Last Things

Last Things

On the outskirts of the tiny, abandoned village of Crooked Oak, surrounded by woods, there stood a large dilapidated house with a motley crowd of men and women standing around outside, drinking, talking, and arguing amongst themselves. Inside a man with tangled, grey hair and a gnarled face leaned his head back against a ratty chair. In the background, he heard snarls and shouts of men fighting in the next room, but his mind was not on them. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment then exhaling harshly he closed his eyes. This was not at all he had envisioned his life becoming fifty years ago.

In his mind he saw himself once again as he had been back then, a young man of twenty-three, black hair well trimmed and slicked back, his suit well-tailored black silk. He was seated in a plush armchair in a clean, well-lit home, reading the Daily Prophet when he heard a shimmering laughter come from the next room. He looked up in time to see a beautiful, pregnant woman dance into the room holding a baby dress. "Oh Chris," she said smiling at him in surprise. His face broke into an easy smile as she broke into laughter again. "Isn't it beautiful, Chris?" she asked, holding up the lacy garment. "Aunt Malian sent it, she's sure Chris Jr. is going to be a girl." The man stood up, and took his wife into his arms. "Our child," he said, rubbing her large belly and chuckling as the baby kicked him. "Our child, no matter what he or she is, will be the most wonderful, the most perfect, the most beautiful child ever." She smiled up at him and their lips met. Warm, moist, the essence of home and all the joy it promised.

"Claudia," the old man whispered into the musky air. His mind was now far from the ruin of a house he sat in. He now saw his younger self, the strong, handsome Christopher Noble, pacing down the hard linoleum floors of St. Mungo's. His shoes making a harsh clap, clap in the otherwise silence of the darkened hospital. He bit his lip as tears welled up in his eyes. It amazed him how quickly he could go from complete joy to complete despair. Only a half hour ago, he and Claudia had been cradling a wonderful, perfect, beautiful little girl. Only a half hour ago, he had been the happiest man on Earth. Then his wife went pale. The nurse had come in, and things began happened too fast. He was pushed out of the door. A door muffled by magical barriers that he--normally an excellent wizard--was too confused to bypass. Then, from behind him, he heard the door open, and a tired looking nurse with tears in her eyes told him the news. His wife, the most amazing woman that ever was, had fallen prey to that which stalks us all; the cold shadow of death.

Tears fell freely from the old man's eyes. "Why," he muttered. Had she been there, had she survived, he would have never become this--this . . . thing that he was now. It was strange, how happiness had not completely eluded him after the death of his wife. For saddened though he was by Claudia's death, he still had their child. This girl he had named Claudia, to honor her mother. And honor her she did. A little girl who grew in all the grace and beauty of her mother before her, and filled their home again with warmth and a laughter like the summer's rain. The old man could still see her, the belle of every ball, favorite amongst her peers at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, known all around the village for her generosity, kindness, and radiant beauty. She made his heart alive again, and little though she wanted for herself, everything she wanted he lavished upon her.

She had been sixteen when it happened. "It," being the unthinkable, ultimate dread of all wizarding families, befell his daughter, his precious Claudia. It had been a clear night, the fresh snow on the ground illuminated by the light of a full moon. Claudia, worried about one of their young foals who had been sick, had slipped out without her father's notice. As she pushed open the heavy barn doors she let out a horrified scream. There stood a werewolf, holding the mangled body of the tiny foal. She tried to run, to get back to the house, but the werewolf was too fast for her.

When Christopher got out the snow was red with blood. The werewolf didn't even look up before a flash of green blasted him in the chest. Running to Claudia, Christopher grasped her in his arms and disapparated to St. Mungo's.

The old man got up from his chair and walked over to a dusty mantel. Between two tarnished, cobweb covered candleholders was a dust covered picture. Christopher lifted it gently and blew the dust off. A young girl with a radiant face laughed and cringed as though she was being tickled. In spite of himself, the man smiled. Even with after she became disfigured it was easy to see the beauty in Claudia. Easy for Christopher, at least.

