As Lupin stood outside the last train wagon on this most serene of nights, he pulled
out a golden lighter and a silver canteen with some mysterious marks engraved on
it. He took a healthy gulp from the flask and lit up a menthol cigarette with his shiny
luxury lighter just as a chilly breeze blew down the fields. He felt its soothing caress
trace the outlines of his scarred face; A reminder of his fateful and incurable
condition.
The silence of the night and its full-star sky reminded Remus of that fateful night
when he was to be forever branded a monstrosity.
He remembered it all in excruciating detail. The sudden assault on his family farm,
the monstrous villain with the evil stare that killed his sister and left him with a curse
to live by.
Just as the memories began to overwhelm him once again, the young man who had
yanked him from a peaceful dream a few minutes earlier, a dream he could no
longer remember, came out the train to meet him.
"Awfully quiet the whispers of the night, huh, Remus?" he says to him, oblivious to
the fact that Lupin stood paces from him, a few droplets making their way down his
bony, pale cheeks.
"I wouldn't know. I'm hardly ever cold." He answered curtly. "Lately I find such
matters of the night quite trivial. I care only about the presence of the Moonlight."
"Aye, well, it should be out in a few days'
time, methinks. And I agree; the night's
much better with its guarding presence."
"You came out here to point out the obvious attributes of the night, boy?" Lupin
snaped annoyed.
The red-haired boy pauses briefly as he measures his response.
"I... I guess I just wanted to apologize for the rude awakening back there."
"Well, it is my watch, kid." Says Remus holding the side of his stomach. He'd
scratched the left side of his torso during the last cycle, and he'd found that
self-inflicted wounds always took longest to heal.
"Let me be frank, Mr. Lupin. I think you know I'm a fairly new Auror and I find it hard
to fit in with our colleagues..." Said Rayman, his rosy cheeks betrayed the
embarrassment of his confession.
"And why do you think that is, Rayman?" cut in Lupin, unaware the kid was going to
say that both of them were nearly the same age and therefore thought him and
Lupin could relate to one another.
Lupin was annoyed at the prospect of conversation, why talk to a nobody when he
could be admiring the starry sky and fantasizing of revenge?
"Well, this is a very demanding job, and not everyone makes the cut. It takes most
folks nearly a decade more of study and training after Hogwarts to land the gig."
"Well then, boy, consider yourself a virtuoso; you made it! Isn't it what you always
dreamed of?" Remus had a habit of using sarcasm to keep people away. He did it so
often, you'd think he'd be aware of it.
"Actually, no, sir. This isn't a path I chose myself, if I'm being completely honest with
ya. I mean, after Pops died on the line of duty, Mother insisted I follow in his
footsteps and finish what he started. Said it was the only way to honor his memory
and it would ensure his death was not in vain."
"Ah! If that's what's written in the stars for you dear Rayman, it shall be so!" Do you
see what I mean about his sarcasm?
"Do you really believe that our Fate is written in the stars, Mr. Lupin? I admit I never
much cared for astrology. My Divination teacher at Hogwarts was awful; sure glad
she's soon to retire. What am I saying? Of course, you must know Mrs. Alvin! She
must have taught you when you were at Hogwarts too."
Clearly, young Rayman did not seem to pick up Lupin's vibe that he was in no mood
for conversation and, not realizing young Rayman felt lonely and was trying to
befriend him, Lupin moved to declare their conversation finished.
Just before he could though, the tragic events of the night began unfolding.
Unbeknownst to all the passengers of the Express, the train passed by some granite
stones that had engraved on them some ancient runes that activated as the Express
flew past them. The runes lit up with a bluish hue and sent out a powerful,
immobilizing, magical shockwave that brought the enchanted train to an abrupt stop
Up in the conductor's car, Tom, still quizzing his young heir on the goblin's rebellions
of the eighteenth century, is thrown off his chair by the abrupt jolt of the train.
"What was that, Mark?" he asks, taken by surprise. Behind him, Mark pulls out his
wand and aiming directly at his back, recites in a voice devoid of all emotion.
"Avada Kedavra."
A flash of green light erupts from the tip of his instrument and strikes Tom as his son
witnesses his murder.
