July 24th, 1888 - Jude's Flat

Kieran woke up as he always did after the full moon - ill, and a little injured, and to the sound of Jude making tea downstairs. He dressed, unlocked himself from the reinforced attic and came down the ladder, nodded at Jude, and settled in at the table. It was actually sort of domestic. The owl from the Prophet came to bring Jude's copy of the Prophet, and Kieran let it in, tipped it a knut - one of his own, because Jude wasn't watching, and sat back down. He started to read. His face got even more pale as soon as he read the headline. Werewolf Attack in London. He thought of T., and could not stop reading, pouring over the words. He held the paper with his left hand and with his right reached down to touch his shirt. Under the thin layer was the burn that T's father had left on Kieran's skin.

This case was worse. Six dead, one turned, two arrested. Kieran felt nauseous, stomach churning, as he imagined how it went - no one had been able to stop the werewolf in a populated place. A werewolf in a park was worse than a bull in a china shop. And perhaps Kieran could have moved on - felt terrible and lucky and terrible, but moved on - were it not for the last paragraph. "As always, those aware of werewolves in our midst are reminded that keeping such a secret is considered a criminal offence, and that reporting these individuals to the appropriate authorities is in the best interests of all parties involved."

If he was caught, somehow - Eileen would be arrested. Jude would be arrested. Never mind the consequences for him; the consequences for his friends would be just as dire, because they aided a would-be murderer monthly. Kieran folded the paper - the opposite way, so that Jude couldn't see right away - and tucked it next to him. The kettle whistled. He propped his head up with the palm of his hand.

"The right thing to do is turn me in, you know," he said.

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   Aldous Crouch, Ophelia Devine

They had fallen into a surprisingly comfortable rhythm, by now. As comfortable as it could be, considering the situation. The fog in Hogsmeade had Kingsley pulling extra shifts even at St. Mungo's, and the upside of this was Jude had been spared from making his usual awkward - and verging on the unbelievable - excuses for last night, at least. He'd gotten up early, before Kieran could come down, as he did: this rarely proved difficult. It was near impossible to sleep, knowing, so Jude usually did the rounds, triple-checking the attic locks and silencing spells, and then stayed up reading through the night, snatching an hour of sleep here and there when he wasn't thinking of the werewolf trapped up there, and Kieran trapped somewhere in the wolf.

He tended to get away with feeling - looking - slightly sleepy at breakfast, anyway, because mussed hair, dark circles under his eyes and the occasional yawn were nothing next to the horrific night Kieran had inevitably had, with no rest at all. The mornings themselves were fairly quiet, Kieran at the table, Jude making the tea, passing the paper between them amiably while Jude wished, for the thousandth time, that there was something more he could do.

Tea he could manage, thankfully, dragging himself out of the faraway thought he'd fallen into while he waited for the water to boil. "Turn you in for what, not being a morning person?" Jude said mildly, not-quite-listening as he stood up to whisk the kettle off the stove. Once he had - with the whistling stopped and the silence rushing back in - he turned over the words in his head again, and glanced over his shoulder at Kieran, halting there in a double-take.

He looked pale and serious, somehow more than he had a few minutes ago. "What?" He said, suddenly disconcerted. Turn him in; what was he saying? They had just been getting the hang of this, Jude had thought - and Kieran wasn't hurting anyone, here.

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Any other morning, he would have snorted at that, moved on, passed Jude the front page of the paper. Any other morning. But this morning, today, the front page was on a werewolf run rampant. So Kieran shrugged, and could not quite look at Jude, but was rather studying the tea kettle. Practically speaking, he had a good record: four years, and four people knew, and he'd turned one. (Unless there had been other casualties of the night with Topaz Urquart, but - that was best not thought about.) The destruction of the British magical government was also... best not discussed.

Ciaran Byrne's record could have been good, too. The paper said nothing about years, or number of full moons, or what he did normally.

"Anyone figures it out - you go to prison, too," Kieran said, shaky, because it was true. And the thing was: he worked with reporters. He worked with crime reporters, and one day someone might notice that Kieran was never the reporter on call during full moons, might get twitchy. Or - or he could slip up, again, and kill someone, this time.

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Jude fought the sigh that arose when he realised that Kieran was serious, that they were really going to have this conversation now, sudden and out of the blue and scarcely after the sun had risen.

"I'm aware," he began, pausing to turn away and pour the water and to measure himself before any frustration could seep out of him. He was very, very aware - he wasn't an imbecile - but he had been aware when he had agreed to help, had been aware the moment he'd found out that Kieran was a werewolf. Only, Jude had thought they'd consigned this fact to the realm of things that could go unspoken a long time ago.

