Blood Ties
Sirius awoke with the taste of blood in his mouth. When his eyes opened, he found a mangled squirrel lying nose to nose with him. Understandably, it wore an expression of agony. He let out a yell despite himself and the poor animal’s head was stuffed into his mouth. He gagged and spit, pulling away to glare up at Buckbeak, who returned it tenfold. The hippogriff meant well, Sirius was sure, but he was a rotten nursemaid. The big creature’s idea of tending him was trying to forcefeed him a variety of dismembered forest fuzzies.
By anyone’s standards, Sirius was NOT a picky eater. He had lived on rats for a few months after all, but the truth was that he had been sick for over a week and the mere thought of food made him queasy, much less the messy corpses Buckbeak kept trying to get down him. He pulled his ragged robes around him a little tighter and tried to burrow under Buckbeak’s wing for warmth. They had moved to the Forbidden Forest to be closer to Hogwarts on some premonition of his.
Fall was a cold one this year. The frost was early and even Padfoot’s thick pelt hadn’t been able to keep out the chill. He had gotten wet sneaking into Hogsmeade for scraps also, and that hadn’t helped. Now, he’d shivered and coughed in the cave he’d found in the Forbidden Forest, out of sight of even the centaurs. Buckbeak rumbled in an annoyed way and gave Sirius a sulky lash with his horsey tail. Then, there was a nasty crunch as he finished the squirrel. Sirius felt his stomach lurch again.
He had become accustomed to heart-sickness. He had brooded and grieved for years and knew those well. He hadn’t been this physically sick in along time though. He felt hot and cold and weak and dizzy. It could be worse, he told himself. A Dementor would be a much worse caretaker than even a hippogriff. He had a silly thought of a Dementor in a ruffled apron slurping him soup, and managed almost half a chuckle before slipping into a shivery sleep.
He awoke twice as cold. The chatter of birdsong seemed painfully loud. Buckbeak was gone and a silvery layer of new frost sparkled cheerily on the stones. Even his hair gleamed with it. The sunshine was bright and the air felt sharp in his chest. He pulled himself to his feet, wincing and scowling, and made his way out to look for Buckbeak. I’ll HAVE to eat something, he told himself. I’m just getting weaker.
Something squealed in the woods and then the sound was quickly cut off. With a sigh, Sirius aimed towards it to see what Buckbeak had caught. The hippogriff’s steel gray body was hard to pick out in the wintery woods, but he was noisy enough in eating that it wasn’t too difficult to find him. When the underbrush cleared, he found the hybrid creature happily munching the middle out of a spider the size of a pony. Its legs still made slow, walking motions.
Sirius felt his guts heave again and turned away to recover. A bright flash made him look up again in alarm. Buckbeak’s grisly chomping had kept him from noticing the careless footsteps crunching through the frozen leaves. He quickly stepped back into the trees, out of sight. Buckbeak’s head had snapped around and Sirius followed his gaze to where what looked like a Muggle in a trench coat was walking calmly towards them.
Buckbeak threw himself up to his full size, spreading both wings and bristling out his feathers. The woman froze in her tracks, apparently just noticing him. Buckbeak let out a deafening scream, standing over his kill. The woman’s jaw dropped weakly. Sirius could see Buckbeak’s orange eyes reflected in her mirrored sunglasses.
She’s going to be killed! Sirius thought frantically. He burst out of the bushes, drawing breath to scream a warning. Before the sound made it out of his throat, the woman snatched up handfuls of her coat and sank into a deep, formal curtsy. Sirius stumbled to a halt in surprise, and then threw himself back into hiding, inwardly cursing. So, she wasn’t a Muggle then, which could mean she would recognize him. He quickly shape-shifted into Padfoot and hid himself where he could see her.
She was still bending low, only a few feet from the hippogriff’s talons. Judging by the puffs of steam in the cold air, she was breathing hard. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the shades, but he was betting she was terrified. Buckbeak laid his wings back with a swish and glowered down at her. After a moment, she slowly got back to her feet and bravely locked eyes with him. Gradually, Buckbeak’s feather’s flattened down. There was another long, tense moment, then he knelt into a bow of his own. She let out a shaky breath and a grin skittered carefully over her face, like a skater onto weak ice.
“You gave me a scare there, gorgeous,” she said, making no move to touch him. She had an accent, just a trace of a drawl, and was dressed exactly like a Muggle. Under the trenchcoat, she wore white sneakers, faded and frayed blue jeans, and a black T-shirt that said “SMILE. IT MAKES PEOPLE WONDER WHAT YOU’RE UP TO.” He grinned a little himself.
