Disclaimer: this work borrows from the world of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books; some plot elements, characters, and concepts are hers.
Chapter 12: Have a Nice Day!
The forest was dim, even during the day.
Small shafts of light randomly filtered down through the thick canopy of the forest, glinting on the mounds of dead leaves.
There was surprisingly little undergrowth, though there was the occasional fern or bush, but the only consistent thing on the ground was leaves.
It looked like the leaves had been collecting for at least a decade undisturbed except for the occasional animal.
In places they drifted a few feet deep, almost like snow.
To the casual observer the forest would appear empty, except for the random bird or squirrel.
A more attentive observer might have noted that said animals seemed to be in a state of unrest, and a skilled hunter might have noted the large shadows that were flitting silently through the forest, barely even disturbing the leaves.
A skilled hunter would also wonder what a pack of wolves was doing hunting during the day.
Right after said hunter lost control of his bowels at coming upon said wolves largely unprotected.
Said hunter would have been bewildered to see said pack of wolves trot right by, neither avoiding him, nor attacking.
But there was no one hunting in the woods of northern England that day, so no one saw the pack of wolves move silently and swiftly by.
This was no ordinary pack though, it was composed of nearly all males, and in a normal pack there were usually slightly more females than males.
It was also unusual to see so many large and strong males in the same pack.
Usually males like that were the pack leader, or alpha, and they would have either killed each other fighting for control, or left to find another pack, or start their own.
A wizard who was experienced with lycanthropy might have noticed that all of the wolves present bore specific characteristics, such as a tuft at the end of their tail, as well as telltale signs that would indicate that they were not normal wolves, but would probably have dismissed the observations, as it was daytime, and that night would be new moon, not full moon.
A wolf, or a werewolf for that matter, would have felt a sense of dread at seeing this group though, since this was not a normal pack.
This was a hunting group comprised of alphas.
In the canine world a party like this had one purpose, and only one.
Groups like this only formed during times of war between wolves, and even then they were unusual.
This only happened when all of the alphas in a certain area felt it was necessary to wipe out a specific pack of troublemakers.
This was the canine version of a firing squad.
The pack came to a stop as they neared a clearing in the woods.
There in front of them, were the ruins of a castle.
It took a few moments for the wolves to arrive, since there were about sixty of them, but soon they were all assembled, and they quickly separated into three parties, forming a triangle with the ruins of the castle in the middle.
Most wizards would think the castle was entirely deserted, but the truth was that only the portions above the ground were ruined.
The cellars and dungeons were still in fairly good repair, and more importantly, they were the resting place of Fenrir Greyback, the most vicious and feared werewolf of the time.
There was a sound like someone exhaling loudly, and one of the wolves transformed into a human.
Remus Lupin quickly drew his wand. "argentum sagitto" he muttered a flick of the wrist.
A small volley of silver tipped arrows flew out of the tip, and about fifty yards to the left of him a sentry fell out of a tree with a soft thud.
Before the werewolf sentry even hit the ground three wolves were waiting for him, and around the clearing four other sentries met the same fate.
Quickly and silently the rest of the wolves ran up the slopes, and into the basements of the ruined castle, and were down to the second level before any alarm was raised.
About twenty minutes later Remus entered the fifth level of the dungeons, smelling fear, and blood.
About half of the cells were open, with dead werewolves in them. Prisoners of Fenrir Greyback, wolves who had refused to join him.
Remus snarled, and turned to his human form.
He quickly drew his wand.
Greyback hurried out of the last open cell, a bloody dagger in his hand.
"Fenrir" Remus said coldly
The shaggy, foul-smelling man turned, his amber eyes and slightly elongated teeth made gave him a feral look even in his human form
"Lupin" Greyback growled "Have you finally come to your senses or are you suicidal."
Remus smiled, his expression was cold and calculating and yet feral at the same time.
"You might say that I've come to my senses." He said, as he drew the eight foot long bull whip that hung from his belt.
