Curses
Chapter 17: Curses
Remus -
Remus had been watching the interaction between the fake Snape and Snape’s uncle. He didn’t understand what was going on, but it was clear to see the violent anger Snape’s uncle was freely showing and Remus was starting to get honestly worried. He could dismiss his friends picking on Snape, but this was a grown man - a wizard - and he honestly looked ready to kill whoever it was that was impersonating Snape. Remus felt his heart speed up as the confrontation went on. The fake Snape didn’t seem to see the danger he was in or he just didn’t care. He didn’t back down, didn’t even lower his eyes when faced with such quickly mounting fury. Remus knew he had to do something. He had to get his dad or... and then an Unforgivable spell had been cast and Snape’s uncle fell to the ground, dead.
All went dark and quiet.
It was warmth against his face that woke Remus from his sleep. Fire, he guessed as he turned towards that warmth without opening his eyes.
"Remus?"
A familiar, safe voice.
"Remus. Wake up." There was more warmth against Remus’ face - a hand touching his cheek. "Come on. Please, Remy."
The wolf pushed him to wake with a burning, tearing feeling of something inside him fighting to get free. Remus had the vague feeling that his wolf was worried about danger. Remus grimaced and tossed his head. He remembered what had happened outside his home and knew why his wolf was upset. A stranger had cast an unforgivable not a hundred yards from Remus' home and killed Snape’s uncle. Remus’ eyes sprung open and the first thing he saw was his dad looking down at him.
Remus’ dad smiled and patted Remus’ face. “I was so worried! I found you out there in the snow, like you just fell asleep out there. I brought you inside, but it took ages for you to wake up. Are you hurt? Are you sick?”
“I’m fine. Please, don’t be upset. I’m not hurt.” And that was true. He wasn’t sure what had happened to him, but he wasn’t a bit hurt. He looked around their little one-room house. He was in his bed, three blankets on him and a roaring fire on the hearth proved how worried his dad had been.
“Where are your friends?"
"They aren't my friends. Dad, if they come back, don't talk to them."
"What?"
Remus shook his head. "Don't talk to them. Don't let them in the house. They're bad news. I don't know how, I can't explain it. Please, you've got to trust me." Remus leaned down and pressed his nose into his pillow - the pillow the pink haired girl had been laying on. There - ink, oil, and the smell of the girl herself. He inhaled deeply, concentrating. When he had the girl's scent firmly in mind, he slipped off the bed.
"Remus? What…"
Remus didn't answer. Instead, he crouched down enough to touch his nose to the wooden floor where the fake Snape had sat. Again - ink, oil, and the smell of the fake Snape. He stood when he was sure of the scent and threw his arms around his dad, hugging him hard. "I'm alright. I promise I'm alright. I've got to go, though."
"Oh, no you don't!" Remus' dad held tight when Remus tried to pull away. "What kind of fool do you think I am? You'll go nowhere until I know what's going on! That young Mister Snape’s uncle was dead outside when I found you. I just had to call the aurors. What happened?"
Remus bit on his lip and chewed it. "It was an unforgivable. There was someone out there with them and he cast an unforgivable.” He didn’t pause even when his dad gave a horrified gasp. “I don't know everything that’s going on, but I've got to find out. As soon as I know what's going on, I'll tell you - I promise. I've got to know, dad. I really have to know. I'm sorry. I really am, but it's driving me mad!" Remus slipped away from his dad and ran out the door and into the forest.
"Remus! Come back!"
Remus didn't answer. He kept running until the sounds of his dad's shouting faded into the distance and he heard nothing but the wind twisting through the trees and the animals scattering away from him. After a time, Remus came to a stop. Still as a stone, Remus raised his face and closed his eyes. The scents were still there - clear as daylight to him. They were traveling quickly and with more people.
His eyes snapped open and he stared up at the stars visible though the treetops. He licked his lips and slowly sank down to the ground. When he was crouched on the balls of his feet and the palms of his hands, Remus lowered his face and exhaled. He rolled his head from side-to-side until the muscles in his neck were relaxed.
"If I ever needed you," Remus said, aloud. "This is it. Come on, Wolf. Show me what we're made of. Let’s run!" At that, Remus took off, running on all fours. He followed the scent trail and let his mind empty. His home, his friends, his dad - all of it faded into the back of his mind, like mist, until he knew of nothing but the scent and the feel of the earth under his hands and feet.
