Lupine Tendencies

It was Halloween morning. Harry woke up like he always did on Halloween; he opened his eyes, brushed his teeth, got dressed, and went to get some fucking breakfast. Wizarding Britain treated the day even more reverently than Christmas. Today for him, however, was nothing more or less than another day as Harry Potter.

His parents died on Halloween, and while it used to bother him a lot, he came to terms with it eventually. Sure, he missed his parents, but he had Severus, Albus, Minerva, Poppy, Flitwick, and the rest of the professors to give him all of the adult presence he needed. What really bothered him wasn't his parent's death; it was the way every single wizard and witch treated the Potter tragedy as a reason to party . 

That was exactly why Harry couldn't have been more satisfied to have his old friend Nicholas invite him to the ghost's Halloween equivalent, Death Day. There couldn't have been a more convenient excuse to blow off the feast eaten in his dead family’s honor. 

Fuck 'em; they could have their fancy feast. He was going to be kicking it with dead people, and he considered that to be a win. 

He sat down for lunch with Malfoy, and he had a smirk on his face. Piling his plate up with food, he purposefully ignored Malfoy's raised eyebrow. The full moon was coming soon. The very few people who were "in the know" were valiantly keeping him on his feet during his pre-transformation sickness. Today, though, he was simply in too good of a mood to let his pale visage, sore joints, and lack of energy keep him down. 

"Do tell, Potter. What has got you in such a good mood today?" Malfoy finally drawled once he realized that Harry wasn't going to say anything. 

"Oh, nothing, Malfoy. I just got invited somewhere prestigious for Halloween dinner."

It was then that Greengrass walked behind him and took a seat by his side.

"Is that so?" she asked once she got comfortable.

Davis and Zabini came and sat down next to her as well, the second one much more reluctantly than the first. It wasn't exactly common for Mafloy's group and Greengrass's to mix, but it turned out that his two friends sort of bound together in comradery during his pre-transformation sickness. Apparently, he was such a "handful" that the two of them decided the task would be much more manageable if they worked together and split up the obligations between them. Honestly, if the two would just let him fucking sleep like he wanted to instead of giving him a heart attack before dragging him off to his next class, there wouldn't be a job left for them to perform. 

"Yes, it is. Nicholas invited me to their people’s celebration of the ‘afterlife’, something about helping him get into the Headless Hunt."

Greengrass's eyes couldn't have rolled with any more sass than they just did. Malfoy, on the other hand, scrunched his face up in silent contemplation. 

"He really invited you to a ghost-exclusive festival to get him into a club that he doesn't meet the qualifications for?" Malfoy eventually questioned.

Harry shrugged. "Does it matter? Anything beats going to this fucking feast. Do you want to tag along?"

There were many acquaintances sitting around him, but everyone knew who Harry was talking to. Malfoy seemed to be on the same wavelength as Harry when it came to their plans for the night. Greengrass was a different case.

"I don't know," she told them. "After the troll incident last year, I'm not sure if I want to go gallivanting around the castle tonight."

Harry looked at her with a cheeky grin, "Oh, come on, Greengrass!"

She smirked back. They both already knew exactly what he was going to say, and she beat him to it, "Where is my sense of adventure? Well, I don’t know about you, but encountering a fully grown mountain troll in the school corridors isn’t exactly my idea of a good time."

"You've got to be joking!” Harry exclaimed to the table. “You’re seriously telling me you wouldn't be down to slaughter a mountain troll tonight? With you, Malfoy, and I fighting it together, it should be the mountain troll trying to come up with excuses to stay in during the celebrations."

He could see the way her expression changed throughout his time speaking, and he knew she was tilting toward his side. Once the three of them started studying together, they quickly came to realize how similarly addicted to combat all three of them were. Harry was yet to duel Malfoy as he did with Greengrass. His blond friend didn’t even know that the Potter family magic was still alive within him. The main reason for such a travesty was that Malfoy would most likely need to report such a thing to his father when he found out. It would be foolish to hand away such secrets so soon considering he got so lucky with Daphne’s continued silence on his magic. He might’ve been rather loose-lipped at the beginning of the year, but after Albus made the changes he promised, Harry was capable of avoiding the usual reckless behavior he tended to display.

