WereHenry
I healed Ronald enough so he could limp behind the group – Fred helped him, his brother’s arm around his shoulders. I wished he didn’t because that meant I had to listen to Black’s ramblings. Not even uncle Remus helped me, as he was levitating Pettigrew and keeping an eye on him.
He might be bound by magical ropes, but you never know.
It was a weird feeling, being the saner person. I lack a good reason why my brain is fucked up – being around Dementors for twelve years sounds like the most reasonable of situations why one ends up with a fucked-up brain. However, even though I understand why he’s the way he is, I still want to fucking bash his face in so he would fucking shut up!
I wasn’t even trying to seem like I was listening to him! He just didn’t care and talked and fucking talked! I was glad that we finally exited the Whomping Willow – seeing the wrong end of Severus’ wand didn’t even ruin my mood.
“What are you doing here, Henry?” He hissed at me, pointing his wand at Black. “Did you go completely mad?!”
“Trust me?” I gave him a toothy grin.
“So, you did go completely mad,” he snorted.
“Stop pointing your wand at my godson, Snivellus!” Black growled and Lupin was fast enough to catch the collar of his torn prison shirt. Does staying in Animagus form for prolonged periods of time alter the mind of the wizard or witch? Or is he just batshit crazy?
I’m not sure. I should get him to teach me how to change into my animal form if he’s truly innocent. He seemed honest, but he might be just broken enough to lie to himself. The fact that he wasn’t lying about the rat made me trust him slightly more.
“Calm down, Black,” Severus snorted and lowered his wand. He was pointing at Black’s legs, but the dog Animagus didn’t seem to notice. “I presume you are bringing him to the castle, am I correct?”
“Yep,” Fred popped with a grin. “We decided to come to the Light side for today!”
I snickered at that. “It’s a good ruse, you must admit that, Severus.” He raised an eyebrow at us, before turning his attention to the two conscious adults.
“Let’s go, before somebody catches us,” he sighed. “Why are we helping a convict, Henry?”
“He gave me good fucking evidence that makes him appear innocent in his charges.”
“And crazies need to stick together,” Fred snickered. “Henry, didn’t you need-“
“Yes – Severus, do you have a blood replenishing potion on hand? Ronald lost a shitload of blood.” We stopped, so Severus could help me spell the potion into the shorter redhead’s stomach when uncle Remus groaned in pain and two bodies fell on the ground with heavy thumps.
“Are you kidding me?” Severus stumbled back, eyes wide open, while Black transfigured into his dog form, circling around his screaming friend. “Lupin! Did you take your potion?!”
“Oh fuck,” I wanted to turn and run, but I saw Pettigrew wiggle, so I threw another magical rope in his direction, and then Stupefy right after it.
“Boys, take Ronald to the castle!” Severus pushed us in the direction of the castle, stepping in front of us – as if that could stop a fully grown werewolf.
“We can’t run that fast-“ Fred hissed at him, clutching his brother closer to his side. “-and especially not with Ron-“
“GO!” he yelled at us, almost overpowered by the sound of howl. All of us turned our heads in the direction of Black and uncle Remus. It seemed like Black was trying to calm him down, but Remus was snapping in his direction, half human and half wolf. His skin was hanging off his furry face, one of his hands was at a broken angle but the other one was still human-looking, only with long sharp claws dirtied with his own blood.
It was fascinating, to say the least. If his bones break and heal in a matter of seconds, would any wound heal with exceeding speed? If his leg was broken before the metamorphosis, would he heal it into the correct position?
Fred was tugging me along, so I stumbled from my position, almost taking him with me. He grunted and helped me to my feet – I tried to help him with Ronald, but that only made us slower, so I stopped. We didn’t get far before a black smudge soared in our peripheral vision. A dog’s yelp told us who it was – I looked behind me, so I saw that Severus tried to get the werewolf’s attention, but most spells slipped off his fur like water.
But he did get Lupin’s attention – the werewolf jumped on him, Severus rolled out of his range in the last second and tried to blast him into the forest, although he looked like he would rather blast his brains out. I wonder if firearms would be stronger or weaker than spells against the thick skin of magical beings.
