Prompt: Rose runs across a familiar scent one day while in Hogsmeade and decides to take out her perceived competition for Evan's affections.
As usual, after a night or two, she’d been sent packing. She didn’t mind, not really, but not being close to him left her with a strange tugging feeling, not unlike the pull of the moon when she reached her full state, calling her to change. Tolmi was running some errands in the village, so she’d gone with him, and though he’d offered to take her to the cabin Evan had allowed her to stay in, she’d wanted to hunt.
She hadn’t imagined catching the perfect prey.
The scent had hit her like someone slapping her in the face, and she stopped dead, her head whipping around to find the source. She’d smelled it before, on him, on his sheets that hadn’t been laundered yet, and she knew that this woman was The One.
This was The One who shared his bed more often than her. The One who pulled him away from her. The One who accompanied him when he left her bed in the night, to be found by her or Tolmi, hours later, slumped in his chair by the fire.
The One who, despite what she knew about him, he was in love with. He couldn’t see it as that, he saw it as possessiveness, as a claim over what he thought was rightfully his, but Rose knew love when she saw it, and this was it.
The One who was hurting her Master.
She narrowed her eyes on a woman’s back, hurrying away from her. Are you her? Do you know what you’ve done to him? Do you know how you hurt him? She padded along silently behind her, grey-blue eyes fading to a bright gold, alive with the hunt.
She didn’t have magic on her side, but she did have stealth, and cunning, and her prey didn’t know it had been selected yet. Which gave her the advantage. She’d liberated her of her wand when a customer was shoved out of a pub into her path, and she inhaled the scent, which only served to fan the flames lapping around her heart. You have been marked for death now. I won’t stop until you’re gone.
But she knew her Master. She knew that if she killed his love, she would pay the ultimate price, and he would make her previous torture look like a mercy. He had promised no more punishments, but his promise not to kill her was on the condition that she not harm him or his, and Marlene was undoubtedly his.
I am sorry, Master. She’s hurting you. I have to make it stop.
So I will make it look like an accident.
She had to think fast, or she would lose her. She waited outside a shop she’d vanished into, and waited. It was only a matter of time before she found her wand missing. No inspiration was coming to her – planning a murder was not her forte. The murdering part, that she was excellent at, but normally a mauling was all it took. That, however, would point the blame straight to her, and she couldn’t have that. I don’t want to die. This is for the best.
She changed her strategy. As Marlene emerged, she brushed up against her, and dipped her hand into her pocket. The woman turned – Gods, she hated that smell – and shouted at her. Rose ran, ducking into an alley she knew opened up into the forest. The woman was fast, faster than she’d expected, but Rose was fast too. She shot out of the alley, bounding over the low wall separating the village from the wilderness, and vanished into the gloom. The forest was impassable if you didn’t know how to read it, to talk to it, and Rose soon left her pursuer behind. That was no good. She circled round, willing the wolf to her, but she had never been able to transform outside of the full moon. She padded around Marlene, who was standing still, trying to hear her. Smarter than I thought. Though my Master could never love an idiot.
Her plan was simple. Kill her. Cut her up and scatter her remains around the forest, deep enough that the only ones who would find her would be her cousins who roamed the woods. Feed her to the Threstrals near the grounds of the school.
Her plan in mind, she pulled her knife from her boot, and held it at the ready. Marlene turned, looking right at her, and she pounced. Hitting her in the chest with her full weight, she sent her tumbling to the ground, and centered her weight, distributed between the top of Marlene’s thighs and her shoulders. The woman struggled – she was taller than Rose, but couldn’t get any leverage against the ground.
“Tha fuck d’you want?” Marlene raised her chin away from the blade at her throat, and Rose settled herself on her legs,
“I know. You’re confused, and maybe you’re not even aware, but he loves you.” She whispered, trying to see in her eyes what her Master saw. Marlene frowned, fear and confusion in her eyes.
“Evan.” Rose growled, and she saw her pale.
