March 14, 2009
Greyfriar House in Canterbury in Kent
1:30 pm

It was cold and raining in Kent today, had been since the early morning when an unseasonable clap of thunder had broken old Knox Greyfriar's morning daze.  Only yesterday had he been finally released form Werewolf Capture Unit custody, finally vindicated.  They'd just been doing their jobs and he couldn't fault them for that.  And despite the criminal venue, he'd been treated with all the dignity and respect normally paid to a man of his position.  But at the end of all of this, Wizengamot Elder or not, former Headmaster of Hogwarts or not, he was a werewolf. 

And as a werewolf, he'd transformed fully, escaped from his holding room, and had gone on a blood-thirsty rampage through the Fourth Floor.  He rubbed his hands over his face, thinking about the experience.  And how he didn't remember a second of it.  Just that he woke up aching all over, only to be informed that he'd nearly killed Fauna Blake.  And while it had been roundly proven by repuable parties that Knox had completely followed the law and was in no way culpable for the events that had transpired, he still felt guilt.

He was working over some paperwork on the case against Trevor Reid.  Case files and forensic reports from Level Two.  There were tomes of ancient trade law (he'd had to wade through whole codexes of rulings on goat law to find it...) and scrolls detailing previous Wizengamot decisions on previous similar cases dating back to 1730.  It was fascinating work, important work.  But his brain was as soggy as the muddy front path.

Knock Knock!

Knox raised his eyebrows and turned in his creaky chair to look at the door.  An unannounced visitor? Since the night last month when Devlin (who was living in the den upstairs) had been nearly killed by an insane person, visitors were all treated with suspiscion.  And with antagonism against werewolves at an angry high, it wasn't likely to be some well-wisher or fan.  The wards he'd placed on the house were formidable against evil intent, but he couldn't feel sure.

He took up his wand and went as quietly to the door as he could.

"Who's there?" he bellowed through the wooden door.

It felt like ages before she was allowed to leave the Ministry. Olivia felt like she shouldn’t have ever been allowed to leave. She was embarrassed and angry. How could she have been so irresponsible? How could she have let the time slip away as it had? It was her fault that Sasha was nearly killed by her paws. She hated herself for it even if she had no control. She had done as she was supposed to yet the monster in her over came and over powered. She had lost herself to the beast and it had been so long since she felt that feeling and she didn’t like it. Ollie felt like she had failed so many people and most of all her mother. She couldn’t go home to her after what she had done. She had nearly killed someone. She didn’t deserve the home her mother had created for her. She had been taken into her care when nobody else would have her. She couldn’t endanger her mother like that. If she could do this to Sasha then couldn’t it happen again?

Ollie didn’t know where to go and she wandered dwelling on her thoughts and the small amount of memory of her actions. She was hunched over and her eyes on her feet not watching where she was going. Where was she supposed to go? She had nobody. Finn was lost from her life for the most part, and Fauna was in school. Who was she supposed to turn too? As the rain began to fall she started to realize just how sorry a state she was in. She pulled her hood up over her head; it did little since it was only a sweater. She was soaked through and started to shiver in the cold.

Finally Ollie thought of a place she could go, somebody she had always been capable of counting. Someone who knew the type of person she truly was. That was when she started on her journey to Knox’s house. Her old Headmaster.  The great man she could look up too. She wished for nothing more than see his face and maybe he would understand.

She knocked on his door waiting nervously. What if even he didn’t want anything to do with her? “Ollie” she replied through the door.

A quiet voice came through the rain and wooden door, and it startled Knox more than Death himself.  In a swift movement, he flipped open all seven locks - Snap! Kring! Click! Chicka-chick! Squeak! Whirrr! Thunk! - and he swung open the door.

Olivia Foley, unmistakably her, stood on his covered stoop, dripping wet.  Soggy Ollie, shivering in the cold.  Her head was covered with a hooded jumper that all the kids seemed to be wearing these days, and she looked so pathetically forlorn that with one great arm, he swept her into the house.

The door slammed shut and all the clutter and papers in the main room fluttered and stirred.

"Get in, get in!"

He snapped his wand towards the fire which flared up in the hearth obediently.  And another incantation sent the kettle to fill in the sink.  After it was full, he retrieved it and set it on its hook in the hearth to boil. 

Knox all but corralled the teenage werewolf into the best chair and covered her in a blanket.  March was at its harshest today and it looked like she'd been out in it for days.  He'd not have been surprise to see twigs in her hair.  In all the mess of the full moon, and all the shit he'd been through, he hadn't thought about Olivia.  Of all the werewolves he'd ever known or heard of, she was the one he never really worried about.  Even now that she lived at home, she'd been doing this for years.  Transforming in the safety of her own house, with her mum at her side.  Through Knox's own ordeal, however, it had been determined that the wolfsbane the Ministry distributed had been tainted and they'd all transformed ever more violently.  Olivia hadn't been a part of that, had she.

"I'm happy to see you," he said, "rather, I'm happy to fish you up out of that river out there.  Are you alright?" 

It was an open-ended question - he wanted to ask if she'd been through what he had, if she'd woken up in a jail cell and been questioned and poked and prodded.  If she'd spent the last few days wondering if anything horrible had happened at her own hand in that insane night.  But probably best to start small, at least until the tea was ready.

