Facing Danger
Chapter 51: Foretelling and Retelling (Year 6)
By Anne B. Walsh
Fox lay beside the closed door of what had been Vernon and Petunia Dursley's bedroom with his head pillowed on his paws, trying to remember the proper mental pronunciation for a spell Moony had shown him the day before the attack on Diagon Alley. What syllable did that accent go on? The "vi" or the "cor"? I think it's the "cor," but I could be wrong…
Harry was still asleep, probably enjoying the story-dream Danger had given him the night before as a joint birthday present from her and the Founders. The party at the Founders' Castle had gone forward as it usually did, though with two fewer attendees than the year before and several sets of wet eyes throughout the night. Meghan, especially, had been spotted sniffling, but that hadn't stopped her from clinging to her Dadfoot like a goblin with a pile of treasure.
Nice to be human again, even just for the night. Ron enjoyed seeing everybody, and getting back into the air. I wonder if he can still play Quidditch? Hermione doesn't much care for flying.
It wasn't his problem, Fox reminded himself, so he wasn't going to try to solve it. He would stick with the problems that involved him directly.
Like keeping myself from cowering on the floor and whimpering in terror every time a holiday passes, because I know it's my last one…
His birthday the week before had been especially bad. The phrase "Many happy returns," usually as generic a well-wish as "Happy Christmas," bit deep when the person hearing it knew he wasn't going to get even one more.
And here we go on the downward spiral. Fox took himself firmly by the mental scruff of the neck and administered a short, brisk shake. None of that now. Remember what Moony helped you come up with for times like this?
Yes, muttered himself sulkily.
Well, let's hear it then.
Himself pouted but started dutifully reciting. Dwelling on the future is the same as dwelling on the past or a might-have-been. It means you're not living in the now, which is what we're supposed to do. Besides, everyone's days are numbered. Most people just don't know the number and arbitrarily assume it's high, so they squander their days and throw them away. You won't do that, because you have few enough that every one of them is precious to you now. Enjoy them while they last, and know that your Pack will be with you no matter what happens or where you go.
The act of recitation broke through the moment of panic, and the ideas contained within it did the rest. Fox sighed, opened his eyes, and shook himself all over. A course of anti-dementor tablets seems appropriate. After that, I'll see about rousting Harry out of wherever he is and asking if he'll share…
He was just about to burrow under the bed in search of Harry's bag and the stash of chocolate contained within when a slight scraping noise from the hallway caught his ear. Cautiously, he poked a paw against the catflap, pushing it outwards a fraction of an inch and applying his eye to the crack.
What he saw had him cursing mentally, both to himself and through the pendant chain. Harry's sense went from "elsewhere" to "here" in a fraction of a second, and from there to "seriously annoyed" within another breath. This had better be good. I was just about to beat the—
Dursley's out there with some kind of tube and a handful of sharp pointy things, Fox interrupted. I don't think he's going to invite us to play jacks with him, or whistle us a happy tune.
Sorry for snapping. That's more than good enough. Harry grabbed his glasses off the nightstand. Thoughts?
Duck? Fox suggested. He'll be aiming blind, and it should be pretty easy to avoid his shots now that we know he's there.
True, but I'd rather he not try this again. You might not catch it the next time. Harry slid quietly out of bed and reached underneath it for his bag. Thoughts on discouraging him?
Fox licked his chops and looked hopeful. I think better when I'm fed…
Harry rolled his eyes and dug out a bar of Honeydukes, snapping a palm-sized piece off and setting it down on a bit of wrapper. Fox trotted over and bit off a chunk, chewing thoughtfully. How do you tell someone without words that his sharp pointy attentions are unwelcome?
Here's a thought, Harry said, taking a bite of chocolate for himself. He'll have the other end of that tube in his mouth, won't he, to blow through it?
That's how it's done the last time I looked, Fox agreed.
Grinning, Harry pointed towards the chair on which he had hung his day clothes. Things can go both ways down a tube…
Dudley Dursley smirked as he prepared his tiny projectiles. The wizard who had given them to him had called them caltrops, and had gone into a long-winded explanation of how they had once been used in warfare to cripple the enemy. Dudley was only interested in the way he was going to use them himself.
