The halls of the Ministry had emptied even earlier than usual that evening.  News of the day's events had spread quickly throughout the magical community: werewolves attacking in broad daylight, so many amongst their roster having already fallen, and no word of what would happen when the full moon actually rose.  The WCU and various Level Two departments had already been posted in full to the streets in an effort to stave off what had already begun.  Those who could had gone home.  Only the necessary remained.

It wasn't unusual for one or two members of the Werewolf Capture Unit to remain behind to man the Ministry's holding cells during a full moon, but it was clear from Kurby Bagnold's expression that he was Not Happy at being stuck on werewolf registry duty that evening.   The werewolf hunter had seemed even more the worse for wear than usual when he had stalked into the waiting room, with dark circles under his eyes, his right arm in a sling, and a hallowed look to his face. 

Kurby had ignored everyone present, making an automatic beeline for an old chest that had been carefully left on a table near the door to one of the holding cells.  Shifting his shoulder uncomfortably, he gritted his teeth as he attempted to work the lock with one hand, obviously already feeling the painful effects of the Skele-Grow. 

It took him a moment to get the proper leverage and open the chest.  The lid finally rose, displaying a serious of vials inside, all filled with a vile-smelling liquid that let off a faint blue smoke.  Giving a snort, Kurby snatched one up, barely glancing at it as he turned his attention back to the crowd.

"Blake!" he barked, waiting for the Hufflepuff girl to approach.

"Here," he said curtly Fauna, not looking at her as he shoved the vial at her chest.  "Drink it.  Then get in a cell.  You say one word and I'll hex you silent for the rest of the night," he muttered, refusing to make eye contact with her as he turned away. 

"And you all know the drill," he snapped, raising his voice at the others lingering nearby.  "And if anyone hasn't taken their wolfsbane yet, you can bleedin' well say so or I'll cite you for inadequate preparation." 

An older witch with wispy gray hair set off by the brightly-colored flowers on her robes raised her hand, smiling patiently back at him as he scowled.   "Goddamn werewolves," Kurby muttered under his breath, shoving another vial of the potion at her.  "All right, get in the bleedin' cell.  Anyone else?" he demanded curtly, shooting a nasty look at the rest of the group.

The day had started off innocently enough. Fauna had been on Level Four since noon. She'd filled out more forms, talked to a few workers on the Registry, and did some revision for school. As the day had worn on, she'd watched the atmosphere take an ominous turn: hushed whispers, short tempers, Ministry employees running back and forth. She'd heard the rumors: werewolf attacks during the daylight. Screams and death. And no one knew what was causing it.

Fauna couldn't help but feel afraid and anxious. She didn't know why the attacks were happening or who had died. It was impossible to relax and see this process as... normal. The same selfish thought kept popping up in her mind: Why her? Why'd she have to get pulled into the Ministry on a day like today? Hogwarts was surely the safest place at the moment.

She kept to the back of the small group in the waiting room, dressed in regular muggle clothes, her bookbag and other personal items stored in a locker. They'd allowed her to keep her wand. From where she stood, she could see the rows of cells, which looked like cages with silver bars. These were different from the holding cells on Level Ten. There were nicer, more modern holding cells on Level Four somewhere, but the chaos of the day had actually caused a greater number of werewolves to flock to the Ministry, even if they had arrangements for safe homes. No one wanted to be 'out there', near Diagon, or even Muggle London. So the extra werewolves had been brought here to stay in the older cells, in the place that looked like a muggle jail.

When Bagnold made his entrance, dread rose up in her again, and it wasn't just because she didn't like him. It was because his face looked so tired and he had his arm in a sling. Bagnold was an arsehole, but he'd always seemed to be such an indefatigable arsehole. Seeing him like this made her anxious, and a part of her even felt a stab of sympathy. Sympathetic, up until he yelled at her to come forward.

Giving Bagnold a mild glare, Fauna silently took the smoking vial and drank it, coughing a little from the taste. Merlin, this stuff was wretched! She immediately felt nauseous and had the fleeting, illogical thought that she really would turn into a werewolf, and just hadn't known she was one before.