Ollie was ushered in and towards a large comfortable chair. She was stunned, and unable to talk. Not because Knox was there and helping her out, but because she just didn’t know what to say. How was she supposed to even approach the topic she felt she needed to share? Remembering nothing of what she did, of who she hurt. She just knew where she started her night and where she ended up. She heard tales from the older kids of black out nights induced by drinking too much, was it anything like this? Why would anyone willingly do that to themselves? Ollie felt the need to apologize to Sasha, but the trouble was she didn’t know if she had done anything to apologize for and heaven forbid if there was anyone to apologize too. She was kicking herself for being so irresponsible. She had been so close to getting home but Sasha had to stop and talk to her.

Sitting she looked at Knox finally registering his movements and the fact she was sitting consumed in a blanket. She was quickly on her way to being warm and was already swimming in comfort. She was warmer, and she was off her feet. She almost for a split second felt at home. When she registered the question and the words that preceded it she chuckled slightly. Yes the river out side, amusing. Ollie had a smile on her slips but it quickly faded as her eyes gazed at the kettle on the hearth. “No.” She simply said. The life that was in Ollie was gone. This was her first slip up. She had always been so good and so well prepared. How had this even happened?

“I…” she couldn’t even find the words to admit the things she thought she might have done. She couldn’t really make herself continue. Despite being drenched her mouth felt dry like a desert. “I was not a good werewolf. I let my mother down. I was out. I was around people. I lost control.” The words just suddenly spilled our like she had to get rid of them.

Knox tended to look very large in his small house, which itself seemed all the more small due to the clutter that crept in from walls and shelves.  Knox himself was swaddled in large comfortable robes against March's damp chill - and the lingering chill of his experience.

He wasn't sitting yet, instead had gone to stand behind the large table near the hearth that acted like desk, dining and kitchen counter all at the same time.  There was some bread there, covered in a towel.  He took to it with a knife, carving off thick slices.

Olivia's face was hear-breaking.  What had happened?

"There was something wrong about that night," he said, trying to gently placate her, help her ease the guilt that would probably never pass, not with the way their society never allowed them to forget.  "None of us stood a chance.  Did you wake up at the Ministry of Magic? What did they tell you?"

He hoped to the fates that she hadn't been charged with anything.  He'd heard that a few werewolves had, despite the Wolfsbane mess.  Knox suspected he'd only skimmed by on the skin of his teeth, and being a Wizengamot Elder had helped that. 

He looked down, seemingly focused on gathering the bread to toast on a rack.  "No matter what they say, we can't treat ourselves too harshly."

Ollie looked up nervously at Knox as she pulled the blanket around her closer. She continued to shiver but not from the cold like before, but more from letting the feeling of it all shake in. She felt so nervous, so lost even though she was in the safety of Knox’s home and it was nearly a month till the next full moon. She couldn’t even relish in these facts, just feeling completely lost in her fears of what she had done. She longed for the memory of what happened that night, but also knew she didn’t wish to be burdened with the memory either. Perhaps it was better she didn’t know what she did. The last thing she remembered was Sasha and then waking up in the Ministry. She longed to send a note to Sasha to ensure he was okay, to ensure she had not harmed him, or worse made him one of the werewolf kind.

“I woke up in the Ministry, and I don’t believe I have been charged.” She felt her voice shake as she talked. “I fear I did something terrible I was near Sasha, he was the last face I saw before my memory goes blank.” What had she done? She was so careless, she had never been that careless before. She felt nothing but shame and she had broken all trust with herself and with her mother. She let herself down and more importantly she let her mother down. Headmistress Snark was right to expel her she had no right to be in Hogwarts around people.

“I think Headmistress Snark was right to expel me.” She wept as she spoke. “I could have killed my fellow classmates at any moment. I should not be around normal people.” For the first time since she was plagued with the curse and infliction did she feel sorrow and felt different. For the first time she felt pain and shame. It was the first time she felt like a monster.

"Olivia...!"  Knox stopped with the break and moved around the table to Ollie who had started to cry. 

"You can't say that...Come 'ere," he said softly as he sat in the chair next to her and offered an arm, hoping she'd let him be close to her.  He was the one person who she could never hurt.  Until Devlin, he'd never had children of his own - only all his students at Hogwarts.  From looking at him, you don't really get the sense that Knox would be good with children, but he always had been.  And after the first years got over how scary he looked sometimes, they found him quite huggable. 

"You can't think like that," he said again, quietly.  He wanted to recite lycanthrophy theory, the essays, the studies that discussed the culpabiilty of attacks, the ancient stigma that made their bodies the property of those around them.  Those were the things that were keeping him sane right now.  Keeping him from feeling like the world was - knowing that the facts backed up that he wasn't a menace, that he was another victim in all this.

"You should be at Hogwarts.   They're all just afraid - afraid it could be them.  They see their own fallability in us.  Our curse isn't a curse on individuals, it's a curse on society.  It'll take all of us to keep each other safe."

He took the liberty of patting her on the head.  "Besides, you're too damn adorable to be scary."