“Shush.” Rose bared her teeth, canines bared, and lowered herself, forearms flat against Marlene’s shoulders. This was no wild mauling. This was her, doing what had to be done for her Master. “You’re hurting him. He loves you, and he doesn’t know how to love, and you won’t help him. You shove him away, you see other people, I know everything.” This last was a guess, because there was a male smell on her skin. Marlene struggled, and almost succeeded in freeing herself when she grabs the hand holding the knife, but Rose turned, smoothly, and sank her teeth into the wrist grabbing her hand, feeling the tiny bones move over each other with a crunching noise. Her prey cried out in agony, and she clamped a hand over her mouth. They’re probably too deep for anyone to hear, but you can never be too careful, and this prey is too important to let escape.
“I said shush.” She growled, and leant down again, positioning the point of her blade at the hollow of her collarbone, her grip firm, so if she were to relax her arm, it would bear down into her flesh. Her lips touched the woman’s neck – perhaps her secret lay in her taste – but there was just the taste of sweat and perfume.
“Shut. Up.” It was a real snarl, and she’d lost patience. Exhaling, she leaned down, sinking her teeth into her neck. The scream was cut off as she crushed her vocal cords, and she kept her jaws clamped around her prey’s windpipe until it stopped struggling.
She sat back, tasting the blood in her mouth with a little chewing motion. No sparks flew. Nothing changed. There was only the taste of blood with the bitter tang of magic.
Disappointed, she started to separate her up into pieces, and hacked the surrounding foliage from its roots, covering her up. There was nothing special about her. There was no secret – or if there was, she couldn’t see it. “She’s just… a woman.” She was speaking to herself, confused, and she pulled her fingers through her tangled hair, feeling the warm, dampness from the blood she’d somehow got in there. Standing there, fiddling with the ends of her hair, she looked much younger than she was, but the moment passed, and she strode off, after picking up the pieces that she’d left out, tucking them into her bag.
Over the next week, she fed the meat that used to be Marlene McKinnon to the various Threstrals, Acromantulas and other, darker things that lived in the forest. She narrowly avoided being hunted down by centaurs, having to prove that she was not only non-magical, but a sister of the forest, and was ordered to return to them at the next full moon to prove that she was a wolf, or face the penalty for entering their territory – whatever that would be.
Evan came for her two days after, and she was convinced he would somehow be able to smell Marlene’s blood on her breath, taste it on her lips. He noticed her unease, but didn’t say anything, and soon she was lost in his touch, too far gone to remember what she’d done.
Three weeks later she told him the only lie she ever had or ever would tell him. He’d been pacing, furious, angrier than she’d ever seen him. He’d taken it out on her, and she’d been terrified that he’d known, somehow, but it soon became clear that he didn’t know who did it. She watched him, kneeling on the floor by the bed, clutching an injured and throbbing wrist.
His voice turned silky, and he turned to her. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you, little Savage? You seem content now she’s gone.”
Rose looked at him, and allowed her sorrow and sympathy to shine through as she met his eyes. She felt for him, she truly did, and was sorry he couldn’t see that this way was better.
“Of course not, Master. I hate to see you like this. I know what you’re capable of, I know you, and I would never touch what’s yours, just like I’d never hurt Tolmi or Atticus. I’m not that stupid.”
His eyes, bloodshot and wild with rage, tore themselves away from her, and she relaxed slightly. She didn’t know if he still suspected her, but she was off the hook, for now. “Master… maybe she’s gone. You always said she pushed you away… Maybe she’s tried to leave.”
She could see his profile, and the cruel smile that curved his lips. “She can try.”
He’d hunt for her, and she would help him, travelling with him as his personal tracker dog. She tried her very best, and hated seeing his frustration when they didn’t find her each time, but she felt he was stronger. She couldn’t hurt him any more, and each time they returned home, any insecurities she might have had were stilled by Tolmi. The little house elf hadn’t said anything to her, and she could have been imagining it, but she thought he knew she had done it. He never told Evan his suspicions, though, and as time passed, the hunts grew less frequent. Alecto demanded he stay home, as his actions were arousing suspicion, and he finally gave in – she didn’t love him, and he didn’t love her, but she had an image to maintain, and her fiancé haring around the country after a ghost did not look good to say the least, especially accompanied by his new pet.
He kept up the pet line with everyone but her and Tolmi. She didn’t mind. If she could stay with him, then it worked for her. On the nights where he brought home Barty or another person he’d picked up, she’d stay in her room, or wherever Atticus was, unless summoned.
It was, she thought to herself, content, better this way.