Both Harry and Malfoy could see the moment she made up her mind, and the two were smiling far before she gave her verbal consent. 

Harry and his two Slytherin companions were strolling around the castle during the night of Halloween, and Harry could honestly say that it was already the best Halloween ever. The castle was dark, only lit by the torches on the wall. They were on the first floor, and they were in an often untraveled section of the castle. It would have been creepy to anyone else, but there was no world where those three would feel threatened in their current situation. 

“You know,” Malfoy said casually. “I was expecting you to invite the Weasley girl too.”

“Why would you think that?” Harry asked back as he absorbed the sight of a section of the castle he actually hadn’t explored yet. 

“Well, you hang out with her quite a bit.”

“Yeah…” Harry admitted. “She isn’t nearly as bad as I thought she would be at the beginning of the year.”

Both of them were looking at him curiously now.

“Then why didn’t you bring her along too?” Greengrass asked him.

“She isn’t ready yet,” was the answer he eventually went with.

The other two couldn’t have been more confused.

“What does that even mean?” Malfoy prodded.

“She has potential, but she isn’t powerful enough for her to stand by us, not as equals. If she gets to the point where she can, then I will begin to invite her on our adventures.”

The two understood exactly what was going on now. They felt silly for not considering it sooner. Lycanthropes were a little different in how they categorized and treated friends.  While werewolves could get along with others just as well as anyone, they had a habitual desire to specifically seek out people who they saw as equivalent to themselves, and it was with them that they tended to spend the majority of their time with. Such habits usually ended up creating werewolves who surrounded themselves with hyper-competent individuals who worked well with each other and were capable of adding something useful to the group. This was also the same pattern that gave wizarding Britain the idea that lycanthropes were slightly more comparable to wolves than humans. "Pack-mentality", they mockingly called it. The description was rude, but not necessarily untrue. It was instinctual on their part; it simply made them feel more comfortable when surrounded by people who owned their trust and could match their strength, especially when doing possibly exciting, dangerous, or risky things. Of course, a normal first-year with an impressive talent for jinxes, hexes, and the like would not be enough to stand as equals with a group such as them. Both of the two Slytherins included in that group felt slightly abashed to be considered worthy by such a strict analysis coming from an extremely critical person.

“What?” Harry asked with a slight smirk. “You’re telling me that you two didn’t realize what has been happening?”

The two of them only averted their eyes for a moment before glaring at him without any real heat.

“Excuse me for not really considering the situation past face value, Potter,” Greengrass quipped.

“Yeah, well, don’t let it get to your heads,” he said back. "Your egos are almost as big as mine without the boost."

The trio finally came to the end of the corridor and found themselves standing before a large wooden door. The ambient aura was cool and chilling, but Harry couldn’t have been any less worried. He looked at his two friends before throwing the door open and walking into the Death Day party. 

The noise from the room was deafening, and the excitement was palpable. Anyone who thought that ghosts were drab and apathetic clearly hadn’t seen them party because this was some next-level shit. Rows of tables were filled to the brim with ghosts of every shape and size drinking ethereal liquids and dining on nearly transparent dishes of food. Nicholas informed Harry long ago that ghosts normally didn’t eat but that their parties generally consisted of food that was sacrificed earlier in the year. It was truly odd, though, to see it in more than just the explanations of a friend.

Ghosts of children long passed dashed around between the tables with an eternal youthfulness that would accompany them until their delayed but inevitable passage to the great beyond. Magically enrapturing music played on the far end of the ballroom, and a mass of blue-tinted, immaculately dressed ghosts whimsically twirled around on the dance floor. Harry grew a victoriously smug smile that showed off his extremely pointed canines, and he directed that smile at his shocked friends once he took in the scenery. He knew Nicholas wouldn’t let him down.

This… This was a fucking party.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Potter, but you made a good call today,” said Malfoy with an awed expression.

The three walked down the table and took a seat closer to the action on the dance floor. Harry smiled at Greengrass when he saw her eyeing the far side of the room with a hopeful and exhilarated expression, and it only grew wider when he saw Malfoy talking to the Bloody Baron when he came over to say hello to a few of his house’s students. Looking across the hall, he caught Nicholas’s eyes and motioned him over when he saw what was in the ghost’s hands. 