He remembered the looks of the staff at St. Mungo's. They looked nervously at both he and Claudia, casting worried looks at the lunar calendar on the wall. There was no magic to cure those horrible wounds, no potion or ointment yet invented. All they could do was keep the cleaned and bandaged. Before she had even gained the strength to sit up, they discharged her, fearful of the full moon and the madness that followed in its wake. On their orders, Christopher had locked her in a windowless room on that night. He knelt before the door weeping as he heard her wails and howls of agony. All through that long night, there was no peace, and when he went into the room in the morning he found, to his horror, that she had reopened most of her wounds and inflicted more upon herself.

The next month he waited on her hand and foot. Not having emerged from his home, he had not heard the talk amongst the villagers. Muggles though they were, they too had legends of werewolves, and the recent gruesome murders of two village children and howls from the woods had people talking. On the day of the next full moon as Christopher and Claudia prepared themselves for one more trip to hell, the villagers braced themselves against the demons.

It hadn't been an hour since the moon rose when Christopher realized he couldn't bear it anymore. Forgetting everything he had ever learned, his heart led him, whispering to him that his precious daughter would always know him. He unlocked the door. There Claudia was crouched, fully transformed, her black fur gleaming in the shadows, and for a moment it seemed she realized who stood before her. But wicked ancient magic is no respecter of family. Before he even had time to pull out his wand, she had leapt at him taking a large piece of flesh off his shoulder. She did not linger though. Like any caged animal, she ran out towards freedom. Breaking through the window, she plunged out into the melting snow and charged out to the village. Bleeding profusely, Christopher chased after her as best he could. He never knew what happened when she first got to the village, but when he arrived he found her encircled by a small army of heavily armed men. "Stop!" Christopher shouted with no thought, but that of his daughter. "Stop! That is my daughter!" A few of the men turned to Christopher in shock, and Claudia used this distraction to leap over the heads of the villagers and tear off towards the woods. In all his nightmares he could still heard the sound of the gun--her whimper as he held her seizing body as she returned to humanity, her last words, "Don't be..."

The next thing Christopher remembered was a sharp pain in the back of his head. Then darkness. When he woke, he was bound to a post in front of a fire. Across the fire from him, Claudia's lifeless body was nailed to the side of a barn. The men, women, and children surrounded her. He could hear the men laughing boastfully to their wide-eyed children as they said, "You can never tell a werewolf by their human disguise." Christopher felt his stomach tighten with hatred. He turned and fought against the ropes until his right hand could strain far enough to reach the wand in his coat pocket. After freeing himself, he turned on the wand on the villagers. The women screamed trying to shield their children from him, and the men aimed their guns at his chest. "Take her down," Christopher growled, looking into the eyes of the young men who had once felt blessed just to have Claudia grace them with her smile.

He had laid her to rest in his family's cemetery next to her mother. That night he slept on the cold, loose dirt and cried like a child. Slowly as the night wore and the dawn broke over the horizon, his despair was replaced by rage. This was most unfortunate for the two ministry wizards that arrived that morning to summon him to court. Aside from the werewolf that had attacked Claudia, these were the first two men Christopher Noble ever killed. When the villagers came to his house hours later in hopes of killing him, he slew even more, warning the survivors that if they came back every one of them would die.

Each day he spent that way sorrow churning rage, rage churning madness, until the next night of the full moon. Driven by fury and revenge, he slipped past the guards. "Child for child," the old Christopher whispered hoarsely, as he put Claudia's picture back on the mantel. The village children had been his first disciples. For months, in the woods he trained them to loath and to reject their humanity. He fed them on his hatred. It was during this time that he forsook his given name and took up instead the name all parents came to fear, Fenrir Greyback. He turned these children on their parents. Not a soul over sixteen lived to remember Crooked Oak.

