him to deny who he is? Beneath the scent of the dying wood and the rich earth it feeds, the man smells like the familiar poison of Wolfsbane, dark like the underbrush that surrounds them. It drifts behind him like a cloak, stirring the leaves underfoot as much as his careful passage through them.

Fenrir watches him, not moving from his chosen position. It isn't a throne the kings of old would lounge in, but it is a slight rise, the ground stretching up to halo the dying tree he is resting against. The bark is rough against his back, pressing against every bone and corded muscle whenever he shifts, but it is a reminder and a sentinel. The incline is almost hidden until it is stepped upon, and the man stumbles as he makes his way to Fenrir, ducking his head before catching himself and raising his gaze to look Fenrir in the eye.

He doesn't last long before his gaze darts away, returning to circle the gathering crowd next to them, but it is enough. A jagged scar mars the man's face, pink where the rest were pale and faded, blending into the tapestry of the toil the change enacted on all of them. It stretches from just beneath his nose before glancing along the curve of his cheek and curling into his hairline. Fenrir doesn't need to run his fingers along it to know the feeling of it beneath the roughed skin, but he lets his gaze drift along its twisting path. The man shifts, a branch cracking beneath his heel and he jumps, his gaze flying to the shadowed undergrowth before he settles once more.

He doesn't look like a killer, but he must be.

Fenrir has that same scar, fired at him by a desperate mother as he sunk his teeth into her child, making her his own. It had stayed even when he had shifted back, his memories blurred and the iron tang covering his teeth and tongue. The resulting infection had left the scar sunken and distinct and Fenrir confined to his den beneath the roots of the tree he is leaning against, unsure if the earth would be his saviour or his tomb. They returned here every full moon with their stragglers and their wide-eyed hopefuls, their freshly bitten children and their wary newcomers.

The man coughs, his shoulders jerking with the movement, but his gaze doesn't stray back to Fenrir yet, staring out across the clearing.

It will be deserted by the morning with the only reflection of their presence here being the churned dirt and the ashen scar. In the spring, it will bloom with the life they have fed with their sacrifices, but here, amongst the dark winter clouds and biting winds, it is as unforgiving as they must be.

A pup, one of the new acquisitions, her hair tangled as the brush surrounding them and her feet bare and dirt-soaked, darts amongst the crowd, laughing. The man tenses, his breath catching in his throat, and he leans forwards as if he is going to run.

"One of the Ministry men tried to pick her up before we had returned to collect her," Fenrir says, seeing the man catch himself, fold himself back into an unassuming shape. If he had been wearing robes, he would have pulled them closer, but he merely tightens his pack on his pack.

"What happened?" The man's voice is quiet, a whisper through the trees around them rather than the low howl Fenrir can imagine.

"She bit him. It is best when they can start early."

The man swallows, presses his free hand against his scar, his nails indenting half-moons above it. His sleeve slides down, catching a fragment of a decaying leaf, browned and shrivelled, and Fenrir's thoughts turn back to the woods around them.

Staying in the clearing is a risk in the same way living is a risk.

One location means one target. It means weighing the lives of the pack Fenrir has already gathered against the potential might of an attack in order to bolster their numbers.

Chaining them to the Dark Lord is a necessity, even as Fenrir's stomach twists at the shame of it all, the emotion threatening to taint his resolve. Their target wasn't one Fenrir would have chosen, too exposed with a well-known hub for wizards in its heart. They would spill from it onto the streets, their laughter a bane to his ears. They thought they were better than them and they spread their poison wherever they went. But the Dark Lord had chosen it for a reason Fenrir didn't need to know.

Following his orders is a risk, but it is one Fenrir will take.

A breeze hisses through the camp, stirring the leaves and the man turns to watch them, a shiver rolling through him. It pulls him closer to Fenrir, subconsciously seeking warmth, finally listening to the instincts that the poison he had willingly drank for so long had muffled into dying screams. The scar across his cheek gleams a sharp silver line amongst the red stain of his nerves, a trail cutting through the heaping piles of dying leaves.

"What would you do to save the ones you care about?" It is a carefully crafted question, a snare laid out in the open rather than concealed in the shadows beneath a tree and the man takes it.

"Anything." He swallows, his throat clicking with the motion. He tugs on the edges of his sleeves, trying to pull them down further, and Fenrir watches him, takes in every movement.

His first impression had been correct that the man was hesitant, stretched too thin by his growth like a plant deprived of sunlight. His children were pure and wild, unmarred by the poison this man had drank for so long, and they were loyal. They would follow his orders because they were right, because it needed to be done.

Every death, every mauling, every injury and every child bitten and stolen away from the wizards who work against the werewolves is necessary.

They need to survive and thrive in a world they create.

"So, you will join us in the attack tonight?"

The man twitches, a curious war of emotions flickering over his face as his gaze darts back around the clearing. Amongst the stirred leaves that had settled into piles, the pale gleam of bone peaks through the earth, sacrifices and payments made for Fenrir's cause.

Fenrir grins, his snare tightening further around the man's leg. "I'll be watching you, Pup."

He steps forward, away from the decaying bark throne and down into his court, the leaves crunching beneath his feet, mixing with the shards of the bone.

"My name is Remus," the man calls. Fenrir turns to look up at him, seeing the last refuge of sunlight catch on the scar that marks him as a monster. He suits the wildness of the clearing, caught between the dense undergrowth and the stretching limbs of the dying tree like a fly in a gossamer web.

"Remus," Fenrir echoes, tasting iron on his tongue. "Welcome to my pack."

If Remus is a spy and reveals their plans, they will know and he will die just as they would. If he is a spy and he stays quiet, his hands will be as bloodied as theirs and, when the poison of their words and their potions wears off, he will rejoin their pack as he was meant to.

Fenrir grins and sees the action mirrored on countless other faces.

Tonight, they would hunt and feast and maim and kill because it is the right thing to do.

Tonight, they would do what they had to do, whatever the cost, and Remus would make his own sacrifices to join them.