They've got a point no matter what way they lie, or fly. And every one of their points has a different potion on it. So depending on which side hits Potter, or if I get him with more than one, he'll have all these things going wrong with him. Thickening hair, wobbly knees, bits of his body swelling up… The smirk became a grin. And because he'll be the only one affected by the magic, it'll get him in trouble and not me!
He loaded the first caltrop into his peashooter, poked it through the catflap, and put his mouth around it.
An instant later, he was coughing and gagging. A blast of sweet liquid had hit him square in the tonsils. "Damn you, Potter!" he sputtered, wheezing in a breath. "I hate—"
He blinked. "No, I don't," he said, beginning to smile. "I don't hate you at all. Why should I hate you? You're my cousin! We're family! I love you!"
Downstairs, a door slammed. "Dudley?" called a man's voice. "Where are you, son?"
"Up here, Daddy!" Dudley beamed and scrambled to his feet, his caltrops flying out of his head. "I'll be right down!"
I can't wait to show my daddy how much I love him, and my mummy—and then I'll go out and show the entire world how much I love them too! Muggles, wizards, I don't care, I love everybody…
Inside the bedroom, Harry had his face muffled in three layers of bedsheet, with only a high keening noise like Wolf in pain emerging. Fox's jaws ached from holding them shut, but he didn't dare let go. Do we know how soon that pink potion wears off? he sent instead.
We only ever tested it for skin contact and breathing the fumes, Harry answered, lowering the sheet enough for Fox to see his overly bright eyes. We didn't check it for swallowing the stuff…
Fox groaned silently. You mean we could have to put up with this for the rest of the time we're here?
You're the Potions expert. You tell me.
Snape's lesson on different ways to administer potions ran through Fox's mind at high speed. In my expert and professional opinion…
Yes? Harry lowered the sheet a bit more.
We're doomed.
The sheet came back up immediately.
Mare looked around from her dishes at the soft clearing of a throat. "Yes, are you looking for someone?" she asked the young woman standing in the doorway. I've seen her before… of course, this is Evanie. She looks different when she's not scared out of her wits.
"Only you." Evanie advanced into the kitchen, letting the door close behind her. "I wanted to thank you for what you did for me the other day. I shouldn't have been where I was, and you saved me from the consequences of that."
"Those particular consequences would have been much too harsh for the offence." Mare shook dishwater from her hands and reached for her towel. "Would you care to sit for a minute, or do you need to get back?"
"I'm not on any particular timetable. Peter won't be in until late." Evanie pulled a chair out from the wall and took her seat. "I… have a problem, I don't know what I should do about it, and you're the only person I know here besides Peter. And since the problem involves him, I can't very well ask him to help me."
"Men, as a rule, are not the people to ask for help with problems," Mare said dryly, making Evanie giggle a bit. "So what's the problem? Or is part of it that you don't know what it is, exactly?"
"You do understand. I thought you might." Evanie leaned back in her chair, some of the tension going out of her shoulders. "I know it's to do with Peter, and with magic, and with what happened to me and what's happening now. Being here, I mean, and not back where I came from. The other teachers and the matron at the Home must think I've run off with Annette…"
A few gentle questions and a handkerchief later, Mare was in possession of the story of Evanie's immediate past, and more of the girl's background than she thought Evanie was aware she'd revealed. Someone hurt her, very badly, when she was young, and she feels like she's done the same now, like she's responsible for that little girl's death. She'll have to come to terms with that on her own, I can't change it, but I can find out what else is troubling her.
"So he claimed you, and you went with him willingly because you thought he might be salvageable," she said at the end of Evanie's explanation about herself and Peter. "Has he done anything to change your mind?"
"No, not at all. Everything's going so well. Which is what has me worried." Evanie shook her head. "Why couldn't I trust him enough to ask if he would take me outside? Why did I have to go on my own, and nearly get…" A brief shudder cut off the last word. "What's the matter with me?"
