instincts had not prepared them
The regal stag, the tangled dog, and the rat-turned-refugee between antlers. A family, standing around him, waiting for his cue. But he was a werewolf frozen, transfixed by the full moon’s light pouring in through the fraying planks of the shack. Or maybe it was another kind of light; Moony couldn’t be sure. His instincts had not prepared him. He felt warm. Usually, he howled.
It wasn’t anything calculated. That is, at least, if your definition of calculated action requires that you have the words to explain it. Moony padded slowly towards the back of the shack – towards the light, towards the heat – crouching to a hunting stance. He growled and rammed himself into the wall. Again. Again. Again.
Prongs hoofed, and dust clouded around them. Then again, louder, cracking the planks beneath him. Padfoot barked playfully and moved towards the makeshift door-hole they’d made in the shack to escape as animals on the full moon. ‘Let’s explore!’ he tried to say. Though he, too, was without words. Wormtail hid himself away all the while, trading his perch on Prongs’ antlers for a small, dusty corner by the front leg of the bed. Neither the determination of wolf, stag, nor dog could reach him there.
Moony was deaf to it all. He was focused on the wall, the mission; the unbridled investigation. He felt warmer than before. The old wood splintered his fur each time he hit, but he didn’t switch sides. Padfoot changed tactics, grabbing him by the scruff and intending to drag him away. But it turns out that it’s a bad idea to drag a werewolf on a mission away from where he wants to be, even if you’re his boyfriend in animagus form.
So Moony threw Padfoot towards the door. ‘I need to do this alone,’ he meant to say, though he didn’t know that yet. What he felt like he meant was closer to ‘Back off, you meddling dog,’ and Padfoot did not take to that kindly. What Padfoot meant to say was, ‘I want to help you find it,’ but he didn’t know that either. He tried again to divert the wolf, bodily pushing him away from the wall and neglecting to notice how it had gotten hot enough to burn his own fur. ‘Let me save you; I’m sick of waiting for you to save yourself,’ he said with each forceful shove in the direction of the door, feeling as if he meant it.
Wormtail, in hiding, was more observant than either wolf or dog. Or perhaps he simply had more distance. At moonrise, the light behind the wall looked more like a lumos spell cast by a wizard at a fair distance out. As the night wore on, it looked like a fire. Though he wanted the courage to say ‘I know you have this in hand,’ as he watched his friends fight this danger it seemed they didn’t yet understand, he knew that what he really meant was ‘I don’t want to get burned.’
Prongs could see that something needed to change. He was also the largest out of the animagi, leaving him with both the sightlines to see the whole of the fire and the best chances of bringing a wayward wolf and dog into line, even if it required intimidation. He grunted in warning before pulling Padfoot off of Moony’s scruff and using the threat of antlers to coerce him out of the shack, through the makeshift door-hole, and away from the fire. ‘We can’t save Moony from this until tomorrow. Not without damning him tonight,’ he said. Whether he meant it or not, he didn’t know.
Wormtail, seeing a way out of the shack, scuttled out behind his friends and changed back into himself. Seeing that his friends had neglected to re-charm the makeshift door to buffer the shack from the outside world, he took care of it. If they couldn’t save Moony from the fire, they could save him from his worst fears for himself. And hopefully, the magic of the shack would handle the rest.