Hogwart's Library-
Naruto-
After Gai-san had left with Tenten to find Sakura-chan and Sasuke, Naruto skulked in the impressive library of Hogwarts. Naruto enjoyed skulking, it was a skill he didn’t have a chance to use often and he wasn’t as good at it as Sasuke or Sakura-chan but it was fun to lurk in dark corners and spy on people. He also just enjoyed being in the library. Libraries were always full of useful stuff and though Hogwart's Library was vastly different than Konohagakure's, Naruto smiled when he prowled. The smell of old paper made him think of home, not only of the large public library in the village where Naruto had spent so many of his childhood days just looking for somewhere to not be alone, but also of Iruka's home that always seemed full of books and scrolls.
‘Kakashi-sensei's dirty book is on the bookshelf in Iruka’s bedroom.’ Naruto frowned. ’He's making himself at home.’
It seemed that, lately, Kakashi-sensei had been on Naruto's mind a lot or, more to the point, the fact that Kakashi-sensei was spending so much time with Iruka. But Naruto wasn’t stupid and he could admit to himself that he was being entirely unfair. He had to admit it since even Sasuke thought Iruka and Kakahsi-sensei would be happy together and Sasuke wasn’t exactly the most ‘in-touch with his emotions’ kind of guy. Besides, when Kakashi-sensei was around, Iruka laughed more and Naruto was a big advocate of laughter being good for one’s health.
‘And I shouldn't have said anything about his home.’ He’d regretted that comment almost as soon as he’d said it just before they’d left the village. He knew Kakashi-sensei had a home - he'd seen it - but he'd had to open his big mouth, anyway. ’He doesn't have anything. Two photographs and a bed, no food or knickknacks, dirty windows and cobwebs in the corners.’ Naruto sighed. ‘Time to think about other people instead of myself. I can do this. I won’t say another word about Kakashi-sensei joining the family. It’s what Iruka wants and it’s not fair for me to be selfish. And I guess if Iruka’s going to marry someone, there are worse people than Kakashi-sensei. Besides, Kakashi-sensei lives with us he'll eat properly. He sure eats a lot of junk for someone who's always telling me and Sasuke to eat more vegetables.’
Drawing his mind away from family issues (the fact that he had family issues gave Naruto a sort of pleasure because he’d never thought he’d be in a family), Naruto turned his attention to the bookshelves.
DREAMS AND MEANINGS
USES OF OAK LEAVES
HIGHER NUMBERS AND THEIR PERSONALITIES
Naruto ran his finger down the spines of the books and grinned. Such power lay in those books. They held as much power as the scrolls in the library of Konohagakure, Naruto was sure. He moved through the stacks of books, in awe of so much power, such a variety of power, in one place. He would have liked to stay a while and look though the books, but the mission came first - as always.
He casually moved towards the back of the library where he could get a good look at the doorway leading to the Restricted Section where students weren’t allowed to go. That seemed odd to him that it was in the library where students were allowed to go, but the students weren’t actually allowed to go in that room. He was fairly certain that if there had been a section of the Academy’s library that held vast, prohibited information about power that he and every other student at the Academy would have spent all their free time trying to sneak in.
He lingered near the doorway, disguised in student robes, and glanced around the library. It wasn't full as so many students had left the school for a holiday - only two students at the long tables and one girl reading while standing at a bookshelf. At a wooden desk near the library's entrance the librarian, a young woman with hard eyes, watched the students carefully every few moments before returning to her work of cataloging her books. Naruto strolled away from the doorway of the Restricted Section, weaving in and out of the shelves while he watched the librarian. She looked up from her work approximately every three minutes for only forty seconds. When he was sure that she wouldn't vary from her timing, Naruto went back to the doorway of the Restricted Section. He hid with a book in front of his face when she looked up and didn't lower the book until he counted to forty.
Peering over the top of the book Naruto watched the librarian's eyes go back to the work on her desk. When a girl went to the librarian's desk with a book, the librarian's mouth tightened. She looked at her work then at the girl, then sighed and put her work aside to check the book out for the girl. The girl left and the librarian scanned the library, again. Another forty seconds later and her attention was back on whatever work she was doing. Naruto set the book he'd used on a nearby shelf and inched closer to the doorway of the Restricted Section. Without using any jutsu at all, without even being particularly careful, Naruto slipped into the Restricted Section of the library.
