Alaisdair was taking a break from administering wolfsbane potion, in order to buy more ingredients for the next months cycle.

He didn't particularly like to buy the ingredients, but he was out of a couple of things which he wasn't able to grow, and he liked to get a head start on having the ingredients together. Preferably he'd have one batch being given out, one at least being brewed, and ingredients enough for at least three.

If the werewolves he helped didn't get their Potions on time every month... He shuddered to think. Not because they'd hurt someone by chance, but rather because he was horrified at what they had to go through... If they had to deal with the lack of control as well, he really wasn't sure he could forgive himself for failing them.

His name meant 'protector of man', which he took seriously. He wanted to protect anyone who wanted to be, from the full effects of the full moon on their minds as well as bodies. He'd seen enough times what that did to a person, and he'd looked after someone before, during, and after, enough to want them to have something of themselves at least, if only enough to keep them from accidental self inflicted wounds..

Picking up scoops of the ingredients he needed, wrinkling his nose at some of the fouler ones, he filled bags to the brim and then levitated them over to the small counter to be weighed. It'd cost a pretty penny, he was sure, but he'd spread that across everyone and carry the brunt of it himself, so it wasn't too bad.

Alaisdair sighed heavily and rolled his neck around, exposing the front his neck and part of the middle of his collarbone as he attempted to loosen his shoulders at the same time. He needed to sleep more, but with work in the day, and brewing the potion at night, along with his rounds of wolfsbane administration fitted in around those, this time of the month was always a little stretched. Well... It didn't really have to be, he didn't really have to be burning the candle at both ends, but there wasn't much else to occupy his time, so he threw himself into those that did.

'How much will it be?' He asked, rubbing the back of his neck and staring at the scales as they settled. Spot on as usual. He turned at the sound of someone entering the shop, and grinned. His way of telling people he wasn't as cold as many people who frequented Knockturn Alley, but he also dropped his hand to his wand, kept in a holster on his right side as he crossed his arms. Just a friendly reminder not to fuck with him because he could easily protect himself.

Not everyone recognised him for what he secretly did for those of the werewolf community who wanted, or, he was sad to think, could hear about his wolfsbane. It wouldn't be the first time he was threatened or attacked simply for being a Gryffindor and being there. Alaisdair almost dropped his hands when the other guest to the shop rounded the little corner and entered the aisle.

Merlin.

@shizue

Cass hated coming here. She really did. This was the only place that sold the ingredients for the wolfsbane potion, which she had to brew this month. Usually she did without, taking a Draught of Sleeping Dead potent enough to make a werewolf drowsy -which she also brewed herself- and chained herself up. The transformation was painful of course, but she was too sleepy afterwards to go on a rampage or to hurt herself too much. It was how her parents had helped her when she'd first started changing, only then it'd knocked her out because she'd been smaller. The Draught was a safer option than wolfsbane because it was less regulated. If you bought stuff for it every month then people would get suspicious and then in no time poof! you were gone. She didn't want to disappear and she also didn't want her parents carted off to Azkaban for not registering her.

But Silas needed the wolfsbane. He was a 14 year old kid alone in the forest. A rampaging werewolf would be noticed so she would get him the potion for now. Until he agreed to move in with her and she coaxed him into using the Draught. Wolfsbane wasn't safe, she should know. By know she'd lost half a dozen werewolf... acquaintances because they weren't careful enough.

With a heavy heart she strode into the shop. She'd been there a couple of times before through the last couple of weeks, buying the ingredients separately. This was her last visit. She'd also bought enough to last her at least another month, should the kid be more hard headed than she expected him to be.

Apothecary shops always smelled, and with her extra potent nose it felt as if she were drowning. But she was too used to her sharpened senses to let it show, walking amongst the shelves to the right one as casually as she could. There was a man there. He was much taller than her, like six or seven inches, and he was handsome. Blond hair, well built, smiling and... looking at her. That wasn't safe, that wasn't good. Drawing attention was dangerous.

She was grateful that it was cold out and her long sleeves didn't stand out. Hiding scars in the summer was a bitch.