His two friends caught onto his devious smile and started looking around curiously until they saw Nicholas glide into the seat across from Harry with three wooden mugs in his hand and a large bottle of golden liquid. 

“No!” Harry shouted, just barely resisting the urge to reach across the table and pat the ghost on the shoulder. “You really got it!?”

Nicholas smiled indulgently at the messy-haired teen even as he attempted to suppress a nervous chuckle. “A deal is a deal… Just make sure you don’t mention this to the headmaster.”

Harry looked to his left and saw Greengrass and Malfoy looking at him with similar yet oddly distinct expressions. 

“Is that fire whiskey, Potter?” Greengrass asked him suspiciously. "You do know how illegal this is, right?"

Harry took one of the mugs and poured himself a drink with a shrug and a conspiratorial smile. “Whether or not this is firewhisky, Greengrass, depends on if you're joining me.”

Tilting his head back, he emptied an entire mug full of what he would compare to liquid flame into his mouth. The burning in his throat was followed by a much more pleasant warmth spreading through his body. Harry looked at his two friends, and his eyes lit with excitement when he saw Malfoy concede to his offer. He handed over the bottle and a mug, but as Malfoy poured and downed his own cup, he had eyes only for the still conflicted Daphne Greengrass. 

“Come on, Greengrass!”

The girl gave him a half-hearted glare at the beginning of a phrase that was quickly becoming something of an inside joke between the two. The glare morphed slowly into a resigned look. Harry started chuckling when she let out a sigh and took the mug that he offered her. Both Malfoy and Harry watched her as she topped off her cup. Harry noticed her staring at the alcohol with far more trepidation and nervousness than she had ever displayed before. 

She was uncomfortable in the presence of his group… that was unacceptable.

“You don’t need to be afraid, Greengrass," he guaranteed her with a soft but unwavering voice.

She looked at him, and Harry’s glowing eyes radiated confidence and power that was possibly more intoxicating than the firewhisky could ever be.

“You’re with me and Malfoy,” Harry told her with a predatory smile. “Together, we’re invincible. You don’t have to worry when you’re with us.”

She couldn’t help but smile at such assured words. Daphne was immediately brought back to the new piece of information she just learned with Malfoy before entering the room. In Potter’s eyes, he was with a group of people that he felt could do anything. It was so very simple for someone like him, and an attitude like that was violently contagious. When in the company of someone so utterly unworried about consequences and convinced of their safety, loyalty, and power, it was difficult to not feel the same. Staring at Potter for one more second and glancing at an equally confident Malfoy, she tilted her mug and drank it all as quickly as possible.

Her eyes watered due to the distinct sort of pain that came with the firewhiskey brushing past her throat, and she hacked up half of a lung in response. Malfoy reached across her back and gave her a few hefty pats while Potter laughed ardently at her reaction to her first drink. She shot him a glare through narrowed eyes as she coughed a few more times, but that only seemed to make him laugh harder. It was hard to stay annoyed at him with his particular brand of unadulterated mirth dancing in his green eyes, and it was even harder when the warmth from the magical alcohol spread through her much like it did her two friends. 

“Better?” Harry asked gently once she seemed to compose herself.

She answered him with a slap to the arm, but she nodded nonetheless. They still had quite a bit left in the bottle, but Harry made the decision to leave it be for now. One of their members was still new to the experience, and it wouldn’t do to push it when she was clearly not completely comfortable with it yet. Perhaps they would revisit it as the night went on. Looking over to Nicholas, he decided to begin his part of the bargain.

“So, Nick, tell us about this Headless Hunt and why its prick of a leader won’t let you in.”

It was late at night and just before curfew when three children left the Death Day ballroom and started their trek to wherever they felt like going at the time. Harry and Malfoy were stumbling down the corridor, laughing and fucking around with alcohol-induced flushes on both of their faces while their bottle of firewhisky floated down the hallway in front of them. Greengrass, as always, retained her dignity despite being slightly inebriated herself. 