And it could, it could go unspoken until or unless the thing it hinged on ever changed, and that was whether anyone else found out. And this was Kieran's best chance of not being found out, because here he had help and was safe, wasn't roaming around the forest, wasn't going to hurt or turn or kill anyone accidentally - and if there were no more public werewolf disasters like that of Topaz Urquart, no one would be inclined to look too hard for the signs. Which meant Kieran could go on with his life.

The law did not factor in.

"But it's a risk worth taking," Jude declared, setting the kettle down with a little more of a dull thud than necessary. He turned his back to the counter, looked at him straight on, hoped his resolve about this would be enough to curb the dangerous line of thought in Kieran's head. "Because that -" giving him up to the Ministry, Merlin, "- is not an alternative." And you know it.

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Kieran met Jude's gaze, dead-on, and knew that there was nothing he could do to change his mind. But he had known that already - had known it even before the suggestion left his mouth. What he was looking for, instead, was a sharp edge to run himself up against - that familiar self-destruction was thrumming in his veins. It was the same impulse that had gotten him turned in the first place; the same impulse that often had him drinking. Today, this morning, he didn't know what he wanted. Maybe for Jude to turn on him, to realize this was stupid; maybe he just wanted to punish himself, again, for Topaz.

He looked away, down at the curling corner of the newspaper. Jude in Azkaban was not even his worst fear; his worst fear was that he would wake up one morning after the full moon, down here, having tumbled down from the attic in the night. His worst fear is waking up with the coppery tang of Jude's blood in his mouth.

"The thing with making it different for werewolves is - well, you all would need an open werewolf, wouldn't you?" Kieran said. Different tactic, then - ramming himself up against that brick wall in search of something. When he felt like this he often found himself wishing he could still find Yousef - or Ishmael, or whatever his name really was - and fast-track the self destruction with someone who really didn't give a shit. "Haven't you thought how much easier it would be?"  

Snarky, this time: "Look, here, he's tame - definitely didn't hurt the Urquart girl, that one."

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For half a second, when Kieran looked away, Jude thought - stupidly - that he had won here, that he had managed to shut down this debate. He should have known better: when had Kieran ever conceded so easily? Ever conceded at all?

He ought to bear it patiently, ought to endure him gently until he was done and then forgive him and move on - because it was understandable, from where he was coming. But Kieran knew exactly what he was doing, and went straight for what stung, saw Jude tense up in an instant. Making things different - better - for werewolves. Hadn't he thought how much easier it would be? Of course he had thought; half his life now was spent dwelling on a question he had no real answers to - and if he had, he would not have been able to do anything useful about it, anyway. Jude got quiet when werewolves came up in discussion now, be it with their friends or strangers or in the Prophet, afraid that he would slip up and say something, too loudly, that would lead the world straight here - a little scared that Kieran would be listening, too, and tell him that he was wrong. And there was nothing more frustrating than not being able to do anything, and every month Kieran spent up in the attic was a cutting reminder of that.

It might have been different, if chance had splintered in reverse, and Jude had been the one turned. Maybe it was only a delusion, because he didn't know what it was like, but he - he thought he would have been open about it. Told the world, borne the brunt of it, tried to fight it that way. He almost wished it had been him. Did that make him a terrible hypocrite, for the thought of Kieran giving himself up for such a cause being so horrifyingly unpalatable in turn? Not that Jude would have ever suggested the idea, tried to talk anyone else into giving up the preciousness of secrecy for a life of misery and shame and public cruelty... but maybe once there had been the possibility, for Kieran.

Since last August, though, it was close to the worst idea in the world, and Kieran's sarcastic mention of the girl seared his anger to life. "Oh, yes, great plan," Jude snapped, forgetting the tea steeping steadily behind him. "And then they figure out who did, and then we still both go to prison - and they'll have just the scapegoat they've always wanted, and everything for werewolves will only get worse." He swallowed, and then said sharply: "Is that what you want? Are you trying to ruin your life?"

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This was the sharpness that Kieran had been trying to run up against, the bite, and he straightened a little in his seat. His heartbeat quickened. There was something about conflict that made him feel better - if not about this situation, (what could make him feel better about this situation?) - then about something. He felt more productive, although there was nothing productive about it.

