Facing Danger
Chapter 31: Argent and Gules (Arc 6)
By Anne B. Walsh
Cho Chang shifted in her chair, her breathing more labored than usual. After almost two weeks, she still couldn’t get used to the weight and chill of the silver necklace around her throat. It seemed to scold her silently every second, as effective as her mother’s hurt look or her father’s disappointed sigh.
I thought I was doing right. Telling the truth, fighting blood magic, helping the person who wanted to make things run the way they should. That can’t be wrong... can it?
She had asked the question a hundred, a thousand times, but never allowed herself to answer it. She knew she wouldn’t like the answer when it came.
xXxXx
The dice clattered unnoticed to the floor as four boys yanked at their collars.
"Hagrid?" Draco said in shock, staring at the dimly flickering dragon. "But he only went outside a second ago—what could possibly have happened—"
"This doesn’t feel right," Neville said, touching the pendants to the inside of his wrist. "It’s... this’ll sound stupid, but it’s not cold enough. It’s not like it was during the Triwizard second task, or when you were at the graveyard, Harry..."
"Everyone come here," Ron interrupted from the front window. "You need to see this."
xXxXx
It was cold out here, but her coat was thick and warm. Besides, her father would surely never lead her to a place that would be bad for her. He knew best, and she would follow his directions.
Strange, how the other girls had followed her down to the wards so quickly. She thought there had once been a reason for them to obey her, and old habits died hard. No matter, though; once they had come close enough for her father and two of his three friends to lay the orange spells over them, they had obeyed her beckoning them through the wards as meekly as she had obeyed her father.
She had been mildly curious as to the reason for the killing of the large man, but a moment’s thought had provided her the answer. The people with whom she had once lived would be upset if they knew her father had come to take her away, and the large man would have told them soon enough that they had a chance of finding her.
Still, it was a shame that he’d had to die. But everything died sooner or later, and he’d probably never known what was happening to him...
xXxXx
"Do it again," Maya begged, gasping for breath between her bouts of giggles, her arms supporting her aching pajama-clad belly. "Just one more time..."
Selena Moon, likewise in her nightdress, put on a very earnest face, nodding. "Uh-huh... uh-huh... I understand... wait..." She let her jaw drop and her eyes bulge. "Er... you... you’re... how?"
Maya howled with laughter.
"The suave and debonair Roger Davies," Selena said, giggling herself as she took a bow from her seated position. "Upon discovering that he had accidentally impregnated his girlfriend. Thank you, thank you, you’re too kind."
Maya caught her breath. "I do hope that by ‘how’, he meant ‘how did this happen to us’, not ‘how does this happen in general’," she commented.
"I tend to think that was the meaning he intended," said Selena, smiling smugly. "He has far too firm a grasp of the mechanics of the act to misunderstand such basic things about it as its usual consequences."
When both girls were done laughing at this, Selena settled herself more comfortably against the cushions they had pilfered from other areas of Maya’s house. "What is this called again?" she asked. "Denning?"
Maya nodded. "It helped Graham, after he had been so isolated for so long. I think it could help some of the people we both know, the ones who don’t understand anything but pureblood rules and get confused when they meet Muggle-borns."
"And it will also be good for us in times like these." Selena shivered. "A war, a real war. I know the stories, but I never thought it would happen to us."
"No one did." Maya squeezed her friend’s hand. "But a den-night is a time to feel safe and remember the good things in life. We’re even doing it on the right night of the month..."
xXxXx
Harry got to the window first, but Draco and Neville weren’t more than a step behind. A snap of Harry’s fingers dimmed the Den’s inside lights, allowing the boys to see outside without shading their eyes.
The enormous still form where the lane met the road was unmistakably Hagrid. There was no sign of the girls.
"We have to get out there," said Neville, starting for the door. "Something’s wrong—"
"No."
The voice was harsh and rasping, and it took a moment for Harry to recognize it as his own. The sight of three pair of disbelieving eyes helped.
"No?" repeated Draco. "What do you mean, no?"