Merlin have mercy. if her mother ever got wind of this, she would be in deep shit. Oddly enough, though, she couldn’t bring herself to care about her mother’s opinions or rules. Perhaps it was the firewhisky or her current company, but she’d never felt quite so free from the restrictions of her family. 

“Did you see Podmore’s face!? The man looked about ready to faint. Do you really know how to perform a banishment, Potter?” Malfoy exclaimed with a warbly laugh.

Harry laughed along with his friend and swished his wand in an off-kilter rhythm, making the almost empty bottle of firewhisky sway in an equally disjointed manner. 

“No,” He admitted with a dangerous smirk. “But it’s bullshit that he wouldn’t let Nick in when he agreed to let Dumbledore separate the last bit of his neck. He will be completely headless by the end of tomorrow. The boss of the Headless Hunt was being a jackass. He deserved what I gave him.”

Greengrass smiled pleasantly as her two equally chaotic friends continued to banter with each other and horse around in the hallway. That was before she saw Potter stop dead in his tracks with a pale face that could not have been more different than the one he was sporting seconds before. The bottle dropped to the ground with a sharp crash as it shattered into tiny pieces. 

“Wands out!” He shouted.

Neither of the two thought it was a joke, but Greengrass was just a bit quicker to respond when she saw the boy take off his fingerless glove that signified his desire to make use of the exceedingly destructive runes injected into his body. He would only remove that glove if he was truly confident that there was a threat worthy of his family magic. The air around the trio grew cold as she pumped her magic into her immediate environment. 

“What is it, Potter?” She asked with almost no inflection to her tone.

“It’s a snake, and it’s big,” Both of his companions looked confused, and he answered before either of them could voice their questions. They didn’t have time to be conversing about abilities at the moment. “I’m a parselmouth. What I heard wasn’t a normal snake, even by our definition.”

Neither of the two questioned it at the moment, and the trio began to walk in an awkward formation with Harry at the front, Draco to the side, and Daphne at the rear. It made sense, really. Even without Malfoy’s knowledge of Harry’s family magic; the speed, strength, and aggressiveness that came with lycanthropy made him a natural forward. He would be the least inhibited of the three if he wanted to rush forward as their front, and he would be the most likely to need a quick reaction time. Malfoy sitting off to the right would allow him to cast efficiently in the narrow corridor without harming Harry if he went awol, and Greengrass at the rear allowed her to play the utility role that her magic granted her. She had the best view of the potential battlefield from the back, and that let her support the rest of the group until she gathered enough magic to start the real attack; the two boys in front of her would be able to provide the protection she needed to build up her power without the risk of getting slammed with a curse. 

“It’s moving,” Harry said with a calm sort of seriousness. 

“Where?” Malfoy asked back.

“I’m not sure. It doesn’t sound like it is coming from a distance… It sounds like it’s coming from the fucking walls.”

Daphne would’ve suspected user error if she wasn’t privy to the knowledge of just how startlingly accurate the senses of a lycanthrope were. 

“That doesn’t imbue me with confidence, Potter,” Daphne said sarcastically.

The mood was lightened considerably when her jibe was responded with a laugh from the lycanthrope. Harry thought that was a good thing. Tense combatants made senseless mistakes. It was better to be relaxed and prepared than anxious and jumpy.

“It came to a stop up ahead,” Harry said abruptly.

The trio's speed came to a crawl. All three watched in trepidation as they whipped around the corner. What they saw would have made lesser mages vomit. Harry scowled at the scene, Daphne's eyes hardened, and Malfoy's nose scrunched to show his ample amount of disgust.

Harry held his off-hand into the air and signaled the two to follow. He didn't want to risk talking right now. He needed all of his senses to make sure they weren't going to be caught unaware. 

Water covered the floor from a flood in Myrtle's bathroom, and the constant drip of the faucets echoed into the hallway with an eerie rhythm. The calm torchlight flickered across the reflective surface of the water, creating a golden hue that rippled with the puddle’s disturbed surface from all of the dripping. The shining water flowed all the way down the rest of the hallway and came to a rest against a bloodstained wall, framing the scene as if it was placed there by an artist for the purpose of adding emphasis. 