She rubbed her hands together in the chill and then went fumbling in her coat pocket for something. Buckbeak went back to eating, apparently satisfied that she was no threat to him. Sirius wasn’t so confident. What WAS she after to bring her alone into the Forbidden Forest? He narrowed her eyes as she made a triumphant noise and pulled out an object a little smaller than a grapefruit.
“Kompasstos,” she said, and it began to spin in her palm, slowly starting to glow blue. It shot a pencil-thin beam of light directly at Sirius. He froze as it settled on him like a rifle’s laser sight. The woman grinned again and Sirius bit back a growl. So she WAS hunting him...Actually, he was surprised that no one had thought to use a magic compass to find him yet. He couldn’t see a wand on her anywhere, but that didn’t matter. With the compass to point her in the direction of whatever she wanted to find, he’d never be able to hide from her.
The best thing to do would be to rush her, he thought, suppressing a new coughing fit. Then, he could use a memory spell on her and take her compass. With it, he could track down Peter Pettigrew wherever he had run to. His doggy lips pulled back into a grin that was all teeth. She was almost upon him now. He crouched for the leap, only to remain there as she breezed by him. How could she miss something as big as he was?? His throat had started to burn from holding in his cough. He swallowed hard to soothe it.
Ahead, the woman was still following the magic beam through the trees. He slunk after her, puzzled and a little embarrassed. Maybe she was after something else; either that or her compass was crazy. Such things had happened. He remembered a classmate for Hogwarts who had an enchanted magnifying glass that would revolve around anything that needed the student’s attention. Soon, it had gone berserk and went spinning around on the chests of their female classmates.
But that was because me and James improved that spell for him...Sirius thought happily, swaying on his feet as his mind wandered. His vision had become misty and he shook his head to clear it. Either the movement or the flap of his ears was too obvious, because the woman turned with a gasp. He froze, as surprised as she was, and then began to cough. She was quiet, looking at him. Then, she took a careful step toward him, holding out a gloved hand for him to sniff.
“Hey,” she said softly, using that slightly higher voice that was reserved for animals and babies. He could barely hear her over his own hacking. “You poor baby...why are you all the way out here?”
Why are YOU? he thought sourly, but then her fingers brushed his forehead. She knelt beside him slowly, as if expecting him to snap at her. He considered it, but never worked up the energy. She put arms around his neck and rubbed one of his ears, still murmuring gently to him. He would have been embarrassed if he hadn’t felt so bad. He pulled from her irritably, but she ran a hand down over his ribs.
“You’d be much more handsome with some meat on your bones,” she continued. “Here now...” She went through another pocket and came up with a doughnut wrapped in a paper napkin. She unwrapped it for him and held it below his nose. He took it without interest. The sweetness made him shudder. “Poor baby,” she repeated, stroking the back of his neck. “Poor, poor baby...”
Buckbeak had finished his meal and wandered over to check on them. The huge eagle head tilted to one side, peering at Sirius with the fiery orange eye. He wasn’t up to another staredown and looked away. The hippogriff stalked closer, shouldering the woman aside as if she wasn’t there. She didn’t protest and backed away quickly. Someone has taught this one to respect large animals, Sirius thought, remembering how careful she’d been with him. He was surprised again when Buckbeak’s talons wrapped almost gently around him. In confusion, he looked up at the permanently stern expression the hippogriff wore.
Buckbeak suddenly snatched him to his chest, pinching him with the talons and making him yelp. The twelve foot wings snapped out again, causing the woman to scamper back, and Buckbeak launched himself upward with a kick from his powerful horse haunches. Panic cleared the sickness-haze from Sirius as the trees dropped away below him. He didn’t dare even struggle with the points of two sets of talons pricking him in various places. Had Buckbeak finally interpreted his weakness as prey behavior? He tried to remember if hippogriffs were one of the creatures that ate the sickly when the end seemed near.
All he could remember from his Care of Magical Creatures classes so long ago was the report he had done on manticore mating habits that had traumatized half the class. Brenda Berryball had fainted into the trough of kelpy-feed. He had still gotten one of the higher grades in class, though. Old Professor Jerrigg had been one for gory details, which is exactly what he became a few years later after a nasty thesis project got out of hand. None of this was any help to Sirius right then, though. All he could so was watch the forest sail by under his dangling paws.