It had been laughably easy. So easy, in fact, that Naruto lingered near the doorway, waiting to hear an alarm or something to give him away. He heard nothing.
Naruto shrugged his bewilderment away and went to explore the dimly lit Restricted Section. The wooden floors were polished to a shine so perfect that light from the lanterns hanging on the ends of every shelf reflected off them. Long, ornate rugs lay on the floor, stretching as far as the bookshelves ran. The shelves were immense, so long that Naruto could barely see the wall on the opposite side of the room. He looked right, then left and scratched the side of his head. Those walls were unbelievably far away, too. Magic, Naruto concluded with a shrug. He dismissed how the room could be so big and went prowling through the stacks. The titles were just as interesting as the ones in the outside library, but one particular title, caught his eye. It made his mouth drop and made him stare.
CURSES AND THEIR CURES
Naruto blinked. He rubbed at his eyes and looked again. The title was bold and clear. He looked at the book next to it and saw that it was another book relating to curses. Another, and another. Naruto counted until he realized it would take him hours to count all the books about curses. With a shaking hand, he took the book of CURSES AND THEIR CURES from the shelf and flipped it open. He couldn't understand a bit of it, but when he looked at the words, none of which he could pronounce, he knew somewhere in the book there might be a cure for the curse mark on Sasuke's neck.
"Words," Naruto muttered, running his fingertips over the writing. He almost laughed. "Words can defeat Orochimaru?" Naruto slipped the book beneath his illusionary robe and inside his jacket. ’It's not stealing. I'll bring it back. Someday. That's what libraries are for, right? Borrowing.’
After another quick look around, Naruto left with the information he'd come for - the Restricted Section of the library, where reportedly the most dangerous magic was housed, had no defense other than a distracted librarian and a rule to keep people out.
Deep below the school, Naruto later found his temporary partner staring at a wall. The veins around Neji eyes bulged - the obvious sign that he had activated his family’s blood-line limit, the byakugan - and he wore a little smirk.
"Well?" Naruto asked.
Neji didn't so much as twitch at Naruto's voice. "There’s a snake behind this wall. A big snake. Not nearly as big as Orochimaru's, but a respectable sized one. I've been trying to track it since we got here, but the walls in this place… No matter. It's no threat, it sleeps. It could be listed as a future threat, though." Neji pulled a small scroll from his belt and wrote BASEMENT SNAKE at the end of the list.
"I've got one more." Naruto snatched the list and wrote, DANGEROUS BOOKS, NO GUARD. He admired what he'd written then unrolled the scroll to see the long list of security faults they'd found. "We can't have missed anything. Just in time, too. The mission ends at sundown tonight."
"I have successfully mapped out this school." Neji's smirk didn't fade even when the veins around his eyes returned to normal and he turned to face Naruto. "The pattern of changes in the building's architecture is not random. While the changes are a significant security measure, it is not foolproof. An enemy who is able to, can simply wait to find the pattern. With that, infiltrating the school will be much easier. Come, we should report. No. Wait." Neji looked at Naruto, sharply. "There's something I want you to see before we leave."
"What kind of something?"
"Just follow me." He led Naruto through the dark passages with the unerring certainly of the Hyuuga's near perfect sight. "There is also something I wished to ask you. I have been debating over a certain problem for some time. The solution has become clear of late."
"Yeah?"
Neji nodded. "Yes. You may be part of the solution. How attached are you to your name? Uzumaki?"
Naruto stopped walking. "Huh?"
"Try to sound intelligent, won't you? I'm asking how attached you are to it. Your parents died in the kitsune attack and if there are more of the Uzumaki family around, I haven't heard of them. Some people would want to keep their family name alive for the memory of their family but you never knew your family so I wasn't sure how you would feel about giving it up."
"Well, it's my name. You can't just give up a name like a pair of old boots."
Neji shrugged. "Depends." He turned abruptly, bringing him nose-to-nose with Naruto. "I am going to start a clan of my own, hopefully, with the Hokage's blessing. It is the only way I can think of to keep Hinata safe from our family. If she isn’t a part of the Hyuuga clan, then they have no reason to kill her to make room for her younger sister to take the position of head of the clan. I will start a new clan and bring her with me. I would like to invite you to join."
