FIC: Ash's Story, Part 2 of 3

[geri_chan]

Title: Ash's Story, Part 2 of 3
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ash/Takeshi (past tense); pre-slash hints between Ash and a new OC
Word count: ~9,775
Author's note: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts
Disclaimer: Based on the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling; no money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Warning #1: Child abuse
Warning #2: AU; this is a continuation of the Always series so I'm tagging this as snupin, but the main focus is on Ash the werewolf OC from Aftermaths, and Snape and Lupin appear only briefly at the end.
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising, Aftermaths, and The Revenant. (The beginning of the story starts a couple of days after the ending of Aftermaths, at about the same time as The Revenant, but most of the story is a flashback to Ash's childhood.)
Summary: The story of how Ash became a werewolf, and his struggle to adapt to his postwar life.

Part 1

***

And for a few years, things went well and Ethan was blissfully happy. He continued to help out his father at the farm, and the farmhands continued to treat "the young master" with affection. Rosalind didn't instantly transform into a loving mother, but she was happy to be out from under Aunt Ernestine's thumb, and she treated Ethan more kindly than she ever had in the past. Madley adored his beautiful new wife and showered her with gifts--expensive dresses and robes and jewelry, and that seemed to please her, too. She said that she missed the excitement of city life, so Madley took his family on frequent trips to London, to see concerts or plays or Quidditch matches. Ethan was entranced by the latter, and his new father indulgently bought him souvenir toy broomsticks and Quidditch players at each match, and promised to buy him a real broomstick when he was older.

His father also began teaching him simple spells, and even gave Ethan a wand. "This is my old wand, the one I first used when I went to Hogwarts," he told an awed Ethan. "My parents are Muggles, and didn't know much about magic, so it's not Ollivander's quality, but it will do for a beginner."

"Isn't he a bit young to be learning magic, Alden?" Rosalind asked.

"He's a clever lad," Madley replied, "and it will give him a head start over his classmates when he goes to Hogwarts." Rosalind just shrugged indifferently and offered no further objections. "Study hard," Madley said, "and I'll buy you a new wand at Ollivander's when you're accepted into Hogwarts."

"I will, Father!" Ethan promised, and he did. He worked hard at his magical studies, and at learning about gardening and cultivation at the farm. Madley seemed pleased with his efforts, and Ethan basked in his praise, but what made him most happy were the quiet evenings that his family spent together. After dinner, Madley liked to sit in the armchair beside the fireplace and puff on a cigar and sip a glass of brandy, while Rosalind would sit on the couch and read a book or do a little embroidery. Ethan would play quietly with his toys on the floor, but would eagerly abandon them when his father offered to read him a story. He didn't really like the smell of the cigar smoke, but he was happy to curl up on his father's lap, feeling safe and content as he listened to Madley read from Ethan's favorite old battered books of fairy tales. It made him feel like the three of them were really a family.

But gradually, the euphoria of being freed from imprisonment wore off, and Rosalind began to grow restless and discontented, particularly after she was snubbed by a few old classmates--wealthy Slytherins--that they happened to run into on one of their trips to London. She never quite forgot that her husband was Muggle-born, and Madley was a little touchy about it himself; he knew that many of the purebloods looked down on him in spite of his wealth, and he always tried to behave like a proper wizard, as if to compensate. They only rarely visited Madley's parents in the Muggle world, although Ethan was a little sad about that, since they fussed over him as if he were their real grandson, as Rosalind's parents had never done. He was also secretly fascinated by the Muggle technology he observed on their rare visits to the elder Madleys, but he never showed any sign of it, not wanting to anger his father.

It clearly bothered Madley that Rosalind was slowly withdrawing from him, no matter how many gifts he showered her with, or how many trips they made into London. And one day he said to Ethan, "How would you like to have a little brother or sister, Ethan?"

"I would like that very much, Father," Ethan instantly replied, since that was clearly what his father wanted to hear, although Ethan wasn't sure that he really wanted a sibling. What if his parents liked the new baby better than him? But his father smiled at him, so Ethan smiled back, and tried to convince himself that it would be fun to have a brother or sister play with.

But months and then years passed by with no sign of a baby, and now it was Madley who was growing restless and irritable. He often snapped at Ethan, and didn't take him to the farm as often as he used to. He also stopped reading Ethan stories at night. Madley and Rosalind began quarreling about small, trivial things with increasing frequency, until one day Madley finally blew up and shouted at her, "You could bear a bastard child to your lover, but you won't give me a proper heir?!"

"It's clear that I'm not barren," Rosalind sneered. "Did you ever stop to think that the problem might lie with you?"

Madley's face filled with rage and his hands clenched into fists, and Ethan was afraid for a moment that he might hit Rosalind, although he had never been violent before. He ran between them, crying, "Father, Father, please don't be angry!"

Madley backhanded him hard across the face and sent him flying across the room. "I'm not your father, you bastard brat!" he shouted, and Ethan stared at him in shock, feeling hurt and betrayed.

Rosalind also stared at him in shock, and her eyes were a little frightened, although she said contemptuously, "It takes a big man to hit a little boy!" Then she hastily left and locked herself in her room. Madley cursed and stomped out of the house, leaving Ethan lying on the floor, crying.

He had always known, deep down, that Madley didn't really love him, but he had never expected to have it proven in such a dramatic way. Madley had always treated him kindly, so it had been easy to pretend that his father loved him and everything was all right. But now he was forced to acknowledge that his happy family was only an illusion that had never really existed.

