The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Acknowledgements: None. Much as I appreciate my betas, I'm simply too slow for them. It's not polite to leave them hanging for a year between chapters. So, SlytherinKisses, Epoch Everlasting, Gina Hildebrand and Hyseion - so long and thanks for all the red marks. I hope my readers will from now on forgive me for the occasional typo.

Chapter four -
You Can't Go Home Again

Through early morning fog I see
visions of the things to be
the pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see...
Tha
t suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please

JOHNNY MANDEL, 'Suicide is Painless'


He did not move. There was no point in going anywhere anyway.
He just lay where he had fallen asleep, lazily running his hand over the pebbles of the river bank, appreciating the realness of their texture against his chafed palms.
A merciful fate had erased the events of the last hours from his conscience, but the blankness lying in their place was a telltale warning: he was not the master anymore, no longer in control of himself.
He had never paid much thought to the pebbles, but now he considered their sheltered existence and envied them: day after day, year after year they were the same – made of stone, unaffected by sudden changes of fortune.
Tears pooled in the corners of his eyes and rolled down freely. He smelled their saltiness and suddenly his apathy vanished in a gush of pity. He curled into a ball, drew a quivering breath and started sobbing loudly.

A hoot answered his cries and as he raised his head he saw a flutter of speckled gold. Kratos landed beside him, nibbled his earlobe playfully and made cooing sounds, clearly proud of having tracked his master through the distance and the transformation.

Draco shooed him harshly. "Leave me alone, you dumb chicken!"

His throat was so dry that the words came out like a growl, and the enormity of his fate sent him again into a fit of hysteria. Kratos took off hastily and perched among the branches of a tree, reminding his master of his presence with soft hoots from time to time.

Draco was determined to ignore that call, but there were others not as easy to keep unanswered. His stomach was grumbling, his pelvis ached from having laid on stones and his bladder was about to burst. Slowly, he pulled himself up – every joint in his body popping like an Exploding Snap card – limped on the pebbly bank to a thick bush, and relieved himself, squatting like a girl.
The stench emanating from his body made him nauseous and he slowly reached the river again, to wash his hands and face. His own reflection in the water brought no surprise: the same sharp face, fair hair and grey eyes of ever - no one would have guessed what was hiding under those familiar features.

But there was something hiding indeed, something that made the outlines of his own face blurry and undefined: as if his reflection was superimposed on something else. His sight was blurred, double, like print read through a calcite crystal, and no matter how he blinked or rubbed his eyes the sensation remained: the presence of something... extraneous... about his thoughts!
With a little concentration he could focus upon its source: merely awake, cuddled in the back of his mind, something so completely extraneous to the human conscience that there was no way to even attempt a dialogue in any form.

His stomach upturned. He managed to keep down the first heave, but on the second one he felt like he was going to turn inside out and dropped on the grass on all fours, retching. Merlin, he hated to throw up, to lose control of his own body like a baby.
Being sick on an empty stomach was awful: his entire body was shaken by the heaves, and all that was to show for his efforts were a few drops of yellow bile. He wished that it would be a good omen, that his body was finally fighting to expel the parasite: but his body hadn't put up much of a fight in the last month, had it?

The presence was tiny, awkward, almost cute in its clumsiness, and a newborn man-eater at that. As the parasite lingered at the edge of Draco's perception, a flash of pure, blinding logic erupted, leaving a white hot concept impressed in his brain.

Take it with you.

It made sense. It would be the right and proper thing to do – brave, commendable, even. It made sense, and gave him a reason to start walking. As if he had been waiting nothing else than that moment, Kratos took off with a loud chirp.
He probably would have gotten lost if not for the owl, who kept prodding him towards the right direction with his calls, as if Draco had been a chick fallen from the nest. Even with his help, walking back to where his stuff and clothes lay took forever. The grass, scorched by the summer heat, felt like caltrop underneath the tender soles of his feet, and progress was slow and painful.
Finally, he recognised the hill and the thicket in which he had landed the previous day. The broom and bag were still among the branches, untouched; the spare robes had been a good idea, as the ones he had been wearing were torn to rags. He donned them – the idea of being found stark naked did not appeal to him – then fished out the wand from the bag.
He rolled the wand among clumsy fingers. One single spell would put an end to this ordeal: no more need for elaborate plans and lies, no more fear of being discovered. He would not have to endure once more the pain of transformation, or the mindless savagery that ensued.

Do it, before you grow into a monster. Before you're found out and your name is shamed.

