Chapter 4
"Stroke the spine? That's ridiculous!"
Harry and Rebecca rolled their eyes at the sound of Draco's voice rising over the clamour of Care for Magical Creatures ahead of them. If any student were to give Hagrid trouble, they knew it would be Malfoy. They hurried along, reaching the class quickly. If Malfoy was being difficult, Hagrid needed as many friendly faces as he could get.
"Ah, hello there you two!" Hagrid took their note and motioned for them to step back, joining the class. Hagrid was relieved, with two more familiar faces, he would be his best. "Come along! Now that you're books are all taught-to-open and all, we're moving on."
Rebecca and Harry weren't near Ron and Hermione, but as they followed Hagrid away from in front of his hut to wherever they were going next, they maneuvered their way through the crowd to get next to the twins.
"I didn't mean it like that." Hermione spoke first. "I just didn't want you to give it anything more than it was: A stupid ploy to scare us."
Rebecca offered a truce, not liking fighting with Hermione even if it was only this short while and they had hardly fought. "McGonagall says she does this every year."
Hermione, who was thrilled to know that she had been right, did not say anything on it. "Are we okay?"
"We are." Harry answered before Rebecca could, leaning forward so that he could see Hermione clearly. "I think it would be best if we just put that whole hour behind us." Harry was worried about the Grim and the prophecy had exacerbated that entirely, but he could see how it was going to be best if his friends were alright. That was most important at the moment.
"So..." Ron cleared his throat, looking at them all expectantly. "We're good for lunch then, right? I sort of planned on eating with all of us and I can't do that without all of us."
Rebecca laughed with the others a moment, but then she caught sight of what Hagrid was leading out of the forest.
"This is going to be a bit different than class with Professor Grubblyplank. I wanted to start with a bang!" Rebecca weaved her way through the students, ending up near the front so she could see without anything blocking her way as Hagrid spoke on. "This is Buckbeak. Isn't he beautiful?"
Rebecca nodded, the only one to do so. Ron gulped beside Hermione, both of which were behind Harry as he inched closer to Rebecca. She had moved to the front so quickly, she'd left them all behind.
But it was obvious that she hadn't done so to be cruel. Buckbeak simply had caught her attention entirely.
Hagrid took a ferret off his belt and threw it up, letting Buckbeak snap it out of the air with a crunch.
"H-Hagrid, exactly what is that?" Ron asked, the first to voice what they were all thinking.
"That, Ron, is a hippogriff." Hagrid smiled, clearly doing well on his first class with how awed they all were. "First thing you want to know about hippogriffs is that they're very proud creatures."
Rebecca grinned and glanced away from Buckbeak as Harry laid a hand on her shoulder, he having made it to her side.
"They're very easily offended--You do not want to insult a hippogriff." Hagrid waved over to Buckbeak again. Buckbeak had extended a wing and was rearranging a poking feather regally. "If you do...it may well be the last thing you ever do." With this said, Hagrid clapped his hands and smiled. "Now, who'd like to come say hello?"
Rebecca stepped forward slightly, wanting to badly. Harry could see this though he wished he didn't. Harry did not particularly want to meet the hippogriff, not when Hagrid had just warned about how dangerous insulting it could be.
And the worst part? It wasn't even necessary for her to have moved forward. The rest of the class--save Neville, who ducked behind a large stone--took steps backwards to not be chosen.
"Well done, Rebecca! You too, Harry! Well done!" Hagrid was so thankful it was some of their four to meet Buckbeak first. They were good, and hippogriffs knew if someone was good or not. Hagrid waved for them to move further up, which they both did slowly. Rebecca slow of out caution, Harry out of apprehension. "You have to wait for him to make the first move, it's polite."
Buckbeak took a step forward, starting the introductions.
"So, you'll step up and give him a nice bow." Hagrid directed, watching as Rebecca and Harry listened carefully. "Then you'll see if he bows back. If he does, you can go touch him. If not...we'll get to that later."
Rebecca lowered her head slowly, bowing deeply. Buckbeak tilted his head, studying her. Harry followed suit seconds after, bowing as low as Rebecca. Buckbeak let out a squawk, now liking the nerves washing off Harry.
