Waverly occupied her gaze by tracing her finger on the blanket for Taco's benefit. She could have predicted Iona's response. Fine. They were all always fine in this house and always reassured each other that if it didn't feel fine now, things would be fine later. Maybe it was all aspirational. That 'fine' was the most they'd wish for.

She wasn't sorry for brining it up. Even if there wasn't much to say, Waverly knew that just asking mattered. Basically everything about being a werewolf sucked, but hearing how her mum said 'quill pusher' - oof. Add paperwork to the stack of things that would be turning Mam's stomach come the tenth.

Waverly scooted down further into the couch, her cold feet winding in under Iona's share of the blankets.

"It's good you're there," she said. "It matters that you've been through it. I mean, there hasn't been another werewolf that high up, has there? Not in the Capture Unit, right? Things could change."

What, exactly, should change Waverly didn't know. But, like many in her generation there was a deep sense that things could be better. Shoulde be better. It just sucked it had to hurt.

“I don’t think so, no.” Iona shook her head. “Not in the time I’ve been at the ministry.” Werewolves had historically been kept under thumb. You didn’t give a decent job to a werewolf due to unreliability. Few people were publically anti-werewolf, but behind closed doors, they certainly were. Iona had never been actively anti-werewolf, she’d never actively discriminated, but her previous job had meant she’d had a complicated relationship with the creatures. Now, she experienced it from the other side, and she’d experienced the loss of her job because of what had happened.

“It shouldn’t be a big deal though, Wav. Having a werewolf where I am, or a similar level position shouldn’t be controversial or seen as equal opportunities.” She’d made the self-deprecating joke to Bagnold on her second day about the Ministry having hired a ‘gay disabled werewolf’. A box-ticking exercise. She frowned at her daughter, “You probably didn’t see the letter in the Prophet before the holiday[1]. The Ministry are apparently rewarding my failure. Ministry are doing their bit by giving opportunities to disabled monsters.” Oddly, this was easier to discuss that the full moon itself. This was something that Iona could grasp some control over; she could fight it. A werewolf didn’t get to fight the full moon; it happened, and they lost themselves and there was nothing she could do about that.

“I hope things can change. But you can’t change public perception and attitude overnight. Until we start to see a shift there…well…there’s a thick sodding ceiling there for werewolves.”

1.	Letter from Cindy Bombay

Waverly's expression soured to hear her mum repeating that disgusting talk. There'd been that time in school when Waverly's friends had to pull her off someone who said something about her Mam, some gabby know-nothing who was just trying to flex and get a rise out of her. Nothing had come of it, not even a bloodied nose. Looking back, Waverly couldn't remember who'd have been more hurt by the comment, her or Iona.

She knew all change took time. And even though a lot of people sore about it, just the fact that her mum was there was something.

"They'll be eating shit," Waverly said with a little spark in her chest. "No one else there has had your experience so you're going to know far better than anyone what those people are going through. You've seen both sides. That's going to make a difference."

Waverly sipped her drink. "It's about time, really."

Hearing Waverly talk in such a manner gave Iona this strange glowing feeling, like a warmth in her chest. Regularly, she and Zora would despair at their daughter’s lack of drive and ambition. They both felt some sense of failure, each blaming themselves for her unwillingness to throw herself into the world of work. But hearing the way Wav speak with such confidence about Iona’s own ability to do her job, she felt proud. Waverly had strong views, and clearly agreed with what Iona had chosen to do.

Iona shuffled on the sofa, pulling her legs up properly so they were both under the blankets snuggly and warm. Taco started kneading the material over Waverly’s legs. Iona fixed her daughter with a small contented smile.
“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me going back.” For Zora, it had clearly been a mix of emotions. Pride and worry. She’d wanted to support Iona, but she’d always been protective. Usually, Iona quite liked it, but she needed to do this and fight back now without her auror ninja wife buffer between her and the world. “Well, if we look past your excitement at a shopping trip.” Waverly had been all too eager to have her Mam ditch her favourite cargo trousers in place of something far smarter. They’d almost had an argument at the suggestion of a dress.