The stone wall was covered in smears of blood that formed into a slew of abstract patterns placed in such a way as to create the outline of a circle. Within that circle was a girl, probably a sixth or seventh year. Her arms were spread eagle, and she was pinned to the wall with what Harry assumed to be a sticking charm. Her eyes were wide open, but they were unseeing and blank like those of a doll or a manikin. She had caramel brown hair, and it would've been about mid-back in length if it wasn't floating above her head and around her frozen body in a curly mess of flowing locks. 

On her face was a wide, tooth-filled smile as if she had been laughing, and it gave Harry chills to see that her mouth was the only emotion-expressing part of her face. It didn't just not reach her eyes; it was as if the smile literally didn't travel past her mouth. It was artificial, fake. This was more than putting someone up on display or making a show of power; they turned their message into a masterpiece. Everything was perfectly designed and carefully placed to display whatever macabre images ran through the perpetrator's mind. The entire scene was meticulously thought out, and every aspect of it from the paralyzation to the animated hair showed a distinct level of magical prowess that would leave even the most hardened of viewers with a dread-filled cold slinking up their spine and through their bodies. 

Harry looked at Malfoy and Greengrass individually to make sure they were okay and alert. Seeing that they were fine, he started thinking fast. 

"Greengrass, you're the best with charms. Can you make a notice-me-not?"

She gave him an affirmative noise before casting it on the scene along with a few other charms that neither Harry or Malfoy had the time or patience to consider. 

"Malfoy, I need you to make sure any wanderers stay away from the scene. You're the best with the curses. I don't care if you have to confound them halfway to a coma. School kids aren't ready to see something like this."

Malfoy nodded before approaching the girl and getting ready to intercept any stragglers that Daphne couldn't deal with. 

"Rose!" Harry said with more than a little steel in his voice.

"Yes, sir?" A feminine voice said in front of him right after a small pop.

"Go get the headmaster for me, please. Bring Professor Snape too. I require their presence; tell them it is an emergency."

"Yes, Master Harry, sir!"

The young elf disappeared with another *pop*, and Harry only had to wait another few seconds before two vastly worried professors appeared before him. They looked relieved upon seeing that he was okay, but when they turned around to examine their immediate vicinity, their looks became guarded and analytical. 

"Be careful,” he told them with nothing but the utmost level of sincerity. “I heard a snake around here."

Severus turned around to regard his pupil, and he noticed the bright gleam in the boy's eyes. His student was on edge. It was no wonder, really. The boy was close to his monthly transformation. He would be on edge if everything was going perfectly, and he was obviously drunk (They would be having words about that later). Running into this must've set him off. He gave the boy a nod and turned back around to analyze the scene. 

As he approached the suspended body, he noticed Albus talking to the two children whom Potter seemed to have adopted into whatever horrendous, bombshell of a clan he smacked together.

"You did very well, both of you. Thank you for your brilliant spellwork and quick thinking. Forty points to Slytherin," the two looked pleased with themselves, and Albus gave them a wink before nodding over to their third companion. "I believe that it is time for you to go over to your friend. I am certain that the both of you realize how this may or may not affect him."

The two shared a confused look before their eyes lit with understanding. Both of them seemed to possess the desire to express their disappointment in themselves. Malfoy actually acted on it by placing a light palm on his forehead.

"Thank you, headmaster," Daphne said with a smile. "We’ll bring him to his common room."

She walked past the old man, and she met Severus's critical, analyzing gaze, smiling just a bit wider when she received an almost imperceptible nod of approval. 

The two professors waited patiently as the three children walked away, whispering intensely about parselmouth or something. Once they were gone, the two of them started conversing.

"She seems to be alive," Albus said mostly to himself.

Severus scoffed at the obvious statement before levitating the girl down to stare into her lifeless eyes.

"There isn't even the faintest of responses from her mind. She will not wake on her own."

Dumbledore peered around the scene once again before tilting his head toward Severus, "This is a very disturbing sight; it is oddly familiar too."