Rebecca let her hand touch Harry's between them, out of sight of their classmates who would tease but enough to let Harry know that everything was okay.
Buckbeak stepped forward and Hagrid took a sharp breath.
But then Buckbeak bowed back. "Well done!" Hagrid seemed to have found his favourite teaching phrase. He threw Buckbeak another treat as Harry and Rebecca righted themselves. "Now you can go and give him a pet. Don't be shy."
Harry was still behind Rebecca, but he was choosing to be. He didn't want to be the first to pet a hippogriff, not when she was so clearly in awe. That deserved to be hers.
Rebecca was only pushed further into her awe. Buckbeak's feathers weren't coarse, as they appeared they would be. They were softer than anything she had touched before, finer than powder.
Buckbeak turned his head and looked at her as she pet him, glancing at Harry as he his hand joined hers on Buckbeak's shoulder after a moment. "Isn't this amazing?" Rebecca whispered.
Harry went to answer, but didn't get to. Hagrid spoke loud enough for everyone in the clearing to hear. "Now, you don't just pet a hippogriff! You ride one!"
Hagrid picked Rebecca up first, placing her on Buckbeak's back with ease. Harry, very much not wanting to go, could not get out of it. "Hey! Ha-Hagrid?"
"Don't pull out any of his feathers, he won't thank you for that."
Hermione grabbed Ron's wrist and covered her mouth as Hagrid slapped Buckbeak's hind, sending the creature forward into a gallop.
Rebecca let out a shout, holding on tightly. Harry leaned closer against her, wrapping his arms around her and trying to be as elated as she sounded.
Buckbeak made a curve at the end of the clearing and leaned his head forward as his hooves pounded against the ground faster and faster. Before he reached the wall of trees, he unfurled his wings and gave them a strong pump, launching he and his passengers into the air.
His wings went faster and faster, lifting them up into the air. It was cold up where he had originally settled into a glide, so cold they could see their breaths and Buckbeak could feel them shivering.
Buckbeak turned around and gave them a cheeky lookover with one yellow eye, but he took them lower.
Harry kept his arms around Rebecca, engrossed in their view. "This...now this is amazing."
The castle was ahead of them, perched over the Black Lake. The Forbidden Forest was as vast as ever, its trees an infinite number of shades of green. Rebecca ran her hands over the downy feathers at the base of Buckbeak's neck, nodding in agreement.
Buckbeak looked back at them again, aiming towards an outcropping near the shore of the Black Lake well away from the castle. There, Buckbeak landed and cocked his head to the forest.
"Buckbeak, this isn't the class." Rebecca said, leaning to the side to try and catch his attention. Buckbeak let out another squawk, turning in a circle as he looked.
Harry tapped Rebecca's arm, directing her attention to what had Buckbeak riled up. Within the forest, there were forms moving.
Mostly blurs of white with a few of tan, a herd of unicorns was migrating.
"You don't think-" Harry went silent, his question was answered.
A unicorn separated from the rest of them, a unicorn with black handprints on the sides of its face. Buckbeak snorted, stomping the ground as the unicorn came closer. Buckbeak was issuing a warning, an unneeded warning.
The unicorn did not bow--Unicorns do not bow. But he did wait until Buckbeak let out a snort of approval to approach.
The unicorn tilted its head to Rebecca, clearly wanting her to reach a hand out. Harry looked between the creature and Rebecca, not seeing anything happen.
But Rebecca felt what happened. Just like when she had brought the unicorn back to life, his consciousness brushed against hers. This time though, instead of memories, speech came.
"Little two-legs," The unicorn blinked, looking to Rebecca as the saviour of his herd. "As long as my herd shall be, so shall my gratitude. Peace be with you."
Rebecca couldn't help a little gasp as the unicorn detached itself from her. You couldn't possibly know how alone one's mind felt until it has been touched by another. The unicorn lowered its head slightly, a nod to Rebecca. Then it turned and went back to the foal and other unicorn watching at the edge of the forest.
"What the hell is going on?" Harry whispered, holding her tightly as Buckbeak began to move again.