There really was nothing like a purring cat who couldn't decide where to sit to take an edge off a conversation. It as proven, or so Waverly read, that pets calmed you down. That and you could focus on the cat to avoid eye contact. It would have been easy for Waverly and Iona to fall into a snippy row, but honestly Waverly was weary of it. She didn't miss her mum smiling and Waverly looked down.

"I mean, you can only get cursed once," she said. Waverly had thought about it. She was hesitant to say it, but Iona's new job sat much better with her than her last one. In the Werewolf Capture Unit, Mam was at risk of getting hurt and killed every moon. And the ethics of what she did, it had been getting hard to understand. Werewolves were human beings and hunting them ... but they were also dangerous like that.

"And like I said you can do more good now you're promoted out of the WCU."

No one could accuse Waverly of being happy about what happened to her mum - it had been horrific, a catastrophe. But even terrible events could mean better things to come.

"I mean, you can only get cursed once," Waverly said rather plainly.
“HA!” Iona laughed out loud, throwing her head back, amused. It was painfully true, wasn’t it? She’d already been bitten, she’d been dealing with the curse now for well over 3 years. Rock bottom had already been hit with an explosion. The only way now was up. Couldn’t get cursed again. Zora had been worried, but not about the dangers. Her worried had come from the hatred Bruce had already received. She’d gone from having a controversial job to being the controversial person in a job.

She calmed pretty quickly, a took a swig of her alcoholic tea. It was getting late, but she had no plans on going to bed yet. Not only did she hate sleeping alone, but after the disaster that their ‘talk’ this morning had been, Iona was relieved to be having a calm conversation with her daughter.

“I can.” Resting her cup in her lap, Iona glanced over Waverly. She was avoiding eyecontact as much as possible. Both doubtlessly easily remembered the rather heated conversations and arguments about Iona’s choice of career. As soon as Waverly had started learning about werewolf rights and the lack of equal opportunities contrasting with the enormous prejudice, Waverly had been rather scathing of the job.

“You’ve always been pretty set on equal rights for creatures, Wav…” Iona’s brow rose and she took another sip of her tea. She didn’t want Waverly on Level 4, no, but she’d always had pretty strong opinions, hadn’t she? Surely that was a starting point?

"Werewolves aren't creatures," Waverly reminded Iona with a snippy sing-song, as if she didn't know. One thing Waverly ought to have learned from SAWS was to allow werewolves to speak about their own situation however they liked, but if Waverly wasn't sparring with her parents she didn't know how to be.

"They're people. With lives and daughters and cargo shorts ..." There was a little light in her eye. All Waverly's life, her family had been on one side of the line, with themselves on one side making werewolves 'they' on the other. Even a few years in, it was hard to switch pronouns to include her mom.

She sipped her tea. "So radical. Equal rights for people... Blimey."

Iona had to try hard, very hard, not to roll her eyes at her daughter’s ‘werewolves are people’ speech that would clearly be following the unsolicited reprimand. She’d heard it countless times before. Don’t call them monsters or creatures or beasts. Don’t call them furry animals or rabid dogs. Iona had heard it all before, and the people that said these things, the people that wanted her to stop using whatever damn name she liked, had never wrestled with a werewolf, they’d never seen a werewolf’s teeth ripping flesh from an innocent human that had simply strayed into their path. They’d never felt the power as the beast knocked a person to the ground. They’d never been agonisingly ripped open by the sharp and powerful claws. They’d never witnessed or experienced a transformation. Waverly had a sheltered view of werewolves, and Iona had always pushed for that. She’d never witnessed the transformation; she’d only seen the vulnerability that inevitably followed. The sickness, the exhaustion and pain.

“No more cargo shorts.” Every last pair had been discarded. No one needed to see the mess that her leg had become, even after Athena Marrowbone’s healing magic.