As she turned to pick out a cell, Fauna caught Knox's eye and hesitated, unable to mask her surprise. She nodded at him, then glanced away. Shite. He was probably wondering why she was here. He might even think she was a werewolf too. For some reason, that made Fauna feel really embarrassed. She just didn't want him to see her here. For all her positive talk in November, she didn't want to be here when he or any of these other werewolves went through their transformation. She felt like an intruder. A phony. Both embarrassed and aggravated. Both angry and scared about what had happened, what could still be happening beyond the Ministry walls.

Knox Greyfriar had worked all day at the Ministry on Level Two, as usual, in his small office in the Wizengamot's administrative wing.  From one tiny little room to another, he thought, as he tied up his bathrobe.  The evening edition of the Daily Prophet was tucked under his arm, the front page covered with warnings, precautions and the unsubstantiated conjecture about werewolves transforming during the day.  His cigar was resting on his ear, in the thicket of his dark sideburns and wild black hair.  He knew he looked his worst today, only a couple of hours before transformation, but he'd checked himself in the mirror - he had not suffered the same fate as the fairy-tale wolves, clearly not having transformed prematurely.  He rolled his eyes and locked his office door behind him. 

He made his way, in his slippers, to Level Four and into the Werewolf Registry, which was more crowded as before, many people there he didn't normally see.  And bollocks, it was that Bagnold at the counter.  Knox had gotten to know, at least by reputation, most of the members of the WCU, and Kurby Bagnold was a heartless little whipper-snapper. 

As Knox passed the grouchy faced, man, he paused to wordlessly snap his ivory-white teeth at him with a shark click!.  Full moons were horrible, as any werewolf would tell you if they decided to be honest.  And you could go about it one of two ways (and Knox had tried them both).  You could shut off from the world, embrace the shittiness of it and go full on curmudgeon.  Or you could smile and see where that got you.  Knox was registered - all of these people were as well.  Which gave Bagnold absolutely nothing fun to do. 

Oh bother.  All the nice rooms were taken.  The ones with the regular-looking doors and scratch-proof hardwood floors had all filled up, and so Knox would have to settle for the suite of medieval cells.  Carry-overs from a Pre-Gertudis Administration.  He did a double take as he padded down the row - Fauna Blake?  The old-Headmaster could only offer a puzzled, but accepting look, as he passed by.  It was an implicit Safe House culture that small talk was only awkward at this point.  Better leave any discussion until after the fact.  He took the next cell over.

He sighed as he regarded his accommodations for the night.  Silver-coated bars instead of a nice door.  Stone floor with a metal chair, laying on its side.  He stepped inside, leaving the door ajar, and righted his chair.  Then he began his comfortable ritual.  The Wolfsbane Potion already brewing inside him, already wearing a new bathrobe (he had to purchase a new one each month), and his cigar now lit, Knox Greyfriar settled into the chair, one leg crossed over the other, to wait.  What would happen next, is that an attendant would come down the row, check that everyone was doing marvelously, shut up the doors, and leave them all to their peace.

---

The attendant never came, and Knox, too engrossed in the Food & Wine section of the Prophet, hadn't marked the time.  The old cells didn't even have the moon clock above the door, and so he didn't notice that everything was not going to plan.  That something was amiss.

A popular favorite this season is a venison tartare! Now most red-blooded witches and wizards would wonder at eating deer meat raw, but we can assure you, it has the most delicate of flavors...

He did not even notice his interest in an article about a meaty dish - the old vegetarian usually skipped those parts.  And then he felt like he was stabbed in the gut.

"Awww!" He bellowed in shock.

He fell out of the chair hard onto his knees, one arm wrapped tightly around his middle.  The last thing he remembered thinking was, "Well.  This is an unfamiliar sensation..."

With the werewolves loping in at an even higher rate than usual and with the regular staff out in the field in a desperate attempt to bring the day's situation back under control, it took Kurby longer than normal to get all of the cells secure.  After making sure the group in the older holding cells was settled, he headed back down to the Registry office to log it all.  Entering name upon name took him until well after the full moon would have risen, especially without the use of his right hand.