"What's the matter with you?" Mare laughed aloud. "I'd be asking what was the matter with you if you had trusted him that much! You've only known him a few days, and you know next to nothing about him or his life, except that he's a follower of a nasty evil wizard, however unwilling he may seem to be! You're having a perfectly natural reaction, wanting to take care of yourself, so don't you dare start casting blame. Look for ways to fix that lack of knowledge, maybe, but get it out of your head right now that it's a lack in you."
"I'll try." Evanie drew a deep breath, let it out, and allowed the smallest of smiles to creep onto her face, though it slid away as she began to speak again. "But how am I supposed to get to know him better without asking him? No one around here who knows him would talk to me, and they all think he's beneath their notice anyway. Except…" A speculative look blossomed in her eyes. "That dog, the one who barked to tell you someone was coming…"
"He's not a dog, or he wasn't always," Mare corrected. "His name is Sirius, Sirius Black, and he's a man under that fur. We've been talking, he and I."
"So you have a way to talk to him? For him to talk back, I mean, you could always talk to him, but does he have some way to answer you now?" Evanie sat up straighter. "He knew Peter a long time ago, Peter said so himself. Maybe he would talk to me, tell me more about Peter and what happened to him. Why he is the way he is."
"He might." Mare checked the clock hanging on the wall. Its hands were still pointing to All quiet on the downstairs front, which told her no Death Eaters were within walking distance. "Come with me. We'll ask him together."
After I talk to him first.
I have a few ground rules I'm going to lay down.
Padfoot was rolling on one of the rougher spots on his floor, trying to scratch a persistent itch on the top of his head, when he heard the footsteps coming. Aletha's were as familiar to him as her voice, and the other, lighter set he identified by the scent wafting in front of them as little Evanie Meade.
With Wormtail's stink all over her. He growled under his breath. You'd better be treating her well, you scummy rat…
Aletha rounded the corner, and Padfoot shook off the momentary bad mood that thinking about Wormtail always produced in him. For these few seconds, while she greeted him, he could pretend that nothing had changed, that they were playing a game together and could end it at any time they chose, that they would stroll out of here when they decided they were through and Apparate home to Headquarters, that Meghan would be waiting impatiently at the door and the other cubs would tear themselves away from their absorbing pursuits to come claim their own hugs…
It's going to happen. He filed the mental image away under I for "inspiring" and angled his head for better scratching position. I have to believe that it's going to happen for us, or I'll lose all my faith in everything. So it's going to happen, and I'm going to take things one step at a time until it does.
"I understand you and Evanie have already met," Aletha said, breaking into Sirius' thoughts. "She wants to ask you about a… mutual friend. Will you excuse us for just a moment, Evanie? I want to make sure I understand how to extend the chain far enough to include you."
Evanie looked slightly puzzled, but nodded, stepping around the corner and out of sight.
Aletha leaned in close to Sirius and tossed her chain over his furry head. She wants to know about Peter Pettigrew, she said without preamble. About his life, his past, what makes him the way he is. Are you going to be able to talk to her without prejudice?
Sirius blinked several times. Come again?
Don't lie to her, but don't let whatever that nasty taste is in your mind color everything you tell her either. Aletha's eyes were fixed on his. I don't care if he wrecked your life or if he's personally responsible for everything bad that ever happened to you. Give her the truth, without spinning it either way, up or down. Weren't you friends with him once?
Once. A long time ago. Sirius bared his teeth at the memory. And he did wreck my life—or tried to, anyway. You want me to whitewash him, is that it? Well, the answer's no. I'm not going to do it.
Good, because that's not what I asked you! Aletha rapped him on the top of the head with her open hand. What I said, which you would have heard if you had been listening instead of just reacting to a name, was to tell her the truth. It's what she wants, and it's what she deserves. All I'm asking you to do is not to color it. Tell her what he did, and when, and how. If she asks you why, either admit you don't know or take your best guess. Do not say "Because he's a gutless little bastard and I hope he rots in hell for it." Which is what's in the back of your mind, unless I'm very much mistaken.
You're not, Sirius admitted. But how am I supposed to take myself out of what happened to me, what's still happening?
