Seeing this, Lyla quickly raised her elegant ebony wand and gave it a sharp flick.
Because she was too painfully shy to ever chant spells out loud, she cast it entirely non-verbally.
Golden mist sprayed from the tip of her wand, circling Mr. Lupin's room once. Gradually, a pair of glowing golden footprints emerged within the mist.
However, these footprints were not human at all... they were the distinct paw prints of a massive wild beast.
'Did some animal take Mr. Lupin?' Lyla panicked. She didn't know much about Fantastic Beasts, only generally understanding their specific roles as material components in Magic Array Studies.
Lyla pursed her lips and picked up a coarse black hair that had fallen on the wooden floorboards.
'What is this... Is it the beast's fur?'
'If Miss Lovegood were here, it would be great; she reads so much about creatures, she should be able to recognize what this is.'
But Lyla didn't have time to overthink it now. She raised her wand and pointed it directly at the coarse hair.
With another silent flick of her white-tipped wand, the tracking charm took effect. The black hair slowly floated up into the air, then immediately flew out through the shattered window glass.
This was the second floor... Lyla, who had a severe fear of heights, pursed her lips and took a deep, trembling breath.
She cast a non-verbal Cushioning Charm on herself, tightly closed her eyes, and awkwardly tumbled out of the window.
Only when her bare feet softly touched the ground did Lyla quickly open her eyes.
The beast's fur had already flown quite far away by then. She had absolutely no choice but to quicken her pace to follow it.
The magical district at this time had completely lost its daytime hustle and bustle. It was dead silent in the middle of the night. The soft padding of Lyla's bare feet on the cold bluestone bricks echoed eerily down the alleyways.
She had been in such a severe, panicked hurry that she hadn't even had time to put on her boots.
Thanks to the moonlight, which was exceptionally bright and full tonight, Lyla was able to easily track the hair as it faintly reflected the glow.
'It must have been that beast that violently took Mr. Lupin...' Lyla thought, gripping her custom Veela-hair wand tightly. She relentlessly followed the floating hair as it twisted and turned through the winding magical streets.
Soon, she reached the absolute boundary of the unplottable district. As the bluestone bricks gradually disappeared, a grassy field and a vast, dense woodland appeared in her sight.
"..."
Lyla pursed her lips and flicked her wand. Only after a faint Lumos glow appeared did she dare to step into this dark, overgrown place that no normal wizard would ever willingly enter.
There were many sharp stones on the ground, and perhaps thorny branches. Lyla could feel herself repeatedly stepping on painful things... but her catastrophic overthinking had shifted entirely to her friend's safety. She urgently needed to find him.
'If that beast harmed Mr. Lupin because I was too slow... I will never forgive myself.'
Soon, as Lyla delved deeper into the woods, there were no longer any signs of wizarding civilization around. It was hard to imagine such a wild, overgrown forest existing right on the edge of the magical district.
The forest in the dead of night felt exceptionally, terrifyingly quiet. Lyla could only vaguely hear some distant animal howls and the inexplicable rustling of the wind.
But fortunately, the moonlight was still bright enough that Lyla could barely keep up with the floating hair.
Soon, the black beast's hair began moving slower and slower. This meant... Lyla was getting closer and closer to that monster.
She pursed her lips, looking ahead with intense, anxious nervousness. The wand in her hand trembled slightly.
She had fought with dark wizards before... but beasts? Lyla wasn't entirely sure if she could save Mr. Lupin. But thinking too much was bound to lead to a freezing panic, and Lyla didn't want to make that mistake again.
As Lyla pushed aside the thick bushes in front of her, a small, shimmering lake appeared before her eyes.
And what came into view... was a massive beast standing directly in the moonlight.
It was a werewolf. Even a wizard who didn't recognize any Fantastic Beasts would instantly recognize this nightmare.
It had coarse dark fur, incredibly ferocious fangs, and blood-red eyes fixed intently on the full moon in the sky. At the same time, it slightly raised its heavy head and let out a blood-curdling howl that made Lyla's heart palpitate violently.
'A werewolf took Mr. Lupin!'
Lyla thought this first. But the very next second, she saw the violently shredded clothes resting on the ground beside the beast... there were no bloodstains on them.
But they were undeniably Mr. Lupin's clothes.
Lyla was completely stunned. Her brain raced at lightning speed. Even the complex analytical part usually reserved for Magic Array math began to process the clues.
In a matter of seconds, she arrived at a startling, undeniable fact.
Mr. Lupin is a werewolf.
Although a bit unbelievable, this was the only logical possibility Lyla could think of. This also perfectly explained why there was only one pair of footprints in Mr. Lupin's wrecked room.
It could also explain why Mr. Lupin always looked so terribly tired... and why he always disappeared for a few days each month.
He was a werewolf...
Yet, amidst her profound shock, Lyla actually felt absolutely no disgust or fear like an ordinary wizard would.
On the contrary, Lyla actually felt a strange sense of... coincidence.
Mr. Lupin was a freak and an outcast, exactly like her? No wonder he had treated her so kindly and become her first genuine friend; he completely understood her burden.
Just as Lyla was thinking this, her bare foot stepped down hard on a jagged, sharp stone. A sharp pang of pain shot up her leg.