Severus nodded his head. He understood where Albus was coming from. The Dark Lord was always one for theatrics. One of the things that really got him traction during the fledgling stages of the first war was the intricately designed pieces of art that he would construct from the casualties of his massacres and battles. Even the lowliest muggle was given a frontstage appearance after their slaughter. His most respected opponents were placed into masterpieces of horrific artistry that left no one guessing just how valiantly they fought. The scene before them was nowhere close to the grandeur that was Voldemort's sculptures of beautiful death and despair, but it held a sort of semblance to Tom's constructions that would seem almost uncanny to anyone who experienced the Dark Lord's handiwork for themselves. 

"It does seem sickeningly similar, doesn't it?" Severus responded. 

"Harry said he heard a snake. This is a basilisk's work, do you think?"

Severus took a few moments to think before giving his thoughts, "I am no expert on dark creatures. Perhaps your pet werewolf would know more, but it seems as if it is. It’s disconcerting enough to think of a basilisk roaming the halls. If this was the work of dark magic, then there is a very powerful mage lurking around. I have no idea who among the students has the skill set needed to create something like this."

Albus listened along with a few nods of his head before swishing his wand and vanishing the entire scene en masse. He left not a single speck to mar his beautiful castle's hallowed walls. 

"Keep this between us, the staff, and Harry. If the aurors get a hold of this, Hogwarts will become the ministry's playground by the end of the week. Inform the students and their heads that they will be conforming to stricter safety measures. We can't allow this to worsen, and the ministry cannot be allowed to push us out until we can find the abomination that Tom stuck inside of my school."

Severus gave a nod and started walking away at a brisk pace. 

The next day, a haggard, pale Harry Potter slumped down into a seat between Malfoy and Greengrass. Tonight was the night of the full moon, and he hadn't slept at all last night for obvious reasons. It was sort of expected considering how close they'd come to encountering whatever the hell paralyzed that girl. Speaking of which, the entire school apparently decided to lose their damn minds. 

He and his friends managed to keep the scene locked down and unnoticed. The only two outside of his own group who knew about the attack were two people he trusted implicitly to remain discreet. Naturally, this meant that every single student already knew something fishy was going on, and breakfast started about five damn minutes ago. Not a single person knew of the severity of the attack, not even the victim’s parents. Everyone did know, however, that there was quite a huge accident that somehow involved Harry’s small group of friends and a currently absent student. The constant glances were grating on his instincts, and the quiet murmurs, which he could hear much more clearly than they thought, served to agitate his already foul mood. He was on edge, in pain, and every damn kid in the entire school was irking him at the same time.

At least his friends took the news of his ability okay. They were both healthily curious about how he was able to speak the language of snakes and serpents, and even though he had absolutely no plans to tell them the real answer to such a question, they were content with simply accepting the mystery for what it was. It wasn't like speaking to snakes was all that crazy if its rarity could be ignored. 

Greengrass subtly swished her wand with a whispered incantation, and Harry was extremely pleased when the sound muted around them. Her family magic was made possible by a strong understanding of various charms. While her specialty was cryomancy, she was extremely good at charms in general. It came with the territory. 

"Merlin, bless you," Harry said with a smirk and a nod.

"Of course," she responded cheekily. "I don't much enjoy being subjected to the idiots at Hogwarts either."

Malfoy, though, seemed to be far less miffed at the situation than the rest of them, "You should see our housemates, though, Potter. We run the whole fucking place."

Harry nodded with a grin despite his attitude, "You two would be running the place soon enough either way. You're better than the rest of your house."

It was a good thing the charm went both ways, or the rest of the Slytherin second-years around them would be less than pleased. Harry couldn't care less if it did, though. He would say it to all of their faces. There was a reason he chose those two and not the others.

That was when the third of his small group of companions entered the hall and dropped sluggishly into a chair at the Gryffindor table. It was a shame that she wasn't ready to join them, but he was confident that she would find her stride soon enough. She looked absolutely terrible today. Harry didn't know what her problem was, but she was almost as pale as himself, and she looked unkempt. Her hair was frazzled and messy, her robes were poorly placed, and her eyes were distant. If he didn't know her better, he would've suspected that the attack was getting to her. She was not like the rest of the riff-raff; it would take much more than the possibility of an assault to shake her off of her game this bad. He would have to speak with her soon. 