Another bright flash from below caught his eye. It was a reflection off the mirrored sunglasses the woman was wearing. He could see her running along beneath them. The magic compass was floating over her left shoulder as she went. She would never be able to keep up with a flying hippogriff though. Already, she was lagging behind. Sirius hoped no one would spot Buckbeak out in the open like this. He was in no position to do anything about it, though.
He heard another crunching snap from over his head and few brown feathers blew by. Then Buckbeak tucked his wings and dove, dropping through a quick maze of tree branches at a speed that sucked the scream right out of Sirius’ throat. There was a horrible jerk and then he found himself plunked in a cowering heap on the floor of his cave. It took several minutes for him to recover from the partial freefall, but when he looked up, he found the hippogriff happily munching something new. Blood and brown feathers dripped out of his beak.
As Sirius watched, a severed bird’s leg fell, too. A rolled up scroll was still clutched in it. Apparently, Buckbeak had snatched a messenger owl on the fly for a snack. He groaned and curled up in a corner to rest. A few minutes later, curiosity dragged him up to have another look at the message. He switched back to his real form to pry the note out of the sad little foot and unrolled it.
Stay in the woods until its safe to come in. I’ll open the door for you, but you have to be careful.
R.
A shadow fell over his reading and he looked with a snarl. The Muggle look alike stood in the mouth of the cave, looking flushed and out of breath. “You OK?” she asked, her breath frosty in the cold air. She pushed her shades up on her forehead to peer at him in the dimness. The compass still hovered above her. Its hum sounded impatient. Sirius wandered if he was up to a full Befuddle spell. She was still waiting for an answer, and raised an eyebrow at him when the pause became long.
“Well?” she asked. She hadn’t shown any signs of recognition. He hoped her accent meant she was from somewhere far away. Too far to recognize him as an escaped criminal anyway.
“Do you know me?” he asked her, inwardly wincing at how shaky his voice sounded. She shook her head, swinging a ponytail. Buckbeak immediately eyed it and some tension crept into her stance as she moved slightly away for the hippogriff.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked next. He only glared, so she took another step inside, still keeping an eye on Buckbeak. Obviously, she was far more worried about the hippogriff than him, which made sense if she really didn’t know who he was. This time she knelt a pace away from him and pulled off her gloves. She cupped her hands below her chin. A thin glow, like a unicorn’s hair, lit up around her middle fingers. She murmured a word and a small ball of peach-colored fire bloomed in her hands.
Heat flowed out from it and the cave turned golden. She held it out to him. He could feel the warmth seeping through his clothes and warming skin that had been gray with chill for days. Just as wary as she had been, he reached for it. As soon as his fingers closed around it, heat sank into his finger joints, stabbing at the cold and making him wince. Then, the pain melted and he pulled it to cradle against him. Delicious warmth soaked through him. It was like holding an August afternoon in his arms. In only a moment, it had spread all the way to his toes.
He risked a glance back at the woman. She rubbed her palms against her thighs as if they stung. In the summery glow, she looked younger than he had thought. Her hair was a rusty shade of brown and pulled back into a smooth ponytail. It was hard to tell the color of her eyes in the glow, but he suspected they were blue. She wore a faint smile.
“Who ARE you?” he asked shortly, sounding sharper than he meant to. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, her smile became more of a grin.
“Who are YOU?” she countered. “Since you’re surprised I didn’t know.” Sirius thought fast.
“Cyrus,” he said finally. “Padfoot.”
“Which one?”
“Both. Cyrus Padfoot.”
“Fair enough,” she told him with a twinkle that made him wonder. “I’m Esme.” Her grin was full size now. He suspected she was being as honest as he was and he narrowed his eyes at her again. “What are you doing in a cave with a hippogriff?”
“What are YOU doing in a cave with a hippogriff?” he retorted. She actually chuckled at that.
“I’m on my way to someplace called Hogwarts,” she explained, making herself more comfortable. “My traveling spells are never very good. I just don’t have a head for navigation. I always end up a few miles off. I really overdid it this time, though. I’ve been walking for days.” She paused to look at him sideways, much like Buckbeak had. “How long have you been sick?” As if on cue, a sudden bout of coughing shook him. It was a deep raspy cough that hurt his throat and made his stomach lurch a bit.
“Do you know the way to Hogwarts?” she asked when he could breath again. He nodded, throat still burning. Esme was silent for a long moment and then reached for him. As before, she moved very carefully, perhaps wary of being bitten. Her knuckles brushed his temple, testing him. He didn’t move, only glared, which must’ve encouraged her because then she laid a painfully cold hand on his forehead.