"I mean no." Harry’s vision swam, and he closed his eyes, letting his mind understand what his body was already reacting to. "There’s nothing we can do."
xXxXx
Her thoughts turned away from the large man who had died, to herself and her own situation. She stood within a metal cage, large enough for herself and the three other girls, along with one of the three men who had come with her father. He was the one who had not used a wand either to bespell her and the other girls or to help kill the large man, and he was pacing back and forth restlessly as though waiting for something.
Sunset, her mind whispered. Moonrise. He is a werewolf, like your father.
She wondered if she ought to feel fear. Werewolves were supposed to be dangerous. Not all of them were, but this man looked as though he could be very dangerous. Still, her father would never put her into harm’s way. Would he?
Not unless he could not help it. Not unless he were directly ordered to do so by one whom he dares not disobey.
She nodded thoughtfully. It made sense. Her world had order once again.
I do wonder what was the purpose of the one who carried me here on his broom touching me as he did. Father and the other men laughed to see it, and congratulated him. Is it a courtship ritual? Has he asked Father for my hand in marriage?
She was not sure whether she hoped so or not, or even whether or not she hoped at all. Hope, like all feelings other than mild wonder and satisfaction, belonged to the past now. Her future was here, in this small cage with the man who was even now falling to his knees as the last rays of sunset stained the snow red as blood.
xXxXx
Suddenly tired of pretending she was working, Cho set her Charms book down and got up, shivering in the chill air of her bedroom. She would look out at the snow, red with the last of the sunset light and silver with the rising moon, and she would think about good and happy things.
The curtains slid silently apart at her tug, and Cho gazed out at the scene. Leafless, ice-covered trees, the closest near enough for her to touch, held court over the snowy lane and road. The Frobisher house, her family’s nearest neighbor, was dark except for a light in an upstairs room.
Probably Vicky, practicing her showpiece for Charms Club. I need to work on mine, there’s less than a week until term starts again...
About to turn away from the window and go back to her textbook, Cho stopped.
Something was moving outside the Frobishers’ back door.
xXxXx
"Are you mad?" Ron demanded. "We have to do something! Hagrid’s in trouble!"
Harry shook his head. "Hagrid’s beyond trouble," he said, half-gagging on the words. They were too commonplace, too banal, to encompass something so fundamentally wrong with his world. "We can’t help him now."
"What are you—" Neville’s voice broke off in mid-sentence, and Harry tasted comprehension in his scent, grief a heartbeat behind it.
"But he can’t be," Ron protested. "He barely even had time to pass the wards—he only went outside to check on the girls—"
"The girls!" Draco’s voice and scent spiraled upward into panic in unison. "We have to find them, they must be in trouble, someone’s bypassed their pendants—"
"Stop," Harry ordered, opening his eyes. Draco was frozen with his hand on the doorknob. Thank Merlin for Pack instinct. "We can’t go out there." Harry drew his wand and flicked a seven-ten lock onto the door. "We have to stay put."
One instant of shock, then the others all started to shout.
"Have you lost your mind?"
"They’re out there with killers—"
"We don’t know what’s happened to them—"
"And what if we go out there and get ourselves caught or killed by the same people who killed Hagrid?" Harry snapped, forcing the words out past the thickening in his throat at the last two. "Fat lot of help that’ll be! They had to wait until he left the wards to..." He swallowed rather than finish the sentence. "They obviously can’t break the wards, or they’d be in here already," he said instead. "We have to stay put. Getting ourselves in trouble won’t help anything."
"So we sit in here and let them get away?" Ron shouted. "While—" He choked on the first syllable of a name, caught his breath, and went on. "While they’re out there alone, you want us to sit home and stay safe and do nothing?"
Harry’s pendants throbbed hot once with his friend’s anger, and an idea came to him. He shook his head, starting to smile. "Not nothing," he said. "There’s something we can do without leaving. A way we can look for them, and try to help them." He held out a hand, palm down. "Are you with me?"
Three hands piled atop his without a moment’s hesitation.
xXxXx
The far-off silhouette was dark and four-legged, but at this distance Cho could see nothing else about it.