Aren't you the great writer, the one who can make the story come out any way he wants? Aletha's mental tone teased and scolded in equal measure. Pretend this is one of your stories. It isn't real, it's happening to people in your imagination, and you have to get inside all their heads in turn to make the story work right. Well, it's Peter Pettigrew's turn to have the spotlight. Can you give it to him without tinting it any particular color?
Sirius closed off a section of his mind and had a small, private tantrum. No, I can't, and even if I could, I won't! He is personally responsible for everything that's happened to me, he's not one bit sorry about any of it, and now you want me to praise him to the skies to this innocent little Muggle girl and make her happy that he's claimed her, like a piece of luggage he'd lost? I won't be responsible for something like that, I just won't…
I can try, he answered with the other part of his mind. Send her over.
Stories are my business. More than ever, since I'm out of Auroring for good unless a miracle happens. He let his tail brush back and forth across the stones as Evanie reappeared. And if anyone around here ought to have a rewrite from the word "go," it's Wormtail. He's done plenty of things wrong, but he isn't exactly a free agent these days, and maybe he never was. Even if he did make that first choice by himself, to join up with the Death Munchers and get the snazzy tattoo, I can't believe he really understood what would be involved. Not the way somebody like Bella or Lucius did. And once he was in, there was no way out.
He watched Evanie take her seat on the floor, accept the handful of chain Aletha offered her, and slide it over her head. They lied to him, threatened him, manipulated him, and he fell for it. He always was a credulous little son of… whatever you call a female rat. There is no excuse for what he did, and I'm never going to like him again. But I can tell the truth about him, to myself, to Evanie, maybe even to him someday.
I owe us all that much.
So you want to know about little Petie, do you? he began, and saw the shock and amazement on Evanie's face fade into a delighted smile that told him he had made the right decision. Let me tell you, the first time I laid eyes on him—opening day of school, it was—you never saw a scareder-looking kid, nor one so eager to please absolutely everybody around him…
Ron bent over the workbench his dad had helped him erect in the Pride's den, peering through Neenie's eyes at the object he was disassembling. The birthday party at the Founders' Castle had given his spirits a boost at the same time as it had depressed him. He hadn't known that was possible.
Emotions are complicated things, Neenie said, kneading his shoulder for a moment, her claws extending just enough to touch his skin before withdrawing. You had fun seeing everyone, and seeing in general, but now we're back to everyday life and you're wondering if you'll ever have that again.
"Pretty much." Ron pulled free a section of the object and set it aside. "I hate taking up all your time like this. You must have better things to do than sit here and be my eyes…"
A paw smacked him on the upper half of the ear, claws fully extended this time.
"Ow! All right, all right, I get it, you don't like me saying that." Ron rubbed at the point of impact and grumbled in his throat when his fingers came away damp. "That doesn't stop it being true. You've got a life, Hermione, and it isn't all about me. I'm in there, but I can't be the only thing in it or you'll go mad and so will I. Any genius ideas yet about what else we could do?"
Nothing yet. Neenie sighed. Mostly I keep wishing Letha was here. Especially now that we know she has the Ravenclaw gift. She might be able to work around that mirror-maze Healer Young was talking about, or even bypass it somehow, come up with a completely different way of handling the problem. And since the hidden message in all of that is that I don't have any new ideas, why don't we talk about something else for a while? What are you doing?
"Taking apart Harry's Omnioculars." Ron removed another portion of gold casing and piled it atop the first. "He asked me to in his last letter, you remember. Thought I might be able to work out how they do all the things they do."
Yes, but I don't quite understand why he wants to know it. Does he want you to make him his own personalized pair, maybe smaller so he can carry them more easily for DA missions?
"Yes and no. He does want them smaller, and personalized, but he won't just be carrying them for DA stuff." Ron grinned to himself. "Smart girl like you, I'm surprised you haven't figured it out already…"
Neenie growled. Stop teasing and just tell me.
"He wants to find out how much of this I can put into his glasses." A tiny silver ball vibrated with magic when Ron ran a finger across it. He drew his wand to remove it without destroying the charms. "If he could have dials on his earpiece to pause what he's seeing, slow it down or play it back. Maybe even see through walls like Moody's eye, or see at night like you and Wolf do. The more I can get in there without changing the way his glasses look now, the better."