Things only got worse from there. The more distant and hostile his wife became, the more Madley became obsessed with the idea of having a child, and it made him furious that Rosalind could not or would not give him one. And the more frustrated he grew, the more he took out his anger on Ethan. At first, it was just a slap when he lost his temper, but it escalated into outright beatings, particularly when Madley had been drinking, which he did more and more often now. Rosalind never interfered; Ethan wasn't sure whether it was because she was afraid that Madley might turn on her, or because she simply didn't care what Madley did to him. She just watched, with a mixture of resentment and guilt (and perhaps just a touch of fear?) in her eyes.

"Please, Mother," he wept one night, after Madley had gone down to the village pub, "please help me make Father not be mad at me anymore."

"And how do you expect me to do that?" Rosalind snapped. "It's not like I haven't tried to get pregnant; I even took a fertility potion, but nothing's worked. Not that I really want another kid, but at least it would get him off my back. It's all your fault that I had to marry him, anyway! If it hadn't been for you, I could have married a proper wizard instead of some Mudblood farmer!"

That was the first and last time that Ethan ever asked his mother for help.

Even his friends at the farm abandoned him. As it became obvious that Madley was no longer enchanted with his stepson, they began distancing themselves from him, speaking to him politely but almost curtly, no longer chatting with him and welcoming his help. Instead they would say that it wasn't proper for the young master to be doing servant's work, and that he should go back to the main house. And the farmhands' children would no longer play with him. One of his former playmates explained to him bluntly, "I can't play with you anymore, Ethan. It would make your daddy mad, and then he might fire my daddy."

The farm workers cast pitying and guilty looks Ethan's way, especially when he showed up with bruises on his face, but they all still avoided him. Finally, the farmhand who had first caught him in the apple tree, a man named John, pulled him aside when Madley wasn't around. "We're all fond of you, Ethan," he said in a hushed voice, "but we can't afford to offend your father. Mr. Madley is a fair and generous man, in his own way: he pays a good wage to those who work hard, and lets us raise our families on the farm. He'll pay for a Healer if one of the workers gets injured or falls ill, and he even helps pay for the schooling of the children who get accepted to Hogwarts. But he can also be a hard man, and he won't hold with anyone who breaks the rules or goes against him. And none of us can afford to lose our jobs. Most of us don't have much magic except for a little herb witchery, and a few of us are outright Squibs, so it's not easy for us to find good jobs in the wizarding world. I'm truly sorry, lad, but that's the way it is."

By this point, Madley almost never brought Ethan to the farm with him anymore, and Ethan didn't bother coming on his own after his talk with John. He took to running off in the woods to escape his misery, as he used to when he lived at Ernestine's house. He also began taking to the woods to escape his stepfather's increasingly violent rages. Sometimes he beat Ethan badly enough to keep him abed for a few days, and one night when he was very drunk, he amused himself by pressing a lit cigar against Ethan's arms and chest, leaving behind small red burns that eventually formed scars. A little healing salve would have prevented the scarring, but neither of his parents bothered to tend his wounds. Ethan soon learned not to scream or cry, since no one ever came to his aid and Madley would punish him by locking him in a closet or the basement, sealing the door magically and leaving him there for hours.

Ethan began to fear that one day Madley would seriously injure, maybe even kill him. The severity of the beatings were usually proportionate to the amount of alcohol that Madley had imbibed, so Ethan quickly learned to judge when he ought to sneak away and spend the night in the woods. He would still get a beating in the morning when he returned home, but by that time Madley would be sober, so it would be a painful but not dangerous punishment.

He found a small cave where he could hide, the entrance conveniently shielded by some bushes in case his stepfather came looking for him, although it was rather unlikely that Madley could have found him stumbling around drunk in the dark anyway. Ethan's experience with being locked in the closet had made him slightly claustrophobic, but spending the night in the cave was preferable to being burned or beaten. Since he spent so much time there, he began bringing items to make his hiding place more homelike and comforting: an old blanket so that he wouldn't have to lie on the dirt floor, a spare robe rolled up to serve as a makeshift pillow, some candles and matches for light, and a few of his books and toys. Since he often missed dinner and/or breakfast when he ran away from home, he also kept a stash of food there: nonperishable items like packets of biscuits or crackers, tinned meat, a few bottles of butterbeer. Sometimes he'd steal some fruit from the orchards--which made him smile bitterly as he remembered how he had first met his stepfather. He thought about running away from home permanently, but he knew that he couldn't hide in the woods forever. He had some money saved up, since Madley used to give him a generous allowance when they were still a happy family, but it wasn't enough to live on even if he could somehow make his way to London or another city. He would have to wait until he was old enough to get a job and support himself. At least he had Hogwarts to look forward to: the thought of being able to spend nine months away from home every year sounded like pure bliss to him.

But when the letter came from Hogwarts, Madley sent it back with a note saying that he declined to enroll his son at the school and intended to educate him at home. He sneered with malicious pleasure at Ethan's crestfallen face. "Why should I pay to put another man's brat through school?" he asked scornfully.

Rosalind's face turned red and she stalked out of the room. Meanwhile, Ethan knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he was so upset that he couldn't help shouting, "It's not fair! You promised to send me to Hogwarts after you married Mother! Besides, it's not like you want me around, anyway!"

That outburst, of course, earned him a beating. He spent most of the next two days in bed nursing his injuries and weeping quietly at the injustice of it all. He knew that his stepfather didn't care about the money; after all, John had said that Madley had helped to put the farm workers' children through school. He was just doing it to spite Ethan.

Ethan glumly thought to himself that he should've pretended that he didn't want to go to Hogwarts; then maybe his stepfather would have shipped him off to school as a punishment. But he hadn't been clever enough, so now he was stuck at home until he turned eighteen--or at least old enough to pass for eighteen and get a job, providing that his stepfather didn't kill him first.

