Raye had read the third letter and begun her preparations. She had found a winter cloak in the infirmary and gone down the hallway. There had been a commotion further down so no one paid any attention to her. She had ducked down a flight of stairs and made her way down to the lower doors. It was colder there, an icy draft blew under the door. The heavy metal latch was painfully cold under her hands, and she had to wrestle with it to open the door.
A blast of cold air blew her hood back and sent her braid whipping behind it. Raye gasped and leaned out to search the darkness. As her eyes adjusted, the snow became brighter and a dark shape came sliding over the frozen ground towards her. Hope lit up in her chest. Finally! This had to be taken care of before her parents came. They wouldn’t believe her. And Newton was too little. She had to protect him.
The dark shape took form and stopped just outside the outline of light from the door. The messenger was here. It was the size of a pony but she couldn’t tell the shape of it very well. It didn’t matter. She took a step out into the snow.
“Raye?” It was Hermione, blinking at her in the dark hall. Raye froze. She was caught. “I saw you go by... What are you doing?” Raye’s mind raced for a way out and saw the creature waiting at the edge of the dark. She bolted out to it. Hermione called her again and ran after. Raye grabbed the animal’s neck and it snarled, but not at her. She looked over her shoulder and saw Hermione slide to a stop in the snow.
The Gryffindor girl stood with a look of horror on her face. The messenger-beast made some sort of sound, showing it’s teeth. Raye threw herself onto the creature’s back. Hermione dashed forward to grab her arm.
“Come away from that thing!” Hermione cried. “Come back inside!” The creature whipped around and lunged at her. Raye was nearly thrown from its back, but she hung on. The creature bit once and laid Hermione’s neck open. Raye gasped and very nearly jumped down to help her. The animal turned and ran beneath her before she could move. She looked over her shoulder and saw Hermione slump to the snow. The messenger beast howled, a long weird cry, and then the castle disappeared behind them.
Tanner had been having a fairly lucid day so far. He had eaten with a fork, he submitted to a hair brushing, and he hadn’t turned into anything all day. Madame Pomfrey had just been praising him on his good behavior when she was called away. She had left the door open in her hurry and he saw several people run back and forth. A barking dog got his attention and he crept to the doorway to see. It was North, of course. The dog and the wizard who smelled like the dungeons and chemicals were helping Lorelei Zephyr up the hall. She didn’t look well, and he knew seeing him would only upset her more, so he retreated back to his bed.
Then, he heard something else. It was the short, annoyed sound that Rosie made when she was trying not to bite someone. With a gleeful sound, he went galloping out to meet her. Rosie probably wouldn’t come inside, even to find him. A whiff of cold, fresh air came to him and he scampered like a squirrel to follow it down the stairs and to another hallway. A howl suddenly echoed through the stone corridor, and Tanner yipped happily. That was her hunting call, and Rosie was always the cheeriest when she was hunting.
The doorway at the bottom was open and Tanner burst out of it. The snow crunched under his bare feet. He became a wolf to tear out over the frozen ground. His old wounds still hurt, but it was good to be able to run again. The wind was wrong to track Rosie by scent, but he saw her form slip away into the trees and followed. Rosie was fast and strong, but she couldn’t match Tanner for speed. He caught up with her after only a moment.
She glanced at him and he was taken aback to see her carrying a girl on her back. He ran along side her, with a greeting bark, but then paused. Tanner’s smile faded. Her scent was wrong. Was it even Rosie? She turned on him with a growl and bit him on the muzzle. A twisting pain sank through him, deeper than her fangs. It burned and he felt his stomach clench. All of his old injuries sprang to life. One of the deeper scars on his arm opened again and began to bleed too.
The girl on his back squealed with fright, only just noticing him. The thing that looked like Rosie lunged into to snap at him again, but Tanner danced away out of reach. Rosie snarled and ran harder, vanishing into the forest. Tanner staggered away, gagging and coughing. His blood dripped to the snow. Physical pain, heartbreak, and confusion left him weak and shaken. The bite across his nose was starting to bleed down to his lips and he spat a mouthful of it out.
He didn’t know what to do. A bright spot in the night caught his eye and he made his unsteady way towards it. There was a square patch of light spilling out onto the ground from the hall behind him. A small spatter of blood was visible in it. Rosie’s track were there too. There was also a human girl huddled in the snow. Tanner stared, horrified, as she make a choking sound and more blood speckled the snow.
“Ohhhhh no....” Tanner moaned. He crept up to Hermione and she raised her head to look at him. Her eyes were wide and tears ran down her face. She had pulled up her shirt and was twisting it tight around the wound in her neck to stop the blood. She opened her mouth and a bubble of blood burst from it. Behind him, the door flew open again. A black shape came hurtling out and two more humans followed it.
“Hermione!” screamed one of them.
“Get away from her!” the other shouted. Two wands were now pointed at him. There was a flash of red light and something hit the werewolf hard enough to send his body bouncing backwards. Tanner didn’t even try to resist. He lay where he fell. The girl gasped out a noise that was almost a word.
“Don’t try to talk,” one of the other humans said. Tanner thought he looked familiar. “It’ll be all right! Just hang on!” They scuffled around a bit and were gone. As Tanner got slowly back to his feet, he found the black dog still hovering over them.
“Will she change?” it asked him. Tanner just blinked. Padfoot snarled at him, much like Rosie had. “Did you hurt her??”
“She bit me, too!” Tanner said weakly. “And she took the girl! She didn’t want me.”
“Did you bite Hermione??”
“I haven’t bitten anybody!” sobbed Tanner. Padfoot grabbed Tanner and shook him until he reverted to human form and cried out. Padfoot became Sirius and the two men glared at each other. On a human face, the bite on Tanner’s nose was more clear. Sirius had to admit that Tanner wouldn’t be able to bite himself on the nose.
“I wanted to see her,” Tanner whimpered, curling into a ball. Sirius yanked him back to his feet. He felt like shaking him again. Instead, I have to lead him through a secret door and get him back to his room before anyone notices him missing, he thought, grinding his teeth. And if it’s Rosie who bit Hermione, I’ll have to track her down too.
The thought of Hermione becoming a werewolf wasn’t a nice one. He remembered how Remus had suffered and it put an extra twitch to his snarl as he drove Tanner around to the nearest secret passage. If that happened, it would take more than a phantom pack of wolves to protect Rosie from him.