Because everyone knows Harry wears glasses, so they won't think anything of it if he plays with them, and he'll have those abilities on hand at all times. Ron, that's fantastic!
"Oi!" Ron exaggerated his shiver as Neenie pressed her cool nose against his neck. "I didn't think it up, I'm just working on it. Save the hero-worship for the bloody Chosen One, hmm?"
You know he'll hex you upside down if he catches you calling him that, eyes or no eyes. And your "just working on it" might save his life one day. The furry body pressed against his shoulders began to vibrate, unknotting muscles kinked with work and worry. I'm allowed to be grateful for the good work you do, aren't I?
"At least wait until we see if I can actually make it happen," Ron muttered. "Do you know if he's got a spare set of glasses around anywhere? If all the magical drivers are the same size as this one, I might be able to get everything in and still have room to come up with something for the night vision…"
Fortunately for Harry and Fox's aching sides, the love potion wore off Dudley within half an hour, but they had to avoid one another's eyes for the rest of the day. Even while they were both doing homework, Harry at the desk finishing his History of Magic essay, Fox curled up on the bed with his Care of Magical Creatures text, it was hard to keep straight faces. Finally, the sun sank below the horizon, the air cooled down enough to make sleep a viable possibility, and both boys put away their books and started preparing for bed. Harry, who needed the bathroom for longer, got it first, and Fox was reciting the different breeds of winged horse to himself when he heard a familiar scraping sound from the hallway.
Company, he sing-songed mentally, and dove under the bed as the catflap rattled.
"Yes?" Harry called from the bathroom, sounding like he had a mouthful of soapsuds—which he may, if he's in the middle of brushing his teeth.
"You think you're funny, Potter." The whisper was colder than anything so impersonal should be. "You think you can do that to me and get away with it."
Harry spat into the sink. "It's called defending myself," he said, filling a glass of water from the tap. "Leave me alone and we won't have any more problems."
"Leave you alone?" Dursley snorted, the catflap bouncing with his breath. "I could leave you all the way alone if I wanted to. Talk my precious mummy and daddy into a long holiday, far away from here. Tell them you'll take care of yourself, magic up food and such. Only you can't, can you? You can't make food out of magic, and you wouldn’t dare in any case, because they'll expel you from Hogwarts for underage wizardry."
Rinsing his mouth, Harry spat again. "Finished?" he asked, stepping out of the bathroom and taking a seat on the bottom of the bed. "I was hoping to get to sleep at some point tonight."
Dursley laughed. "You go on and sleep, Potter. See what you wake up with. Or if you wake up at all."
Fox thrust his nose forward, inhaling, and flattened himself against the floor as he caught Dursley's scent. Keep him talking about that, he sent urgently to Harry. We've got to know more.
"Why wouldn't I wake up?" Harry asked coolly. "Because of you? You haven't got the stones for killing. Cheap little nasty tricks, that's all you're good for."
"Fat lot you know." Dursley achieved an audible smirk. "Anniversary of my first kill's tomorrow. One year."
Two mental voices blended on the same expletive.
"We already knew Dursley was a lying Slytherin," Ron said in the Pride's den the next day, amusing himself by building a maze out of dominoes for his chessmen to run through. "Now we know he's a lying, murdering Slytherin. What's the difference? He knows he can't get away with doing Harry, not with letters going back and forth every day, and he doesn’t even know Fox is there."
"The difference is, he killed somebody." Ginny reached over and flicked her brother's ear where it was still red and raw from Neenie's claws. "He slipped some poor woman a dose of poison last summer, and made it look like she grieved herself to death over her favorite dog. We can't let him get away with that."
"We won't." Neville didn't look up from the book he was sharing with Meghan, but his voice held the flat finality of someone stating an established fact. "We may have to wait until Harry and Draco get home, just to be sure he doesn't try to take it out on them, but Mum has already started the proceedings with the Enforcers to check into that death. If Dursley was the woman's only contact with the wizarding world, and they find she was killed with a magical poison…"
Ron brought his hands together with a loud smack. "Got him."
"Only they won't."