Neither Rosalind nor Madley bothered to give Ethan any lessons, but Ethan continued studying on his own, reading books from his stepfather's library when Madley was at work. Strangely enough, Madley never took back the wand he had given Ethan; either he had forgotten about it or perhaps he simply didn't care. It was a cheap wand, nothing approaching Ollivander's quality, but it worked well enough on the simple spells that Ethan practiced when he was alone in his room or his cave hideout. And he was very careful never to practice magic when his stepfather might be nearby. If Madley had forgotten about the wand, Ethan certainly didn't want to remind him of it.

Then during dinner one evening when Ethan was twelve years old, Madley and Rosalind got into an argument, as usual, over the lack of the baby that Madley wanted. Only this time it got ugly. Madley called Rosalind a whore who had willingly spread her legs for her pureblood lover but wouldn't give him an heir, and Rosalind called him a Mudblood and a drunkard. Madley slapped her in the face, and she just sat there, looking more stunned than frightened or angry, perhaps because Madley, despite the numerous beatings he gave Ethan, had never laid a hand on her before.

Ethan didn't know why he tried to defend his mother; it wasn't as if she had ever lifted a finger to help him. But without thinking, he jumped to his feet, and cried, "Father, don't!" He instantly regretted it when Madley turned towards him with a look of rage on his face.

"Don't call me 'Father,' you little bastard!" Madley shouted. "You're no son of mine!" And he snatched up the whiskey bottle he had been drinking from and struck Ethan with it; the bottle shattered, ripping open the left side of his face. The force of the blow sent Ethan sprawling on the floor, and he raised his arms in an attempt to shield himself as Madley continued to strike at him with the broken bottle. The jagged glass cut through the sleeves of his robe and into his flesh, and he could feel warm blood running down his arms and his face. He could hear his mother screaming hysterically in the background, and finally those screams must have broken through Madley's rage, because he stopped, still holding the bloodstained whiskey bottle in his hand, and stared down at Ethan with a stunned look on his face as if he realized that he might finally have gone too far.

Ethan didn't wait to see what Madley would do next; he took advantage of that brief moment of shock to jump up and run out of the house, and neither his mother nor his stepfather tried to stop him. He ran straight to his cave hideout and ripped pieces from his torn robe to staunch the bleeding as best he could. The wounds on his arm were mostly shallow and not life-threatening, but his face was cut very badly and bled for a long time, soaking through the crude bandages he made from his robe. Ethan lay there all night, weeping and moaning softly. When morning came, he was afraid to go home, so he stayed in the cave, his face and arms throbbing with pain.

Sometime during the day, he heard Madley calling his name, and he cowered in the cave, trembling, afraid to breathe in case the sound gave away his hiding place. But Madley never even came near the cave, and eventually the sound of his voice died away.

Ethan spent the next few days hiding in the cave. He nibbled at his stash of hidden food, but mostly he slept, although it was a restless and feverish sleep rather than a peaceful one. The wound on his face slowly closed and scabbed over, but it was still painful and hot to the touch, so it was probably infected. He might get sick, maybe even die, if his wound wasn't treated, but he was still too scared to go home.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed in the cave--three days? Or was it longer--four days, maybe five? The fever made him lose track of time. Eventually he would probably have gone home and thrown himself on his stepfather's mercy, except that the third or fourth or fifth night happened to be a full moon.

And, although Ethan didn't know it, there was a rogue werewolf in the area.

He awoke from his fever-dreams to the sound of a wolf howling, and at first he thought it was merely part of his dreams. But the howling grew closer, and suddenly a huge gray wolf pushed its way through the brush that blocked the cave entrance.

Ethan screamed as the wolf jumped on him, tearing into his flesh with its teeth and claws, the pain a hundred times worse than Madley's attack with the broken whiskey bottle. Much, much later, Ethan realized that the werewolf had probably been drawn by the scent of his blood. His blanket and discarded, makeshift bandages were soaked with it, and a werewolf's nose was keen enough to pick up the scent of days-old dried blood, particularly when there was such a copious amount of it. But at the moment, all he could think of was that he was probably going to die and that his body might never be found. And he realized that as miserable as his life was, he very much wanted to live.

Eventually the wolf crawled away and left Ethan lying in a pool of his own blood. He would have risked his stepfather's wrath and gone home for help, but he was too weak to move, and soon he lapsed into unconsciousness.

The next day, he awoke to the sound of familiar voices belonging to men from the farm and the nearby village.

"Are you sure it was a werewolf? Maybe it was just a normal wolf."

"There are no wolves in this area, you idiot. Have you ever heard wolves howling before?"

"That sound gave me the chills. It didn't sound like any normal wolf to me."

"Are you sure your son was in the woods last night, Mr. Madley?"

Ethan jumped a little at that, and heard his stepfather reply in a concerned voice, "He wasn't in his bed this morning. He had a little quarrel with his mother and I last night over some trivial, childish thing, and I think he might have snuck out and gone to sulk in the woods after we went to bed. It's an old habit of his, from before Rosalind and I married..."

"You're a good man, Mr. Madley, to take in the boy and raise him as your own."

{If you only knew,} Ethan thought bitterly.

"He can be a handful at times, but he's run off before and always come home safe. But with the howling we heard last night..."

The men began calling his name, and Ethan realized that they were looking for him. He almost called out to them, but then he heard one of the men say, "I hope the Ministry catches that beast and puts it down!"

"It's probably long gone by now. This is the first we've heard of a werewolf in the area, so it was probably a stranger passing through."

