The Wizard's Guide to Timelords and Other Demons Book 1: The Forgotten War

Battle Of The Blood Moon

"Easy Remus, take it easy my friend. Everything will be ok," Tonks said nervously as the fully transformed werewolf snarled threateningly, eyeing her as it would a succulent slab of meat.

The sudden appearance of a sanguine moon in the night sky had caught Remus Lupin completely off guard. Professor Snape had regularly prepared a potion for Lupin to help him manage the effects of his lycanthropy during those difficult days of the lunar month. But with January's Wolf moon supposedly a week or more away, Lupin hadn't even bothered to carry the vial with him.

"Easy boy," Tonks tried again, this time with a calmer, more controlled voice, certain that some part of her dear friend could still hear her. She was wrong.

The mindless creature stood up on its hind legs and prepared to lunge at its prey. Tonks had thought to apparate out of danger, but then realized she had forgotten to retrieve her wand from Elise before leaving the camp with Lupin to investigate the nest of strange, mucus-encrusted mice they had heard rustling around in the brush.

That was really, really stupid, Nymphadora! She scolded herself.

The werewolf opened its jaws wide and was about to pounce on Tonks when it was suddenly struck from the side by a charging blur of white fur, sending the Lupin-beast tumbling into a thicket. A large, muscular, white wolf turned back towards Tonks and spoke in a deep, gruff voice,

"Run!" it said.

"Elise?" said a stunned, though very grateful Tonks.

"Run, NOW!" roared the white wolf.

Tonks immediately took off running back up the hill in the direction of the camp. The werewolf bounded up from the ground and tried to chase after her, but Elise stood in its path, blocking it as she fiercely growled in warning. As the werewolf cautiously started to move in on her, Elise started slowly stepping backwards, feigning fear and submission to keep the beast's attention. The werewolf responded by becoming fiercer and domineering.

Good Remus, she thought. Shift your prey drive to me.

Elise glanced over at the ground nearby and realized that the diamond stone the Doctor had given her had fallen out of her mouth when she had slammed into Lupin and was now well out of reach.

I'm going to have to worry about that later, she thought as the werewolf lunged at her.

Elise took off down the hill at lightning speed and the ravenous man-wolf darted after her. She sped quickly down a path that would lead the two of them to the western border of the Forbidden Forest—safely away from the others—slowing down from time to time to make sure her cognitive-impaired friend would be able to keep up with her.

As the Reapers continued to ingest the remainder of the UNIT brigade personnel at the edge of the forest with much fervor, the Doctor noticed that they were unmistakably showing no interest at all in the tall, shimmering cloud nearby, into which the giants had all disappeared. As he watched and waited to see what would unfold next, reports began arriving—from owls of all things--concerning the condition of the students in the damaged castle. To everyone's great relief, all students and teachers were accounted for in the Great Hall, and not one of them had been harmed when the North Tower collapsed.

"We were very fortunate," Dumbledore said, reading the report. "Had the missile struck the Grand Staircase tower instead.... Well, I do not wish to even consider what the consequences would have been."

Just then, the Doctor felt prompted to ask Dumbledore the question that had been troubling him since the missile attack had first occurred.

"Professor Dumbledore, if we had not surrendered when we did, would you really have killed all those soldiers?" he asked.