She was bleeding. Realizing this, Lyla's eyes widened. She quickly tightened her grip on her ebony wand and looked up at the werewolf that Mr. Lupin had become.
"..."
The werewolf's nose twitched violently. Then, it slowly, terrifyingly turned around and locked its blood-red eyes precisely in Lyla's direction.
It smelled fresh blood.
Lyla instantly raised her wand, intending to cast a defensive spell. But when she remembered she was facing Mr. Lupin, her first and only friend, she froze, feeling a massive wave of constraint.
'Should I use the Killing Curse? Absolutely not! Or should I use another spell... What if I severely hurt Mr. Lupin?'
Lyla held her wand for a long, agonizing moment without moving it. But the feral werewolf didn't possess such human hesitation.
"Awooo!"
With a sharp, terrifying howl, the werewolf pounced towards Lyla at an impossible speed. The distance between them was only a dozen meters, which was instantaneous for a beast of that caliber.
Looking at the gaping, saliva-dripping maw, Lyla had no time to think. Her body instinctively reacted, her magic flaring wildly.
With a silent crack, her body instantly disappeared from its original spot and then reappeared several feet away by the edge of the lake.
"Mr. Lupin!" She pursed her lips and desperately shouted out loud, breaking her usual silence. "I'm Lyla... Lyla Hamilton!"
"We are frien—"
Before she could even finish the desperate plea, the werewolf viciously pounced again. Trying to talk to Mr. Lupin, who had already entirely succumbed to the beast's mind, seemed to be completely useless!
Lyla Apparated again, her figure disappearing from the spot just as claws slashed the air where she had been.
'No... I can't just keep hiding like this...' Even Lyla, who was highly proficient in combat spells, couldn't safely Apparate multiple times in such a short period without risking Splinching. It was a massive strain on her physical body.
She had to safely control him. Before she could think carefully about a non-lethal strategy, the werewolf had already pounced for a third time.
Lyla quickly raised her wand and gave it a vicious, silent flick. A blinding silver light flew out, heading straight for the werewolf's gaping maw.
It was a Full Body-Bind Curse.
The werewolf, struck dead-on by the powerful magic, immediately stiffened entirely in mid-air. However, its massive, heavy body continued to hurtle directly towards Lyla due to sheer physical inertia.
Lyla tried to rapidly cast a non-verbal Levitation Charm to catch him, but she didn't have enough time. The paralyzed werewolf crashed heavily into her.
She instinctively leaned back, slipped on the wet grass, and ended up falling flat on her back.
And the werewolf plummeted right on top of her. Lyla screamed and squeezed her eyes shut in pure fright, fully expecting to be crushed.
'Eh?' After waiting a few terrifying seconds, Lyla, who surprisingly didn't feel any heavy, crushing pressure, cautiously opened her blue eyes. What she saw was a terrifying, gaping maw!
It was only a few centimeters from her nose! Frightened, she quickly turned her head away. This movement also allowed her to finally see exactly why she hadn't been crushed by the beast's weight.
Because the spell had locked its body mid-pounce, the werewolf's two stiff, pillar-like arms were precisely braced on either side of Lyla's head. It created a small, rigid space beneath its chest, perfectly enveloping the petite Half-Veela without actually crushing her.
'Good thing my luck is decent...' Although Lyla was completely trapped beneath the paralyzed werewolf, fortunately, she hadn't sustained any actual injuries from the impact. Her only wound was the cut from stepping on the sharp stone earlier.
'This should be... fine now, right?'
As she gradually realized she was safe, the massive spike of adrenaline slowly receded. Lyla suddenly felt very short of breath.
"Hoo... hoo..." Lyla took several deep, shaky breaths. A few drops of cold sweat fell from her pale face due to the extreme stress, and her pointed Veela ears trembled slightly against the grass.
But at least... although it was incredibly undignified, she had finally managed to safely subdue Mr. Lupin. Even though he was currently in werewolf form and possessed a mouth full of terrifying, sharp fangs.
Lyla tilted her head slightly, then pushed hard with her legs, awkwardly wiggling herself out from beneath the paralyzed werewolf's rigid embrace.
'So... what now?'
Sitting on the damp ground, Lyla looked at the stiff werewolf lying awkwardly by the lake with a massive headache forming.
'I certainly can't just leave Mr. Lupin lying here in the dirt all night, can I?'
'But wouldn't it be incredibly awkward when Mr. Lupin turns back into a human?' Just as Lyla desperately didn't want others to know her true identity, she easily deduced that Mr. Lupin absolutely didn't want others to know that he was a werewolf.
'And... if Mr. Lupin reverts to his human form, wouldn't he be completely naked?'
Lyla felt her panicked thoughts beginning to jump wildly. But upon closer inspection, this was indeed a very serious problem.
'Should I use my wand to Transfigure some clothes for Mr. Lupin?'
'Wait... don't werewolves usually not wear clothes anyway?'
Lyla instinctively looked down at the paralyzed beast's anatomy.
"Ugh!" She violently blushed and snapped her head away. To calm her racing heart, she quickly closed her eyes and began to frantically recite complex Magic Array formulas in her head.