➥COMPLETED
Nova Black hadn't thought she would ever set a toe behind those thick castle walls she had fought to forget about during the past thirteen years, but here she was at Plattform 9¾, staring at the scarlet train in front of her with wobbly k...
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"NOVA, TAKE this woman and the kids and run!", Sirius roared once more, before he transformed into the huge black dog and jumped at Remus', the full-grown werewolf, throwing him to the ground and away from Nova.
Rebecca stepped forward, stretching out her hand, and Nova let the healer pull her back to her feet. Ron lay unconscious on the lawn, eyes only half-closed, but breathing. He didn't seem to recognise his friends kneeling beside him, though.
The werewolf took the flight, and as Sirius was about to transform back into a human, Harry yelped, "Pettigrew is gone, he has transformed! This way!" Pointing into the night, Harry showed Sirius the way, and Sirius followed.
Nova turned to Rebecca.
"I need you to get them to the castle", she said, then looking at Harry and Hermione. "The two of you will help Rebecca bringing Ron and Snivellus to the hospital wing —"
"What are you going to do?", Harry asked, cutting her off, and she recognised the sorrow swinging in his voice.
"I'm helping Sirius to find the rat", she spoke in a determined voice. "Don't worry, everything will be alright. He'll be a free man before sunrise. Go now." He nodded, and Nova pursed her lips, as she watched him trying to lift Ron up with the help of Hermione. "And Harry?", she added, as he and Hermione had Ron's arms around their shoulders.
Harry blinked at her, his glasses askew. She threw him a warning glance, saying, "Don't do anything stupid."
"Like what?", he asked.
"Like following me."
Blindly, Nova followed the way she had seen Sirius vanishing further down the hill. She was well aware, chances to find the rat were small, but at least she needed to try it, even though the deeper she rushed into the night, the more her hopes were shrinking with every step she took. Her fear, though, grew. Remus was still somewhere out there — or in here.
Standing in front of the Forbidden Forest's high and thick trees, Nova stopped for a moment. There was good reason, Nova hadn't joined Sirius in Gryffindor. She wasn't even close to being as brave as her brother was, and unlike him, she never in her days as a student set a toe into the Forbidden Forest.
A wind was rustling through the long died leaves and needles covering the forest ground, and with a shaky breath, Nova stepped into the night, her wand in her hand, but not daring to enlighten the impervious darkness surrounding her, to not give away her position to the dangers luring beneath the tall trees' trunks. But if the light wasn't revealing her, her heartbeat surely would. Feeling it hammering in her throat, Nova swallowed hard and made her way deeper into the forest.
She didn't hear a damn thing but her own breath. No twigs cracking, but under her own soles, no footsteps but her own poking along deeper into the forest. After about five hundred feet deep into the shadows, Nova's whole body froze, as suddenly she heated a noise that wasn't coming from herself. Something was approaching her, and she kept standing their, intensely listening into the night.
"Sirius?", she faintly whispered, as a growl made the tiny hair on her neck rise, but she knew this wasn't her brother.
The growling grew louder, and slowly Nova turned around, the wand trembling in her clenched fist.
She wasn't brave. Not. At. All.
Staring up into a pair of gleaming green eyes, Nova's throat threatened to burst from the scream she couldn't hold in. The werewolf was towering her more than two heads in height, and man, did it look pissed! Bloody scratches all over his face made Remus, the werewolf, appear even more frightening.
Nova twirled around and was about to run away, but she didn't make it far; a race with a full-grown werewolf wasn't something to win that easily. Remus got a hold of her arm and yanked her around, before he pushed her to the ground, the smell of rotten leaves and pine needles underneath her filled her nostrils, and a second later the werewolf's hot breath was all over her face, his growl louder than her thundering heart.
She wished nothing more than to look away, but instead she withheld the glare of his piercing eyes, her voice shaky, as she held onto her last attempt to reach the kind man behind this monster's fangs, as she whispered, "I—It's me. Remus, it's me, Nova. You know me. Please don't ... don't hurt me."
To her surprise, the werewolf stopped in the midst of lowering his face closer to her neck, blinking, as his eyes once more looked with her's, and a spark of hope enlightened inside Nova.
"I know you're somewhere in there, Remus", she whimpered, tears filling her eyes. "You won't hurt me, you're a kind man. Just remember who you are ..."
His eyes grew wide for the split of a second, but it wasn't a long lasting one once they narrowed again, the growl now even louder thundering in his throat, and Nova's lips escaped a sob, as she lifted her hands in a useless attempt to save her from what was coming for her.
Claws buried into each side of her ribcage, she could feel hot blood drenching her shirt; the werewolf opened his mouth, Nova closed her eyes —
A loud screech filled the night, a second later mixing with Nova's agonising scream as the werewolf's claws were torn out of her flesh; the werewolf's weight was no longer pressing down on her, but the pain was more intense than ever before. Shaking hands tried to cover the wounds, but there was so much blood ...
She felt someone falling to her left, and smaller hands pressed against the wound on the left side of her body.
"Remus ...", Nova whispered, opening her eyes, but the person staring back at her wore a different scar than Remus. She groaned, as the sounds of a fight distanced rapidly, and her lips curved into a quivering smile, as she looked up, muttering, "You Potter's can't just save your own arses and let people around you die, huh?"
"Yeah, quite runs in the family", Harry replied with a sarcastic snort. "Now shut up, you're losing too much blood. No, no! Don't move." His hand pressed her back against the ground, as she tried to sit up. Her vision blurred, she felt her consciousness pulled into the darkness surrounding her. "Stay awake, okay? Nova, no no no ... Hermione! HERMIONE?!"
Faintly she noticed another person approaching her, then the last light in this turbulent night slowly died.