She drew her wand from her pocket and pointed it over her shoulder. "Accio Omnioculars!" A moment later, she had the golden glasses to her eyes and was zooming in. Closer—closer—
The wolf-like creature lifted one paw and flexed it. Long, curving claws sprang from their sockets, one gleaming unnaturally bright. This claw slid into the keyhole of the door, and the wolf—no, the werewolf—grinned ferociously as it began to move its paw back and forth.
Cho lowered the Omnioculars to her lap, shaking all over. Her parents were out at a holiday party, quite possibly the same that Vicki’s parents had gone to—there was no time to firecall anyone, the werewolf would be into the house any moment—
A shout from outside drew her attention back. Two robed figures had leapt from the bushes and were now facing down the startled werewolf, wands steady in their hands. One of them made a snapping gesture, and a silver wall sprang up to cover the door. The werewolf snarled and scuttled back from the shining metal, then sprang at one of the wizards. He rolled out of the way, and his companion flung a hailstorm of sparks at the creature, drawing a yelp and a second snarl as it turned to face this new menace.
Cho relaxed in her seat. There was no need to do anything, no need to get involved. Vicky was safe now, and would never know how close she had come to living a nightmare. All would be well.
I wonder who they are?
She lifted the Omnioculars to her eyes again. One of the combatants was a witch, not a wizard, she noted, and unless the sunset light was affecting her vision, a witch with turquoise blue hair...
A flicker of movement in the background drew Cho’s attention, and she refocused the Omnioculars on it.
Hate-filled eyes, flattened ears, bared teeth stared at her from the bushes.
It didn’t come alone—there’s another one—and unless they turn around now they won’t see it in time—
The Omnioculars clattered to the floor as Cho flung open her window. "Behind you!" she screamed. "Look behind you!"
She hardly noticed the sudden easing of her breath.
xXxXx
Maya turned her head as footsteps came padding down the hallway outside her bedroom door. Two people. Not wearing shoes. What in the world—
The door handle turned, and the door squeaked open. The figure beyond it stepped into the room with the unhurried hauteur of a predator stalking slow, weak prey.
Maya felt her heart constrict as Selena whimpered in fear behind her. Without her decision, her mind catapulted back to an extra Defense lesson, a year and a half ago.
"Who can tell me which of these creatures is the true wolf, and which is the werewolf?"
xXxXx
A light touch slid into the back of Hermione’s mind, but she barely noticed it. Her attention was on the werewolf advancing towards her.
I can smell how hungry he is. I wonder if he will kill me to eat, or only bite me and turn me? I might like that better, because it would make me a werewolf like my father. She glanced to one side where a second wolfish figure prowled up and down outside the cage, two hooded men standing nervously behind it.
The one who held me on the broom smells hungry too, but a different kind of hunger. Again she recalled what the young man had done with her on the short broom ride here. The touching only filled him for a little while—now he is hungry again, more hungry than he was before, and he wants me to come to him and fulfill that hunger. Perhaps, after this is finished, Father will tell me to do that... of course, I will do it if he asks, that is only proper—
She gasped for air as a spice-sharp tide of anger surged through her mind. From far away, she heard cries as of pain, but her own pain drowned them out. Desperately, she tried to marshal her forces. No! This is not right! I must—stop it—
But it was too late. The surge of hot fury slammed against the walls in her mind which held her in the box of propriety and obedience, and the walls disappeared as if they had never been.
Fenrir Greyback, scarred and lean in his wolf form, lunged. Hermione shrieked and dropped to all fours, shrinking into cat shape without conscious thought.
It was a spell, a spell to keep our emotions bound! The others must be under it too—I have to break it!
Two bounds took her across the cage. Greyback turned and growled at her. Hermione growled back, then flung herself upwards and human, snatching her wand out of her robes. "Finite Incantatem!" she shouted, swinging the wand wide to cover the other three corners of the cage, where her Pride sisters stood dull-eyed and listless. "Quick, everyone, forms!"
Luna came alert instantly and shrank almost as fast into her feathers, Meghan twisted into four legs and fur only a moment behind her, but Ginny staggered back a pace instead, her hand to her forehead, moaning in pain.