Naruto burst into laughter. "Right. Almost had me there… wait. What? You're serious?"
"Very. You would make an excellent addition to a new clan. I've heard about your unusual power. You are stronger than you look and wiser than you're given credit for." Neji looked at him seriously. "My clan needs power to survive, Naruto. I can offer little except a home and a shared name."
"What name? You wouldn’t be a Hyuuga anymore."
“I will think of something.”
Naruto started walking again, unsure how to answer. So, he didn’t answer. "Where's this thing you want to show me?"
"Just ahead." Neji quickened his pace to get ahead of Naruto. "I understand that you're happy with Umino-sensei. I'll just ask you to think about it. Would it be easier if I asked Umino-sensei to join me, also?"
"What about Sasuke?"
Neji didn't answer.
"He's practically my brother, now," Naruto said. "He's my Cellmate and my best friend. I won't leave him behind."
"I thought as much. Still, I had to ask."
When Neji didn't say anything else, Naruto decided it was time to change the subject. "So, what are we looking for?"
Neji stopped at a door and stared at it just as he had stared at the wall the snake slept behind. The only difference was that he didn't look at all smug. Instead, he frowned. "This door is locked."
"So? You don't need the door to open to look in the room. Even if you wanted to be in the room, we can unlock the door. Even I can pick locks."
"There’s a mirror in that room. Just a mirror, nothing else. Why would they lock a door with nothing in the room but a mirror?"
"It's weird, but nothing to get worked up about. For all we know, it's just a storage closet."
When Neji spoke his voice was brittle, as if he were trying to hide his temper. "No. A storage closet would surely have more than just one thing in it. There's nothing in there but the mirror. Why lock up a mirror and why hide it so far below the school that no one will ever find it? It must be important. Dangerous. So I looked at it more carefully and... I can hardly believe what I saw. That’s why I brought you here; I want you to confirm my assessment." Neji raised both hands and untied the hitai-ate from around his forehead. His long hair fell on either side of his face, framing the curse mark - a mark that looked much like a bent spider that marked him as a member of the branch family of the Hyuuga clan. Neji turned to Nartuo and asked, "Is it still there?"
"Is what still there?"
"The curse mark. Is it there?"
"Sure. Of course it is." The Hyuuga curse mark had been permanently sealed onto Neji's forehead when he had been only four-years-old and Naruto wondered what it had been like. Sasuke said Orochimaru's curse mark had hurt terribly. If Sasuke, one of the strongest people Naruto had ever known, admitted that curse marks hurt, what had it been like for a little four-year-old Neji to get one? Maybe it hadn't hurt. Maybe the Hyuuga's had a certain way to do it to cancel any pain. Orochimaru certainly didn't care whether or not he hurt people, but surely the Hyuuga's wouldn't want to cause each other pain, especially not a little child.
Neji's shoulders slumped. "I thought so." He put a fingertip to the curse mark and traced it lightly. "The mirror doesn't show the curse mark. It's like I never had it. The funny thing is, when I first saw the mirror, I was wearing my hitai-ate, but my reflection wasn't. It doesn’t appear to reflect reality. I also confess that I didn’t want to look away. It took an effort to leave the mirror."
"Huh. That's weird." Naruto considered the door, thoughtfully. "I wanna see it, too."
Neji snorted. "Why do you think I brought you here? I want to know if it's just me."
Naruto put a hand on the door. "Any traps in there?"
"None that I can see."
"Then let's take a look." Naruto crouched low enough to look at the lock on the door. It was old, but popped open when Naruto drove his index finger through it. The door swung open without a creak and Naruto saw the mirror that had caught Neji's attention. It was tall, as tall as Kakashi-sensei, and broad enough that Naruto was sure two people could stand side-by-side and see their reflections.
Neji strode to stand right in front of the mirror and stared at himself. "Well? Is it there?" He put his hand to his forehead.
