Padfoot wasn't paying attention to the conversaton until he heard Esme's name.

"I had a letter to send you," Lorelei was saying. "How did you know?"

"The lack of news can tell me as much as the news itself. Tell me what she's done."

"She..." Lorelei retreated behind her black glasses again. "She's been hunting vampires." The old man had a gaze that could cut steel so the shades were no defense. "She killed them all, Grandpa. For my cure."

"You're cured?" It wasn't really a question, and Lorelei looked away.

"I'm... not the same," she said. "But I'm out of their reach."

Padfoot was waiting for them to get back to Esme when he noticed Harry had crept to a tree and was waving at him. The wolf familiar noticed it too, and was smirking at him. He looked back at the Zephyrs and they were babbling about things he already knew, so he went over to his godson. Harry knelt in the snow to pretend to be petting the black dog.

"The Morthahg's in the basement, and the Ministry is supposed to be moving in," Harry whispered. "We have to get you out of here." Padfoot made a pained sound. He was sick of running away, especially now that he was up to his ears in the situation. He shook his head, making his ears flap.

"You should probably see Dumbledore before you do anything." Hermione said. That much made sense, so he nodded and started off toward the door the elder Zephyr had left open. Apparently he was used to having someone close doors for him. Padfoot looked over his shoulder at the Zephyrs and saw them striding away. Victor was towing Lorelei along by the arm and North was trotting along behind. The white dog looked back at him expectantly. Aren't you coming? the look said. There was no sign of the wolf.

**********

Sian was indoors already, padding through the halls. She had heard all she needed to know. Esme had found Lorelei's cure. I knew it! she said in wolf speak. I knew it was something like that. Hah! No one heard her except for Mrs. Norris, who hissed and ran away. Sian had the same trouble Tanner did searching much-traveled corridors for one particular scent. Her advantage was that nothing smelled quite like Tanner. Even after all the hygiene Madame Pomfrey had forced on him, Tanner still had a distinctive aroma about him.

She tracked the other werewolf over two floors and in a circle that included the kitchen twice. Finally, she spotted him through an infirmary window. He had torn the Lapine glossary out of his copy of Watership Down and was making origami bunnies out of the pages. He looked bored and a little sulky. A grin split Sian's face and she slunk around to get to the hallway on the other side of the room. From there, it was a simple duck and weave to get in through the open door and under the bed when a crowd of people went by to block any sound she might make.

She was under his bed and hadn't been seen yet. The hardest part of this had been not giggling outloud. There was a creak of springs over her head and she froze to be sure he wouldn't know she was there. She crouched a little lower and went creeping as quietly as possible towards the head of the bed. There was room for her to squirm between the bed and the wall. She set her teeth and shapeshifted without a whimper. From there, she rose carefully up the wall, like an underbed monster to peer over the headboard.

The bed was a mess, but Tanner was gone. Sian blinked around the room. She hadn't heard him get off the bed and she hadn't seen any feet touch the floor. She narrowed her eyes at the pile of quilts crumpled across the bed. There was a room for a lanky werewolf to sprawl out under them, so she pounced on it. Sure enough, something writhed under her, but before she could yell 'Gotcha!' the quilt erupted over her head and a pair of arms locked around it to cocoon her.

"I knew it!" she squealed. Tanner was giggling as he crushed her in a surprisingly strong hug. She thrashed until he let her go and she was able to throw the quilt off. The two werewolves grinned and then lunged at each other. She slid her hands to cup his face and nuzzled his nose.

"I have been. So. Worried. About you!" she cried. "I missed you so much! Your poor hair! Are you ok? Is Esme ok? I've been having an awful dream about you and Rosie and-"

"I don't want to talk about Rosie," Tanner sighed. He didn't make any effort to pull away from her though. Her eyebrows sank low.

"What did she do?"

"..."

"I have never known what you see in her. I told you she was trouble. Your mother told you she was trouble. Has it finally gotten through that flea-bitten skull of yours that she is, in fact, trouble??"

His smile was a little wobbley, but he pulled her back into a hug.

"I missed you too," he said. They cuddled for a moment, but then the younger werewolf started bouncing.

"Esme is here then right? You found the cure? I heard her talking to Granch and she-"

"Victor's here?" Tanner suddenly became much more alert. He gently pulled back from Sian, but she caught his arms.

"Something's happening, isn't it?" she asked. "We knew that Elmskill had been evacuated, of course, and that there was a big commotion about the Morthahg being released, and that someone might've used one of the family inventions to do it. And then we heard that Lorelei had been hurt and-"

"The Morthahg's in the basement."

"How'd it get here?"

"Esme's being charged with releasing it and the deaths of various Muggles."

"Wha? But that's-"

"I happen to know that most of those Muggles were vampires, but no one listens to me, because there's a few that think I attacked a girl here."

"But-"

"Annnd there's the small matter of me being out of my mind."

"That one's no surprise..."

"They don't have trueborn werewolves here," he lowered his voice to a whisper. "The groundskeeper is the only one who's even heard of them. It's Cursed or nothing."

"That's...odd. Are the Cursed so rare that they don't get the chance to, uh, meet?"

"Well, there was definitely a Cursed one here not that long ago. I could smell him. Apparently he carried a lot of chocolate around with him."

"Sounds like my kind of guy. But what are we going to do now?"

"Hopefully with Victor on the scene, Esme's trial will slow down and we can save her."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know!" Frustration whined in Tanner's voice. "I think she's close by. I've hunted with her long enough to have a sort of pack-sense of her, but there's so much magic floating around that I might be picking up something else."

Sian quieted but her eyes became more intense.

"We could find her," she said softly. "We could... do something.."

"That's as much a plan as I've had in days!" Tanner's grin came back. "Let's go."