"I have no idea." Rebecca answered, leaning back into him.
Harry could feel how anxious the confusion was bringing her and he rolled his eyes, knowing a tease for normalcy was needed. "I can't take you anywhere, can I?"
"Like you're one too talk!" Rebecca laughed, drawn into his invitation of banter. "I'm fairly certain its genetic--The whole inexplicable occurrence thing."
Harry and Rebecca quietly enjoyed Buckbeak's flight back to the class, letting the wind pull their fears and their thoughts away. When the trees came into view where the others were reading through the pages on the hippogriff, Rebecca and Harry were grinning madly once more.
There was applause and shouting as Buckbeak landed, Hagrid's voice one of the loudest. Hagrid lifted them back off Buckbeak's back as easily as he had put them up, ruffling their wind-blown hair and nudging them back to the class.
"Was it as perfect as you thought it would be?" Hermione asked, smiling as Rebecca tried to describe it and failed. "Harry?"
"It was perfect." Harry said, grunting as Ron slapped his back hard.
Rebecca noticed a movement coming from the back of the students, Draco marching out proudly. He couldn't sit there and listen to them all congratulate the Perfect Potters for riding a four-legged horse-chicken, not when Crabbe had already said he'd write to his mum about how they'd ridden and then word would have gotten back to Draco's parents.
Draco couldn't let that happen.
"You're not dangerous at all, are you?" Draco smirked, continuing to Buckbeak without sign of slowing, stopping, or bowing. "You great ugly brute, hardly dangerous at all!"
"Malfoy?" Hagrid started, stepping forward. It was too late.
Buckbeak reared up on his hind legs, letting out a cry and coming down with a slash of his talons.
"Buckbeak!" Hagrid shouted, stepping between the hippogriff and the now-on-the-floor Draco in case he should try to strike again. "Away, silly creature!" Hagrid threw a ferret into the far end of the clearing, turning and crouching to Draco's side.
"It's killed me!" Draco whimpered, holding his arm that was starting to bleed. "It's killed me, I'm done for!"
"Calm down, calm down now!" Hagrid looked over the arm, sliding Draco's sleeve up for a better look. "We'll get you up to the Infirmary, Madam Pomfrey will have this mended in seconds."
Hagrid scooped Draco up off the floor, threats of Hagrid going to regret this pouring out of his mouth. "Class dismissed!" Hagrid shouted over his shoulder, leaving the students as confused as Buckbeak.
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"What do you mean?" Hermione demanded, stopping and causing Harry to walk directly into her on their way to dinner that night. The afternoon had passed quickly, no word on Malfoy and no word from Hagrid.
"Buckbeak was defensive when we landed and the-" Rebecca's jaw dropped as Hermione shoved her. "And the unicorn came?" Rebecca ended with the lilt of a question though there wasn't one being asked.
"Why wouldn't you start with that? Or say something earlier? Or-" Hermione pushed Rebecca again, harder. Ron looked at Harry nervously. Ron really, really didn't want to have to break up a fight because he had seen Rebecca once already and he was not risking himself like that.
Rebecca didn't move away or to defend herself, only looking hurt as Hermione went to take another round. "I'm not going to hit you back, if that's what you're looking for."
Rebecca's voice was strained. It was like a pipe had burst inside her and she was being filled with something dark and heavy, something rivaled only by the effect of the dementor. "I don't know if you noticed, but there wasn't exactly a lot of time alone since class. We got back and then Hagrid left with Draco, then it was onto practise for Harry and I while you were off in the library or something, then we were in the common room with others."
Hermione raised her hands, pulling Rebecca against her into hug and holding the back of her head while Ron and Harry continued to wonder if they would have to get between them. Girls could be so confusing. "I know, I know. I'm sorry. I-I thought..." Hermione shook her head, tightening her hold on Rebecca before letting her stand on her own again. Rebecca felt whatever had been forming inside of her welling up in her, ugly and dark and hurt.
"What?" Harry asked, crossing his arms. Rebecca could defend herself, but he was going to too. "You thought what?"