"Your curse mark? Yeah, it’s still there." Naruto looked from Neji to the mirror and stopped. He didn't see Neji's reflection at all. He saw only himself. Then Iruka, amazingly, appeared behind Naruto's reflection and smiled. Naruto stared and he could almost feel it when Iruka put his hands on Naruto’s shoulders. It was so real that he looked over his shoulder, but, of course, Iruka wasn’t there. Sasuke strolled into view in the mirror from the left with his hands jammed deep into his pockets. Sakura-chan came into view on the right and stood with her hands on her hips, smiling broadly back at him. Finally, there was Kakashi-sensei who put an arm around Iruka's shoulders and a hand on the top of Sakura-chan's head.
Family.
Naruto felt a warm glow.
"Well?" Neji asked. "What do you see?"
"What I want." Naruto reached out to touch the image and his fingers slid against cool glass, but the moment his fingertips touched the glass, he saw fire and jerked his hand away.
"What's wrong?" Neji asked.
Naruto shook his head and looked closer at the glass. "I… I thought I saw…"
The village was burning. A young Kakashi-sensei fought alongside a young Gai-san. Above everything towered the fearsome Kyuubi, all the tails lashing as it raged against Konohagakure.
"You're shaking." Neji scowled. "What are you looking at? Tell me!"
Naruto tried to bring back the image of his family, tried to see Sakura-chan's pink hair and Kakashi-sensei's single eye, but all he saw was Kyuubi laughing as he crushed the village under his powerful paws. Naruto began to feel dizzy. Kyuubi's face in the mirror turned to look at him and Naruto could almost hear the kitsune laughing at him. A force of nature… trapped within him. Like a tsunami stopper up in a bottle. Naruto's hand wandered down to his navel and he wondered, just a moment, what would happen if the cork were released from the bottle Kyuubi was held in.
"Hey!" Neji grabbed Naruto by the arm and spun him around so hard that Naruto almost fell. "How long are you going to stare?"
It was like floating out of a fog. Naruto shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
Neji grimaced. "Hypnotic, isn't it? I warned you about that. This thing would be a fine weapon if one’s enemies didn't know what it was. When you realize what it can do, it isn't so powerful. It seems to show what a person wants to see. I'll add it to the list of threats."
"You think it's a threat to the school? I'll agree that it's strange, but dangerous… ?"
"I think it's dangerous to leave such a potentially powerful weapon collecting dust in a forgotten room beneath the school. It will be difficult to use, hidden. This lax attitude in defense… stop looking at it."
Naruto pulled his eyes away from the sight of his family smiling at him and of Kyuubi, behind them, snarling with his tails lashing violently. "If this mirror shows you want you want to see, what would you see if two people looked at it through one set of eyes?"
"You aren't making any sense." Neji tied his hitai-ate back on, covering his curse mark.
"No. I guess not." Naruto looked away from the mirror and felt sick. Kyuubi wasn't only inside him, Kyuubi was awake and watching. That thought had never felt so dismally real. "Let's go. Oh! Speaking of your curse mark, I got a present for you and Sasuke." Naruto pulled the library book out of his jacket and handed it to Neji. "Maybe you and he can find a use for it and if you can't, the library here has a lot of books like this one."
Neji stared, open-mouthed, at the book. Very slowly, he raised his eyes up to Naruto. "For… me?"
"Yup. You and Sasuke. Why? You don't think it'll work? It looked like a good one."
"No." Neji tightened his hands around the book. "It looks… perfect. Thank you. We should go, now. The time limit for this mission has almost expired. Uchiha-san must be back and deliver his report to the client by nightfall. We should see if he's returned." He gave Naruto a dark look. "Or see if Gai-sensei has had to deal with him."
They left the room and Naruto took only one last look at the mirror behind him. He turned away, quickly, and followed Neji down the hall. It was surely only his imagination that he could almost heard Kyuubi's laughter.
When they found Kakashi-sensei, he’d been watching the people who'd made the poison fog. He sat on a tree branch, propped up against the trunk, with his hands clasped on his lap. "Have you finished?"
"Yes." Neji reached into his jacket and pulled out a large scroll. "The school is completely mapped out, including secret rooms, traps, and hidden dangers."
"Good. Good." Kakashi-sensei slouched down a little and went back to watching the wizards and witches in the clearing below. "You know, this place is amusing. They've been trying to make the poison fog for ages. I keep sabotaging them, but they just keep trying. Not for much longer, though. They're in for a nasty surprise right about… now."