The wand weighed nothing and felt fragile in his hand as he slowly raised it into position: hardly something to be afraid of. The presence in his head sensed his turmoil and stirred with panic, rightly so.

The right words wouldn't form. With his mouth dry, he tried to recall the agonizing spasms of the previous night, the endless times in the past weeks when he had feared that the bandages would show, that Father would wonder about the rate at which disinfectant was disappearing, that Mother would notice his sweaty forehead and sunken eyes and become suspicious. He thought of everything that had gone well and could have done otherwise... His luck wouldn't go on forever.

Before you find a thousand reasons you'd rather not to. Hurry.

He knelt and prepared to speak the words the impostor Moody had taught them the year before: he just needed to utter them, and his world would be over. But his throat wouldn't make a sound, his mind didn't dare to have a thought for fear it might come out loud. His wand hand, white-knuckled and clammy, was trembling as he mustered all his willpower for the deed. His heart pounded against his ribcage like a pestle in a mortar, his back was coated in a sheath of icy sweat. In a supreme all-out effort, he forced his mouth to form the word.

A wordless cry escaped from his lips. Abruptly, he yanked the wand out of his own right hand and threw it away, watched it whirl in the air and plant itself in the grass, tip first. Still on his knees, he curled into a ball, and his cry turned into another sobbing fit.

Coward, the voice said, scathingly.

"No," Draco sobbed out loud. "I won't."

He had not wanted it. He could not help it. And yet he should now have to kill himself out of some misplaced notion of decency.
No. No sodding way. He may have been half a beast now, but the other half was still a Malfoy, and that had to count for something. His were the name and the means, and he was going to use them to stay in this world, not to tiptoe out of existence - for what? So that winos and bag hags could safely tuck in for the night in doorways, or set up camp in urine-stenched underpasses? Trembling with impotent rage at the world's injustice, he clenched his fists and shoved them in his mouth. His sight became blurry again, but this time he squeezed the tears out of his eyes and swallowed hard; he was tired of crying.
He stood up and strode to where the wand was stuck. Kratos hooted again, invisible, from the trees. There was a new uncertainty in his call.

"Don't worry," Draco spoke to the branched vaults. "I won't do anything this stupid again. Lead the way, we're going home."

From the recesses of his brain, the vermin moaned its approval.


The return flight took place in broad daylight, but the only witnesses were swallows, cows, and horseflies: nothing else dared to move in that paralysing heat.

Warm elation ran through Draco as he landed and spotted his friends under the tent, now opened for the day. Crabbe and Goyle would never know how close they had been to sharing his own fate. He had no idea of how much ground a simple animal could cover in a night; if he had not flown over the river by mere chance... A gruesome vision of the possible outcome flashed before his eyes and he shook his head to get rid of that, and through the relief came the realisation that he needed to keep this hidden from them... or he would have been at their mercy.
A cynical thought formed in his mind. Perhaps they would be more cooperative if the three of us were in the same condition...
No. He shooed the idea. That would only mean three times the hassle, three times the risk: neither Vince nor Greg would have the ability to hide their condition if they became infected. They were good for acting as lookouts, but that was all that there was.

He approached the tent, broom at shoulder-arms. All the windows and curtains had been rolled up in an attempt to take advantage of drafts, but the air was as hot as dragon belch. Only Vince was up, rummaging through the drawers, whereas Greg was lying on his bunk and groaning. He looked sick from twenty paces: his forehead was covered in drops of sweat the size of newt eyes and his complexion had taken a greenish tinge, like ham that was about to go off. Vince had soaked a handkerchief in iced water, and stood with that in hand as if unsure of what came next.

"Oi! Look what the Kneazle brought in," he snorted as Draco set foot in the tent. "Fuckin' time, mate."

Yeah, definitely Crabbe was not going to play down his getaway. Better change the subject. "What's wrong with Greg?"

The reply came through clenched teeth. "He got drunk, passed out and lay in the heat all day, 'cos I was busy looking for you, you git."

"It's all right. I'll take it from here," Draco said, reaching the kitchen and dropping the broomstick along the way. He felt groggy himself and not in the mood for brewing, but Greg was making sounds like a bullfrog and if he didn't improve they would have to go home, something he was not looking forward to.
The cupboard had a good selection of potion ingredients and hangover remedies (it had been used for men-only hunting parties after all), so Draco brewed a few herbs and spices in a kettle, navigating by sight, as Crabbe stood by motionless, radiating disapproval, like a miniature Snape.
The end result would never have helped anyone scrape an 'A' at Hogwarts, but Greg was in no condition to notice. He took a sip and made a grimace, but he was too ill to protest as they pinched his nose and poured the concoction down his throat. His eyes bulged as if he was about to be sick, then he let out a thunderous belch, rolled over on his side, and closed his eyes.