Most of Level Four was dark by the time he made returned to the main corridor.  There was a light still on in the Dragon Research and Restraint headquarters, but he steadily ignored it as he made his way back down to the cells.  It was a rare occasion when he'd prefer the company of werewolves to that of a coworker, but after their fight a week ago, Kurby could safely say that Margo Amherst was even lower on his sociability list.

When he got back to the cells, the wolves were already howling.  The sound of it, even years removed from his childhood, made the hair on the back of his neck raise and set his teeth on edge.  He hated werewolves, hated everything about them, and it was times like this that made him remember why.  No one could listen to them snarling and barking like dogs and think that there was anything human inside of them.  They were beasts, all of them.  The curse made sure of that.

Kurby glared at the wolf in the cell nearest the door as he stepped past it; it snarled back at him, slamming into the silver bars.  He made a face back at it, but took care to stay out of range as he moved around its prison and to the cell that contained Fauna Blake.  Even on wolfsbane, sometimes the werewolves riled themselves up; clearly the events of the day had left them feeling more in a pack mentality than usual.  Kurby thought sorely that not a single member of this supposed pack would mind if they managed to get a piece of him in the process.

But nothing dove at him, snarling for his blood, from inside the next cell.  The werewolf hunter smirked, taking a moment to survey the huddled figure within.  Plenty of hair, check.  But no snout, paws, or tail.  Unfortunate.  He would have liked to rub it in.

"Well," he said, giving the girl an unsettling smile.  He had already started to cross his arms before he remembered the sling; his smirk quickly faded into a scowl as he settled for tucking his good arm against his chest.  "Apparently you're not a werewolf after all.  I hope you can get your money back on all the flea-free enchantment shampoos, Blake."

Mournful howling, the rattling of bars, and strange groans and growls echoed within the fourth floor of the Ministry as the full moon rose outside. Claws clacked on the stone floor as the werewolves paced in their individual cells. Their transformation was complete, yet they seemed more agitated and restless. Minutes ticked by, and Fauna kept hoping they'd calm down, settle in quietly like she'd seen Ollie do once before.

Fauna huddled by the wall on the cold, hard floor, putting her hands over her ears to try to block out the noise. She bent her head down and did her best to ignore the sour, musky smell permeating the air. It was no use. Everything seemed to make the nausea worse, causing beads of sweat to gather on her forehead and her sweater to feel too warm and restrictive.

Fauna attributed feeling sick to fear and nerves, but the affected wolfsbane was not helping matters. No one could have prepared her for this - the howling from the werewolves, the lack of light, and the dread that Bagnold would forget about her or leave her down here on purpose. There was no loo in this cell. There was no bed. At least she had her wand, and Fauna clutched it in one hand, finding small comfort in that.

When the faint slap of footsteps sounded, Fauna looked up, hopeful. Her gut clenched when a werewolf slammed into the bars a few cells away, and then Bagnold appeared in front of her cell, smirking at her. She stared at him sullenly, ignoring the jab about shampoo. She rested one clammy palm against the wall and stood, then moved closer to the bars.

"Are you going to let me out?" Her voice sounded much more frightened than she'd intended, and she crossed her arms defensively, eyes darting past him when a sudden sharp growl sounded.

Fauna refused to plead with him or cry, but if he left her in here the whole night she might just go crazy.

Kurby barked out a laugh, cold and bitter, and smirked back at the girl, eyeing her through the silver bars of her cell. 

It was tempting.  He could walk away, not give her a second thought until the morning.  For all of her flouncing certainty and her moral high ground, Miss Fauna Blake obviously had had no idea what real werewolves were like.  A night down here would certainly cure her of her ridiculous notions about werewolf segregation.  After a few hours of unending snarling, barking, and howling, and Blake would want the goddamned things so firmly segregated that she'd make the blood purists look liberal.