There was a thunder of hoof beats before the centaurs attacked. The cauldron the people in the clearing had been working with was upturned and the potion inside ruined. The people screamed and ran. Soon, only the centaurs were left in the clearing.
"That's happened a couple of times, now," Kakashi-sensei said. "The centaurs killed two of those people. You'd think they'd learn. I don't think wizards are very bright."
"They aren't," Neji agreed. "We found a mirror that, apparently, shows the beholder what they most want to see. Do they keep it in a convenient place to use as a weapon? No. They keep it in a locked room beneath the school. They keep most of their weapons locked up and hidden. What good will that do when they need them?"
"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said. "Is Sasuke back, yet?"
"Not yet. They'll be here before the deadline, though. Gai hasn't missed one, yet. Hyuuga-kun, go see if there's any sign of them to the east. Naruto, you and I will go south. Go on."
Neji took off at once, but Kakashi-sensei stopped Naruto when he started to move. "No. We'll just wait here."
"But you said… "
"You wanted to tell me something. Your face is like an open book. Neji mentioned that mirror and… there. You got that look in your eyes. Like you wanted to run."
Naruto plopped down on the branch at Kakashi-sensei's feet. "Remember when I told you Kyuubi didn't talk to me?"
"Yes."
"I lied. Sorry."
"Ah." Kakashi-sensei rubbed his hair with a hand. "That's kind of important. How long?"
"When I was little, he used to talk to me all the time. He stopped for a while, but he's still there." Naruto couldn't look at Kakashi-sensei. "When Neji showed me that mirror I saw what I wanted most, but Kyuubi did, too. I saw what he wants."
"Which is?"
"The war that killed Iruka's parents. He wants that war, again. If he gets loose, I'm afraid of what will happen. Do you know how he was sealed into me?"
Kakashi-sensei shook his head. "Sorry. That was done in a bit of a rush. I wasn't there and the Third Hokage never spoke of it."
"Do you know what will happen if he gets free? I do. He can't get loose. It can't be allowed to happen."
"I know."
"Do you? I saw it."
Kakashi-sensei's eye hardened. "So did I. I was there."
"Yeah." Naruto met Kakashi-sensei's eye. "So I was. I saw what he wanted to do and I saw what he was going to do if the Fourth Hokage hadn't stopped him. He was having so much fun. I watched him burn everything. Sensei, if he breaks his seal… if he gets loose… he wants to do it, again." Naruto's shoulders slumped. "I keep having nightmares about him ripping out of my stomach, like a butterfly out of a cocoon. I know I should have told you or Iruka or the Hokage sooner, but it didn't seem like a big deal."
"And it does now?"
"Now… I didn't just see what he wanted. I felt it. I could feel how happy he was, how eager to see his dream become reality. I wanted someone to know. He hasn't given up. I don't know if he can get passed the seal, but he's aware and looking forward to being free." Just saying it made him want to be sick. "So, any sign of Sasuke? Are you sure he'll be back in time? It's almost dusk, now."
"Have faith." Kakashi-sensei reached out and ruffled Naruto's hair. "We must believe in him."
They were interrupted when Neji returned. "Kakashi-san, problem."
"Oh?"
Neji's expression was, as usual, bleak. He stared in the direction he had come from with his bloodline limit activated. "I have never seen Uchiha Itachi, but I'm going to guess he looks like an older Uchiha Sasuke. Am I right?"
Kakashi-sensei sat bolt upright. "Pale with circles under his eyes? Looks tired?"
"Yes. I just saw him."
Kakashi-sensei shook his head. "Hmmm … this complicates matters." He looked hard as Naruto, at Neji, then back to Naruto. "You know his story?"
"Who doesn't?" Neji snorted.
"All the horror stories you heard? They're true. He is that strong and he is that ruthless. Until we know why he's here, we have to assume it has something to do with us. If we've led him here it could, possibly, be reasoned that any damage done to this school or its people, could be blamed on us which would threaten our payment. The sun sets very shortly. We have to keep him occupied until the report is delivered to the client."
"What if Sasuke doesn't get back in time?"
"He will. I haven't yet known Gai to fail."