“I’m a person, Waverly. I’m a person with a life and a daughter, yes. I have a wife and a daughter that I would throw myself in front of the killing curse for.” She took a moment to sip at her tea. “But on the full moon, when that transformation happens, I’m not a person. I’m not your mum. I’d rip your throat out. I’d rip Omma’s throat out. It wouldn’t matter, and I wouldn’t remember because it’s not my conscious. A werewolf is a creature. It’s a monster. It doesn’t make me a monster or a creature.”

It was something that Waverly had never understood.
“I can make a difference, yes, but I’m not going to be the person to proclaim that werewolves aren’t dangerous and regulations should be less stringent, and I’m not going to stop calling them monsters or creatures because I know more than anyone what they are capable of.”

The little light behind Waverly's eye, the one that came from love and belonging and hope for the world, flickered and then flared up.

"It's not the monster that can't get a job, who gets kicked out of Hogwarts, who gets thrown into Azkaban. Getting harassed going about their lives. It's the person. And you're a person ninety-percent of the time, isn't it though? You're not hearing me. You're not capture unit anymore. You can help the whole person. Not just the creature. And I'm trying to say that's a good thing. Shit, Mam."

Waverly huffed gently as if Iona was her daughter who disappointed her. She turned around on the couch to put her feet back on the floor. It was so easy to wreck a perfectly pleasant conversation because she had no idea how to say something nice.

The regular debate began, and Iona had to stop herself from audibly groaning. Waverly was so happy to argue the toss with her mother, and she was good at it too. Iona had suggested before that she actually put it to use outside of annoying her; a suggestion which hadn’t gone down well. Before, she’d always berated her mother for clearly not understanding. Now, she berated her because she should suddenly understand and feel pity for other wolves. To begin with, when she’d been unable to control her new temper, it had sparked some pretty explosive arguments. Fortunately, all that came now was debate and a lot of eye rolling. Waverly thought she could criticise and debate her mam’s job, but she wouldn’t have them criticise her lack of one.

“Oh, I’m hearing you.” Iona managed, calmly. She wanted to bite back about how Waverly actually needed to put her opinions and wish to fight for rights to good use instead of just talking about it. But that would only add more problems to an already prickly conversation. She and Zo had done their speech that morning, she wasn’t going to be the woman that badgered her daughter incessantly.

“It is a good thing, sweetheart.” She finally agreed quietly. “But people don’t get the person bit. It’s a good thing but it’s not easy.” The howlers had already started before Christmas. As of yet, there’d been no face to face hatred, but that would come. A tight smile came with a raise of her eyebrows. “Better than staying at home doing nothing, at least.”

Waverly looked at her mum quietly for a moment, then her eyebrows softened and she slumped back into the cushion again. She was smiling a little.

"I hate agreeing with you," she said. They did this. They argued around each other in circles and then it ended up they were arguing the same point at each other. She resettled into the couch and adjusted the blanket to snuggle in next to Iona.

"Staying home doing nothing. Remember when you were a writer?" Waverly smiled again and put her head on Iona's shoulder. "Remember when you were going to be a writer? Omma buying you, like, seven typewriters, all earnest and serious?"

The living room had been covered in papers for awhile, crumpled paper and clean white paper. Taco was still a kitten, trying to attack everything, putting her entire head into Chinese takeaway containers.

Bright blue eyes suddenly widened with amusement when Waverly brought up the writing and the many typewriters. Many typewriters. After a particularly bad full moon in the early days after the attack, Iona had taken to her bed for a few weeks. Pain and frustration had exacerbated her uncharacteristic crankiness, and she’d no doubt been deeply unpleasant to be around. One casual mention of considering starting a guide on werewolf tracking, and Zora had returned home the next day with a stack of parchment as high as the cat, several bottles of ink, and, across the kitchen worksurface, seven state of the art typewriters lined up for her approval.

Iona would have laughed out loud if her wife’s expression hadn’t been so damned serious. She’d seen it for what it was. Despite the bizarre way of showing it, it had been love, and a determination to get her to actual do something with herself. The whole thing would have been highly successful if Iona knew any iota on how to write a book.

Now, curled up with her teenaged daughter in her arms, Iona did let out a soft laugh.