Jude's indictment - that he was trying to ruin his life - was perhaps not far off from the truth. Kieran knew that, but - well. After Topaz Urquart, he deserved to have his life ruined, didn't he? He deserved to go to prison, to have no job and no flat and no friends, nothing. He deserved the consequences, and he didn't always regret dodging them - but then the Prophet ran a headline like today's. He didn't deserve his job, his flat, meetings at the Augurey, whiskey with Leeny, mornings drinking tea with Jude. He pressed his thumb into the back of the paper.

"I'm trying not to ruin yours," Kieran snapped.

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Of course cutting words would only incite more - this was how it always went, this was what he didn't want - and Jude felt a sharp pang at Kieran's answer. Could he really blame him for wanting to be noble about this?

Except Jude wasn't convinced this was entirely about that, about righteousness or making it easier on him at all (Jude had agreed to this, had suggested this, could make up his own mind to be involved) when he knew Kieran, knew the guilt bound to him in fetters, knew that self-destructive bent had been in him even beforehand: the drinking, the cynicism, the apathy. Laughing at everything almost in freefall.

It scared him, just now, to think that he might not be able to rein it in.

"Well, thank you for that," Jude said, his heart racing but still as adamant as before, "but if you go about it that way, I suppose I'll still see you in Azkaban." Maybe they'd get thrown in neighbouring cells. Their fates were tied together in this now, for better or worse. "This is the best way," he bit out, determined to keep doing what was in Kieran's best interests, whether or not he cared to see it. He already suffered enough for what he was and what he'd done, without cleaving himself from everything else he had.

Jude realised he had crossed his arms tight in front of him, and made a careful effort to release them to his side, leant forwards and pressed his hands over the top of the chair he'd been sitting in, so that they could not be clenched in anger. "You understand," he began, more quietly, "that I don't think werewolves should be locked up for things they didn't choose to be or do, don't you?"

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   Cassius Lestrange

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He looked not at Jude's face but at his hands, cupping the top of the table, and he exhaled a breath with more force than was necessary. Kieran knew, from experience, that they could talk around each other like this for hours - if he dug into himself he could find something hurtful to say, and then so would Jude, and they could just keep going. But if he wanted to win this argument - (although he would not turn himself in, that would get Jude and Eileen arrested and ruin everything, but that was not the argument being made anymore) - then there was another thing he could try.

(The argument: that he, Kieran, was bad, that being a werewolf was bad and he was worse than some, that Jude would give up. He had admittedly not thought through the benefits of winning, just that clawing need on the inside of his ribs, guilt and twenty years of self-destructive tendencies.)

He let go of the paper, unfolded it so the front page stuck up, and slid it towards Jude.

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Kieran didn't answer. And then he unfurled the newspaper, deliberately, like he was playing his ace.

His gaze caught the headline in an instant, and already he couldn't bring himself to meet Kieran's eye. Instead, Jude pulled the paper properly towards him, smoothing out the fold with a shaky hand, and sank back into the chair, his heart sinking steadily too. Every next sentence, and it sank anew.

That Kieran had had nothing to do with this tragedy scarcely registered as a grain of consolation against this, six dead, lives ruined, a werewolf captured. Another outcry. It was not the first time in history something like this had happened - and, as the world was, it would not be the last - but now it all made sense; he could see, plainly, where Kieran's head had been today.

And every word he read threw all he'd just said aloud into harsher relief. It did not change what he felt, what he believed, just - made it harder to reconcile. Innocent people always suffered: six this time, and another child condemned to this. But there was no proof that Ciaran Byrne - god, even the name was only a heartbeat away - had, in his human state, intended to do any harm at all. It might have been an accident. In fact, it probably had. And even so, to have allowed himself to transform somewhere that he might run loose in a park... unforgivable. Or so it would be, if only the law, and the Ministry, and the rest of society hadn't so thoroughly conspired to eliminate a werewolf's other options.

So things would get worse from here. It would happen and happen and keep happening, worse and worse, unless things changed, unless they found something that could be done. (They - him - someone. Perhaps speaking up was worth the risk.) 

Jude realised he had been staring at the paper for a long time in silence. Eventually, he swallowed, opened his mouth as though he were going to say something. He wanted to, but the words weren't there - not yet - so all he'd managed to do was look up again across the table, back at Kieran. Solemn, and sorry, and biting down on his tongue again.

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   Cassius Lestrange

---

Kieran watched Jude read the newspaper. Normally, this would have been a pretty boring endeavor - but with that front page, he couldn't resist. He knew, on every level, that there was no part of the article that would make Jude change his mind. The negatives of Kieran turning himself in outweighed the positives by miles; he knew that. And besides that -- despite not being one, Jude was Hufflepuff-loyal, the sort of person who would never betray or mistrust a friend. Or, in this case, allow a friend to engage in behavior that was so wildly self-destructive it would surely ruin more than one life.