"Do you think it could be that old peddler who passed through the village the other day? He was a shifty-looking bloke..."

And Ethan slowly backed further into the cave. He had survived, which meant that he was a werewolf now, too. And there was no way to hide it, since his body was still covered with bite and claw marks. He began to shake with fear; if they found him, they might have him "put down" as they wanted to do to the other werewolf. Even if they didn't kill him, it would give Madley the perfect opportunity to have him locked up for the rest of his life. Madley could barely tolerate the presence of his bastard stepson; he certainly wasn't going to tolerate a werewolf living in his house.

Ethan found his wand, which amazingly, was still intact after the werewolf's attack, and very quietly whispered an obscurement spell. He had never tried it before, but it seemed to work, because although the searchers passed by very close to his hiding place, they overlooked the cave entrance. Or maybe it was just good luck, but either way, they moved on without finding him.

Ethan hid in the woods for a few more days while his wounds healed. The bite and claw marks eventually healed without a trace, but the marks left by the whiskey bottle remained, probably because the scars had already begun to form before the werewolf had attacked him. His clothes had been left bloodstained and torn by both his stepfather's and the werewolf's attacks, but fortunately he still had the spare robe that he used as a makeshift pillow in the cave.

But he knew he couldn't hide in the cave forever; his stash of food was almost gone, and while it was possible to find nuts and berries in the woods, or steal fruit from the orchard, leaving the cave to search for food increased the risk of being discovered. Besides, when winter came, it would be too cold to live in the woods. He had to find a way to leave the area and go to another village or city without being detected. A big city like London would probably be better than a village; it would be easier for a runaway child to blend into the crowds.

So he took the risk of venturing down to the farm; he found that his sense of hearing was heightened after the attack, which helped him to hear people coming before they spotted him, and evade detection. Thus, he was able to get close enough to overhear that a load of fruit would be transported to London by carriage in a couple of days.

With a little magic and a great deal of luck, Ethan managed to sneak onto the carriage unseen. As Madley rode by, overseeing the loading of the carriage, Ethan cast a very small Stinging Hex on Brownie, causing the horse to rear up in surprise and pain, distracting the farm workers, who rushed over to calm the horse and help their employer, which then enabled Ethan, cloaked by an obscurement spell, to climb into the carriage and hide behind some boxes of fruit. He felt guilty about hexing his old friend, but he needed a distraction and the spell wouldn't do any real harm to the horse. Brownie soon calmed down, and no one seemed to find anything suspicious about the incident. They all assumed that the horse had been stung by an insect; Ethan had seen it happen once before, which was why he had chosen that particular distraction.

Ethan munched on a couple of apples during the journey, then filled his pockets with a few more before jumping out of the back of the carriage when they reached the city.

But living in the city turned out to be much harder than living in the woods. He had no money to rent a room, so he wound up sleeping in alleyways or abandoned buildings, stealing food or scavenging through the garbage, always with the risk of being beaten and run off for encroaching on someone else's territory--there were a great many people living hand-to-mouth on the streets as he was, and as it turned out, some of them were not much older than him. There was also the risk of being arrested as a vagrant or thief, but he soon learned that the Ministry tended to ignore Knockturn Alley unless there was a specific reason for them to go there. They seemed to regard it as a necessary evil, a place to contain the scum and misfits of the wizarding world. And as long as those scum and misfits confined their less-than-legal activities to Knockturn Alley and did not encroach upon "proper" society, the Ministry left them alone. Besides, many high-ranking wizards (Ministry officials among them, it was whispered), had a use for the goods and services offered in Knockturn Alley: illicit potions and poisons and spells; whores of both sexes; even murder-for-hire. So Ethan eventually gravitated towards Knockturn Alley, along with all the other misfits who had nowhere else to go.

Ethan tried to find work, but no one wanted to hire such a young and scruffy-looking child. Occasionally a well-dressed wizard or witch would take pity on him and toss him a few coins in a condescending manner, but those were rare instances. He sometimes ventured into the Muggle part of the city, because he could more easily use his magic to evade detection when thieving and scavenging and hiding, but he knew that too much use of magic among Muggles would eventually draw the Ministry's attention to him, which was the last thing he wanted.

Once when he was futilely pleading with a shopkeeper for some work, a man dressed in expensive but gaudy purple and gold robes passed by. There was a sleek but somehow oily look about him that immediately set Ethan on edge. "Perhaps you'd like to work for me, child," the man purred, grasping Ethan's chin with one hand and tilting his face up. "You look as though you might be pretty beneath the dirt and rags." Then Ethan's hair fell back from his face, revealing his scar, and the man sighed regretfully, "Ah, not so pretty after all, then." He traced the scar with one finger. "But perhaps it could be removed..."

Ethan jerked out of the man's grasp and fled the store. To his relief, the man did not chase after him, although he did laugh mockingly. He later learned that the purple-robed wizard ran a brothel that catered to men who liked young boys, and for the first time, he was grateful for the scar that made him "not so pretty."

He managed to avoid being killed or raped during his first month in the city, aided somewhat by his new werewolf senses that allowed him to hear or smell people coming after him long before a normal human could, and spurred by fear, he found that he could run much faster than a half-starved child should be able to. He grew weak and sick, as the full moon approached, though. He managed to find a hiding place, a room in an abandoned building in the Muggle part of the city, and he cast a silence spell on the room and a locking spell on the door, then hoped for the best. He woke up the next morning, what little furniture that remained in the room broken, and his clothes torn and bloody, although there were no fresh wounds on his body, only the old scars left by his stepfather. His body ached, though, especially his joints; he would later learn that this was the natural effect of his body transforming itself from human to wolf and back again. But he was alive and alone, which meant that he had not been discovered by either the Muggles or the Ministry--this time. He knew that it probably would not always be this easy to find a hiding place during the full moon: a new owner might move into the building, or a gang might claim it for their territory. But at least he was safe for another month.