“Henry,” Fred tugged on my hand again, so I looked away from the fight.
We tried to retreat as fast as we could – Black managed to stand up on his fluffy paws and with a limp, he went to help Severus, who was losing the fight. He could have killed the DADA professor, but not even pleas of self-defense could get him out of charges on the base of the use of Avada Kedavra. At least books make it sound like that – but Ministry also hates Magical Beings…
Some branches broke with loud snaps that made us jump – I looked back, unable to see Severus. I hoped he just fell down the hill into the forest and he was fine. But that left only one line of defense between us and Remus, so we sped up and tried to imagine those canine yelps were from the bigger of those two beasts.
I wished Soteria was here – she was the only person I could think of that could keep us safe and without worry.
“Throw Ron down the hill, so he’s hidden,” I hissed at Fred, who simply nodded and let his brother tumble down into the bushes. We should have run. Fred had more self-preservation and couldn’t keep in one place, but I knew that if he sees us, he won’t attack those who had already fallen.
“This is so stupid,” Fred huffed, wand tightly gripped, and was first to fire when a big gray werewolf came rushing at us. He managed to halt his fast-paced run, and I tried to tie him up, but he jumped to the side, nearly avoiding his fate – Fred sent a cutting curse at him, but it slipped off him like most other spells – I tried a darker one, which failed in the same way. We stumbled back, threw spells that came to our minds, one after another, but the werewolf was nearer and nearer, until I stepped back, stumbled over a thick stick and fell on my back. Fred looked down.
The wolf used the opportunity to pounce at us.
Fred stepped, stupidly, into Lupin’s way, his wand already firing into the teacher’s face but that was only a hindrance for the werewolf who wanted to jump at the already fallen prey. Instead, he fell on Fred, snapping at him-
“Crucio!”
The wolf howled in pain, same as Fred who was clutching his face. I wanted him to feel the pain, to suffer because he hurt my friend and when my magic cried in rage, I almost passed out under the surge of everything. But; I managed to keep it down and stopped the spell, breathing hard. I tied him with as many magical ropes as I could. Then I really thought about what I just did and snapped my wand in half, throwing it under the werewolf’s body.
“Fred, I need your wand,” I tried to handle him as my mother would. I softly touched his shoulder and pried the weapon out of his hand – and summoned my Patronus, with a message for Minerva. Then I forced Fred to uncover his face, my fake eye trained on the whimpering werewolf while I disinfected Fred’s face and closed the surprisingly deep wounds, then soothed everything with a cold spell.
I gave him the headache potion, which should dull the pain at least a bit and helped him stand out – firing another binding spell at Remus out of spite.
“Did you-“
“Yes.”
“I thought – no, hoped – I heard wrong. Broken?”
“By the werewolf,” I nodded. “I sent my Patronus to Minerva.”
“Send another one to Dumbledor, he should be able to help.” I did that before he finished his sentence. “Let’s get the grown-ups and Ron,” he tried to grin. “Second year in the row when we need to take care of the big problem – and the second scaring of the face, hm?”
“Your mum is going to fucking kill somebody,” I grinned back, first checking on our prisoner and consequently throwing him next to Lupin before I went deeper to look for Severus. Fred was looking over Sirius, close to the two dangers to keep an eye on them.
Dumbledore’s efficiency is admirable – which is not easy to admit when I’m trying not to think about what happened. Shouldn’t he control Remus more? Check on him? And how did a convicted killer managed to live next to the castle for this long? And the real killer followed not one, but two Weasley’s into the chamber of teenage boys, without nobody noticing. Shouldn’t there be wards to tell the headmaster about Animagi?
Either way – he came after I managed to help Severus crawl up the hill, trying to stabilize his broken leg with the professor’s wand. Fred had Sirius watch over the two bound men while he carried his (thankfully very skinny) brother. Both of us were drenched in sweat when Minerva and Dumbledore arrived, stretchers and Aurors in tow – the scariest person out of all of them was Poppy. I saw on her, that she wanted to scream at us, but she held herself back.
