Blue Moon

Elizabeth Lupin is screaming for her missing son; she hopes her frantic, urged shouts will reach him.

Then she hears a cry in return, a cry that tears mercilessly at her insides, for she knows the source. Her husband sprints from the house, ashen, alabaster-faced, set off against the jarred velveteen sky. He subconsciously grasps her hand as a thrashing sound escapes from the foreign world of the wood nearby.

The boy stumbles from the trees, his painful lament stabbing sharp holes through the night air. Dark streaks of red run down from his shoulder, glistening grotesquely in the light of the stars, the moon...

The moon.

Elizabeth holds her son, trying vehemently to comfort him, and herself, whispering his name into his wound like a desperate remedy.

“Remus, Remus, don’t worry, you’ll be fine, I promise, I know, I know it hurts, it’ll get better, it will, don’t cry, please, please don’t cry...”

His tears become silent, but his body, his fragile body, is trembling in her arms. She holds him closer, but lifts her head, to read the horrified expression scrawled across her husband’s face, and the pieces of the jigsaw come together

“What have you done, John?”