"Not looking great today, is she?" Malfoy asked with a nudge.

"No…" Harry said slowly. "She isn't."

Even though his suspicions were bothering him, Harry was pleased that his friends seemed to be paying attention to a possible extra member despite not knowing her. Though, once again, they wouldn't have endeared themselves to him if they weren't the way they were.

"You have transfiguration today, right, Potter?" Greengrass asked him. Harry gave a long-suffering sigh but nodded his head anyway. "Good, you should start eating soon so we can get out of here. I will not be late for my first class again."

He nodded along without a complaint. He knew by now that arguing was useless. Harry fought tooth and nail literally every single time they forced him through the halls this week, but every protest seemed to only push them to new heights. Greengrass had been fit to kill when he dragged his feet just a little too much on the second day of his sickness. Apparently, they were going to stick with him despite his lack of consent while simultaneously blaming it on him if they were late. It annoyed him to no end, but he would be forced into submission long before he got anywhere close to seriously making them stop. 

He finished his food as quickly as he could with his queasy stomach, and the three left for his first class. Upon passing the table, he looked at the Weasley girl with a critical eye. She normally would have sensed his staring and looked around to find the perpetrator, but she seemed completely incapable of reacting to outside stimuli today. It was concerning to see her look so sullen and empty. Albus's word of advice to keep an eye on her condition echoed in his mind. Was her current funk caused by the same thing as before? He couldn't feel anything off with her, but something about her blank stare and dark circles worried him. If she didn't look better soon, then he'd have to go to the headmaster.

The rest of his day was as hellish as he expected, but as evening approached, the fuzziness of the wolf's magic started zoning him out. Oddly enough, it made the day more bearable. It was like the world just moved around him without the need for him to participate, like he was watching a movie instead of playing a character. 

"Oi, Potter!" 

Harry flinched at the unexpected noise and turned his head slightly to see who decided to bother him. It was some guy with black hair that he didn't recognize at first. His vision was getting somewhat blurry; it happened for a while before he got the startling clarity that came with a full transformation's vertical-slit eyes. He still had a few more hours before he became unable to restrain his aura, and he had at least one or two before he lost control of his eyes.

"Daphne has been looking for you, Malfoy too. What're you doing here?" 

Harry looked around for a second, wondering where exactly he was. Severus warned him not to dawdle, but it was unavoidable on the final day of his sickness. His teacher wasn't all too illogical for wishing to put a tracking charm on him, but he despised the idea of someone watching him due to his condition. He would make it there just like every month, and a tracking charm wouldn't change that. 

"I am where I am. Why should I care where that is?" 

He was pretty sure the kid gave him an exasperated huff before answering, “Cause people have spent hours looking for you, you git!

Had it been hours already? It didn’t feel like it.

“Why do you care if someone is looking for me?”

It was a speech tactic he learned from talking to Dumbledore. The way his teacher deflected questions with more questions that told him absolutely nothing was one of the most infuriating and ingenious things he’d ever seen. 

“Because Daphne is one of them!" the boy almost growled. 

Ah, now he recognized the boy. It was Zabini. How careless of him. Dumbledore's technique gave him all of the cards. The boy stumbled into his questions out of frustration and fed him all he needed to know without gleaning even the slightest bit from the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry wasn't even good at sparring with words. In fact, he was absolute shit at it. That just went to show how good the men he emulated were. 

"So this is because of Greengrass," He drawled with a teasing smirk. "Does it bother you that she is looking for me?"

The boy snorted, "It bothers me that she's looking for you while you're here being an arse. I don't know what she sees in you."

Harry just gazed at Zabini with eyes that didn't work quite as well as they should, and he wondered about why all of this mattered. Sure, he was generally a bit of an ass, but it wasn't as if he disrespected or hurt her. She was part of his group. If he was going to hurt her, then she wouldn't be with him and Malfoy. The fact that she was in the group pretty much guaranteed that he wasn't going to harm her. Sure, people not in the know wouldn't realize this, but he surely hadn't been rude enough to warrant the current vitriol spewing at him from Zabini's mouth. Something much more personal had to be driving this conflict. That was when he figured it out, and it made his eyes shine with violent mirth. 