She'd complain, sure.  Flickwick and plenty of others had gone out of their way to make it clear that if he did anything but act professionally towards Blake, they'd do everything in their power to have his head.  But after the events of the day, no one was going to give a damn how he treated some Hogwarts student.  He could leave her in her cage all night and no one would have time to even think about her until the morning.

The werewolf hunter stood where he was, smirking at her.  Somewhere to his right, another werewolf snarled, slamming into the bars of its cage as it strained to get at him.  Kurby cast it a sidelong glance, his face expressionless, and then looked back at the girl.

"You've got to stay on site until the sun rises," he informed her matter-of-factly.  He started to reach for the keys, stopping halfway as he realized that he couldn't manipulate them with his wand in his only good hand.  Letting out a growl, he shoved his wand into his sling and then pulled out the keys, fumbling for the right one so that he could shove it into the lock. 

"I guess they weren't as furry and cuddly as you were hopin', then," he muttered, his expression growing steadily more frustrated as he fumbled with the lock.  It finally clicked.   Growling, he dropped it to the floor with a clank, hooking his keys back on his belt loop. 

"Are you sure you don't want to give any of them a hug before you leave?" he asked snidely, pulling the creaking door open with his good hand.  "I hear doggy kisses work just as well for saliva exchange if you're into that sort of thing, Blake."

Knox Greyfriar was a big wizard, in height and girth, and so the beast form that took over him was hulking, visibly bigger than his gnashing neighbors who'd also fallen under the non-effects of their treatment, as well.  Blank black eyes took in the small cell with sharp jerks of the head, and the first of his victims was rendered into bits at a fell swipe of his paw.  The chair flew across the cell and came apart at the seams when it hit the wall, no matter that it was made of steel.  With nothing else to destroy, the werewolf growled and howled, and rounded on the exit - silver coated bars.

With the door ajar.

The beast threw itself again the silver bars and immediately recoiled with a shriek.  The silver burned, and the door being of the sliding variety didn't swing open to let the werewolf pass.  But it didn't stop the shrewed creature for long.  It paused, black eye squinting, head cocking almost puppy-like.  It licked it chops and crept on all fours up to the bars again, huffing, sniffing at the situation.   A paw through the narrow opening, and then a swipe.

KLANG!

The sliding bars were thrown home and Knox in his werewolf form stalked out of the cell at a confident trot.  All through the dark halls came the sounds of other werewolves gnashing and flailing against their locked pens, only Knox's beast so lucky from an oversight.  All the other werewolves were ignored as if they were copies and had no scent, no draw for Knox's beast.  But another smell hit the nose and the trot turned to a lope.

"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" came his cry as he came upon his purpose for existing: who fleshy things to devour, the only thing that could slake a werewolf's endless bloodlust.

1.

Wiki

Silence stretched on for a few moments as Fauna waited for Bagnold to decide her fate. She knew that because of the disasters that had happened today, leaving her to the werewolves wouldn't matter or make an impact. In the scheme of things, it wasn't a huge deal. Right now, however, with the snarling and the growling and the cacophony of howls surrounding her, it seemed like the worst thing she'd ever have to live through, the worst night of her life.

Of course, it would be. But for very different reasons.

Her shoulders slumped in relief when he reached for the keys and started to unlock the cell door. She didn't care if his sling was cumbersome or slowed him down. She was getting out!

Fauna glared at Bagnold when he commented on doggy kisses, but said nothing, no thank you, no snide retort. She stepped out of the cell the moment there was room, arms still crossed, wand still clenched in one hand. She just had to hide how sick she was feeling until he was out of sight. Who knew what he would do if she barfed on him - kill her, probably.

But her stomach had other plans. Just when a chair clattered and a guttural yowl sounded in another cell, she bent over and put her hands on her knees, hit by all the smells and sounds. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, taking a couple deep breaths and covering her nose with her sleeve. The sudden clang of metal against stone made her jump, and her eyes flew open.

There, a dark form loomed in the shadows, growing taller as it stalked towards them. The musky smell grew stronger. She caught a flash of fangs, a glimpse of yellow eyes.