Draco let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, and when he turned to Crabbe he saw that some of the tension had dissipated from his stance, too. The relief, however, was going to be short-lived.

"Where the fuck were you?" Vince hissed as soon as they were sure that Greg was on his way to a peaceful recovery. "Why did you run away?"

Draco had been thinking about this all the way back. The matter of his disappearance had to be nipped in the bud, and to do so he needed something so absurd that it couldn't possibly have been made up, something beyond the wildest imagination of an average liar, something that would make Crabbe sorry he had even asked.

He made a bewildered face.
"Why did I run away? You ask me, Vince?"

"Yeah, and you better have a good reason to," he insisted. Everything in him, from the narrowed eyes to the jaw sticking out, spelled belligerence.

Draco saw Vince's resentment and raised his own outrage, meeting his gaze firmly.
"Oh, you don't remember now, don't you? Telling me how I was your best friend, how I was more than a brother to you...?"

"What?..."

"...How you wished I could be more than that? Some friend you turned out to be! I should've cursed your drunken arse. I only flew the coop because I didn't want to!"

Vincent turned red. He stood there, huffing like a bull, his huge fists shaking, and Draco precipitously stepped back. He had gone past the mark. He was about to have his teeth punched out, he was going to be beaten to a pulp...
Vince stepped forward and Draco recoiled in terror, preparing to pull out his wand and risk an enquiry for underage magic if it came down to it. He could not possibly be prepared for what came next.

Vince 's entire face contorted in a grotesque expression of disgust, he brought a meaty fist up to his mouth and bit on it, his body shaking with silent sobs. Tears pooled in his eyes and rolled down his cheek when he clenched his eyelids shut.

"I'm - I'm sorry..." Crabbe said in a barely audible whisper. "I - I'd never, Draco, never!"

Of all the possible reactions Draco had anticipated, this had failed to make the list. It was so unlike Crabbe, he did not know what to do or say. Tentatively, he shrugged, and murmured some words of comfort.
"C'mon, no harm done, it was just the booze. I was just pissed, should have known better than that. Let's just forget about it, huh?"

But Vince wouldn't just forget. He had his face hidden in his hands now, and shook away the hand that Draco was offering.

The hair rose with a shiver on Draco's back. No. No way, not... but as Vince lay there miserably, nearly rolling on the floor in shame, he realized he had shot blindly... and hit the bullseye.
It took some strength of will for him to reach out and put his hand onto Vince's shoulder. It felt, or maybe he imagined it would feel, sweaty hot and soft under the robes, like the confession had caused his muscles to lose their compactness.

"It's no big deal," he said, with the kindest tone he could summon. "It's just a phase, you'll grow out of it, I'm sure."

By now Vince was curled out in a fetal position, snorting. He shook his head. "It's no use. I try, Draco, I try!"

Draco sighed, walked inside the tent and sat on one of the armchairs, trying not to make it look too obvious that he had picked the farthest away from Crabbe. He huffed again.

"What a lousy vacation. Let's go home."

That gave Vince some respite. He rose to his knees, then to his feet. He stared squarely at Draco from across the room, his shiny face still spasming from too many incompatible emotions.
"Swear you'll never speak of this to anyone," he spat out.

"Deal," Draco said wearily.


If it had been up to him, Draco would have zinged to his room the second the Floo deposited him onto the carpet in the Manor's hall. But his parents were curious and pressed him for details of his camping holiday, especially since he had returned much earlier than anticipated. In the end, they believed, or pretended to believe, that Goyle had been sick on account of some unwashed gooseberries they had picked from the hedgerows of a Muggle farm.

"Muggles and their chemicals," Father sneered. "Small wonder they're all cretins, poisoning their own food and cattle."