Months bled into years, each of which took more of Greyback humanity from him. Remembering Professor Dippet's letter of regret, saying Claudia would no longer be allowed at Hogwarts, Greyback attacked Wizarding families with the same fury he unleashed on Muggles. Every mother lived in fear of the moon. Every father's hand was trained on wand and gun.

He remembered well the first day he met Lord Voldemort. He had awoken one morning to find a handsome young man standing at his wife and child's grave with a red rose. He looked up at the feral looking Greyback with no shock even as Greyback grabbed him by his neck. "You'll want to let go," Voldemort said, without raising his voice, and without realizing why he did it, Greyback let him loose. "I knew your daughter; she was a very accomplished witch," he said calmly, ignoring the younger encroaching werewolves, "You yourself have become something of a legend, Mr. Noble, or should I call you Greyback?" (Greyback was stunned but said nothing.) "I too, have a new name," the man continued, "I am Lord Voldemort."

The old man's eyes narrowed and his face took on a crazed look as he remembered the outlet Voldemort had offered him. All his passion and hatred finally flooded out in their entirety. Whereas the average werewolf may only infect a handful of people in their lifetime, Greyback turned hundreds. He slew so many that even he lost track. Just as Voldemort grew more snake-like with every murder, Greyback too, grew more wolf-like with each life he shattered. His body quaked with bloodlust as he remembered their screams.

He hardly seemed human to anyone anymore by the time Voldemort rose again. In fact, the only shred of humanity he had left was so tainted with insanity that one would be hard-pressed to see it there. In dreams and in waking hours he saw them, his wife and child. They haunted the shadows, his victims sometimes took their form as the life left them. When he went with the death eaters to Hogwarts, he had seen his daughter in the form of a first year. He tried to go to her, to catch her up and hold her, but a young man with long red hair ran between them and fought him off. Watching her run down the corridor, away from him, he tore into the young man, tearing at his face as the werewolf that infected Claudia had done. Standing over the young man's limb body, Greyback heard his daughter's voice once more, "Don't be..."

In the months that followed everywhere he went everything he did they were there. Now in the ruin of his old house, his old life, he saw wisps of them in the corner of his eyes, like half-ghosts, tangible memories. A young man, with hallow cheeks and long brown hair, entered the room. "Master Greyback, sir, at your leave, Arcet sent me to inform you that we need to move quickly. The Order has discovered our location. Sir?"

Greyback did not acknowledge him, but looked out of the window behind him. In the yard a barefoot, young woman in a white dress danced. "Sir?" he young man asked again. "Go on without me," Greyback growled, "I will catch up. Arcet will lead you until then." Bowing the young man left the room. In fifteen minutes there was no one in the room, but the old man. Sneering, he looked down at the hearth where a half burn copy of the Daily Prophet lay, there on the unburned portion a newly married couple smiled at each other. A beautiful, pale woman gazed lovingly into the eyes of a long-haired young man with a badly scarred face. Greyback's heart was torn. Firstly, and most fiercely, he was angry that the man had lived, and unlike his daughter and himself had found happiness. Also, something in him was--for lack of a better word--happy because love still existed.

Reaching in his jacket pocket, he pulled out an odd instrument for a wizard. It was a highly embellished, old-fashioned silver pistol; inside the chamber was a single silver bullet. Outside he heard laughter. He walked outside as in a trance, his feet blindly following the musical laughter. At the foot of their grave he stopped, his face relaxing into the tired smile of someone who had suffered too long. "I'm sorry," his voice broke a little, "that I won't be able to see you both again, but it's time. I can't go on like this." Before him his wife and daughter materialized out of the dark nothingness. They watched silently as he carved into the tombstone with a sharp knife, under the names of his wife and daughter, the name 'Christopher Noble'. With tears in his eyes, the man, the most feared werewolf of all time, put the pistol to his heart and pulled the trigger.