For a second she met his eyes before ducking her head as casually as she could, turning away from him. She walked over to the jars and started filling up little bags with the ingredients, knowing by heart which she needed and how much. The names were all scribbled illegibly but she could make out which ones she needed by scent alone.

Alaisdair wasn't exactly sure what to do or say. He could instantly recognise the ingredients the young woman was buying... To anyone else, it would seem as if she was buying ingredients for any potion, but to him...

He knew that she was getting the last ingredients to use for wolfsbane potion. He could tell by the way she hid from his gaze, and the way she touched her sleeves almost subconsciously. They were telltale signs for someone like him. Most people wouldn't have noticed anything wrong with her, but he could see something in her that made him wonder...

The sales witch told him how much he'd need to spend on the ingredients he had, and he pulled the money out of his pocket quickly, turning towards her with a much faker smile than he'd been wearing even a moment before.

'That's too much sir,' She told him, looking over the galleons he'd poured into her hand.

'No, I'd like to pay for whatever that lady is buying as well.' He replied, refusing to retrieve the change she held out to him with a quizzical stare. Turning slightly to glance back at the beautiful young werewolf, he felt odd... He waged a mental war against himself in order to settle the part of him which wanted to stride over there and hand her one of the vials in his satchel so that she wouldn't be at risk, but he knew he couldn't.

Besides... If she was getting those ingredients alone, she must be brewing it already... That, or she had someone to brew it for her. He oddly found himself hoping that it was in fact the former. Not many people had the potion skills to do so.

'Are you sure sir?' The sales witch asked, peering up at him with her eyes wide, blinking so quickly that it took him a moment to realise that she was fluttering her eyelids, and wasn't having some sort of seizure.

'Of course I am.' He replied, collecting his ingredients and pushing them into his satchel which had a handy enlargement charm cast on it. 'Come on, you know me by now, I can't resist splashing the cash around here!' He laughed, a fake sound which sounded a little too nervous to his ears, but had the sales witch grinning at him, as she obviously remembered the times he'd paid for others.

They'd all been me though, and ones who were buying the odd ingredient which would have been too much of a giveaway for him to get at certain times of the month. So really, he was scoring House points with the establishment and local people whilst furthering his and the werewolves' own ends.

'Keep the change love,' he told her, smiling gently. This would remove any last lingering bits of suspicion from the girl. Just for good measure, he grabbed a few more things and added them to his own bill to distract her some more before he left.

Cass' ears easily followed his movements. She could hear his heartbeat, what with her senses getting sharper closer to the full moon, and as such she could also definitely hear his conversation. She could hear the jump in his heart rate as he spoke, though it was only for a handful of seconds before the man calmed down again. But Cass didn't calm down.

If Cass were to be honest, she wasn't beyond taking charity. She let Larissa feed her, so did Alex and Colemet. Her parents sent her money when they could. Even Amaris had fed her before. So Cass was used to get handouts, that wasn't a strange occurrence. One could go as to say that the way she made money was by charity, though technically it was unknowing charity by her taking money out of people's pockets. 

But all those people had had one thing in common; they were like her, and as such, they looked out for each other. This man wasn't a werewolf, she could smell his total humanity as clear as day. There was no reason for his charity and as such, it was suspicious. After all, what reason did he have for it?

Cass grit her teeth. She wasn't in the mood for this. She was in enough pain as it was. Her muscles felt like they were being ripped apart, her bones were crumbling, her head was hurting, she was nauseous, she was stressed and worried and scared and frankly, also quite feverish. The moon for her came with its advantages; her muscles became stronger and thus also faster, her senses became heightened and her reflexes more acute. But oftentimes they weren't worth the pains, like now. 

When she finished filling up the two bags she stepped over to the counter, where the man and the cashier still stood. She directed a cold glare at the man, just so he wouldn't get any ideas. She knew for a fact that a bloke had once offered Amaris the wolfsbane potion in exchange for sex. He didn't look like the type to do that, but he was in Knockturn Alley. 