Mark then pulls two levers on the panel. One to prevent the train from moving again,
the other to detach the cars from one another; he then turns to the door and just
before he walks through it, begins to shake uncontrollably and, quite abruptly, his
skin starts to peel off, bubbles forming and bursting underneath it. In the span of no
more than five seconds, a tall man of different complexion and features stood where
Mark had been. Revealing his identity to a son that will one day try to avenge his
father's murder.
Junior's scream is ignored by his father's killer but the boy manages to compose
himself enough to alert his sleeping mother, who would go on to call the Ministry
immediately but much too late to prevent the tragedy of tonight.
Outside the train, young Rayman remains composed, thinking the abrupt stop must
be due to technical difficulties with the machine; after all, these tracks are seldom
used, or so he'd been informed by his superiors when he was briefed on the
mission.
But the more experienced Lupin stood at once on high alert. He'd not seen the
glimmering light from the runes but knew full well that a bewitched artifact the size of
the Damon Express could not be easily be brought to a stop and, either the
conductor had decided to stop the Express in the middle of nowhere, or they were
dealing with a powerful incantation capable of stopping the flow of magic to a
bewitched engine.
"Pull out your wand at once! Something's not right!" He barks at Rayman who obeys
him.
They stand there for a full ten seconds, glancing every which way but nothing
happens... and then a woman's maniacal laughter breaks the silence that had ruled
the prairie so far.
This froze the blood of inexperienced Rayman but it steadies the mettle of the more
seasoned Lupin who is prepared for anything.
Only the most deranged of dark wizards laugh like that. Is what Lupin thinks as
memories of a wild man flash once again in his vivid memory.
"What do you suppose that is?" Rayman points his wand at a peculiar formation of
dark clouds swiftly covering the starry sky. It was moving in their direction.
"Whatever that is, I doubt it carries rain. It's moving way too fast and against the
bitter wind."
Lupin's observation was dead on.
The booming laughter intensified as the clouds got closer and closer. Once the
formation nested right above the Express, a flash of green escaped its depths and,
suddenly, the cloud begins to shift in form. Soon it resembles a skull; and from its
mouth a single strand of vapor extends all the way to the ground and, neither Remus
nor young Rayman, are able to make out, due to the angle, that the strand took the
shape of a slithering snake with an emerald gleam on the tip of its tongue.
Lupin reaches into his pocket and pulls out his tiny golden lighter: an instrument all
Aurors carry. He pressed one of the odd symbols engraved on it and a second later
all the Aurors aboard the Express apparated on top of the cars they were guarding.
They immediately see the reason they've been summoned hovering ominously
above them.
The mad laughter echoes through the prairie once again but this time a dozen mad
howls accompany it. The Aurors brazed for what they knew could only be an
imminent attack.
From inside the skull at least a dozen hooded figures emerge riding magic brooms.
They descend at blinding speed upon the Express throwing curses every which way
at its guardians.
The Aurors defend themselves by casting stunning spells at their charging foes, but
their opponents split into different directions maintaining a well organized formation.
Some of them reach into pouches they have wrapped up around their belts and pull
out different flasks which they promptly hurl onto the Express. The flasks have being
bewitched with a homing enchantment and so none of them miss the intended
target.
They explode into massive fireballs which quickly engulf the train in flame. Some
unlucky aurors are doused in fire instantly and in desperation roll off the train
seeking to put out the flames.
"Auguamenti!" yell out some desperate Aurors trying to put out the flames with a jet
of water; but the fires don't go out, in fact, they become a towering inferno which
seems sentient to some.
"It's Fiendfyre!" Screams out Lupin as he apparates on top of the train and joins the
fight.
"I don't have the right potion to extinguish it!" yells an Auror far from him as he ducks
to avoid a red flash that barely misses his ear.
One of the dark riders starts to circle the blaze and pointing his wand at the fire the
Fiendfyre rises and begins to spin into a swirl of flame that reaching its peak of
intensity takes the shape of a serpent bearing its fiery fangs at the Aurors.
An Auror reaches into his pocket and summons to him the necessary potion to put
out the fiery curse.