“Then why on earth haven’t you gone to be treated?” she asked in the soft voice of someone who really knows better than to ask. “ A fever and a cough and the shakes. That’s not good.”
Sirius shook his head. Even that made him feel dizzy. Her attention to his fever had made him feel a little overheated, but he still clung to the summer-ball. He savored it, even if it had turned sickly. Esme put on an obviously fake cute face.
“Well, since I’m supplying the heat, would you mind if I rested here?” Mind racing for motives, Sirius was too tired to come up with a reply. As weak as he was, the fireball’s heat was making him feel sleepy.
“Ok, ok, I’ll make dinner too,” she sighed and as if that settled everything, began clearing off a spot on the cave floor. He watched her drowsily as he pulled the most battered tin cup he’d ever seen out of an inside pocket. It had a handle and four gnarled little legs and looked as if wild horses had run back and forth over it a few times before some one had knocked it back into shape. It was about the size of a beer stein. He had no idea what she was planning to cook. He had scoured these woods for edibles. There wasn’t a lot left. He heard her speak the words to a spell, but was asleep before he could see the results.
The next thing he knew he was waking up. The realization that he had let his guard down was like a slap of ice water. He jerked up and the summer ball fell into his lap. It was still warm, but the light had greyed out. Night had fallen outside the cave. He could hear crickets and an owl hooted somewhere far away. Buckbeak was gone, but there was the ugliest quilt that had ever been stitched by the hands of man thrown over him. As hideous as it was, it was very thick and warm. Across from him, wrapped in her trench coat, lay Esme.
He gave her a jab with his toe to see if she really was asleep. She jerked and muttered something, and was still again. To his right sat the battered cup, full of steaming gray sludge. It looked like oatmeal, only grayer. He picked it up eagerly and took a quick taste. It tasted exactly the way the cave smelled, kind of earthy, mossy, and a little dank. He took another sip, trying to figure it out. It had the texture of rice pudding and was very warm. Odd as it was, it was nourishing, so he tilted the cup to drink it all down. Towards the bottom, a rock clicked against his teeth and he blinked down at it. It looked like a stone like all the others scattered around the cave. Had she made stew from a rock?? He picked the rock out carefully and looked at it.
“How the hell...?” he muttered. He licked it and found it taste exactly like the sludge. The quilt, however, was offended.
“A fine way to talk when a lady makes you a meal!” it huffed, a badly puckered seam moving like a mouth. He blinked down at it. He wondered it had been alive before it was stitched together. The seams were so messy and erratic, it certainly looked like it had been sewn by someone who’d been on a cross country run at the time. The fabrics chosen would have made a circus clown faint. Bright colors and weird patterns twisted, looking for all the world like a highspeed collision between a tent full of gypsies and a very large fuzzy animal of some sort. The big tassels on each corner didn’t help.
“Who is she?” he asked it softly, hoping for more information. The quilt rippled a little and then replied very tightly. “She’s what she said. Are you calling the poor girl a LIAR??” It sounded like someone’s prudish aunt talking through a mouthful of cotton. Sirius had to smile. It sounded truly miffed.
“So she’s trustworthy then?” he asked, more to get a rise out of the blanket than to get an answer. It chuckled a bit loftily.
“As trustworthy as YOU,” it replied. Then it settled down around him, stretching to cover his toes. It seemed being peeved at him didn’t dissuade it from its function. He looked over at Esme again. Only the toes of her boots and her face from the nose up was visible. The rest was shrouded in the black trenchcoat. After a moment, Sirius pulled the summer ball under the blanket with him.. He felt painfully full after eating the sludge and it sat in his stomach, a warm, pleasant weight. As he drifted off to sleep again, he thought he heard the quilt humming to him.
He awoke again to the smell of blood, but this time it was Esme. She was kneeling over him, wiping off his face with something that was hot and smelled like rosemary. When his vision cleared he could see a bandage wrapped around her wrist. As the hand was still attached, he didn’t think it was from Buckbeak. He felt too sick to raise his head now. His head swam when he opened his eyes. As uncomfortably hot as he was, he still felt clammy, and wished he had three more layers of blankets to sweat under. He wanted to ask her about her wrist and was suspicious of her intentions, but drawing breath to speak triggered a cough that shook his whole body.
