Chapter 304 - Ophelia

News of werewolves flocking to register with the newly formed, W.I.D, aka Werewolf Integration Department are on the front page of every single newspaper in the wizarding world. The werewolves that had initially believed that it was all an extravagant trick from the Ministry steadily grew convinced as friends and other well-known werewolves spoke of the Four that are now cured and vowed that it was all true, and not a lie from the Ministry of Magic. They also promised that the registration occurring at the Ministry of Magic was in fact not a hoax and that Ministry of Magic would be covering the cost of the cure for those not able to afford the cure on their own.

Those that had been on the sideline's out of fear and caution began to make hastily formed plans to immediately make their way to London as soon as possible in order to register themselves or family members afflicted with the curse. But even then, there were still some werewolves on the sidelines unable to make up their mind up as they were the ones that distrusted or hated the wizarding world the most.

However, even they were aware that with the cure in existence their former comrades would betray them to ensure that said terrible cursed blight was removed from existence. It would be in their own best interests to willingly agree to receive the cure even if they chose to never mingle in the wizarding world again. And yet a part of them yearned to return to the wizarding world again and be able to openly walk the streets again before they had been cursed. It was a terrible emotional contradiction, really, but that is in essence what a human being is to begin with.

Elsewhere that evening on the edge of an old manor, a group of rugged werewolves made of teenagers, children, and rather young adults all gather together. Their pack leader, a twenty-year-old man with golden like wolfish eyes passionately declares, "Greyback would have wanted us to continue aiding the Dark Lord. It is in his memory that we continue to work with these vile, treacherous wizards. And will avenge his death!"

"No!" Spat out in contradiction, a sixteen-year-old with three vicious claw-like scars across his face. The pack members blink in surprise at the youth in questions vehement protests for he was a rather loyal follower of the Alpha. Could this be a sign of the winds changing? The younger pack pups huddle together and shiver in unease at feeling the tension increasing rapidly within the woodland clearing.

The pack leader narrows his eyes in disbelief at the younger youth, who'd dared to challenge his decree. How dare he! He'd trusted him, and now he was betraying him?! He would not stand for such a betrayal! And caused his teeth to peel back in a vicious snarl of warning urging the fool to back down.

"All of us were taken by Greyback when we were young," the sixteen-year-old loudly protested.

"But our parents didn't want us anymore!" Cried out in dismay, a skinny teenage boy roughly a year younger than the other youth. The fifteen-year-old in question had been abandoned by his parents the next day. As such, he did not trust anyone outside of his pack anymore, it was all that he knew and had left.

"Only because he did this to us, Adam," bitterly retorted, the sixteen-year-old as he pointed at the scars across his face. "Have you forgotten that it was he that cursed us?! He was the one that stole everything from us in the first place! Our Families, our future, even our very lives!"

The skinny fifteen-year-old named Adam glances away unable to refute the words of the year older boy. It was all true. But he couldn't go back now, it was much too late.

The sixteen-year-old turns back to face the Alpha and takes a deep breath, before loudly saying," "Grayback's been dead a year now, and yet we still live in his shadow as if he were still alive. And now that there is a hope for us to be free of the chains of the past, you still wish to cling to what exactly, Weiss?!

The sixteen-year-old boldly pointed at the woods behind them where they camped at night to rest. "We scurry around like whipped dogs on our bellies living on the meager scraps that are tossed at us. And now that there is hope for us to live like the actual human beings that we are, and you want us to throw that all away on the orders of a deceased, demented werewolf!

Well, I say good riddance! My only regret is that I did not have the courage and strength to do so myself. And I won't falter again with fear and cowardice. I just won't."

The twenty-year-old pack leader named Weiss already snarling lets out an enraged cry, "Is that a challenge, Timothy?"

The sixteen-year-old named Timothy takes a deep breath and pulls back his shoulders stiffly. "I'd rather die free than to continue to follow you, Weiss," Timothy confessed as he readied himself for a fight. "And maybe, just maybe, if I win, we can all finally go back home, and if not at least make a home together. We don't have to go our separate ways, Weiss, we are a pack. And I just want all of us to finally be free of our captor's chains."

Weiss bared his teeth ready to fight when a young woman with sickly looking features rushed between the two of them. "Stand down, Ophelia," Weiss ordered through gritted teeth at his lover. "I can't have him challenging the order of the pack."

"We are human," Ophelia whispered causing Weiss to whine, and snarl all at the same time at his lover.

"And I don't want to be anyone else's hunting dog, Weiss. There are children, who don't have to live as we did. We can continue to live together as a pack," Ophelia desperately pleaded with her lover.

Weiss uncertainly stars at his lover and then at Timothy. However, his pride as Alpha won't allow him to back down even if he knows that he is in the wrong. "No, he cannot be allowed to live," Weiss flatly proclaimed. "Timothy must die for the good of the pack."

Tears drip down Ophelia's eyes as she slowly lowers her hands. "I'm sorry it had to be this way," Ophelia woefully whispered as Timothy crouched down ready to be attacked by the pack leader.

Snarling Weiss leaps forward and around his lover when Ophelia abruptly stepped into his path. Something sharp glinted to fast to be seen in the dim light when Weiss let out a staggering cry and came to an abrupt halt. Glancing down in disbelief, Weiss sees a silver dagger tightly clenched in the hand of his lover that is plunged deep into his chest.

"Why?!" Weiss limply mouthed in disbelief as he felt a burning hot pain from the silver poisoning already running through his now burning veins and through his chest, and body.

Great large teardrops of pain and regret stream down from her eyes as Ophelia softly replies, "The children, Weiss, they can live freely without the ghost of that monster."

Weiss tries to speak again, but he can only gasp as Ophelia tenderly lowers him to the forest ground. "I love you," Ophelia truthfully said, before removing the sticky silver blade from his chest and slashing it across his throat.

A trail of dark liquid splatters across the ground and on her as Ophelia numbly closes the disbelieving eyes of her lover. Pressing a sniffling kiss to his brow, Ophelia turns to face the quiet and somewhat wary members of her pack. "Timothy, you are to be the next pack leader," Ophelia proclaimed. "Take the children and the rest of the pack to London to finally be cured. Protect them, this is my one and only command as Alpha."

Timothy slowly nods his head and said, "And what of you, Alpha?"

"I will be following shortly after Weiss," Ophelia matter-of-factly answered. "Now go, Timothy, before the dark wizards return!"

Timothy paused to hug Ophelia for she was his older sister in everything but blood. Ophelia placed a gentle kiss on the tip of his ear. "Grow strong, my little brother," Ophelia murmured into his ear. "Live, grow, marry, and one day tell your children of the foolish girl that you once knew that was named Ophelia."

"Never foolish," Timothy croaked back, before tightly pressing her to his chest in one last hug, before letting go.

Forcing himself to turn his back on his Alpha, Timothy sternly ordered, "Grab your bags, we leave in ten minutes!"

The rest of the pack instantly rushed to obey the pack leaders' command. Swiftly the tents are disassembled, and their things packed away into light travel bags. With everyone ready, Timothy leads them hurriedly away without even glancing back once lest he is finds himself unable to leave and abandon their elder sister, their Alpha.

But he had no choice, the Alpha had ordered him to do so, and she would not change her mind even if he begged her too. For he knew with absolute certainty that even if the entire pack turned around and begged, she would not come with them nor wished to. And he would not be the once to force her nor much less betray her trust as Grayback had.