Safe from being exposed as a werewolf, that is. The possibility of starvation was very real; he hadn't had a decent meal since before he had run away, and he was down to little more than skin and bones. He began to think that maybe being locked up in Azkaban would not be so bad after all; they fed you in prison, didn't they? And if they executed him, at least he would be put out of his misery.

But some innate stubbornness would not allow him to give up and turn himself in. So he magically cleaned and mended his clothing as best he could, although they were already so dirty and ragged that a few tears and bloodstains hardly mattered. Then he struggled to his feet and went out in search of food.

He was searching through the garbage in the alley behind a shabby inn, hoping to find a few bread crusts or other bits of discarded food, when a man--probably the cook, judging by the stained apron he wore--came out with another bag of garbage. When he saw Ethan, he scowled and aimed a kick at him, which Ethan was too weak and tired to evade.

"Be off with you, you little gutter rat," the cook snarled.

"Please, sir," Ethan begged desperately, "all I want is a bite to eat. I'm willing to work for it--I can wash dishes, scrub floors, whatever you want."

He expected to be turned down and chased off as usual, but as it turned out, the inn was short-staffed; one of the serving boys had disappeared--had run away or perhaps been murdered. People came and went in Knockturn Alley and no one really cared what happened to them, except that in this case, it inconvenienced the staff of the inn to lose a worker.

"Very well, then," the cook growled, and when Ethan just stared at him in shock, he snapped, "Well, what are you waiting for, boy? Come in and get to work!"

And that was how Ethan got a job at the Grinning Gargoyle. He could tell with one glance that the floors of the inn had never been scrubbed, but he did sweep them at the end of each night, and wash the dishes. He also hauled supplies and firewood to the inn; sometimes helped to serve the customers when it was very busy, although that was usually the job of the serving girls; and was a general errand boy. One of his main jobs was tending the fireplace, where there was always a pot of soup or stew boiling throughout the day, making sure to keep the fire fed so that it did not go out. He wasn't given a room or even a pallet of his own, but he was allowed to sleep on the floor beside the hearth. The floor was hard, but at least it was warm beside the fire, so he didn't mind; he was grateful simply to have a roof over his head and a place to sleep. Because he spent so much time by the fireplace, his hair and face and clothes were usually covered with ashes, which led to the other inn workers mockingly calling him "Cinderella" and "Cinder Lad" and "Ash Boy"--he was the youngest and newest member of the staff, at the bottom of the pecking order, which meant that the others took pleasure in teasing and bullying him. It also meant that he had last pick of the leftover food that the staff ate every night--usually a bit of stale bread and some cold, greasy stew that was mostly gravy with a few bits of vegetable and no meat--but it was still more than he'd had before he started working at the inn. If he never quite got enough to eat, at least he ate regularly and was no longer starving.

Ethan put up with the bullying without complaint; he didn't care if they called him names, and the occasional slap or kick or pinch was nothing compared to his stepfather's abuse, and certainly not worth losing his job over. Eventually the others got bored when they couldn't provoke a reaction from him and left him alone for the most part--or perhaps they were simply too tired to keep it up, most of them being as overworked and underfed as he was. His mocking nicknames got shortened to "Ash," and soon that was what everyone at the inn called him.

Ash could have tried to keep himself cleaner, but he didn't bother--in fact, he deliberately rubbed ashes into his face and hair and clothes. He had learned from the purple-robed brothel owner that being "pretty" was a disadvantage, a point that was emphasized by the way that the younger and prettier serving girls were often groped by the customers. By now Ash knew that there were men in Knockturn Alley who liked young and pretty boys as well, so he tried to keep a low profile and used the ashes and his scar and his ragged clothes as a kind of armor, to make himself appear as unattractive and unappealing as possible. It seemed to work; none of the customers took any notice of him, except to yell at him to hurry up with their food and drink when he was waiting tables.

Things went well enough until the full moon approached again. Ash had to struggle to keep working at the same pace when he was feeling sore and weak and ill, earning a few blows and kicks when he was too slow, but that was not the worst of it. He didn't receive any days off, and would probably lose his job if he ran off on the night of the full moon. On the other hand, he obviously couldn't stay at the inn and transform into a werewolf, either.

As dusk approached, Ash pleaded with the innkeeper, "Please sir, I feel really sick. Could I please take tonight off?"

He didn't have to feign illness; he was pale and sweaty and nauseous. "He does look a little gray," one of the serving girls timidly ventured.

"That's because he's covered with ashes from the fireplace!" the innkeeper snapped. "Get back to work, you lazy brat!"

"I hope he's not contagious," the serving girl muttered under her breath, but she didn't argue further with the innkeeper.

The moon would be rising soon; he had to get out of here, even at the risk of losing his job. "I'm going to throw up," he groaned, making a retching noise as he clamped his hand over his mouth; it didn't require much acting on his part.

"Not in my kitchen, you don't!" the cook cried in alarm, and Ash took that as permission to flee. He ran out of the inn to last month's hiding place, which thank Merlin, was still empty.

He almost literally crawled back to the inn the next morning, his body aching and exhausted. He could have slept all day, but he needed to try and get back into his employer's good graces. If he worked extra-hard to make up for last night, maybe the innkeeper wouldn't throw him out. After all, Ash worked for nothing but a place to sleep and a few scraps of leftover food; he wasn't paid even a meager salary of a few Knuts as the other servants were. Then again, there probably plenty of other starving urchins who would eagerly take his place...