Greyback’s head snapped around, and he pounced.
xXxXx
Draco forced his eyes partway open. Even the dim light in the front room pierced his eyes and went straight back into his aching brain. Neville lay flat on his stomach, hands pressed over his ears, and Harry had his arms across his face, clutching the back of his head as though trying to hold it on. Only Ron sat where he had been, his lips pulled away from his teeth and his hands balled into fists.
Ron, Draco sent through Harry’s chain, still linking them all, though the effort cost him further stabs of pain. Whatever you’re doing, stop it.
Me? What? Ron blinked several times, his expression returning to normal. I’m not doing anything—
Well, stop whatever you’re not doing, Harry put in. It bloody well hurts.
"That’s not me!" Ron protested aloud, though luckily for his continued existence, it was in a whisper. "Didn’t you feel it? The spell they were under?"
I didn’t get a chance to feel anything, said Neville. I’d barely touched their minds when you went off like a firework. What was it?
"A spell to stop them feeling. It’s why the pendants didn’t go off—because they weren’t afraid or angry or upset or anything." Ron’s fists clenched again. "Fenrir effing Greyback stalking her, and they don’t even have the decency to let her be afraid of him—"
Who? Harry demanded, his arms coming down in a rush. Who was Greyback stalking?
Ron ducked out of the chain. "I don’t know," he said, coloring. "It was too fast—we linked up, we reached, and then I was there, in her mind, and I could feel the spell around her and see Greyback coming at her, and I panicked but she didn’t care at all—and then I heard what she was thinking, about what one of them had done to her and what he wanted to do, and she didn’t care about that either, and it got me so mad the spell shattered—"
"Which explains the headaches," Draco said wearily, closing his eyes again. "It’s backlash. The spell broke so fast, everyone connected with you who wasn’t either you or her is going to feel it."
Ron grimaced. "Guess it was me, then. Sorry."
"Don’t apologize." Harry rubbed along the line of his scar, breathing deeply. "You did the right thing. The girls can fight back now, and we’ll get over this."
"Speak for yourself," Neville mumbled. "Somebody kill me..."
xXxXx
"Selena," Maya said without turning. "Run."
"Not without you," Selena answered harshly, but Maya heard the shuddering terror under the tone. "We can go together... if we get up slowly, maybe it won’t attack, and then we can Apparate out..."
Maya kept her gaze fixed on the werewolf, and hissed under her breath as she saw comprehension dawning in its eyes. "Too late!" she shouted, jumping up. "Hurry, get out, save your baby, go!"
The werewolf made a rush around the edge of the room, obviously trying to get at Selena. Maya flung herself at it with a scream and tore two handfuls of fur from its back, and it snarled and turned on her.
She had just enough time to hear Selena’s sobs cut off by the crack of Disapparation before the teeth closed on her shoulder.
xXxXx
"Ginny!" Hermione shrieked over Luna’s owl-scream, Meghan’s hooves clattering, and the sickening crack of Ginny’s head striking the bars of the cage.
Greyback looked up and wolf-grinned at her, licking his chops deliberately.
On Ginny’s left arm, a double row of teethmarks welled fresh blood.
Hermione dropped her right hand to her hip, feeling rage pulse hot and cold inside her. "It’s me you really want, isn’t it?" she whispered, pulling her robes taut against her skin. "It’s always been me. Ever since you found out who I am, you’ve wanted to turn me. To hurt Moony, and help Voldemort. Isn’t that right?"
The wolf nodded his head deliberately, grinning even larger.
"Well, here I am." Hermione took two steps forward and beckoned with her left hand. "Come and get me."
Her right hand closed tightly around what it had been seeking.
xXxXx
Lucius Malfoy growled under his breath, feeling the wolf-mind raging at the back of his own, contained by the Wolfsbane but seeking some way to break free. Curse that stupid girl—if she provokes Greyback into trying to kill her, his oath is broken and he dies, and I have to intervene or I die as well...
He allowed himself one moment of smugness for the way in which he had avoided part of the meddling proscription Lupin had tried to place on him. I am sworn only to let them come to no harm if it lies within my power to stop. And my Lord’s commands are in no way within my power. I do his bidding, not the other way around.
