That Time of the Month (Vilkas/Silver/Ayla)

Vilkas accepted Silver's silence and looked over at the man, curious about the differences in how they had been trained. He'd never considered that the first person he met with his condition would have such a different background. "You've embraced the human," he said, "and I embraced the wolf. When I was first turned, it wasn't treated as a bad thing; it was a gift." So he encouraged the good feelings, the euphoria of being free. He could feel his skin tingling, as though his body could tell the moon was just minutes from rising.

"It was a secret," Silver said. "A disability." A condition. "Most people think I've got cancer, and that's just fine. No one talks about it, really." Dare had only been able to mention it without that look of self-hatred in the past few years, and it was still never stated directly.

"Did you go to school? It had to be hidden at school. I had to be able to go to classes, and to miss classes, but other kids would have been pulled if they'd known about me."

Vilkas shook his head. "Not at first. I was bitten, and then the Ministry came and took me, gave me to Greyback's group. I was with them at first, people who accepted and encouraged the change. By the time the war was over and I had to go back to muggle school, some excuse had been thought up for why I had to miss so many days, and by the time I hit magical school, well, everyone important knew."

He looked down at his toes as they brushed aside snow. "I know the people I was with at first are considered bad...but I don't think most of them were born that way. We're discriminated against, looked down on, like we want to attack and destroy." Was it really any wonder that so many had allied with a powerful entity who accepted them for who they were? His heavy eyebrows came together over his deep-set eyes.

"Fenrir Greyback?" Silver paused a moment, trying to think of how to phrase things, then just spoke. "He bit children for the hell of it, killed hundreds for fun, tried to infect as many people as he could, and preached revolution against wizards! I want equality as much as anyone else, I want to be able to be open instead of in an even smaller hidden group within the hidden group of magical folk, but not at the expense of other people's lives. My mother died of lycanthropy after a year of painful half-transformations that left her weaker and weaker..."

But it was Fenrir that Silver was so angry about. Fenrir and the unknown werewolves who had killed a vibrant, loving woman in the prime of her life and nearly killed him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know the people you were with, so I can't say anything about them, but werewolves like Greyback are the reason we have to hide, and we can't be accepted."

Vilkas slid his hands deep into worn pockets as he thought and debated about how to respond. "Greyback was a bad man. I don't think anyone should be going around infecting anyone, much less kids. But most of the people under him...they didn't infect kids. They didn't kill people. They just found a cause that accepted them and went with it. At least...that's what I think.

"Maybe I've got it all wrong. I was just a kid, you know? I remember people caring about me, people telling me to love what I am. Greyback went about it all the wrong way, but if we were just seen as normal people..." He trailed off, then gave a half-hearted shrug. "Maybe I would have ended up like him if the war hadn't ended. I try not to think about it like that, though. I try to think about the good that's come of this." His mentors had said he would never be accepted, and that had proven to be the truth almost as soon as he had been reunited with his parents.

Silver nodded thoughtfully. "What we need is someone in the Ministry. Hermione Granger is amazing, but most of her efforts have been put toward non-human creatures. I don't mean that elves don't deserve to have rights," he went on, flicking a glance aside at Vilkas. "They do, and my life as a Halfblood was better for the work she did, but there's too much change for one person to see through in her lifetime." She had what, maybe another century left? Wizarding society changed so slowly.

"I couldn't be in the Ministry," Vilkas said. "Locked inside an office all day? I would die. You could. Be our pioneer." Silver would have to learn to accept and enjoy himself first, though. The tingling in his skin was growing, and his eyes flickered toward the main island, where acres of forest called to him. "We shouldn't have to be ashamed and hide. We should be allowed to be free; this shouldn't be something shameful we keep from those close to us."

Silver wanted to add to that, but his thoughts stuck on the notion of joining the Ministry. He shook his head at himself. Politics were for people who knew their own minds, not people whose opinions could be so easily swayed. Politics were for the confident, the powerful, and the charismatic. He was none of those things. He could hardly speak straight without a quill in his hand, and as much as he loved Ayla, he probably wouldn't have her now if she hadn't gotten pregnant.

"Unfortunately, there are psychopaths in any group, and people would rather seize on that. One bad apple spoils the bunch, you know? People aren't going to forget Greyback easily. It's the vocal minority who gets noticed, not the hundreds who keep to themselves." Maybe that was the problem, but what else could they do?

"Then people like us need to be the new vocal minority," Vilkas said, though he was somewhat surprised that it escaped his lips. He'd never really considered it, had always taken the route of hiding. His heavy brows came together as he thought, but a shake of his head sent long ringlets shifting around his shoulders. "We should get over to the forest."

"I'll apparate us to the school," Silver volunteered. He knew his way to the forest from Care of Magical Creatures mostly, but it wouldn't be a problem. That was something he missed about Hogwarts; the Forbidden Forest had been visible from Ravenclaw Tower, and it had been easy to get to at all hours.

universityofsorcery.proboards.com/thread/138/wolf-moon-silver-vilkas