“Poor baby,” she crooned to him, exactly as she had to Padfoot. “I can’t fix this...I was terrible in Potions and Tonics...I know rosemary is supposed to be good for fevers, but other than that, I’m useless.” Her voice was fading to a pleasant drone in his ears. With an effort, Sirius focused on what she was saying again. “-back to walking strength, and then get to Hogwarts for some real help. Because, lets face it, your hippogriff hates me and skinny as you are, I can’t carry you over three miles of wilderness, which by the way seems to be overrun with giant spiders, for some reason. I though those things slept all winter....”
He was loosing her again, but this time he didn’t care. His eyes slid shut and he wandered for a moment if it was her hands he could feel moving around him or if the quilt was feeling cuddly. The next few days passed in a warm, sickly haze. He was aware of her moving around him and would occasionally wake up to have some more sludge poured down his thought. He had pine needle-flavored sludge, bark-flavored sludge, more stone--flavored sludge, and once some that tasted a lot like hippogriff feathers. The constant warmth and nourishment did its job, though, and soon he was healthy enough to complain.
“Can’t you stop this thing humming??” he finally snapped one morning, trying to pull the quilt off of himself. It fought back, wrapping around his arms. It hadn’t spoken to him since the first night, but it was never quiet. Esme was trying to dodge Buckbeak’s swishing tail as she stirred a new pot of sludge with her finger. Sirius was prevented from hearing her response when the quilt attacked and cocooned his upper body. By the time he thrashed his way free, he was red-faced and wheezing.
Esme had moved to sit beside him, holding the battered magic kettle. She shushed the quilt and it lay in his lap more politely. Buckbeak rose with a bad-tempered rumble and stalked outside the cave. whacking Esme sideways with a flick of his wing. The battered pot rocked on its gnarled little legs, but didn’t fall over. She gave the hippogriff a glare and went to pick up her sunglasses from where they had been knocked across the cave. Sirius grinned at her and took that opportunity to help himself to the fresh sludge.
“I do so like being right,” Esme sighed, coming back to sit cross-legged across from him. He was trying to guess what mixture of plants and stones had gone into this meal, but paused to look inquiringly at her. “You are more handsome with some meat on your bones.” He started to make a kissy face at her, when it occurred to her that she hadn’t said that to him. She had been cooing at Padfoot at the time. Catching the sudden wariness that had rushed over him, she shrugged a little.
“I’ve had extensive experience with shapeshifters,” she said. “It’s in the eyes. I’ve kept them a secret and I’ll do the same for you.”
“What makes you think I need to be kept a secret?” Sirius almost growled. Esme shoved her sunglasses up onto her forehead and looked down on her clutched hands for a moment. He was tensed to leap. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he felt the quilt tighten around him. He suddenly wished Buckbeak was still there.
“It takes one to know one,” Esme finally said, her smile becoming a touch sad. “I could’ve taken an open road to Hogwarts, after all. I’ve spent all my time cooking and nursing and trying to think what would bring a young, almost healthy man like yourself out to freeze in the woods with a hippogriff, and you haven’t even given me a thought? If I had feelings they’d be hurt.”
Sirius was silent, processing this. He had no idea how seriously to take her. All he had to judge her on was the fact that her quilt thought she hung the moon and Buckbeak would have liked to send her there. Which of the two was a better judge of character, he wasn’t sure. Then a hideous screech brought them both to their feet, the pot of sludge falling to the floor. Blood ran into Sirius’s unused legs and made him stagger. Esme caught his arm and dragged him along .
With her to help him, they bolted outside. Their ears were slammed by the horrible screaming. The woods rang with horrendous shrieks. Somewhere in the middle of the racket came a new sound, like a sizzle, and then the scream died out. Sirius and Esme crashed through some shrubbery and almost fell onto Buckbeak’s body. Air pulled away from them, hard enough to make a sucking sound.
Buckbeak was still moving, but his big body had been slashed. It looked like some huge pair of hands had tried to pull the hippogriff apart. Deep and gushing wounds separated his bird and horse halves. His eyes were glazed and he moved feebly. Sirius gasped and them stammered out a spell.
“Freozchro!” and time slowed to a crawl in a circle around the hippogriff. “There...that should keep him ok for awhile...” His voice trailed off and they both looked down at the frozen hippogriff.
“If you want to save him, we have to get real help...”Esme said quietly.” We can levitate him to Hogwarts.”
“I can’t go there” Sirius mumbled.
“Be your doggy self,” she looked at him sideways. “You can be my familiar. We both need to go there anyway and now we really have to.” He nodded, forcing doubts down. They met each others eyes and then looked back at Buckbeak. Not speaking anymore, they went to work, preparing the time-frozen hippogriff for the trip.
Story and art by me!