Which is as it should be.
Greyback launched himself across the cage, the scent of his blood-lust coming clear and strong to Lucius’ nose. Granger-Lupin watched him come, her right hand clenched at her hip, her whole body poised as for some rapid movement. The other two girls in their animal forms were huddled together in the far corner, the owl with a wing tucked protectively around the deer’s foreleg. The Weasley girl lay unmoving where Greyback had dropped her.
The feral werewolf lunged for Granger-Lupin’s throat. The girl dropped to her knees and threw her torso backwards as though trying to touch her head to the floor behind her. Her right hand flew upwards—something in it gleamed blue and silver in the moonlight—
Silver!
The terrifyingly sweet smell of the poison metal flooded through Lucius, even as his eyes registered the shape in the girl’s hand.
A dagger—she carries a dagger made of silver—
With a shout like a battle cry, Hermione Granger-Lupin slashed through Fenrir Greyback’s front left paw as it passed over her head.
xXxXx
It worked—it worked—I don’t believe it worked—
Hermione rolled out of the way just as Greyback, keening in pain, crashed into the bars and rebounded to the cage’s floor exactly where she had been a second before.
Serves you right. Biting my best friend.
Anger and grief for what Ginny would suffer tried to swamp her, but she forced them back. He’s only wounded, not dead. If I can’t finish him, he could still kill us all...
A strange smell came to her nose. Burning, it was as though something were burning, but there was no fire, no smoke anywhere—
Wisps of steam rose from her dagger’s blade. Where Greyback’s blood had coated it only seconds before, now there were flecks of ash falling from it. Greyback himself was staring in horror at his gashed paw, which was starting to turn black around the line of the cut—
How could I have forgotten—silver, the daggers are silver, and he’s not immune the way Moony is—he would never tell us what happened to a normal werewolf who was cut with silver, and I never thought to look it up—
The blackness spread outwards from the cut, faster every second, racing up Greyback’s leg towards his torso. The feral alpha growled once, then levered himself up onto three paws, hatred blazing in his yellow eyes as he stared at Hermione. One stumbling step towards her—another—
His front left paw, now entirely black, grazed the floor of the cage and crumbled away. His leg followed, and Greyback fell to the floor as the blackness of silver poisoning spread up his chest and into his other legs. As he tried to push himself upright again, his back right leg broke away at the hip. His howl of despair died away seconds after it began, when the tainted blood reached his head and face.
The black form on the floor of the cage held its shape for the space of one breath, then collapsed into a pile of ashes.
Hermione fought down her stomach. There was no time to be ill now. Ginny was hurt, and there were still three Death Eaters, one of them a werewolf, watching their every move—
She pulled herself up to her knees, turned, and discovered that she was only half right. Ginny still lay where she had, unconscious with her arm oozing blood, but the other Death Eaters were gone.
Good riddance.
Luna fluttered across the cage and landed beside Ginny, dropping out of owl form to land on her knees. "This isn’t right," she said, touching the skin between the puncture wounds on Ginny’s arm. "This isn’t the same..."
"Not the same as what?" Hermione demanded, crawling to Ginny’s other side.
"Not the same as Mr. Moony, or Brian." Luna looked over at Meghan, who had returned to human form but was still shaking so hard she had to hold to the cage’s bars to stand up. "This looks like something else. Something I’ve seen before."
"Something... something else?" Meghan faltered. One hand passed across her face. "Something else..."
Hermione held out her arms. Meghan stumbled across the cage and fell into them, and Hermione held her sister close, finding some measure of courage in the need to console another. "We’re alive," she whispered into Meghan’s ear. "But Ginny was hurt, and you’re the only one who knows how to heal her. We need you strong, Pearl. Please."
Meghan nodded and squirmed around in Hermione’s arms until she could reach out a hand to touch Ginny. "Something else," she repeated, frowning. "You’re right, Luna, it is something else. Something I know, something we all know. It’s—" She stopped, shook her head hard, and looked again. "But that doesn’t make sense!"