Five heads turned to focus on Luna. "Who won't what?" Meghan asked, closing the book on her finger. "Do you mean they won't find the poison?"
Luna shook her head. "They may find it," she said. "But by then, it will be too late." Her eyes were unfocused, her breathing shallow and rapid. "The blood, the blood, everything circles back to the blood. Blood that protects, blood that stains, blood that marks, blood shed by blood, blood bred by blood…"
Ginny stopped the recitation by clapping a hand over Luna's mouth. "Calm down," she ordered, taking Luna's hand in her free one. "Breathe, and get it into order. Help us understand it."
"Yes." Luna nodded, her eyes beginning to clear. "Yes, order will help."
"Get her something to drink," Ginny mouthed at Neenie, and Ron set his dominoes aside and started for the door. "You're going to be all right, Luna. We're here. That sounded like a rough one."
"It was." Luna smiled at Meghan as the younger girl slid a finger across Luna's forehead. "Thank you, that does feel better. I haven't had anything that ugly, or that harsh, in a long time. It caught me up and I couldn't stop saying what I saw…"
"Sounds like what you saw was pretty gruesome, too," said Ron, coming back into the room with a tray of cold drinks in his hands. "Winky sent these up. Lemon squashes and water, and snacks to follow when we want them."
"You mean you don't right now?" Meghan widened her eyes in mock innocence, until Neville touched her shoulder and she subsided. "Sorry."
"It's fine." Ron held up his lemon squash so that Neenie could lap a few mouthfuls. "Hearing about blood, blood, blood, isn't going to make me all that hungry."
Meghan grimaced and nodded, choosing water for both herself and Neville. Ginny took a lemon squash for herself and handed Luna a glass of water, sitting down beside her friend with her legs folded under her. "We're all listening," she said. "Take your time."
"It wasn't very nice." Luna sipped at her water. "Dursley thinks a lot about blood. About bloodlines, and blood purity, and if there could be some way to make himself more accepted by the people he wants to be more like. The purebloods, the ones who think that's the most important thing about them."
"The Death Eaters." Neville set down his glass. "Is he hoping if he kills enough Muggles, they'll overlook his parents being Muggles themselves?"
"Yes and no." Luna frowned. "I didn't understand it all. What did I say, does anyone remember?"
Neenie slid down from Ron's shoulders and retransformed. "'Blood that protects,'" she recited. "'Blood that stains, blood that marks.' And then there was 'blood shed by blood,' and then 'blood bred by blood.'"
"And then Ginny stopped me." Luna half-closed her eyes. "The blood that protects is Harry's mother's, and her relations', with the blood wards. Blood that stains is on Dursley's hands, because he's killed already and wants to do it again. But his blood marks him, sets him aside from the place he wants to be. So he wants to…"
"Yes?" Ron prompted when Luna didn't continue. "He wants to what?"
"I don't know. But I know it isn't good and we won't like it when it happens." Luna smiled wanly. "I'm sorry it isn't clearer. And the one thing that is clear about it, I don't like."
"What's that?" asked Meghan when it was clear no one else would.
Luna stared into her glass. "I don't know how or why," she said, tracing a finger through the condensation on its outside. "But Dudley Dursley will never stand trial for what he's done."
If only life could stay the way it's been the past few days, I would be a happy woman.
Mare bent backwards, stretching against her aches, then straightened with a sigh. I get my work out of the way in the mornings. After that, Evanie comes to visit with me and give me the news of the world as relayed by her Peter, and then we both go to see Sirius and listen to his stories…
Sirius might have been bragging a trifle when he had told her about his writing, Mare thought, but his skills in storytelling more than lived up to his boasts. He had made Evanie—and me too, since it's my chain they have to use to talk with—see the proud towers of Hogwarts, the still waters of the lake, the darkness of the Forbidden Forest, the shabby and secretive Shrieking Shack.
But even more than the places, it's the people. He makes them come to life for you, until you think you might meet them around the next corner. Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick and Hagrid… James, Lily, Remus, Peter, and…
She stopped, frowning. There always seemed to be a gap in Sirius' stories of long ago, a missing person or figure, a name he never mentioned. She had her own suspicions as to who that was, and why.