She’ll yell at us later – and Minerva might join her, with that look.
“Mr Bundy, thank you for informing me,” Dumbledore looked over our fucked-up group. “You’ll need to tell me what happened in detail, but that can wait. Your Patronus said something about Sirius Black not being the murderer?”
“He seemed believable, because we caught that cunt, Pettigrew,” I pointed at the short sweaty man on the ground. “Try to keep Black out of the fucking grasps of Dementors and he should be fine. I’ll tell dad to take care of the legal bullshit. Remus is incapacitated, but I’m not sure for how long. Ron should be mostly healed, but he was panicking so we stupefied him. Severus has a broken leg, which I can’t fix without my wand which Remus managed to break when he attacked me and Fred.”
“How did you incapacitate him?” One of the aurors asked.
“Accidental magic,” I shrugged. It’s usually the truth, so they should eat it up.
After that, we were taken to the healing ward, where Poppy yelled at us – that we were supposed to run, and let the adults deal with it, and other stupid shit. Fred and I just sat next to each other and listened to her, our numbness slowly but surely leaving us.
The calm before the storm felt similar to last year – only the lack of pain made it more bearable when it fell away and I started to curl onto myself – Fred grabbed me into an uncomfortably tight hug, but I hugged him back. And then we started to cry, like two little kids scared of the big bad wolf.
We fell asleep next to each other – and woke up with George, Hermione, Luna and Daphne on us, like annoying blanket. So, to show my annoyance, I bit the closest hand, which made Hermione shriek. I hoped it would be Daphne…
“You’re such an asshole, Henry,” she groaned and slapped me so lightly it felt like she just patted my cheek.
“Why are you all hugging us?” Fred groaned into my ear.
“You were almost killed by a werewolf!” Hermione and Daphne shrieked.
“Get the fuck off,” I kicked, eliciting another groan, this time from George, who was also the first to get off.
“What happened to you, Fred?” Luna asked quietly, her big eyes fixed on his newly scarred face.
“I wanted to match with Henry,” he grinned weakly, not saying what both of us knew. What everybody knew.
“People will recognize who is who now,” George said shakily, trying to smile through the tears.
“I doubt that, I think they’ll be confused about who was scarred,” his twin huffed, offering a hug that the more brash twin took without second thought. It looked awkward, as Fred and me were sitting and George was half-lying half standing.
Then Daphne sat in my lap. I groaned in faked pain – unfortunately, she didn’t take the bait. “Bitch.”
“Don’t complain, most guys would be happy to be in your position,” she snorted.
“Really? They mustn’t have ever talked to you.”
“No, you are just… you.”
“Eloquent.”
“Don’t be a hypocrite, dear, it doesn’t suit you.”
“Fuck you.”
“See?” she snorted and even disheveled Hermione giggled at that. “What happened?”
“We saw Ronald, wanted to bully him but he was dragged away by a fucking dog who is Sirius Black, as we found out later – he gave us evidence that he was innocent, we deemed it as sufficient and wanted to go back to the castle – but uncle Remus changed to his werewolf form and because he fucking forgot to take his fucking potion, he was supremely aggressive. We managed to win, but he bit Fred before we did it. I called Dumbledore and Minerva, the end.”
“That was horribly dry,” Fred muttered into his twin’s hair. “And it felt like it took days – yet your retelling feels like it happened in the course of an hour.”
“Two at maximum,” I guessed. “The wait felt the longest.” He cringed at that and squeezed George until he started to squirm: “Air! My ribs!”
“If you have enough air to complain, then you’re fine,” Luna poked him in the ribs. “At least you were there and saved everyone.”
“I think Remus was following us,” I fake-whispered to her. “So, that would make us the ones who dragged danger there.”
“He should have been more careful – and he’s an adult,” Daphne concurred.