"What?" Hermione demanded. "What is it?"
"It’s a curse!"
Hermione rocked back on her heels. "That’s impossible," she said almost to herself. "There’s no way lycanthropy can be caused by a curse. Someone would have found a way to lift it by now. I’ve read the books, all the Healers who’ve ever studied it agree it’s a disease..."
Meghan added her other hand. "They’re right," she said distantly. "But they’re wrong too."
"It is a curse," Luna said, her eyes unfocused. "Not the same as the other curses I have seen, but a curse."
"A curse and a disease," Meghan murmured, stroking her fingers across Ginny’s bitten arm. "They’re linked, they work together—if the disease gets a chance to settle into the person’s body, then the curse turns permanent and becomes part of the person’s mind and soul—and that’s why no one ever knew about it, because no one ever got a chance to look at someone who’d just been bitten, they were always studying people who’d been bitten days or months or years ago..."
"If the disease gets a chance to settle in," Hermione repeated slowly, swallowing hard to control her combined terror and hope. "Meghan, can you—do you think you can—"
"Maybe?" Meghan giggled once, shakily. "It’s so strong. Almost as strong as dying. And it doesn’t want to leave. Most diseases know they’re not supposed to be there, but this one thinks it is, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stop it..."
"You have to be," Luna said, looking up. "Meghan, you have to be strong enough. It’s important."
"I know it’s important!" Meghan shouted. "Ginny’s my friend too, you know, you don’t have to tell me it’s important to stop her being a werewolf if I can!"
"That’s not the only reason." Luna’s voice was perfectly calm; she might have been in her own bedroom at the Landing Zone telling them about a piece from next month’s Quibbler. "The last two lines of Mrs. Danger’s prophecy, the newest one. ‘The lion’s line continue must/ ere that of serpent fall to dust.’ Do you remember them?"
"Well, now I do," Meghan said, still sounding resentful. "What about them?"
Hermione frowned—the lines didn’t sound quite right, somehow—but Luna was already going on. "The lion’s line is the Heirs of Gryffindor, and the serpent’s is Slytherin. So there has to be a new Heir of Gryffindor before Voldemort will fall. And if Harry is the Heir of Gryffindor..."
"Oh," Meghan said, and then, "Oh!"
Her hands clamped onto Ginny’s arm, and Hermione felt the subtle shift in her sister’s body that she had come to know meant concentration and healing. Carefully, without disturbing Meghan, she drew her pendant chain from under her robes and pulled it out long, then laid it gently around Meghan’s shoulders and handed Luna a loop to put on. Almost whimsically, she slid it around Ginny’s neck as well, then closed her eyes to concentrate.
I know I’m not the alpha female of the Pride anymore, but I guess I’m still the beta, and our alpha’s hurt, she thought upwards. It isn’t her fault—I don’t know why she couldn’t change in time, but she couldn’t—can I just this once call the Pride magic to help us? To let Meghan heal Ginny, so that we still have a chance to win?
A long, long pause, as Meghan trembled in her arms and Luna continued to watch a particular point on Ginny’s robes.
There is a price, little sister, said a voice almost reluctantly.
Hermione breathed again. There is always a price, she answered. Tell me.
A curse cannot simply be lifted—it must be transferred. This you know.
Yes, I do. Hermione nodded. I will take the curse from Ginny, if I can.
You can. But this is only part of the price.
What is the rest?
Luna’s head came up. "It’s not like a normal curse," she said softly. "It has hooks and barbs and claws to keep it latched onto your soul. And even if it goes away, it will leave scars behind. Forever."
Your Pride sister speaks truly, the voice murmured. Such is the price.
Hermione’s stomach lurched. She glanced over her shoulder at what was left of Fenrir Greyback. His soul was nothing but scars... he treasured them, he welcomed them in... could I become like him? If I take this curse, will that happen to me?
Unbidden, her hand stole up to her cheek.
Not all scars are evil. And even the worst thing can be turned and used for good. If Moony weren’t a werewolf, there would never have been a Pack.
"I accept the price," Hermione whispered. "So I speak, so I intend."
