3When Memory Charms aren't enough
Disclaimer: I'd wish upon a million stars or rub every lamp I ever saw if I thought it would grant my wish to own Harry Potter. I don't, it won't, and I just have to accept the fact I'm only allowed to borrow this story for a time. I don't earn anything from this. I did make up my scene break figure though, so don't take it without giving me credit.
Warning: This is a very sad story. It's also violent. If you can't handle that, try back another day for a different one shot. You've been warned.
A young boy moved in that wandering way children have, flitting from fence post to gnarly old tree to interesting stone. The sun was just rising overhead, casting long shadows over an otherwise cheerful landscape. A full moon was still barely visible in the sky, but it wouldn't be for long. A country road wound through fields of grain and the occasional fruit bearing tree to an old arched stone bridge.
The curves hid the man following the boy.
The man was a friendly looking chap. He had robin's egg blue eyes that seemed to sparkle just so. His hair was a scant shade more blond than the grain all about him, and if he had smiled, a poet might compare him to the sun coming out from behind clouds. If a woman were asked to picture the man for her - handsome yet kind, brave yet sensitive - such a woman might have pictured just such a man.
Appearances can be deceiving.
The boy bent to gather a few twigs from the side of the road. If this were any other morning, he might fashion a sling shot, or play a game of Pooh Sticks off the bridge, or find a likely looking dog to play catch with.
But this was not any other morning, and the last thing the boy felt was a sharp, grating pain in his neck.
_/ \_
Lockheart smiled, brightly and sincerely enough to make a watching woman swoon...if she could overlook the scene of carnage around him.
There were three children's bodies strewn around him, the apparent victims of a werewolf attack. A few bits of fur and blood (with the distinctive silver sheen of a transformed werewolf) completed the scene. No one would investigate further, and even if they did...werewolf parts were, yes, occasionally sold as black market potion ingredients. But who could doubt the scene before them was something besides the work of a beast? No one would investigate, and with some memory charms, there was no trail to follow if they did.
A little boy's eyes would never again shine brightly as he watched sticks race downstream in a river. A little girl would never learn to say her 'R's right, and her parents would break down every time they heard a child lisp "Wuhbecca" for the rest of their lives. Her pretty golden hair, so like the Monster in human skin who had killed her, was stained so red with blood that its color was unrecognizable.
Her big brother, only a year or so older, sprawled on top of the little pile. Lockheart thought posing him as if he had tried to fight off some horror to protect his friends was just the touch this scene needed. Poignant, he thought. Poetic, even.
The scene was set. Lockheart apparated back to his inn, and waited for the call to come in, asking for his help with a "Werewolf Menace". "Werewolf rampage?" He thought. No matter. There'd be time enough to think up appropriately dramatic sound bites later.
He had already chosen his "werewolf." A simple lad, about eighteen with the mind of a two year old, was perfect. The lad would likely drink the concoction of werewolf blood and spittle if Lockheart just asked him to. The teen was that gullible and good-hearted. It cheered Lockheart to think he wouldn't need to use a compulsion charm. All men should have the opportunity to walk to their own deaths willingly... not that he would hesitate to prod them in that direction, if it benefitted him.
Come the evening, Lockheart would be prepared and perfectly positioned with a silver dagger (poisoned...just in case) to kill the new werewolf in his vulnerable moment of convulsions at moonrise.
The thought of the tales he could spin - the book deals, and the women, and the gold - strengthened the smile on Lockheart's face, as he went, whistling, into town to find some breakfast before the drama began.