There were only two customers in the inn when Ash got there, two men talking quietly at a table over mugs of tea and plates of bread and sausages. One wizard hid his face beneath a hooded cloak; the other was a man with long blond hair and yellow-green eyes. Ash had seen him at the inn before; his name was Bleddri and he was said to be the leader of a gang of thieves and smugglers. He was young and looked to be in his early twenties, but rumor had it that he was no one to cross--and that more than one person who had tried had wound up dead. Ash could believe it; his oddly-colored eyes had the feral look of a wild animal, although right now he looked pale and tired, probably because he usually conducted his business at night. Perhaps his client had requested an early meeting, but it was none of Ash's business. His main concern was keeping his job, and besides, it wasn't healthy to inquire too closely into the affairs of thieves and smugglers.

The hooded man passed a pouch across the table to Bleddri, who quickly pocketed it, then the hooded man got up and left. Ash didn't see what Bleddri did next, because the innkeeper spotted him and snapped, "Well, you have a lot of nerve coming back here, boy!"

"Please, sir," Ash said, "I really was sick last night. But I'll make up for it, I promise! I'll work hard--"

The innkeeper struck him across the face. "How dare you run off just before the evening shift, you ungrateful little wretch! Do you know how busy we were last night?!"

"I'm sorry!" Ash cried. "I'm really, really sorry! It won't happen again, I promise--" Except that, of course it would, he realized despairingly. Even if the innkeeper didn't fire him, he would eventually grow suspicious when Ash always disappeared on the night of the full moon every month. He would never be able to hold this job or any other for more than a few months without risking exposure.

The innkeeper raised his hand to strike Ash again, but suddenly Bleddri was there, grabbing the innkeeper's wrist and halting the blow. "Leave the boy alone," Bleddri growled in a low voice.

"This is none of your business!" the innkeeper snapped.

"I'm making it my business," Bleddri snarled, twisting the other man's wrist sharply.

The innkeeper cried out in pain, then shouted, "All right, I won't touch him!" Bleddri released him, and the innkeeper rubbed his wrist and said, "Get out of my inn, both of you!"

Bleddri snatched up the remaining food from his plate on the way out and shoved it into his pocket. As they left the inn, Ash said sullenly, "You cost me my job--thanks a lot!"

"Would you rather that I let him beat you?" Bleddri asked mildly.

"I've been beaten before," Ash retorted. "Now I've got no job, no food, and nowhere to stay!" Bleddri regarded him intently with his feral eyes, and Ash belatedly realized that perhaps he shouldn't be insulting an alleged smuggler and murderer.

But Bleddri did not look angry, and just said, "I can offer you a place to stay, then."

That only made Ash more nervous, as he thought of the men who liked pretty young boys. Maybe Bleddri liked young boys and didn't care whether they were pretty or not. He certainly didn't think that smugglers and murderers normally went around helping children out of a sense of charity.
 
"That's okay," Ash said, edging away from Bleddri. "I can look after myself, thanks."

"I insist," Bleddri said, and his hand shot out--almost too fast to see--and grabbed Ash's wrist before he could run away. Ash tried to pull free, but Bleddri's grip was too strong to break.

"Let me go!" Ash shouted. There were only a couple of other people on the street, and they quickly averted their eyes and hurried on their way; there was little point in crying for help in Knockturn Alley.

"Calm down, boy," Bleddri said, dragging Ash along as he headed down the street. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"You don't want me!" Ash said frantically. "I'm scrawny, dirty, and ugly--I have a big scar on my face, see?"

Bleddri gave him an amused look. "You may rest assured, child, that my tastes do not run to my own gender, and certainly not to little boys."

The smuggler's amusement somehow annoyed Ash, leaving him feeling both relieved and insulted at the same time. "I'm not that little," he muttered sullenly.

Bleddri reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a couple of sausages wrapped in a slice of bread. "Hungry?" he asked, holding it out to Ash.

Ash hesitated for just a moment, not wanting to indebt himself further to the man when he didn't know what Bleddri wanted from him. But then his stomach rumbled loudly, and Ash snatched the food from Bleddri's hand. He was already Bleddri's prisoner, after all, so there was no point in starving. At least he knew that the food wasn't poisoned or drugged, since it had come from the inn.

Bleddri smiled at him in a kindly way as Ash wolfed down the bread and sausages. "What's your name, child?"

Ash no longer trusted kindness, having been betrayed by his stepfather and his friends at the farm. "People call me 'Ash,'" he said with his mouth full, regarding Bleddri warily.

"I am Lukas Bleddri," his captor said politely.

"I know who you are," Ash said. "What I don't know is what you want with me. Why did you help me back at the inn?"

"Because we are the same, you and I," Bleddri said softly, giving him another intent, feral stare.

"I...I don't know what you mean," Ash stammered, unnerved by those yellow-green eyes. He remembered thinking that they looked like an animal's eyes...surely he couldn't be...

"You disappeared from your job on the night of the full moon," Bleddri said. "And crawled back into work this morning looking like death warmed over. Legitimate work is not easy to come by in Knockturn Alley, especially for people your age, and you seemed quite desperate to keep your job, unpleasant though your employer might be. So why would you run away and risk losing that job, unless you had no choice?"

"I was sick," Ash protested unconvincingly.

"Oh yes," Bleddri whispered. "Sick with nausea, and the pain of your flesh and bones twisting themselves into a different shape."