"What? Can't a girl pay for her own ingredients now?" She questioned them both, voice airy but with a definite hint of pissed off.

Alaisdair wasn't at all taken aback by the undertone of violence he could detect in her voice. It was completely warranted considering the knoweledge that he had... Which he was entirely sure she didn't understand yet.

'Of course she can,' he told her in the most unthreatening way he could. 'However, as I've already got these, yours are discounted... Unless you wanted to pay full price, which is also fine.' It was true... Few people knew the secret tricks of the trade when it came to shops like these, but frequenting it regularly over the past years meant that he was in a better position than most.

Turning back towards the counter, he tried to relax himself, but also to remember how to win a werewolf over. It was such a long time since he'd had to do something like that, especially considering werewolves tended to mention his name to each other in order to get them into contact with him. Well, his code name anyway... As a kid, he would have been extremely excited to say that he had a code name, but right now he lacked that enthusiasm. It felt a bit stupid to be trying to work out how to weave a code name of all things into conversation.

'I'm Dìonadair...' He drawled quietly, turning away from the counter again and rolling his shoulder. It'd been wrenched during the last cycle when his mother had visited and had a nightmare as a wolf. He was incredibly amazed he'd escaped her claws, but somehow he managed it, but she'd woken up and been so confused by what'd happened and being a wolf still that she'd wrapped a hand/paw thing around his arm and pulled him to her. The first time he'd got a hug from her, and she was a wolf still.

'Alaisdair,' he repeated in a louder voice, using his real name so that the sales witch didn't get suspicious. Usually he wouldn't tell someone his name as well as the one many werewolves knew him by, although they all knew it if he'd let them see his face, but he wanted to let her know he wasn't some pervert trying to hit on her or something.

Not that he didn't find her attractive... Just that he wasn't been a creep, he was trying to help.

'You might not have heard of me, I'm a Gryffindor after all, a rare occurance in Knockturn Alley for sure, but-' He turned to see the witch behind him smiling at the pair of them. He'd known her for a few years, and she was harmless as long as you side stepped her attempts at flirting. 'I hope I've got some friends here, even if we don't acknowledge each other elsewhere.'

Except for the ones who ended up having nowhere to go for a full moon or two, and he allowed them to stay in his living room for the duration. It actually made him laugh a couple of times early on when he'd seen them all snuggled up as werewolves under blankets and with the fire on, trying not to disturb each other or him whilst they tried to go to sleep. It reminded him too much of the muggle fairy tale.

He even ended up reading to one of them whilst they were staying... He thought that's what they'd meant by stabbing a claw through one of his books... Not that he thought of it... Possibly not...

'I'm not an enemy, I just want to help.' He whispered, barely moving his lips, knowing she'd hear it as if he was shouting. She looked as if she was in pain considering the time, and he knew it couldn't be easy for her to stay and argue considering the heightened senses, so he hoped to put her mind at least a little at rest.

Grabbing his bags and thanking the witch, he nodded at the young woman as he slotted them into his bag, knowing that had she been glancing down, she'd make out the colour of the wolfsbane potion in large quantities currently stored inside. There was no way the sales witch would, no one's eyesight tended to be as good as that of a werewolf nearing the full moon.

"Fine." She shrugged at the cashier. "If he wants to pay, he can. But he shouldn't expect anything in return."

Cass was so not in the mood for this, and she also didn't want to deal with the dewy eyes the cashier was aiming at the bloke. Just for a pretty face. Sometimes Cass wondered if she'd be like that if she'd never been bitten, careless and crushing on some stranger. She couldn't afford that, though she'd thought she couldn't afford friendship before either. Boy, had Colemet proved her wrong.

But she had neither the time nor patience for this.

She heard him whispering something. Dìonadair? What the hell kind of name was that? Not his, according to him since he told the cashier another name. What a weirdo. Either name, she'd never heard of, so she told him as much.

"You're right, I've never heard of you." She huffed, taking her bag from the girl and turning to him. She sized him up. He looked incredibly confident -which was weird- and at his flirting with the girl behind the counter she couldn't help but roll her eyes. Of course, being debonair and charming for the pretty chick, helping out the poor girl to score brownie points.