"The laws of magic say that you cannot give more than you have, right?" Hermione lead, hoping they could come to her conclusion and she wouldn't have to say it. They couldn't though. "I didn't know if it came to say that it was taking more."
"More life?" Rebecca asked, shaking her head. The hurt was fading away and she was growing angrier and angrier. "He didn't take anything that night. I gave it to him."
"Semantics, Rebecca-"
"No it's not!" Rebecca was glad they were at the back because she couldn't help but raise her voice. "It's not the same! What I did, I did." Rebecca was sure she had something more to say, something about how Hermione should have trust or belief or something in her best friend. But she couldn't think of anything at all other than the sudden realisation that she wanted something not-crazy after so much craziness. "He was thanking me, if you care to know."
Rebecca turned and left all three of them, none of them knowing where she was going off to since the Great Hall was in the entire opposite direction.
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"Did you hear something, Freddie?"
"No, no I didn't, Georgie. Did you hear-"
"Let's go wreck something--do something big." Rebecca interrupted their playing, looking around their room with a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Still have anymore-"
"Dungbombs? Of course." Fred answered, pulling out the box they had been perfecting. Once completed, it would only open to any of them--A trio of their own. "What's wrong?"
"Why does something have to be wrong?" Rebecca asked, wondering if she were to tell them about the unicorn if they'd be cross too.
George raised an eyebrow, neither of them moving until Rebecca sighed. "I told you about Hagrid's class today, right?" They nodded. "We only had a few minutes and we were in a crowded hallway, so it wasn't the right time to tell you that I saw him again."
Fred's heart dropped to the dungeons and George asked what was in both of their thoughts. "Saw who?" Who knows who Fred and George thought she was talking about when she said 'he,' but their reaction was distressed no matter.
"The unicorn." Rebecca answered as if it were obvious, though she would think on this conversation in the future and see why they both looked at her like that. "He came away from the herd and up to Harry and I."
"Wherever the hippogriff took you." George clarified. "On the Black Lake."
"Yeah, over the far, far side of it." Rebecca was just happy neither of them looked upset, she couldn't be in a row with the others if she didn't have them. "He wanted to talk, to say thank you again."
"Talk?" Fred managed, his voice cracking ever so slightly.
"When I...did what I did," Rebecca tried to explain. "I could see things, things from him. When I touched him this time, it's like our thoughts did too."
"And now you want to go on a rampage because..." Fred tried to understand. He was all for reckless pranking but not if it was to hide a bigger issue.
"Because Hermione-" Rebecca blinked, suddenly feeling very small. Feeling weak. "Because Hermione pushed me."
"Pushed you to...What? Tell her?" George asked gently.
"More like a shove." Rebecca said quietly, feeling the tendrils of the past try to sneak their way through her. "A push is not a hit, a push is not a hit, Hermione would never, Hermione would never..." Not even a mantra of remembering that Hermione was not William could soothe her and the boys could see that.
Fred caught George's eyes and felt the fight leave him in an instant. George, his twin, his best mate and better half, didn't look angry. He looked heartbroken. Fred knew, deep, deep down, that neither of them were upset over Hermione.
Hermione had only reacted to the same fears they all had when they thought of the impossibility of that detention: An impossible action ought to have impossible consequences and until they manifested, their fear would live on.
But they were, however, heartbroken to see Rebecca being dragged down. Dragged back to who and where she was before.
"Yeah, we got some dungbombs." Fred said, taking out handfuls for them all. "Let's go raise some hell."
Raise hell, they did.
Red-faced, sweaty, and panting, they found themselves alongside a wall of the castle never visited. They always ended up in the corners of the castle not explored in years, decades even. Rebecca liked to follow the silence of untouched corridors and Fred and George liked to have planned getaway paths for any situation.
"That was fun." Fred broke the silence.
"Yeah it was." George cackled, miming the face of the Slytherin they had ambushed from above and sending Fred and Rebecca into stitches.
"The best." Rebecca slid forward and laid back, watching the setting sun's bright shine onto the wall high above them. "I don't want to go back, not yet."
"We aren't just yet, are we?" Fred tried for a smile and only managed the slightest upturn of the corners of his mouth.