And so let it be done, replied the voice—Rowena herself, rather than one of her daughters, Hermione thought. So let it be done indeed.
Meghan lifted one hand from Ginny’s arm and laid it on Hermione’s. The little girl was shaking, her skin cooler than it should be and damp with sweat. "She’s fighting me," she muttered as if to herself. "She doesn’t want to be moved..."
"She?" Hermione asked.
"The curse," Luna said. "Every curse looks like something. This one looks like a woman in robes. She looks sad and angry at the same time, and she wants to stay where she is."
"Well, that’s just too bad," said Hermione, turning her arm to clasp Meghan’s hand. "She can’t."
I’m ready, she sent silently. Whenever you are.
Meghan nodded once to her, then again to Luna as the other girl laid her hand over Meghan’s grip on Ginny’s arm. "Girl power," she said.
"Girl power," Hermione and Luna echoed.
Meghan closed her eyes and began to concentrate once more, and Hermione reached out mental hands of her own cream-spice-parchment magic towards Luna’s active white-and-gentle-shock and Ginny’s warm-red-roses power, lying dormant.
We will not be defeated, she vowed silently. No curse can stop us, not when we fight as one. Whatever the price for victory, we will meet it, and we will win.
Moonbeams lanced across Ginny’s face and Hermione’s hands as the girls of the Pride fought for their alpha.
xXxXx
Draco glared away the Weasley twin who had moved into his pacing lane, then continued his trip up and down the room. The girls had been missing for nearly an hour, and the Den was getting fuller by the minute as Order teams coming off werewolf-catching duties responded to this new call. Padfoot, Harry, Professor Dumbledore, and Mad-Eye were in Letha’s potion room discussing a possible reason for the girls to have left the house, and most of the other adults were out looking, but that left all the student-sized people in the Den, and no one wanted to leave the music room, because that was the room with the Floo and the room where any news would come first...
As if on cue, the flames in the fireplace turned green, and a dark-haired girl stumbled out, coughing. A DA member, a Slytherin—Selena, Draco recalled after a second, Selena Moon. He caught her shoulder and held her up while she got her breath back.
"Thank you," Selena said, looking around the crowded room. "Is—yes, thank goodness, Lee! Lee Jordan!"
Lee looked up from where he was discussing something with Ron and the twins. "Hello, Selena," he said, getting to his feet. "What’s wrong?"
"I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I tried your house, but Lindz said you were out with the Weasleys, so I tried the Burrow, but no one was there, and then I remembered how close they are with the Pack and I had to come here anyway so..." Selena pressed a hand to her forehead. "I’m sorry, I’m babbling, forgive me, it’s just been such a night."
"You don’t have to tell me," Lee said. "Are you all right? Did something happen?"
"Not to me." Selena brushed a bit of hair out of her face and met Lee’s eyes. "It’s Maya. I was staying at her house for the night, we were laughing and telling stories, and then the door opened and there was..." She shuddered.
"Is she alive?" Lee asked, almost under his breath but perfectly audible in a room which had gone dead silent.
"She’s alive. But... she fought it, it attacked her, I think it bit her..." Selena’s voice wobbled, but she regained her composure quickly, though Lee’s face had grayed. "She’s at St. Mungo’s, and she asked for you. But she says if you don’t want to come, she understands, and she doesn’t blame you at all..."
"Move," Lee said shortly. Selena stepped out of the way, and five seconds and a shouted "St. Mungo’s Hospital!" later, Lee was gone.
"I’ll go with him," Fred Weasley said, standing up. "Just... in case. You know."
"Thank you." Selena smiled at him, then turned back to Draco. "They were looking for your mother, too," she said. "Healer Freeman-Black. To help handle the people who got hurt tonight." She covered her mouth for a moment. "Because she’s had... experience."
Everyone snickered.
"Well, she’s out looking for the girls at the moment," Draco said. "But I can try to get her on the Zippophone..."
Neville, on the couch, sat straight up. "Don’t bother," he said, pointing to the glass doors.
Everyone turned to look.
A white-feathered owl fluttered wearily to a landing on the snow-covered back patio.