Draco went up to his room and quietly unpacked his luggage. The task did not take long and he briefly felt a pang of sympathy for Goyle, who had to put away the tent on top of everything else. Then he lay on the bed and wondered how he was going to deal with his new predicament.
First of all he needed intelligence, sound and solid; no more fantasy prose or hearsay tripe. Snape probably had forgotten more about werewolves than most people ever got to know in their life, but he would be suspicious of such a sudden interest in lycanthropy.
But Draco couldn't just show up at Flourish and Bott's and leave with a barrelful of books under his arms, either... what would he say, that they were for a summer project? Now he wished he had bothered with the damned things before. But no one else in Slytherin was doing them and he didn't want to pass for a swot like that Mudblood Granger. Lupin was the worst choice, bar none. He would scuttle off to tell Dumbledore that Lucius' son had developed a novel and inexplicable interest for werewolves, and the old dotard would have him in his wrinkly hands.

But I'm an idiot.

When Snape had ousted Lupin, he had said something about a potion wasted... staying up well into the night, or something, and the patient hadn't even taken it... and it was obviously a potion made especially for werewolves, otherwise no one would have been able to make the connection. But what was its name again? And what did it do?

As he tried to pinpoint the memory, Lupin, his third year, the Dementors, the Hogsmeade visits... something clicked. Not the potion's name, but something just as useful. Something that had happened a year later, in Hogsmeade.
This dodgy wizard had been standing at the corner with giving out blank parchments as "bookshop order forms", and they had thought of a con, until Blaise had ordered that magazine... in spite of his worries and weakened state, the blood rushed to his groin at the mere thought of the illustrations scattered among Witches Behaving Wickedly. The bookshop guaranteed "a vast assortment, competitive prices, and no questions asked". Draco nodded pensivey: it was worth a try.
He found his own parchment right were he had left it, among the Astronomy notes in the Hogwarts trunk. He went to the scriptorium and took a quill. The vellum was foxed and looked like it had been scraped once too many, but took up ink just fine.

Hello
Are you still in business?

His writing hovered onto the parchment for an instant, then seemed to sink into the page. Nothing happened for several seconds, then all of a sudden, handwriting rose to the surface, making him jolt.

Certainly we are.
How may I help?

Draco took his time. He should have thought this one through before putting his quill to the parchment and now he had to think on his feet and come up with something that would not draw attention... but what?
Whoever was at the other parchment must have been used to customer losing their courage halfway through, because when Draco timidly doodled:

I need a book about werewolves

the words appeared on the parchment almost instantly:

Fiction or non-fiction?

Non-fiction, I need to know how to dis

Draco stopped just in time, biting his lips. He thought of scribbling that last part, but had a better idea:

distinguish a werewolf, I think my neighbour is one.

Keep watching, was the reply. I'm sending the list.

Sweat of Merlin, Draco thought. There was a list?

The list appeared, all at once and in block characters, as if it had been stamped.

- The Moon Curse Explained: 'Substantial, yet highly accessible work.'

- Hairy Snout, Human Heart: 'Full of insight and humanity.'

- Der Mondfluch - Lycanthropy throughout Continental Europe: 'The most complete work on the subject.'

- A Curse Without a Cure: 'A thorough chronicle of three thousand years of promising starts and dead ends.'

- Werewolf #21784: 'A month in the life of a registered werewolf. Hilarious or disturbing? You be the judge.'

- A Tale of Two Curses: 'The definitive starting point to understand Lycanthropy and Vampirism.'

-

Once the parchment was completely full, the writing continued on the other side, and so on. Draco settled for The Moon Curse Explained, The Twenty-eightieth Night, and Inhuman on the outside: an Interview with the Werewolf, but gave Werewolf Organs and Their Use in Amulets a wide berth.

That will be 8 Galleons 13 Sickles, the writing on the parchment stated. Send a sturdy owl to collect your parcel: an employee will be waiting at 15 Ambush Lane, Hogsmeade. Thanks for your purchase and good luck in finding your werewolf.

The last traces of ink vanished and Draco breathed. Now that had been easy. He went to the scriptorium, took out the money purse and counted 8 Galleons 13 Sickles. It was a lot of money for three books, probably torn, smoke-cured or water damaged, but the extra privacy was well worth it. He picked a largish owl purse and whistled to call Kratos.

The beautiful eagle owl landed without a sound on the sill and stood on attention, staring at his master with golden eyes. He did not move as Draco filled the purse, then tied it to his leg.

"15 Ambush Lane, Hogsmeade. A man will give you a few books to bring back to me. Is it all right?"

Kratos nodded gravely, proud of being once more useful to his master. He turned, spread his wings and took off from the sill, as silent as smoke.

Draco watched him soar into the night, relieved. Never he would have imagined that he had sent out the loyal familiar to his death.