"Bagnold!" She hissed, her warning overwhelmed by the werewolf's howl, one that shook the bars and incited the other werewolves into a howling frenzy.

Fauna stumbled back a few steps, fighting off dizziness as she broke out into a cold sweat. She raised her wand, but was so struck by horror and shock that her mind blanked as the hulking monstrosity lunged at them.

Instinct kicked in at the look on Blake's face, at the howl that sounded behind him.  That wasn't the cry, low and mournful, of a carefully regulated lycanthrope as it howled its unhappiness from a locked cell.  Few sounds could equal a werewolf on the hunt once it had finally scented its prey.  Once the howl came, it was already charging, snarling teeth and murderous instinct mere instants from being locked in battle against a poor soul who could never hope to win.

Getting caught by a werewolf was so easily deadly, but having an encounter in such a small space could be even worse.  There was nowhere to run, no way to get out of the way in time.  He'd abandoned his usual gear and shrugged off his enchanted silver chain main when they'd stumbled back into the office late that afternoon, already exhausted and hurting from the day's attacks.  The normal protections were gone.  This wouldn't be so easy.

And he couldn't flee.  Even if Kurby had had his wand in hand, apparition was out of the question, not with Blake standing in from of him with that dumbly shocked look on her face as if this were the first time that she had ever seen a werewolf.

Kurby moved without thinking.  Dropping his right shoulder, he threw it into the girl, knocking her back inside the cell she had just exited.  The keys clattered somewhere across the floor as the werewolf hunter let go of them.  Turning partway towards the charging beast, he took a step inside the cell.  Grabbing on to the sliding silver-barred door with his good hand, he threw his weight into the motion and slammed it towards the wall.

The sudden, prey-like movement of the humans as they became aware of their stalker was fuel for the beast's hunger.  Their sudden flight caught its eyes and the chase was on, like a spell had been cast.   It lunged, jaws fully open and gnashing.  Claws extending and slashing.  Inexplicably, the two of them seemed to phase out of the way in the last second and the beast nearly went skidding past the place they'd been.

But the beast was no pup, no loll-eyed retriever, and it reacted with savage quickness by digging into the stone floor with an eardrum-grinding scraaaaaaape.  In a span of just a few feet the werewolf found traction, reversed direction and slammed into the bars of the cell, which had just slammed shut.

Despite the force with which the beast hit the burning silver bars, it did not bounce back, nor did it flinch.  It stayed pressed against them, snout gnashing, and long forelimbs clawing out, not to swipe... but to grab.  To snatch.  To catch one of them by the shoulder, or arm, or head, and pull them in.

The burning silver coating, old as it was, and the grating of its claws on stone, of throwing its body against the solid door - the werewolf was beginning to leak an inky ichor, thick blood.  But its mettle was a Cursed single-mindedness...

Fauna was knocked back into the very cell she'd just escaped from. The cell became a temporary haven as Bagnold slammed the door shut, and the werewolf rushed at the bars, forelimbs outstretched, claws extended, slicing the air.

Breathing hard, Fauna flattened herself against the back wall of the cell, as far away from the werewolf as she could get. She glanced at Bagnold. For an instant, she felt grateful that he'd shoved her into the cell while she'd been too terrified to react.

Then she raised her wand, shut her eyes, and pointed-- not at the werewolf, but at some distant spot, trying to shove her fears aside, along with the fleeting thought that shutting her eyes was not a good idea, the sickness, the panic, her shaking legs, the snapping and snarling of the werewolf, and the slight sizzle of fur and flesh against the old, rusting bars.

"Expecto... Expecto Patronum," her voice quavered. She imagined her mum, an idea she could cling to even if it brought forth more feelings of comfort than joy. A wisp of a creature replied, emerging from the wand, glancing at her, and then slipping through the bars and down the hall.

The porcupine patronus wasn't fully corporeal, but it was Fauna's best shot. She just hoped it reached help in time.

The beast was a big one.  Kurby stood his ground as it crashed into the bars, staying just out of reach and resisting the urge to snarl back at it.  Reaching for his wand, he retrieved it from the sling and pointed it at the junction between door and wall.