So he couldn't turn himself in.

But he also couldn't not react to this, to news that was so similar to the news that had sent him spiraling.

Kieran almost never saw Jude speechless, and tilted his head at Jude, an almost-curious expression on his face. So that left it to Kieran to talk, again, and his tongue was heavy as lead in his mouth as he tried to come up with the words.

"If I get out," he said, with a gesture at the attic above them. He knew it was unlikely. There were magical precautions on a very secure level and besides that, on a very practical level, werewolves didn't have thumbs. But they were also clever, it was clever, he was clever - he had taken down a tree and tried to chew off his own ankle. It wanted to tear blood and flesh on a level that Kieran knew in his bones, even if he couldn't remember.

He studied Jude through this, trying to make the words come out of his suddenly-stubborn throat. That desire to self-destruct had abated, but the desire to do something had not. The thing was that there was nothing they could do.

"If it gets out," Kieran said, the separation making him a little more comfortable. He could do this. He tapped his fingertips against his thigh. "It'll probably come for you." That was just logic, the proximity, the werewolf would want the closest warm body. "Or it'll knock down the door." Knock down the door, ravage the building, kill Jude and everyone else. And then Kieran would wake up covered in other people's blood, and if the Werewolf Capture Unit caught him before he could take care of things himself, he would go to prison and so would Eileen. And he would have to live with it. He already had to live with Topaz, and with the threat of it. A few changed circumstances, and he was Ciaran Byrne, headed to Azkaban with the knowledge that he had ruined a child's life and committed murder even if it had not been a conscious choice.

And he knew that Jude lived with this knowledge, too - the knowledge that he could die, that others could die, that upstairs a creature thrashed itself against the walls in pursuit of prey. But.

It was different when the blood was on your own hands.

---

  

What could they possibly say to each other, now? In light of this? Optimist as he was - gormless, probably, Kieran would call them all - even Jude knew there were limits. Misfortune could not always be avoided. Not everything could be changed.

And Kieran could get out, someday, some way, escape and maul him without thinking, tear into the neighbours and half the street, perhaps, before anyone could do so much as stop it.

"I know," Jude said. "But we won't let that happen." There was no way to ease those fears - Jude had no more conviction than Kieran did, in this - but the fears would eat him alive if Kieran let them. "You won't let that happen. You'll keep being careful. I'll learn some more enchantments." Come up with some backup plan, try to imagine what on earth he would possibly do if he was actually faced with the worst possible scenario, a savage Kieran in the house and so many more lives at risk. "We'll find somewhere else - somewhere safer - if we have to."

"And I stand by what I said," he added, feeling the headline boring into him with accusation, that more lives had been lost and he somehow did not believe werewolves ought to be locked up. (No, that wasn't it - he did not believe the people, who were just as under the mercy of the monster as everyone else, ought to go to prison for something so far beyond their control.) "None of you choose this, no one wants to hurt people." And if that was a radical view, then so be it. It only showed how far they had to go to change things. This mindset evidently did not work (the front page of the newspaper attested well enough to that), it merely drove anyone who knew or helped or was a werewolf further underground. To make any difference, the changes would likely have to be radical, too. But there ought to be protections for werewolves, measures that would help harness them to society and not drive in the wedge apart from it, protections and keener perception instead of blind prejudice and rampant, thoughtless prosecutions.

"Let me make them see that, somehow. I know things have to change. We'll try to change them." We, he said, meaning I and not sure who else: everyone at the ABC might be willing to help campaign to the Ministry departments and the paper and the public, but they did not know; Kieran was the only one who really knew what might make an actual difference to his life, but he had never been the first to throw himself into any cause, never mind this one. And the problem with this one - even speaking up in support, in this climate, was a risk. There was a danger with the werewolf question that did not impede them on any other issue. And that was Kieran, his safety. Even if he kept his head down and his name out of it, even if Jude was the only one to get outspoken about werewolves, well - what was to stop the Werewolf Capture Unit bearing down anyway? Saying controversial things publicly about werewolves, harbouring one himself - Jude would be leading them straight to him.

And that led them once more to the same end, where nothing ended well. How could he risk that? This was supposed to be about helping Kieran, not losing him.

"Something needs to change, I know." Jude said again, more fiercely. "But not here. Not this. Not with you."

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