Ash stopped and stared at Bleddri in shock; the man smiled at him, exposing sharp canine teeth. It was a downright wolfish grin. "You...you're..." Ash stammered, then fell silent, unable to speak the words aloud.

"I am like you," Bleddri finished, still smiling.

Ash followed, too stunned to protest, as Bleddri led him to a shabby, run-down apartment building. The inside of Bleddri's flat looked as shabby as the outside, although slightly cleaner. There was a young man with red hair sprawled across a couch that was oozing stuffing from several tears, and a few more men and women sleeping on the floor. A woman with graying brown hair was in the kitchen slicing a loaf of bread, and she looked up in surprise as Bleddri and Ash walked in.

"Another stray, Lukas?" she asked with a smile.

"Matilda, this is Ash," Bleddri said. "Ash, this is Matilda." He glanced at the sleeping people. "I'll introduce you to the rest of the pack later."

"Pack?" Ash asked. "Then...all of you are...?"

"Werewolves, yes," Bleddri replied, giving him another toothy grin.

The red-haired man on the couch stirred, stretched, and yawned. As he sat up, blinking sleepily, Ash realized that the "man" was only a couple of years older than he was. "A new pack member?" the redhead asked, and Bleddri nodded. "Have we got anything for breakfast?"

"I got an advance on a job this morning," Bleddri said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the pouch the hooded man had given him at the inn. He tossed it to the red-haired boy and said, "Go out and buy us some food, Jonathan."

Jonathan caught the pouch and grinned at Ash. "It seems that you've brought us luck, pack brother. I'll be back with breakfast." Then he hurried out of the flat, whistling cheerfully.

Matilda came over to take a closer look at Ash. "He's so young," she said sadly, and the pity in her eyes made Ash scowl. Then she frowned and said in a brisker tone of voice, "He's also filthy. I can't even tell what color his hair is supposed to be."

Bleddri gently placed a hand on top of Ash's head; that simple, affectionate gesture brought tears to Ash's eyes. No one had touched him that way since his stepfather had turned against him, and Ash blinked hard to keep from crying.

"He is--or was--a serving boy at the Gargoyle," Bleddri said. "One of his duties, I believe, is tending the fire." He brushed his hand lightly across Ash's hair, causing a small cloud of gray dust to rise. "Hence, the ashes."

Ash gave him a startled look. "You've been watching me? Did you know all along that I was..." He hesitated, but there was obviously no point in trying to conceal or deny it any longer. "That I was a werewolf?"

"I always make a point of observing my surroundings and the people in them," Bleddri replied. "I did not know until today that you were one of us, or I would have brought you home sooner."

"Home?" Ash whispered incredulously. Was Bleddri really offering him a home?

But Matilda was pushing him out of the room before he could question Bleddri further. "You are going to take a bath, young man," she said sternly. "And you are going to scrub off every bit of dirt before you sit down to breakfast. And make sure to wash behind your ears and under your nails, because I'll check to see that you did."

"But...but..." Ash stammered as the female werewolf pushed him into the bathroom.

"Better listen to her," Bleddri chuckled, "or she'll hold you down and scrub you herself."

Ash found that prospect alarming, and he fervently promised to bathe and wash behind his ears and under his nails. So the werewolves left him alone, and he stripped off his dirty clothes and climbed into the tub. Matilda hadn't really needed to threaten him; it felt good to take the first real bath he'd had since he'd run away from home, rather than relying on cleaning spells or a quick and hasty wash in the inn's restroom. He scrubbed until the bathwater turned gray and his skin was clean and pink, and his hair restored to its natural brown. Then he pulled out the plug and let the water drain, taking care to scrub off the ring of grime left behind on the tub.

He was drying himself off with a clean but threadbare towel when Bleddri walked in. Ash yelped, hastily wrapping the towel around himself, and Bleddri said in an amused voice, "I told you that I'm not interested in little boys. I was just bringing you some clean clothes." He handed Ash a pile of clothing that looked clean, though faded and patched. "They're probably a little too big for you, but I figured it would be better than wearing those." He wrinkled his nose, motioning towards Ash's dirty clothes. "We'll see if we can get them cleaned off later, although Matilda is threatening to burn them."

Ash needed to roll up his trousers and the sleeves of his robe, but it felt good to be wearing clean clothing. Jonathan had apparently returned with the food he was supposed to buy, because the red-haired werewolf was back and the air was filled with the delicious aroma of frying bacon. Despite the earlier snack that Bleddri had given him, Ash's stomach began growling again. After a brief inspection by Matilda to make sure he was really clean, Ash found himself seated at the kitchen table, and Bleddri set a plate heaped with bacon, eggs, and toast in front of him.

"Eat," the blond werewolf commanded, and Ash obeyed eagerly, although he still worried about the price that he might be expected to pay for the bath and the meal. He also worried that the other werewolves might resent Bleddri bringing home another mouth to feed; money was obviously tight, judging by the condition of the flat and the werewolves' robes, which were all as faded and patched as the one that Ash was wearing.

But the other werewolves, roused from their slumber by the scent of food, greeted him good-naturedly, not seeming very surprised to find a stranger sitting at the table. Jonathan smiled at Ash's confusion. "We were all strays like you once, taken in and given shelter by Lukas," he explained.

"But why?" Ash asked Bleddri. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because wolves are not meant to be alone," Bleddri said solemnly. "We find strength and comfort in companionship. As a pack, we support and protect each other."

"But I don't have a job anymore," Ash said. "I have nothing to contribute to...to the pack." That thought distressed him much more than he would have expected. He had wanted to flee from Bleddri earlier; now he found that he desperately wanted to stay.