"You're jealous, aren't you?"

The boy's face froze in a second. It was like Harry's words literally stopped time. There was a look of horrified shock on Zabini's face, and it made Harry grow a malicious smile on his own. His amusement grew with every passing second, and with it grew a deep, harsh laugh. 

"Oh, poor Zabini…" he sneered with a mockingly sympathetic tone that cut through the boy's skin like blades. "Do not feel threatened. I have done nothing more than offer her my companionship. There is no such thing as stealing a person. She goes where she wants. If you want her to go with you instead of with my group, then prove to her that where she belongs is with you. If you cannot do that, then don't take it out on me. "

It was positively tragic . The moment he realized why Zabini was there, he already knew it was over. The very fact that Zabini felt the insecurity necessary to encounter him over his problems instead of stepping up when it mattered meant that he would never have what it took to stand as an equal next to someone like Greengrass, and the ability to stand as an equal was a requirement if the boy wished to take the position that he seemed to so desperately want. The word partner didn't describe a relationship where one was clearly the better. 

It was with this knowledge that Harry stood and began to walk away with a sick grin on his face. He did not feel bad about Zabini's hopeless predicament. It was as he told the boy. He did not steal Greengrass; he was simply better than the other options. She chose his group for the same reason he chose both her and Malfoy, and he was nothing if not confident in his ability to remain as the best option. Zabini was right about one thing though. There were people searching for him. He wasn't hiding from them earlier, and he had no reason to remain alone now. So long as he left before his aura broke from his control, the company of his friends would always be welcome. 

Severus sat against the willow, pressing its knot to keep it docile like he did every full moon. His right foot was tapping against the soft grass with a tempo that increased alongside his agitation. The boy was going to be late… again. Severus really did have half a mind to tie Potter up and throw him in the shack every full moon for the sake of both the boy and his own sanity. He would wait another five minutes, then he had a soon-to-be wolf to hunt down. Seriously, the kid's aura was about to open up any minute now. Did he have no inclination for subtlety? 

Severus scoffed. 

Of course , he didn't. The boy was a damned Gryffindor. He might as well be fatally allergic to using his brain. He looked up from the ground and smiled just a bit when he saw a form walking towards him.  

It was about time . 

His smile slipped away, though, when he saw two other forms of similar height supporting him down the grassy hills. Severus resisted the urge to curse under his breath. What the fuck did he just say about subtlety? 

The three got closer, and he conjured a small snake to keep the knot pressed on the tree. He stood to meet the three, and his eyes immediately went to a pale, haggard-looking Harry Potter. The boy, as always, looked like shit. He didn't have much time. His aura was about to burst. 

"I'm sorry, professor. Potter found us just a bit ago, but by the time he did, he could hardly walk," said his godson formally and a bit nervously. 

Severus looked at Harry and shook his head just a little, "And why, Mr. Potter, were you searching for your friends at a time like this?"

Harry chuckled weakly even as he started to separate himself from the grip of his two companions. 

"Impulse control, Severus, you know I don't have any right now," Harry said while tapping his temple for emphasis. 

Severus concealed the twitch threatening to develop in his left eye and sent a pointed stare at his student. 

"Obviously."

Harry looked sheepishly at his mentor after glancing around at his two friends who were obviously looking between the two of them with wide, shocked eyes. Damn it, he forgot to keep things formal in front of his companions. 

"Go inside, Harry," Severus said with a sigh after pinching the bridge of his nose. "Your aura will burst soon." 

Harry gave him one more slightly apologetic look before limping down into the shrieking shack. Once he was out of sight, Severus looked at the two children whom Harry finally chose to be his friends. 

"Harry trusts you," Severus stated factually. 

The two kids gave him hesitant nods, glancing at each other with hardly disguised anxiety. 

"If you prove him wrong, you will find your lives to be much more difficult than you could possibly imagine."

With that, Severus twirled around and began walking into the shack. The two children waited for him to disappear and let out two simultaneous breaths of relief. They were both intelligent enough to draw their own conclusion from Potter's slip of words, and the answers they came up with had many serious implications. The threat from Severus Snape was clear. If they revealed any of this to their family or other friends, the consequences would be dire.