☙━━━☬☬☬━━━☙

Fear. What is fear? Fear is the chills that run down your spine, the tingles across your arms that causes your hair to stand on end. It's the shivers that rack your body, the shortage of breath as you try to process why your heart's beating so fast in your chest, threatening to shatter the bones of your rib cage. Fear is the constant voice in your head that's telling you all the worse scenarios, it's the feeling that you get when your heart plummets into the pits of your stomach, when your body shakes with uncontrollable tremors and you find out that you suddenly can't breathe properly. 

Cyrus Harley knew fear on a first name basis.

With a paranoid father, Cyrus often found himself the victim of unintentional abuse. His father was a calm man, kind and intelligent but after the death of his mother due to a unknown sickness, the calm man that Cyrus usually saw broke into pieces. His father, Liam Harley was just a tad bit obsessed with making sure that Cyrus never contracted his mother's illness. While all the other children had toys to play with or books to read, Cyrus sat in a cold dark room, staring at the blue painted wall in hopes that his imagination could entertain him. Unfortunately, at the ripe age of four years old, Cyrus had no doubt contracted the illness despite the efforts of his father.

At first, Liam's hovering was just that, hovering yet when Cyrus's magic started to show by making the spoons fly around in circles, Liam went ballistic. Taking him back to his room, the man explained in a vague and rather brief manner that magic was a foul thing to have, that it had given his mother the same sickness he had and that it had took her away from them. Fueling Cyrus's mind with thoughts of magic being foul and that if he kept doing it, he would eventually die was only a precarious step to keeping him safe and as much as Liam wanted to tell the truth, he found himself lying even further.

The sad part was that Cyrus believed every little word that was said to him. Liam never walked in on him making salt shakers explode or changing the color of carpet and although he really wanted to be happy that his son believed him, that he was keeping himself safe, Liam knew that his wife was frowning from above, that his methods to keeping their son well and unharmed were nothing but abuse but he couldn't stop, he had already gotten Cyrus to believe him on his words, what harm could more lies do?

It seemed that fate had caught on to Liam's sinful behavior or at least, that's what the man was willing to believe as the daily prophet landed on his table. He could faintly hear his son playing with tea cups in the living room and so with relaxed shoulders that Cyrus wasn't doing any magic, Liam went on to read only for his shoulders to tense again, his breathing coming out in short little gasps that made little to no sense and as he slammed the paper back down on the dinner table, his mind whirled in a panicked induced tornado.

He ignored Cyrus's protests about finishing his game and with a heave, lifted him up into his arms and stormed off to the room. The 'room' was simply that, a dark and cold room with a single mattress, pillow and blanket. Liam had deconstructed Cyrus's old home, his paranoia that the objects inside would harm his  son more than he was doing causing a shift in the demeanor of the household. Ignoring Cyrus's hoarse cries of 'What did I do?' 'Was I being bad?' and other words that Liam didn't quite catch, he closed the door with a click, locking it for good measure.

If Cyrus really did believe him, he would stay inside and if he stayed inside, he would live or at least that's what Liam believed, he had no clue that the criminal loose in the streets was looking for a fresh meal of Human flesh. He had no idea that he had just locked his son inside a room big enough for a beast to hide in.

Fate had different plans that day and the first one on the agenda was getting Cyrus Harley accustomed to the life of lycanthropy, wether he liked it or not.

━☙☙━

St.Mungos had received numerous patients before but it was a rarity to receive those of Lycanthropy, as most of them had either killed themselves or joined Fenrir's army. It was unlikely to receive a person who was attacked but it was even more unlikely to receive a child who was attacked as most of them die from the blood loss. So, when the doors to the emergency room opened with a stretcher carrying a mangled up and small figure, the nurses were quick to respond.

The procedure took nearly a day as not only did they need to close up several wounds but the child would suddenly start coughing up bloody foam, eyed already rolling around in their sockets and sudden vomiting up bits of food with foam stuck to it was enough evidence that something else was terribly wrong, more wrong than they realized. With the wounds closed and the child stabilized to the point of not dying, One of the nurses seemed reluctant to give the news, terrified even.

Nonetheless, she walked out, straightening her posture and giving off a facade of blankness as she reached the tall male seated in a chair, holding his head in his hands and mumbling. She almost felt bad for him though it was his fault for locking the boy inside. Despite feeling only a little pity for him, The nurse felt her throat close up as she began to speak.

"Mr. Harley?" 

She winced when Liam's eyes snapped to hers, they looked unnerving, with the veins sticking out and how bloodshot they were. Gulping underneath her breath, she cleared her throat, it was better to get this over with than stay any longer.

"I'm afraid that your Son, Cyrus-"

"He's alive right? Merlin, please tell me he didn't die."

Her face scrunched up, her eyes narrowing down at the man with a feeling of anger overcoming her fear. Sure, she understood he cared for his son but the method of 'protection' he used was nothing short of plain abuse.

"He's perfectly fine but..."

"But What? What is it?"

"Mr. Harley, your son now has to live with Lycanthropy, the ability to turn into the beast that attacked him today, forever."

That day, Cyrus really did meet fear on a first name basis and while he didn't know anything about it, it knew all about him, more than he could have ever known in his entire life.

That day, Cyrus Harley was doomed for a life of Lycanthropy and as much as he wanted to believe that Fate was done with its plans for him, things only get worse when it begins plan number two.

Sending him to Hogwarts.