His next words belayed that, and her hairs came to stand on end. Her jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed as he opened his bag. She couldn't smell what was inside, as the bottles were corked and sealed, but she could make out the potion inside well enough by sight. Wolfsbane. Cass had never taken wolfsbane in her life, but she'd brewed it a handful of times, always to perfection. Wolfsbane separated you from your wolf side, taking away all the pros their condition brought. If she'd taken it, she wouldn't have the senses she did right now.

He knew what she was. Her hackles rose and she could barely contain herself from baring her teeth at him. 

She grabbed the small bag and stuffed it in her pocket, pulling her jacket back a bit to reveal her wand. It was not at a second's reach. "Stay away from me." She spat.

'Hey, could you give us a sec please?' Alaisdair asked, turning towards the sales witch. She had seen enough of Knockturn Alley to know when to get out of the way when asked, but he still cast silencio, using his left hand to tilt his wand in her direction so that he didn't pull it out and scare the young werewolf any more.

'Look, I-I know that I just sounded like an absolute idiot, yeah? But at the same time, I don't see what's wrong with wanting to help someone. Despite what you might think, I don't want to offer you help for any selfish reason. I want to offer it, because I know more than most how muc-' He broke off, taking a shaky breath before continuing to whisper to her in the calmest way he could.

'And you can feel free to want to curse me or hate me for offering my help, but then, maybe, you could go ask who Dìonadair is and understand. Either way, I'm not the one you want to be cursing.' He'd spent ten whole years living in a flat with a mother who never came home, and left him barely enough money each month to feed himself, with a boost once a year which paid for his books and things for school. He really did understand everything, even if he experienced it as a result of his mother's being a werewolf and not from being one himself, and he didn't deserve to be attacked for trying to help.

Merlin mate, what are you thinking!? He asked himself, even as he whispered to her and threw his bag over his shoulder. Because she's beautiful and that was you a couple of years ago when you were going mad scientist on the world? Alaisdair felt a fulls shudder ripple through his body as he remembered how he used to be.

'I'm just trying to say that I'm offering help. I-Fine, you know what? I made a mistake, I'm sorry, but I just thought I'd do something to help you, just as I do every month to help so many people like you.' He was going about this all wrong, he knew that, and yet he didn't seem to be able to stop himself from talking.

'I'm not the enemy. Merlin knows, how could I be considering how I was born and raised? I mean, how d'you think I got this thing?' He indicated his arm which was flaring up like anything as he got agitated.

Stop. Alaisdair shook his head, more at himself than the girl, and winced again as the pain exploded through his arm. He was tired, that was all, exhausted and annoyed that he'd rubbed her up the wrong way so quickly. He sighed again and had to clench his jaw against the emotions now raging within him.

Still, none of them should have been focused on her, and all channeled towards his 'parents'.

'I'm sorry, I'll leave you to it.' He said, hearing the defeat in his voice as he took the first steps away from the beautiful young werewolf and the feelings she somehow brought out of him no matter how calm he tended to be usually.

Cass was already about to leave when the man -Alaisdair- asked the witch behind the counter to leave. Her own muscles stiffened, but she let him have his say. Men do bad things when they feel wronged, she'd passed through enough London alleys to know that. So, even when her muscles were ready to dart away, she forced herself to look up at his face with an impassive expression.

"The only ones I want to curse are people who put me in danger. And a strange bloke who suddenly knows what I am is beyond dangerous." She hissed at him. "I don't much fancy being snatched up today. So thanks for the ingredients, but if that's how you help the others-" She pointed at his bag. "Then it's no help at all. All the wolfsbane does is give you a few hours of non-godawful still painful change and take away all the advantages lycanthropy gives you."

How like a human. How like a human whose only contact with werewolves had been self hating pups. People who hated what they were and whined and whines and wouldn't shut up, grit their teeth and deal with it. They gave away everything they got so they wouldn't have to deal with the price. She'd gone beyond understanding that choice years ago, now she just found it cowardly.