Forbidden Forest-
Rubeus Hagrid-
In the Forbidden Forest, Rubeus Hagrid pushed aside a low-hanging tree branch. He walked with slumped shoulders and his head bent. Even Old Man seemed to have lost hope of finding Severus. "Let's sit a bit." Rubeus sat on a fallen log and stroked Old Man's ears when he lay down at Rubeus' feet. "All week and nothing. Damned fool boy. That uncle's gonna catch up with him or he'll go messing about in one of them Knockturn Alley shops… damned fool boy." Rubeus' eyes stung with tears. He wiped his face with his big hands.
In the time since Severus had run from him at Knockturn Alley, there hadn't been a sign of him. It was strange, really. Severus had just ducked behind a building and then was gone.
"It's that uncle of his," Rubeus grumbled. "Ruining that boy's life. 'N me here, can't do a thing about it."
Searching had done no good at all and there was no one willing to help him. Even the headmaster had said that Severus, wherever he was, was surely smart enough to keep himself out of mischief. Besides, didn't Rubeus know there were more important things going on in the world than the fate of just one boy?
It had been the first time he'd been disappointed in the headmaster.
For all his indifference about Severus, the boy's disappearance wasn't the headmaster's fault. That, Rubeus was ashamed to admit, was his fault. He'd known something wasn't quite right, but he'd done nothing. The signs had been so plain. Severus had panicked at the greenhouse when he'd known there was really nothing to fear and he’d shown remarkable strength when he'd broken the greenhouse's nearly unbreakable glass. 'If he was that strong, why didn’t he use it? Against his uncle… or those bully boys that bother him. Why hide it for so long? He does keep his secrets close, but with something like that... I would have thought he’d have told me. I don’t know what’s going on, but something is. I knew something was wrong and I didn’t do enough to help.' Though he wasn’t really sure what, surely there must have been something he could have said or done to prevent Severus from running off.
"Where's he got to?" Rubeus rubbed at his face, again, and looked at Old Man. So patient and steady, always there when Rubeus needed to talk to someone who didn't think he was dumb as a sack of hammers. "He's running from me." It hurt. "Never did him no harm. You think I scared him? In that shop? Didn't mean to. I just don't want him getting messed up in that dark stuff. Maybe I grabbed hold of him too hard? You think? Never raised my voice to him before. He's scared of me." Rubeus put a hand to his stomach and rubbed. He felt sick. "Of all the people who don't need more fear…"
Rubeus' dark thoughts were interrupted by a sharp squeak. He looked down and saw a tiny black nose poking out of his coat pocket.
"Here now," Rubeus reached into his pocket and pulled out the fox kit. "Thought I left you at home. When did you sneak aboard?” Even as Rubeus stroked the kit's head, it trembled and yipped. "What's wrong with you? You scared?"
There was a crashing sound and a little, dark figure bolted out of the forest. Pale, sharp features and long black hair made Rubeus jump to his feet and tuck the fox kit gently back into his pocket. "Severus!"
Severus - dressed short pants and an over-sized blue shirt with a very wide, high collar - stumbled over his own feet and crashed to the ground. Before Rubeus could go help him up, Severus was on his feet again and dashed to Rubeus' side, latching onto his arm with one hand while his other hand clutched a book to his chest. "Mister Hagrid! We have to go. We have to go now!" He pulled for all he was worth, yanking Rubeus towards Hogwarts.
"Severus, where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you, lad!" Though Severus' pulling was little more than a gentle tug to him, Rubeus allowed Severus to guide him towards the school.
"Doesn't matter. Run. Please!" Severus pulled for all he was worth, shooting glances over his shoulder. "Right behind us… "
"Doesn't matter? Of course it matters! You've been acting mighty odd, lately. And where did you get those clothes?"
Severus looked behind him, again. "It's a long story. Please. Please, believe me. We have to go."
It was the fear in Severus' eyes, the unwavering terror that made Rubeus move. "Alright. Let's get you back." There was a sound - it might have been a yell - from the direction Severus had come from. "What was that?"
"No!" Severus let go of Rubeus' arm. "I'm going back to the school. Unless you want me to be eaten by giant spiders, trampled by centaurs, or… or anything else you'd better follow me!" He took off running.
Rubeus, stunned at the recklessness, went after him at once with Old Man at his heels, shouting for Severus to wait. He didn’t even notice when the fox kit jumped out of his pocket and dashed into the forest.
To be continued…