"No, not yet." Rebecca echoed before sighing. "But we have to eventually."
"Everything is eventual." Fred responded, sliding down the wall and lying down too. "We'll deal with it eventually."
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"I didn't know if you were going to come up." Hermione whispered as Rebecca eased into their room, hoping the light from the hall wouldn't shine on Ginny and wake her.
"Where else would I go, Hermione? This is still my dorm." Rebecca watched as Hermione sat against her headboard, gesturing to the spot now vacated by her legs. "I don't want to fight, I want to go bed."
"I know, I don't want to fight either." Hermione's eyes were filled with remorse, with hurt. Rebecca sat down and waited for Hermione to silence their voices in.
Hermione set her wand back down and held her hands in her lap, shaking her head. "'I'm sorry' does not--cannot--even begin to say what I want to."
"What do you want to say then?" Rebecca asked. "Because what I did earlier was that I thought you thought a little more of me."
"What?" Hermione breathed, startled. "How could I possibly-I think the world of you!"
"Then why did you automatically think that it wasn't me that night who did it?" The night of the unicorn. "Why do you think that there's some price on me, some charge I've collected?"
"Well, it's not-"
"Because I'll tell you right now, I don't care. I don't fucking care." Rebecca couldn't stop. "I don't care if a thousand unicorns or trolls or whatever came. I did what I did and I would do it again if we went back! I did it, I did the impossible."
"You are impossible." Hermione accidentally said, meaning to keep it in her head and in her heart and no unable to. "That's not what I meant."
Rebecca had never thought her heart could be so close to broken. "What did you mean?"
Hermione put her hand onto her own leg, not reaching for Rebecca but offering it in case she wanted to. Rebecca didn't. "You are impossible to love because you are too good."
"What the hell are you-"
Hermione interrupted. "Seriously! Impossible magic, magic not only unimaginable, unthinkable! For a unicorn you found in the forest."
Rebecca's head was starting to hurt, too many thoughts trying climb over the other to be made sense of first. "I don't understand why we're fighting about what happened two years ago."
"Because it's not over." Hermione answered. "What happened in the forest is going to come back, it's going to be important. Life isn't just returned, not for nothing or no reason."
"How can you know?" Rebecca asked. "How can you be so sure?"
"I know everything." Hermione answered, fighting back tears as Rebecca took Hermione's hand. "But I don't know how I can take back how I shoved you."
"You can't." Rebecca said. Pausing to kick off her shoes, Rebecca climbed up into Hermione's bed and let Hermione lean her head onto Rebecca's shoulder. "But it's okay, I'm fine."
"I knew better--I know better." Hermione sniffed, wondering if this is how Ron felt every time he did something astonishingly stupid. "I feel horrid, nearly ill."
"Other people would be able to take a push." Rebecca said quietly, resting her head against Hermione's.
"Other people don't carry what you do." Hermione's sniffles had shifted to soft crying, guilt pouring along her tears. "And I know that."
"Hey," Rebecca put her arm around Hermione. "Would you have shoved Harry?" Hermione nodded, no hesitation. "Would you have shoved-Do I even have to ask?" Hermione gave a single laugh, knowing she would shove Ron too. "Then it's alright, okay? I know..." Rebecca felt the solid block at the bottom of her throat fit into place, the prickle of tears.
"I know that you didn't mean it like that. I know you couldn't mean it like that."
"Do you really?" Hermione asked, looking up at her friend. Her friend who had put herself between Hermione and danger countless times, her friend who had tried to block a basilisk for her. "Because I wouldn't, not ever."
"I know." Rebecca took her glasses off and put them onto the table between she and Hermione's bed, sliding down the headboard as she had with Fred and George earlier. Two experiences of the afternoon which, while ending on sad notes, were filled with love.
Hermione and Rebecca woke up the next day as they had the day before, best mates.
And it's a good thing, too. If they had still been in a row, they wouldn't have been on the same page. And if they weren't on the same page, they wouldn't know exactly what they were going to do in response to the letter waiting for them at breakfast.
The letter from Hagrid.
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