We sat on the one small bed, all of us touching one another even when at least one of us didn’t want to – Hermione and Luna sat at the foot of the bed, cuddled together but touching us with their legs (at least everybody took off their shoes before they got up – that would be disgusting even for me). I wonder where Poppy wandered off to – maybe to take care of uncle Remus? I read that the morning after the full moon is the worst.
“You don’t have to be so silent about it,” Fred finally broke it. “At least we know that Lupin was allowed to study here by Dumbledore.”
“I’ll make the potion for you.”
“I know – and thank you, Henry.”
“It takes care of every gift-giving opportunity – I take it as a hell of a win!” We snickered but only Daphne joined us.
“Poor Griffins, not getting the joke,” Daphne cooed.
“I’m a raven,” Luna argued.
“Honorary Griffin,” Daphne waved her off. “Either way – I already wrote to the Ministry and they’ll allow you to finish your OWLs later. Poppy added her signature and note as your healer that she’s not going to let you out of here before the end of the week?”
“Why does she want to torture me?” Fred fell back on the pillows, hitting his head on the metal heading, groaning in pain. “Fuck.”
“Are you sure you’re not turning into WereHenry?” George grinned.
“We would have known that for years now,” Hermione rolled her eyes and lightly kicked Fred’s hand with my teeth marks firmly scarred over.
***
“I hope this is the fucking end.”
“Of what?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at obviously peeved Henry.
“Of getting new friends – the taller we get, the least fucking space there is, AND if we get another…”
“It’s a compartment for eight people, Henry,” Hermione kicked his shin.
“But three of us are above average height – and even Daphne is taller than most girls!”
“It’s not our issue you take up too much space,” Daphne rolled her eyes. “And what if somebody starts to date? Then it wouldn’t be a friend.”
“Are you planning to stop annoying me?” The crazy teen brightened.
“I was just giving a possible example,” she grinned teasingly. “The twins are of the age when boys start to date. And Hermione is a beautiful young lady, isn’t she?” Henry’s face was blank, staring at Daphne, me, and George, then it slipped to Hermione. Our only official Slytherin was trying not to burst out laughing.
“Yes, Henry?” Hermione asked with a forcefully cold mask.
“I’m trying to see what is similar between you and Tracey Davis.”
“Henry!” Daphne shrieked, whilst Luna was patting the other Raven on his shoulder, both of them wearing mischievous looks. “You put him up to this!” she accused her fellow blond.
“Do you think Henry would figure something like THAT on his own?” George snorted.
“Imperfection is human, scar-less twin,” the genius snorted, unbothered. “And I still don’t understand why would Daphne chase me around if she likes a girl.”
“I don’t like Tracey!” The ‘ice princess’ pouted, crossing her arms. “Besides, I tell you all the time I want this to be a business proposal.”
“She likes her,” Luna reassured Henry. “She’s in denial.”
“Luna, stop saying that – I’m perfectly straight!”
“Oh, yeah, like the ruler here,” George kicked me, so I kicked him twice as hard back – and instantly felt bad when he groaned in genuine pain. I find it difficult to control my newly acquired strength.
We squabbled and poked each other for the rest of the ride – none of us getting tired from the pouty reactions of our targets. Nobody talked about tests (because Hermione would spiral), about werewolves, or about the school – we made plans to meet each other during the summer, exchanged ideas for pranking siblings/parents/friends, and in general, almost forgot to get off the train. George tried to hug all our younger friends at once and I did the same but in moderation.
“Don’t forget,” Henry warned me when I simply ruffled his hair. It was awkward, as he was about the same height as I was, but I didn’t mind. “If you’re not there a day before, I’m sending a howler.”
“You need a wand for that, don’t you?” He raised an eyebrow, clearly telling me that no, he doesn’t. Typical. “But don’t worry, I already told dad about it – and he’s excited to meet you again and exchange ideas. He has been obsessing over finer motors all summer and winter.”
“Sure,” he shrugged. Then he sighed with almost-pain on his face and followed Hermione out to the muggle part of the King’s Cross Station. I could imagine how his mother crushes him in a hug, telling him (like every year) how much he’s grown and that she missed him.
I get why she always says that – I miss him already.