“She’s intense, your Omma.” Iona rested her head on Waverly’s. “I may have mentioned once that I could make a bit of money from a book about werewolf tracking. One mention and she’s got a new career planned out for me. She cares, and while she’s a bit crazy, I’m never going to begrudge that.”

“When you were 6, and we came back home after the war, first thing that you told Omma was that you wanted to be a wizarding wireless presenter. Do you remember?” With her arm around Wav, her fingers played absentmindedly with her hair. “She’d missed you so much, and would have done just about anything. So, a few days later, set up in your bedroom was everything you could possibly need to record your own show. Microphone, recording equipment, desk, tapes, gramophone. You must have spent a week where all you did was record silly voices and songs that you’d made up with terrible lyrics. You interviewed us and my parents. All of your teddies. But that was it. A week.”

Waverly giggled, "aw, I remember that..."

Something about being nineteen drew out all the nostalgia of a time when things were stable and predictable and protected. Even though they'd been sheltered in the middle of nowhere during a war, her Mam and Omma had kept her safe and kept a routine. Waverly remembered these shots and snatches of memories, sitting in her old room the kit all set up, the window open ...

She remembered one or the other of them poking their head in to tell her to go to bed, and Waverly delaying by playing back what she'd made.

"I think my songs were rather good. That one about the manticore minister of magic eating children was particularly relevant to the zeitgeist," she said.

Waverly's snuggled in a little deeper. If they weren't careful they were going to start talking about careers and Waverly's in particular. She hoped it was a topic Iona wanted to avoid, too.

"Intense might be an understatement," Waverly said, doubling back. "Your new cane is brilliant. I don't know how she comes up with this stuff."

This was nice, being snuggled up and actually talking. Sure, the dreaded topic of careers was to be avoided if this was going to stay nice, and Iona could happily deal with that. She hated getting involved in this confrontation, anyway. Too often, her and Zora had turned into good cop, bad cop. The roles tended to shift about as to who played each, but she and Zo were doubtlessly on the same level when it came to their daughter’s future.

“We still have them, you know.” Iona drained the last of her alcoholic tea and reached forward to return it to the table. “My favourite was your interview with Mr Fluffybum” (her teddybear) “about how to make flobberworm soup, and how it tastes. You went into a lot of detail with those ingredients, sweetheart.” Those, and many childhood photographs, were saved somewhere to bring out at some point as a delightfully innocent form of embarrassment.

At the mention of the cane, Iona glanced towards it resting up against the wall. It was still eyecatching, the shiny red streaks working their way through the wood. Even that had been thought out in incredibly detail. Zora still never failed to surprise her. She’d been the witch to drag her out of bed after the attack and give her some tough love. If she wasn’t going to start pushing herself, she’d never get better. In hindsight, it had been the right thing to do, but at the time Iona had hated her wife for it. She’d been pretty vile to her during her recovery and she still had a lot of making up to do. Yet despite all of that, Zora still found something to show how soft she really was on the inside.

“Omma isn’t the loudest in the room, is she sweetie? She’d the quiet one that is watching and thinking. She’s got more time to think of this stuff while people like you and I are chatting away about any old shit. Or…” Her fingers still absentmindedly played with Wav’s hair as she spoke, resting her head back against the cushions. “They’re not keeping her busy enough at work.”

A glint of excitement suddenly shot into Iona’s eyes and she glanced back to the cane.
“I’ve not shown you my new secret power.”

Waverly knew her parents were different from others'. They were Warrior Mothers, always united, and best friends. Looking at them, you'd think they wouldn't get along, but Waverly remembered falling asleep to their late night laughing in the kitchen. And then the three of them, they'd always got along so well. Things changed after Iona got attacked - Waverly didn't know whether to miss that innocence or face up to the change.

She didn't have much time to mull it over. Iona weaved from saying nice things about Zora to a strange question.

Waverly turned just a little to check her Mam's face. "What're you on about?"

Iona looked impish. Waverly sat up. "What secret power!"