Regulus found Edgar at the edge of the pack, crouched behind a broken wall, head down, hands folded on his knees.
His spot was a little closer to the center than last time. Only a few steps. But in a group where rank was decided by claws and teeth, a few steps inward meant his status had risen, or at least that nobody was bothering him anymore.
Last month, every werewolf had shoved him to the outermost ring. This time a few passing wolves gave him a second look, and one bared its teeth without laying a hand on him.
He didn't look up either. He just stayed crouched there, not causing trouble and not sucking up to anyone. His spot had moved forward, but he didn't seem too happy about it.
What Regulus had done here last time had worked. None of the werewolves present could have heard or understood what he'd said to Edgar, and they probably didn't even know what that Fiendfyre at the end had been. But the fear had stuck. After he'd left, no wolf dared touch the one he'd singled out.
Greyback least of all. To this day he had no idea what that wizard brat had said to his wolf, only that after that night, this wolf had been different.
Edgar looked the same as before. Old robes with the seams taken apart, nails cleaned, completely out of place among a pack too filthy to look human. That bit of dignity hadn't been worn away.
Regulus's gaze lingered on him a moment longer, then moved to Dumbledore.
The old man was looking at Edgar too. A flicker passed through his eyes, the kind of pity an onlooker feels seeing someone trying to hold on to their dignity after the world has run them over, and still holding on.
He didn't ask who the man was. He just gave a soft sigh and watched quietly.
The moon had fully risen. Silver light poured through gaps in the clouds and spread over the moors, turning the mud, rubble, broken walls, and bones a cold silver-gray.
Greyback's transformation began first.
He threw his head back, yellow eyes fixed on the moon, and a howl surged up from the bottom of his chest. There was no pain in it. His whole body was welcoming it, every bone greeting it. He was embracing the beast.
A few seconds later, a massive werewolf stood where Greyback had been. Yellow eyes burned in the moonlight, and it let out a long howl at the moon.
Then all the others.
Dumbledore stood to one side, eyes reflecting the moonlight and the silhouettes of the pack.
A few seconds ago they'd been people. Now every one of them was a beast.
He'd taken Lupin into Hogwarts, given him the Shrieking Shack and the Whomping Willow, and protected that little werewolf for three years. But sixty-odd transforming at once was probably something he'd never seen before.
He didn't do anything. He just stood there, staying under the moon with these suffering creatures.
Regulus watched quietly too. He had to admit, compared to a single werewolf, sixty-odd of them packed a punch.
The transformations ended. The camp was all beasts now, gray and brown and black and mottled fur tumbling and crossing in the moonlight.
Hard to say what decided the coat color. Ethnicity? Random? Once again, he didn't have enough relevant knowledge.
A gray-black wolf was on top of another, claws dug into its shoulder, teeth tearing a gash into the back of its neck. The bitten one rolled free, bit back, and the two tumbled across the gravel, claws gouging deep grooves in the mud. Several howled at the moon, the sound bouncing back off the stone houses, their vocal cords like they'd been scoured with sandpaper. Some rolled on the gravel and pawed at the mud, digging for ages without any idea what they were digging for.
One wolf chased its own tail for seven or eight rounds, then crashed into another, got knocked flat by a swipe of the paw, rolled twice, scrambled up, and ran.
Several fought over a single bone. One grabbed it and ran, the rest chased, and when they caught up they pounced on each other and kept fighting on the ground. In the end the bone fell loose, nobody got to eat it, and a third wolf carried it off.
Howling, stamping, biting, chasing, everywhere. Pure violent chaos.
In the middle of all of it, one wolf crouched in front of a broken wall and didn't join the scramble.
Edgar had changed too. Gray fur with a touch of brown, a thick wolf body, two solid slabs of muscle bulging at the shoulder blades, but smaller overall than the others. White breath puffed from his mouth. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and his body was still trembling slightly, bones and muscles not recovered from the shock of being torn apart and rebuilt.
A low howl rolled from his throat. It stayed muffled in his chest and didn't push out. He didn't charge into the pack to bite. He didn't chase other wolves for bones. He didn't howl endlessly at the moon.
His eyes were different from the other werewolves'.
Every werewolf's eyes were clouded, rage and fear and bloodlust and pain churning together, impossible to tell what was human residue and what was animal instinct.
Edgar's eyes had all of that too. But deep down, at the very bottom, there was a faint point of light, flickering, dimming and brightening. It wasn't stable. Every flicker was being dragged inward by something stronger, the beast pressing down hard enough to swallow it at any moment.
But it was still there, and it wasn't clashing head-on with the beast. It was pulling back, drawing itself into a smaller point, more solid, harder to scatter. Shrunken, but not shattered. A small piece of himself.
The anchor was working. Bellatrix's Guardian will was wrapped around the hardest core deep in Edgar's soul. The memories of his family, his sense of who he was, the stubborn conviction that he'd rather rot himself than hurt an innocent.
Second full moon. The anchor had withstood two transformations, two full-force assaults from the beast. Surviving the first time could have been luck. Surviving the second time wasn't.
What he'd relied on was that thing peculiar to Hufflepuffs. Slow, heavy, stubborn to a fault, but tough enough.
This path worked.
He looked at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore's gaze was already on Edgar. He'd spotted the one who was different among all these frenzied werewolves, his gaze passing through the snapping gray shadows and flying dust to settle on the gray wolf in front of the broken wall.
He saw it. Blue-white Guardian will, stable and constant, condensed into a paper-thin transparent shell wrapped around a smaller, dimmer flame. That flame was the werewolf's humanity. His sense of self. His refusal to hurt anyone.
Every time the beast surged up, the shell shuddered with it, nearly knocked to pieces. But it didn't break. It spread the impact out to its edges and used its constant Guardian will to dissolve the shock. The flame inside swayed in the storm, but it didn't go out either.
Dumbledore watched for a long time. Then he turned and looked at Regulus.
There was a lot in those blue eyes. Approval, surprise, and a kind of relief hidden somewhere deeper.
He didn't know Edgar. He didn't know who this wolf had been, didn't know he was a Hufflepuff graduate, didn't know his name. He only knew that Regulus had used the brightest part of his own power to guard the humanity of a werewolf who meant nothing to him.
Last year, outside the Shrieking Shack, this boy had asked him what a werewolf really was. Human or beast. Could will override instinct.
What had he said at the time?
Will overrides instinct. Self-knowledge is the foundation of everything.
Now this boy had taken a piece of his most beautiful thing and given it away, used it on someone else. It had nothing to do with sympathy or pity. Even if it was only to test a path, it was already more than most people ever did.
Regulus felt Dumbledore's gaze.
He didn't turn around or say anything. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he kept watching Edgar.
Old man. Do you like it?
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