Draco was across the room with the door open before he knew he’d started to move. An instant later, he had Luna in his arms, warm and human and alive and safe.
"We’re all right," she said over his shoulder to everyone else. "The others are coming. Out in the front."
Draco’s nose twitched. "What are you not saying?" he asked quietly as the music room emptied like magic. "What happened out there?"
"It’s a very long story." Luna pulled back enough to meet his eyes. "But the part of it you need to know is about Hermione."
For a long story, it took surprisingly few words to tell. None of the adults or the girls had arrived by the time Draco went outside to join the others in the front yard, leaving Luna in the music room to call her father on the Floo. Hagrid’s body had already been moved, leaving only the packed imprint on the snow where he’d fallen.
I can’t believe he’s gone. Just... gone, like that. At least he got to meet his brother first, and see little Norbert, or little Norberta, one more time. And fall in love—oh, Merlin’s hat, someone’s going to have to tell Madame Maxime about this...
"Look!" Ron shouted, pointing.
Moonlight glinted silver off the jet-black winged mare gliding into sight beyond the trees, and off the wild hair of one of her riders and the smooth mane of the other. Draco peered below her, and saw three forms emerging from the woods, two predatory and one more prey-like, the latter running as though at the end of her strength.
But of course she wouldn’t accept a ride. Pigheaded little brat. I wish Mr. Weasley had found them with the car, that’s got room for them all...
Pearl the doe staggered through the wards, turned human again, and missed falling on her nose only because Danger was beside her and caught her. Neville ran out to them and scooped Meghan up into his arms. She smiled at him, kissed his cheek once, then went limp in his grasp, and he carried her inside through friendly chuckles.
Letha descended to the yard majestically and furled her wings. George and Ron were beside her almost before the last feather was in place, lifting down a groggy and shivering Ginny. She hugged them both, then slapped Ron on the side of the head. "You pick bloody inconvenient times to give people headaches!" she snapped, and promptly burst into tears.
Draco tuned the rest of this out in favor of getting to Letha’s side and holding up his arms for Hermione. She swung her leg over and slid off, and he caught her halfway down, lowering her the rest of the way. Twins forever, no matter what, he told her through their handclasp. You know that.
Yes. Yes, I do. Her mind’s touch was bemused. And I know... I know...
"What?" Draco asked aloud, touching her shoulder. "What do you know?"
"I know..." Hermione’s eyes widened, and she began to tremble. "I know... that I don’t know... that I don’t..."
Abruptly, she backed away from him, holding up her hands in a warding gesture. "Stay away!" she shouted. "Just—just stay away! Don’t come near me!"
"Neenie, it’s me!" Draco almost took a step forward, but stopped himself in time. "It’s me," he repeated quietly. "It’s Draco. You know me. I’m your twin."
"I know." Hermione nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. "I do know. I know who you are. But I just... I just... please stay away!" She crumpled to one knee and began to sob, fisting her hands in her hair. "Everyone, everyone, just stay away from me!"
Danger, stepping carefully on the fresh snow to make her footsteps audible, came up behind Hermione. "Does everyone include me?" she asked softly.
"I..." Hermione looked up at her sister, her face torn. "I don’t... I...."
Danger’s arms went around Hermione, who slumped against her Pack-mother, sobbing. Moony came up to the two of them, leaned against their legs for a moment, then snorted at Hermione. She lifted her face from Danger’s shoulder and knelt to look him in the eye. A few seconds later, Neenie the cat allowed Danger to pick her up once more, and the three started for the Den.
"Quite a night," Letha remarked from behind Draco.
"Yeah," Draco said, watching his twin disappear into the house. "Yeah, it has been."
Off to one side, Ron also turned to watch the Lupins go.
Author Notes:
Hate me yet? It only gets better from here! Hold onto your hats, people, there is LOADS of stuff yet to come—and I’m going to try to get better at updating than ten chapters in a year! Next time: More about Maya and Cho, Hermione makes a startling discovery, and we’re back to school with a new and improved DA involving apricot preserves! Stay tuned, and please feed the author!