The handle of the whip was actually made from a basilisk fang wrapped in leather.
The ends of the fang had been capped off, and the fang had a griffin feather and phoenix tears in it, allowing it to be used to cast spells.
It wasn't as precise as a wand -being plagued with accuracy problems- but if you wanted powerful spells there was no better way to go.
Greyback gripped the silver dagger tighter in his hand, and drew his wand.
"Reducto" He spat, flicking his wand at Remus
"Protego, stupefy" Remus responded, using his wand to create a shield, and flicking the whip to create a massive stunner.
Before Fenrir realized what was happening, the stunner hit him in the chest, and sent him flying twenty feet into the stone wall behind him with a sickening crunch.
When Fenrir awoke, he found himself chained to a steel chair in a white padded cell with two apparently Muggle guards pointing guns at him, he also noticed that he was stripped from the waist up.
A few feet in front of him was a table with three chairs on the other side of it.
In the chair on the left sat Remus Lupin, next to him sat two people dressed in Muggle medical scrubs and white lab coats.
"Ah, Mr. Greyback." The man in the middle said, he was elderly, with iron grey hair and green eyes.
"My name is Dr. Smith, and this is my colleague, Professor West." He said, gesturing to the man on his left who had brown hair and blue eyes, and appeared to be in his mid forties.
"We will be running some tests today to see if we can't come up with a cure for lycanthropy that can be safely released to the general public."
For once Fenrir was speechless with shock. Before he had a chance to recover from his surprise though, Dr Smith tapped his wand on a crystal orb on the table, which lit up.
"Lupin, Smith and West commencing test on subject 153, commence experiment LS23H" He rattled off in a slightly bored voice.
Without further ado, Professor West drew a small revolver out of a box, and broke it open. "Preparing charm focus into subject." He said as he expertly fed a .22 caliber bullet into the revolver. He closed the revolver and pulled back the hammer. "Preparation complete, inserting now." He said in the same dry tone that Dr. Smith had used.
He then calmly shot Fenrir Greyback in the stomach with a silver bullet.
Fenrir felt a stabbing pain, and then a burning feeling inside his belly where the bullet was lodged, his back arched, his arms and legs straining at the chains holding him, and his eyes started to roll back into his head.
"Subject appears to be suffering from post-traumatic shock. Subject is convulsing." Dr. Smith continued in his toneless voice.
As suddenly as they had started, the convulsions stopped, the burning feeling in his stomach increased for a few agonizing moments, it felt like someone had embedded a hot coal inside him, and then the burning cooled to where it was when the convulsions started, and a warming sensation spread out from that into the rest of his body, and the stabbing pain started to fade.
"Subject appears to have stabilized, and the wound from insertion is healing. Subject's fangs are receding and subject's eyes appear to be returning to their normal human state. Phase 1 appears to be a success. Will continue to monitor subject."
"What the bloody hell did you do to me?" Fenrir snarled angrily
Dr. Smith smiled warmly "It's actually quite simple Mr. Greyback." He stated "We are testing a new method to suppress lycanthropy."
"We know that the curse has an adverse reaction to silver, so we postulated that if a healing charm were to be placed on a silver object, and said object were to be placed into a werewolf, the healing charm would draw power from the curse, effectively negating it."
Professor West weighed in.
"Of course, the initial adjustment is quite painful, and I suppose full moons will be also." Dr Smith said. "That is assuming of course that you don't transform in spite of the silver and die from the poisoning." He continued almost to himself.
"That's why we chose you. We needed a test subject that was expendable."
Remus grinned maniacally. "Congratulations Fenrir, either you'll die when the full moon rises in a week, or you'll be the first person infected with lycanthropy to have their werewolf form suppressed."
From the look on Fenrir's face, it looked like he would have preferred the former to the latter.
Authors note: edited to fix a mistake so that remus only draws a whip once. and DR. Smith does not repeat himself