"Geminio!" he yells pointing his wand at the blue flask, applying on it the duplicating
enchantment that activates upon contact. He tosses one of the flasks to an ally near
him and with the original puts out the fire that was consuming the closest Auror to
him. The Fiendfyre goes out but the Auror is out of the fight.
The other Auror catches the replica which duplicates once more and, catching on to
the strategy, tosses the third flask to another ally. Before he can use his flask to put
out his friend's fire though, a thick vine wraps around his waist and lifts him up into
the air like a ragdoll.
"Devil Snare!" He screams in agony, for the Auror had seen the specimen on
another excursion.
All along the train, the thick grayish vines of Devil Snare sprout and reach their
tentacles towards the defenders of the Express, who at this point, are only playing
defense.
Three of the hooded figures cast a spell that summons a thick fog which quickly
envelops the train and compromises the Aurors'
field of vision.
All these factors made it near impossible for the Aurors caught in Devil's Snare to
relax and the others had a hard time hitting the Snare through the fog with Lumos
Solem. Somehow the dark wizards were still hitting their target through the fog.
Suddenly, a dark wizard hovers low and from a pouch on his back takes out and
pours onto the scene two dozen little wooden dolls. As they fall, a nearby
accomplice casts the enlarging spell Engorgio, so that by the time the dolls fell upon
the Express, they were about the size of ten year olds. The accomplice then flew
away casting curses towards the remaining Aurors.
The man who dropped the dolls then flickered his wand in a complex pattern and
mumbled a long forgotten and forbidden curse. Hundreds of silver strings as thin as
strands of Banshee's hair shot out from the tip of his wand and attached themselves
to the little child-sized dolls he had deployed. His eyes went blank and he entered a
trance-like state in which his consciousness left his body and traveled down the
silver strings, taking possession of the wooden puppets with it.
The puppets pulled from a compartment in their chest copper daggers which they
intend to use as instruments of murder.
The madman then directed his consciousness to stab each of the Aurors still putting
up a fight.
All other curses and objects of the attack were a distraction from this plot, which
aims to kill all the Aurors present there.
Lupin, who was quick on the uptake, replicated Rayman's glasses and casted onto
both pairs an enchantment which allowed them to see through the fog.
When he saw the silent assassins stealthily making their way towards their
unsuspecting comrades, both Lupin and Rayman began to cast the explosive spell
Confringo at them. The puppets explode in a storm of splinters. But they couldn't
cast the curse fast enough, there were too many puppets and many of them
managed to bury their deathly instruments into the chests of many Aurors.
Realizing he needed to take them all out in one blow, Lupin had an amazing
epiphany in the nick of time.
"Regale Infura!" He yelled, aiming his wand at the nearest puppet. A beam of golden
light broke through the fog and hit its target straight in the chest, but the puppet
wasn't blown away. The light went into the puppet and up the strings of the
puppeteer who, upon being struck by it, collapsed off of his broom and onto the
nearest car.
Just then, a blast of orange light went zooming past Lupin's ear and would had hit
his skull if Rayman had not knocked him down and out of harm's way; but this
allowed the puppet master to recover and, having lost control of his instruments of
death, had no choice but to face Lupin head-on.
However, Lupin's adversary was a coward and a practitioner of Dark Arts. He raised
his wand and cursed him.
"Avada Kedavra!" He hissed, shooting the killing curse at Lupin.
It was only experience that saved him. Lupin had been in plenty of duels against
Dark Wizards with nothing to lose so he half expected this and, following his
instincts, ducked and avoided the beam of green.
But he heard a thud behind him and when he turned to see what it had been, he
came face to face with Rayman's corpse.
Just then, the fearsome roars of some beasts are heard amongst the chaos and
when Lupin looked up, he saw three massive dragons descend upon the middle
cars of the train. In an instant, the dragons lifted the wagons into the air and flew
away with them.
The shaking of the train when this happened, caused Rayman's killer to fall off it.
The man got up and tried to summon his broomstick to him with Accio, but Lupin
again predicted his move and blew up the broom to smithereens as the rest of the
assailants fled the scene for they had achieved their goal.
The murderer, seeing his escape being thwarted, took off running and Lupin jumped
off the train and, without a second thought, took after him. His werewolf blood
burning in his veins. He now understood why that night his mind had wandered off
towards revenge.