Title: Obolus

Author: Zampersand

Summary: What if Remus Lupin had never been accepted into Hogwarts, and was now on the Ministry's Most Wanted list? What if Sirius Black was a member of the Ministry's Beast Division, specializing in the capture and termination of werewolves?

Posted: January 5, 2005

Revised: January 28, 2008

Author Notes: This story has gone through some revisions, anything from little tweaks and error corrections to major plot and name changes. Life is hectic, so (as you can all well see from the dates) there are some pretty large gaps between chapter updates. But, as of now, I still like where this story is going and tend to continue it.

Prologue

Sirius Black sighed as he flopped backwards onto his bed. He then nearly jumped out of his skin when a stuffed penguin, disturbed by his fall, took this opportunity to ambush his nose. Unfortunately for the penguin, Sirius was quick to recover and the penguin's revolt was soon put to a stop. Seizing the florescent footed animal, he wondered briefly how angry Lily would be if he gutted the stupid bird. This idea was soon put to rest as he realized he did not want to be gutted himself. Instead, he settled for hurling the flightless bird across the room.

"Bloody toy picked the wrong day to mess me." He said sourly, even the abuse of stuffed creatures did little to console him.

Another moon, gone, and nothing. He could not believe it. The entire Capture Unit could not catch one bloody werewolf after nine months. The Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures was growing impatient and worried. Not like it was his fault in the first place; they should have called him in earlier. This case was nearly a year old, and the multiple Hunters that had worked it had had little luck. It was obvious that everyone's patience was growing thin, and he would have worried that the case would be dropped. If this had been a normal case, that is.

Last February a group of boys had been attacked. This was not too odd in and of itself, but one of the victims had been the Committee head's son. And even though the boys had worked together and managed to wound the assailant pretty badly, it was still being treated as a high priority case. While being questioned by Aurors, the wolf they described perfectly matched the description of someone on the Capture Unit's Watch List. It was a known werewolf with suspected ties to the Darklord. And attack had not happened during the full moon.

He had been on this case for several months now. He wouldd give one thing to the wolf; it was damn skilled. Sirius was the Ministry's best and he had a hell of a time even figuring out what country the thing was in. But finally, he had been able to track it to this forest. Probably. Maybe. Well, he had his gut and a few missing chickens to back him up.

Sirius frowned, that was a rare even ability even for Death Eaters. A bastard like that just had to be in the Dark Lord's inner circle, and that skill almost certainly helped him get there. With a wolf aggressive enough not to wait for the full moon, it was a high probability that this it not only had a history of violence, but had killed as well. Only this time it screwed up and underestimated its prey.

At that moment a small, wooden bird came whizzing through one of the cabin's windows, letting out a high pitched, squealing noise. Bolting into a sitting position the second he saw the thing, Sirius sprang off the bed. He spent a moment trying to grab the wooden animal, just for the pure sake of shutting it up, but quickly gave up upon seeing it was useless.

Hurrying to the door he shoved his boots on, not bothering to tie them. Then, after grabbing and throwing on his coat, he ran out the door.

The wooden bird was a signal. One that told him that one of his traps had been tripped. Well, not tripped exactly. Considering this particular trap was actually a sort of muggle bear trap… with a few magical attributes he had added on. So, technically the creature had been caught. He hoped. So far he had had no such luck. Obviously, since if he'd been lucky at all he wouldn't be here, chasing the thing if he had. He'd much rather be with James and Lily, watching little Harry grow up. But all he had caught so far was a tree branch. Though, it was a good sized tree branch, and if you looked at it just right, it did almost resemble a hippogriff.

Still, instead of being with his friends like normal people, he was chasing after monsters.

Sirius reached into his pocket for his wand, it was getting to dark to see the path properly. Then his jaw dropped. The great werewolf hunter had forgotten his wand. Letting out a few choice words, he turned on his heel and began running in the opposite direction, back towards his cabin. How could he have been so stupid?

Suddenly he felt a jolt and then realized he was falling. The last thing he remembered was a great pain in his head and the tree tops staring down on him as the world was cast into darkness…

To be Continued…