"That is what a pack is for," Bleddri said gently. "To support each other in times of need. Work is hard to come by for our kind, and we have all been unemployed at one time or another. Today it is I who have paid for our food and rent, but perhaps next week it will be Matilda or Jonathan. I will help you to find work, Ash, and when there is no work to be found, then you can help with the cooking and cleaning at home. Everyone contributes in his or her own way, and no one is ever turned out of the pack." He reached out and affectionately ruffled Ash's hair. "You are our brother now, Ash, and we will never abandon you."

Ash's eyes filled with tears again and he leaned into the caress. This could still be some kind of trick, perhaps to get him to lower his guard so they could sell him to a brothel or get a reward for turning in an unregistered werewolf. But something inside him instinctively trusted Bleddri, and he felt a sudden, rather embarrassing urge to crawl onto Bleddri's lap, as he used to do with his stepfather, and be cradled and held like a little boy again. He refrained, of course, because he didn't want to give Bleddri the wrong impression, especially after having accused him of being a child molester, and besides, the man was a total stranger. And yet...he did not feel like a stranger to Ash. He felt like family--much more like family than Madley and Rosalind had ever been.

"Welcome to the pack, little brother," Bleddri whispered tenderly, wrapping his arms around Ash, and Ash finally threw caution to the wind and hugged his pack leader tightly, weeping tears of joy.

***

Ash later learned that his irrational impulse to trust Lukas was his inner wolf's instincts, which had recognized that it was at home with its pack, even if the human part of Ash had not. And Lukas kept his promises; he sheltered and protected Ash, as he did with all the werewolves he gathered into his pack. He taught Ash the trade of a thief--a child could easily slip into places that an adult could not, and Ash proved to be a clever and nimble thief. Lukas also gave Ash and the other young werewolves lessons in magic, and more mundane things like reading, writing, math, and history. Ash sometimes found the lessons boring, but he worked hard to please his pack leader. Lukas also taught Ash how to defend himself, both magically and physically, and Ash took much more satisfaction in those lessons. He never wanted to be helpless and at another's mercy again.

No one asked Ash his real name, although it was obvious that "Ash" was an alias. It was the law of the pack not to ask a new member about his or her past, although they could volunteer the information if they wished. Few did; most chose to start over fresh and leave the past behind. Eventually Ash confided a little in Lukas, telling him how his stepfather's abuse had driven him into the woods and caused him to be turned, but he never told Lukas his real name or the names of his parents, and Lukas did not press him on it. Instead, Lukas helped him to choose a new last name: "Randolf," which meant "wolf-like shield." It was a secret little joke with Lukas, to give himself and his pack names that meant "wolf" or "wolf-like," that normal people would not recognize. He explained to Ash that "Bleddri" meant "wolf king" in Welsh, and that was how Ash discovered that "Bleddri" was not the pack leader's real name.

As Ash grew older, he helped with their smuggling operation, and sometimes found work as a laborer in the Muggle world. He could finally indulge his curiosity in Muggle things, and turned out to have a talent for learning how to use Muggle devices, and Lukas eventually put him in charge of smuggling Muggle items into the wizarding world.

The monthly transformations were still horribly painful, but at least he was no longer alone. The madness of the change caused the wolves to attack each other, but Lukas was still the pack leader in both human and wolf forms. He separated the fighting wolves, cuffing them with his front paws or hauling them off each other with his strong jaws, dominating them all with his superior strength and will until they rolled over and submitted to him. Then the madness would recede and the pack would huddle together, licking their wounds and taking comfort in each other's presence until morning came.

The stress of the transformations--and most likely, the life of poverty that he led--caused Ash's hair to start turning gray before he was out of his teens, making his name ironically appropriate once more. While Lukas, although he was about a decade older than Ash, had only a few strands of silver among the blond. He explained that he thought it was because he had learned to accept his inner wolf instead of fighting it. He was also more used to his lycanthropy than Ash, having developed the disease as a small child. It was harder for Ash, but with Lukas's help, he learned to embrace the wolf within him, and the transformations grew marginally easier and the graying of his hair slowed down, although it did not halt completely.

Ash was fiercely loyal to his pack, especially Lukas, whom he loved and worshipped like a father or older brother. Embracing his inner wolf became easier as his hatred of humans grew. What had humans ever done for him, after all? His friends and relatives had abandoned him and betrayed him. The humans that he met on the street spat on him in contempt or ignored him as being beneath their notice unless they thought they could use him in some way, like the pureblood customers who ventured into Knockturn Alley searching for illicit potions or artifacts. He hated all humans, and cared only for his pack. There were a very few humans in Lukas's pack, spouses or children of werewolf members, but Ash considered them honorary werewolves, and did not really think of them as human.

Which meant that, when he grew old enough to be interested in such things, all his lovers came from within the pack. Jonathan, the young red-haired werewolf, became Ash's first friend in the pack after Lukas, and also became Ash's first lover a few years later. Or maybe "lover" was the wrong term: they took mutual joy in discovering the pleasures of each other's bodies, but they were never "in love" with each other. Their brief affair ended as it had begun, as friends. There were other lovers after Jonathan, both men and women, and Ash was amazed and delighted to find that people found him handsome in spite of his scars. But Ash never loved any of them, either, except as his pack brothers and sisters. The dating pool for werewolves, Jonathan once pointed out with a wry smile, was rather limited and perhaps a little incestuous, since they were all family in their hearts, if not in their blood.

Still, some of the other werewolves paired off as lifemates, but Ash never did. Nor did he ever feel that anything was lacking in his life. He had his pack, and that was enough for him.

Part 3