"And I don't know how you were born and raised, but I pick my enemies myself." She told him. "For someone who claims to deal with us as often as you do, you really don't know how to approach us on the street. You look like someone who would know that no favour comes without a price."

Why was she affecting him like this? He knew that as he was born after Fenrir Greyback had bitten his mother, but before she turned for the first time, that he seemed entirely normal to werewolves, but even their senses couldn't pick certain things up.

Certain things like his natural irritability over this time of the full moon, his like of rarer foods, and apparently, the way he could be affected by her. It hadn't happened before, but he knew from extensive reading on the subject that there was always a chance it might do.

'You seem so sure that its something people want, but not everyone does. Considering the people I help are children, teenagers, and parents who want to be protected from said snatchers, I'd say that taking away the powers it gives them for a short time is a small price to pay for them in order that they don't have to lose their lives.' His shoulder was killing now, and he rolled it impatiently, trying to loosen it up a bit again.

'You're right though, no favour comes without a price. That price being the peace of mind that they're safe, and the knowledge that they don't have to abandon their children like my m-' No. He couldn't just go and blurt his entire life story out to her just because she prodded him to that point. Not even his ex wife had known.

The only ones who did know were his mother, her best werewolf friend, and him. And it was much safer for him if it stayed that way. Safer for everyone really, especially if anyone found out, captured his mother and him, and connected the dots over his father... Dots he himself had yet to connect. His identity.

'You may be old enough, and probably free enough, to make those choices to focus on yourself alone, but if you're buying those ingredients, then you'd know that the potion is meant to help-'

He stopped suddenly, raising a hand to his shoulder and squeezing it as hard as possible. What was going on with him? He needed to relax and remember that she was just a scared werewolf, and she was right about him.

'You're right about me putting you in danger, and for that I'm sorry, but I only wanted to help.' He told her, acknowledging the agony in his voice as he gave up trying to explain himself to her, instead understanding the benefits of walking away and leaving her to it. He needed to take something for his shoulder, and then maybe he'd be better when he went back to delivering the potions.

No matter how little he wanted to leave... The more they stood there, the longer he stared at her, the worse the feeling that he wanted to have her like him instead of hate him got. He knew that wasn't safe for either of them. Not as they could both end up taken by snatchers.

She didn't know that of course, like she didn't know a lot about him or his life if she was so sure that being a werewolf with those senses was better all around than for some people to lose them once in a while to ensure the safety of their families...

"Children are better off without the potion. There are alternatives you know, alternatives that do not make them scared of something that is now and will always be part of them. Teenagers and adults-" She let out a scoff. "They should know that hearing like we hear, smelling like we smell, that all helps to stay safe. Finding alternatives is a small price to pay for something that brings you security."

She narrowed her eyes at his almost confession. Well there was something in it for him, and a personal reason to start doing it too. Of course there was, but it didn't sound bad, just very misguided. But the part about abandoning their families, yeah that made her recoil. It hit home pretty hard, but it mad her grit her teeth harder.

"Leaving your family is necessary even if you have that potion. What do you think happens to your family if you're caught? They don't get a slap on the wrist, they get thrown to the Dementors." Her voice was calming down a bit, and her temper subsided enough to pick up on the emotions he was feeling. Anger, of course, a bit of regret. And pain. He smelled like he was in pain. Weird.

"And this isn't for me. It's for some stupid kid who doesn't know what's best for him." She snapped.

But if she had her way, Silas wouldn't be drinking this much longer. It took away all the pros, left only the cons. He was still young enough to let it become part of him, like Alex had, instead of turning it into a weight on his shoulders. That was the best and only way to survive. Sure, others might make it a few years, but she'd seen enough of them disappear to know it didn't last. No, she hadn't made it for thirteen years for nothing.

"It's fine." She bit out, mentally slapping herself for the pun. "Just think next time. Because next time someone who -unlike that bint- isn't enamoured with you might be watching. And Melin, what is hurting you so much? I would be able to smell it from across the street."