"Adhaesia," he muttered, letting burst the invisible magic to stick the door shut in place of a lock.

The door was stuck.  Kurby took a deep breath, forcing the tension from his shoulders as he glared back at the werewolf.  It could howl and snarl all it wanted now.  Spending the night in a WCU cell alongside Fauna Blake wasn't Kurby's idea of his ideal full moon, but they could hold out here until morning if they had to.

As he squinted at the wall, examining it to make certain that his spell was holding, he heard another quavering voice recite a familiar charm behind him.  A burst of silver went waddling past him.  Kurby barely gave it a glance; he was only surprised that Blake's patronus wasn't something more showy, like a peacock.

"Is that the only useful thing they taught you in Defense Against the Dark Arts, then?" he asked her snippishly, shooting a look back over his shoulder at the girl.  "Who the hell do you think's going to be here to see it?  You might want to think about workin' on your happy thought, too, Blake," he added with a forced smirk.  Even taunting his newfound nemesis didn't hold the same appeal that it usually did when there was a werewolf just a few feet away.  "That one was a little cloudy."

For a few moments, Fauna stopped feeling so afraid. She stared at Bagnold in complete bafflement, too shocked to even be offended. Was he sniping at her so she wouldn't melt into a puddle of terror? No, he wasn't that considerate.

"If you're going to do a better job, you send it," she hissed at him, trying to ignore the werewolf's snarls and growls. "How long is that charm going to last? What else... I mean, can't you apparate us out of here?"

Fauna gave him an irritated but embarrassed look. This level was probably one of the areas that the Ministry didn't allow apparation, especially since they locked people up here. But what did he mean, no one would see the patronus? There had to be a few people working late today. The concept of waiting this out the whole damn night was so frightening to her that she couldn't quite process it. They had to solve this problem now! Why didn't he see that!

The werewolf hunter leaned back his head and barked out a laugh, a harsh, bitter sound even amongst the cacophony of howling and snarling werewolves. 

"Don't tell me you still haven't passed that examination, then?" he asked, shooting the girl a thin, humorless smile.  "I can tell you're going to go far in life, Blake.  What the hell were you plannin' to do, flip your hair and hope someone comes rushin' to your rescue any time you get into trouble?"

The lycanthrope that had attacked them was pacing back and forth restlessly in front of the bars, still snarling.  Kurby watched it warily, his eyes following it as it stalked back and forth, his stance still tense and ready. 

"Can't apparate in here," he said, dark eyes bright as they locked on the werewolf.  "And no one who's still about would know how to deal with a werewolf.  Flickwick's the only other one on duty."  He smirked slightly.  "We'll see if she's smart enough to check through the door before comin' in to do her inspection." 

A hint of dark amusement passed over his features.  "Or we could just see about puttin' a permanent end to this one," he added, mouth twisting again in a grim smile as he glanced at Fauna.  "I could slit its throat, and then you'd be your way back home to your nice, safe feathered bed.  After all, that's all you think we do to them, isn't it?" he asked, his smirk growing.  "It's funny how idealism stops matterin' as much once a werewolf's got you cornered, Blake."

The beast was far from relaxed in the narrow hallway.  His hunting had roused all the other werewolves in the corridor to screaming and howling in their own stymied need to kill.  Concussive banging informed the two trapped humans that the other werewolves were also doing battle with their cell doors.  The beast paced, never leaving the span of the cell door opening, never taking his black eyes from the two.  They chattered like panicked birds, tucked back into the corner.

The beast could wait.  It would find a way.  The night was long and he had never known any weariness.

Suddenly, the low stalking posture of the beast was erect.  Ears forward, nose whipping around towards the noise.  Tail up.  The beast gave a low growl and his hackles rose.  Without a even one glance or earflick towards the 'box lunch' the beast lept into action and tore off down the long winding corridor to follow the noise.

It had been a voice, barely perceptible over the noise of the werewolf wing and its poor doomed wards.