It has to be his wife. There's no one else whose absence would cause him that much pain. If it were someone he'd lost back then, he would have worked through some of that grief by now, the way he has for the Potters. No, this is a fresh loss, and I think I could put my hand on the person.
If that's the right word for her these days.
Picking up a bowl of meat similar to the one she'd brought Sirius earlier, she set out through the twisting corridors towards the back door. Her other canine friend would be waiting for her in the woods.
I've tried to get my chain on her, but she just backs away. Either she doesn't want to talk to me or she's lost more of her human mind than Sirius did. Mare smiled as her plans for later in the night bubbled to the surface of her thoughts. Still, there's no doubt she understands me when I talk to her, and I think she'll like hearing about what I'm going to do tonight…
Stepping out the back door into the golden light of sunset, she shaded her eyes with her free hand and peered around. "Princess," she called. "Where are you?"
A low whuff answered her, and the shaggy-coated wolf bounded out of hiding behind a bush and romped up to her, circling her playfully three times while sniffing at the bowl.
Sirius was my prince, so why not extend the idea? It's not like I know her real name or anything.
"Here you are," Mare said, setting the bowl down. "Would you like to hear something funny?"
Princess snapped up the first chunk of meat and twitched an ear in what Mare took for assent.
"All right. Tonight, I'm going out visiting." Mare sat down on the edge of the old-fashioned stone well which graced the clearing beside the kitchen door. "I've been getting the house-elves to show me bits and pieces of the house, and now I have a few important bedrooms located. Such as the room in which one Lucius Malfoy, otherwise known as my 'master,' takes his repose."
Big brown eyes fixed on Mare in astonishment.
"Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to murder him in his sleep or anything. Though I'm sure he deserves it, if I only knew everything he's done." Mare drew one knee up to her chest, enjoying this. "No, I'm going to do something far worse to him. I'm going to be nice to him. To do something that will make him happy, and leave him wondering who did it—and why."
Tail waving idly to and fro, Princess sat down. Her cocked head was as good as a banner shouting Tell me more!
"Well, I know from Sirius' stories and what I've heard around the house that Mr. Malfoy has always been very vain." Mare pretended to examine herself in a mirror, frowning and brushing at a bit of imaginary dirt on her face. "So what he minds most about being a werewolf isn't the transforming or the pain or the social ostracism. It's that while he was transforming uncontrolled, when there was nothing else there for him to attack, he attacked himself, and being a prisoner in Azkaban at the time, his wounds were never treated. Which means his face is terribly scarred."
Princess' tongue was starting to loll in what Mare had learned to read as a canine expression of good humor. Her tail thumped against the ground, raising dust in the early August heat.
"Tonight, I plan to use my powers for good." Mare waggled her fingers towards Princess. "Lucius Malfoy will wake up tomorrow morning without a scar on him." She stopped, reconsidering. "Or no, maybe I'll leave him one, to point up how good he looks without them. How about… right here." She laid a finger on her own face, beneath her left eye. "A little mark straight up and down, an inch long or thereabouts. What do you think?"
Emitting a high-pitched whine of glee, Princess flopped over and began to roll in the dust, her paws waggling ecstatically. Mare laughed aloud and reached down to scratch the wolf's belly. "I'm glad you approve."
And I wish there were more I could do for you. Absently, she extended her powers into Princess' body. I wish I could make you human again, get you back to your husband, make Sirius as happy as he deserves to be…
With a little yip, Princess squirmed out from under Mare's hands, scrambled to her feet, and bolted into the woods.
"Did I hurt you?" Mare asked aloud, blinking after the disappearing wolf. "Or…"
Or is it that whatever spell you're under doesn't want to be lifted?
Her eyes narrowed in speculation.
It's time I got a few answers around here.
First thing tomorrow, I'm asking Sirius what exactly they made him do to the woman he loves.
Author Notes:
But will she like what she hears?
I know this is a bit late, but technically it's still the weekend for us American types. Happy Presidents' Day, everybody. I'm fading fast, so this will be a short note; please review, thank you for reading, and see you all next week!