August 5th, 1895 — Mulciber Residence, Wellingtonshire, Hogsmeade
Moonlight Ball

When the news about Morwenna Skeeter had broken, Rufina had spent a long moment being outraged before a different thought emerged: society is going to be a bloodbath.

At nine-and-thirty, the socialite had now spent more than two decades navigating the social waters of Magical Britain, and could read the patterns as a seer might a tarot spread. A storm of accusation and suspicion, whispers and downright fights, had gathered, and Rufina's first priority would always be the well-being—both physical and social—of herself and those she held dear. If that came at the expense of others, well, those others were, at best, liars and frauds. At worse, they were vicious monsters.

So she had done what she did best: thrown a party.

True, some of the guests ought never to have crossed the threshold of her home, but one did what one must to root out lycanthropy amongst the upper echelons of society. Then, everyone could make nice, informed decisions moving forward: those present could be reasonably assumed not to be werewolves. Those absent...

"Make sure Mrs. Darlington does not nibble on any of the guests," the hostess directed the butler quietly before making her rounds.

Though she had staff taking note of who was and was not present, Rufina was making a similar log for herself. Seeing, after all, was believing. One of the Mrs. Puceys (the mourning was something of a blessing, as it made the twins easier to tell apart) came directly to Rufina, said hello, made snippy smalltalk, and departed for the evening—fair enough; she was in mourning and Rufina likely would have had a similar attitude if she felt compelled to attend an event whilst in black. As always, her brother-in-law looked uncomfortable: Catigern Weasley had never quite gotten used to the Longbottom Lifestyle, but to his credit, always accepted her invitations. Ugh, Goshawk had brought his bastard. The American was handsome, though, and evidently not a werewolf...

The evening grew into full swing, and Rufina, no longer compelled to greet the regal and riff-raff alike, had settled into conversation—or rather, gossip, to call it what it was.

"Apparently," the witch revealed, the word an eyeroll spoken aloud, "Mr. Lukeson's son is ill. Of course, at a time when Ministry heads are under scrutiny, and with nannies and no personal healing expertise, I might at least spare an hour or two to attend, to clear myself of any suspicion."

A sly smile crossed her lips as she paused to take a sip from her champagne glass. Wealthy and pureblooded, the Lukesons should have been better than they were. The family, though, had seen more than its share of scandal in the past decade; if its young patriarch proved to be a werewolf, well, that would simply be their death knell.

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   Ariel Sherington

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On balance Leo did not much care whether werewolves were amongst them or not. None of them had come into his family home and upset the applecart to the point that his mother didn't appear to have unlaced her already fair tight corset in a month - metaphorically speaking, of course, what his mother did in her own private space was her business and not something he wanted to think about. And that was how he felt about werewolves too. As long as they weren't bothering him he saw no reason to bother them.

On the other hand Leo didn't care enough about his instinctively laissez-faire attitude to disagree with the current climate of society. He had enough troubles of his own, and Mrs Mulciber was not someone he was inclined to argue with: he had much more pleasant scenarios to imagine.

Would people think he was a werewolf if he inhaled her perfume too heavily? Was it even perfume? He sipped his drink and wondered how he could go about finding out.

"Even if I was afflicted it would take more than that to make me miss one of your excellent parties," he said with a grin, looking around and immediately dropping the smile. "Of course I'm not one."

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   Aldous Crouch