"A w... A were... A werew... Are you telling me our f**king Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is a werewolf?!" I sort of yelled. Tess just told Xenia and me that during her Divination exam she had a vision of Professor Lupin turning into a wolf...hence making him a werewolf.
"Yeah," Tess answered.
I was silent for a minute. "O...o-okay? I...I think..."
"Moranaa..." Aura said in a sort of warning tone that kinda brought chills up my spine. "Just because he's a werewolf doesn't mean you have to think of him differently. He's still the greatest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we've had. So far."
"Yeah, but...but what if he transforms, and...and attacks somebody?" I said. I always had a problem with werewolves, vampires, ghouls, anything like that. They creeped me the f**k out.
"Well," Xenia said, "it is possible that he's been taking a potion every full moon so that he doesn't transform."
"Oh, okay." I nodded. Right. I forgot about that.
Tess was silent for a second. Well...she didn't speak. She was breathing heavily, looking up at the ceiling.
"T...Tess?" I asked her.
Tess gasped, then looked at the three of us with her wide eyes. "S-S-S...Sirius Black... I know where he is... I know what he's doing... I know...I know..."
"You know what?" Xenia asked.
Tess looked directly into Xenia's eyes. "I know that Sirius didn't kill Harry Potter's parents. He's not trying to kill Harry."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ANIMAGI~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"B-b-but..." Xenia said as we were walking to the high tower where the Ravenclaw common room was. "But huh?"
"We still need to help them," Tess repeated. "When Trelawney was talking about the servant of the Dark Lord Aura and I thought it was Sirius. But it's somebody else. Uh...I think his name was...Peter? Peter...Pet... Peter something. I don't know exactly. But we should still help them."
"Okay," I said. "For once can we be selfish bastards and not give a f**k about Harry, Ron, or Hermione? Please?"
Aura looked at me, and gave me the death glare. "Look, you don't always have to do everything with us. That is your choice. Not ours!"
I hesitated. She was right. But...I kinda liked hanging out with them. Well...Mudblood excluded. She could be a bitch sometimes. Takes one to know one, I suppose...
"Y-you're right," I answered. "But...the only reason I'm still hanging out with you guys right now is because Xenia was gonna say something about these rings we've been wearing."
We stopped walking when we were at the door, and Xenia looked back at us. She sighed.
"Alright," Xenia began. "Well...we should probably...not sit here, so...how about I go...how about I go inside really quickly."
"How is a raven like a writing desk?" the eagle door knocked asked.
"Uh, bu -" Xenia said. "Bu... Okay, okay, think Xenia... Well...to be fair, it depends on the writing desk. Because if the writing desk is black, like a raven, then that would be the answer."
"Good thinking," the knocker replied. The door opened.
"Well..." Xenia said. "Uh...Tess? This...is this gonna be dangerous?"
Tess was silent for a second. "Most likely."
"Alright. I'm, uh...gonna go...tell Lily. And I'll send Luna out if you want me, too, Aura."
"Yes, please," Aura said quickly.
Xenia walked into the common room, the door shutting behind her. About a minute later Luna came out of the common room.
"Hi, Aura," she said.
Aura walked forward to be closer to Luna. "Hey, Luna."
"You're...you're going to help Harry Potter?"
"Um...yeah, I think so."
Luna took a deep breath. "Is it going to be dangerous?"
"Most likely," Aura gave Luna a little half-smile.
Luna touched Aura's face gently, then went up on her toes a little, and kissed Aura.
Eeeeeeep!!!!!
Tess and I looked at each other, smiling broadly.
After a few seconds Luna stopped kissing her, and went back on her heels.
"Here," Luna said. She took off the necklace she always wore every day, which was a butterbeer cork necklace. She put it around Aura's neck. "It keeps away the Nargles. And it'll... In case you...it'll... Just...something to remember me by..."
"Luna," Aura cupped Luna's face with her hands. "I'm not gonna die. I promise." Aura kissed Luna. "And thank you for the necklace. It's beautiful. I want one of my own."
Luna smiled up at her. "Okay. Maybe as a late birthday present. It'll be as great as the bracelet you gave me for mine."
Xenia came out of the Ravenclaw common room.
"Well..." Luna began, "I should go..." She pecked Aura on the lips, then went back into the common room.
Aura smiled, tears forming in her eyes. She turned around, and wiped her eyes a little.
"So..." Aura said. "Shall we go?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ANIMAGI~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I think you guys are a cute couple," I whispered to Aura as we were walking out towards...the Whomping Willow, I think Tess said. "Really. You should marry that girl."
Aura laughed slightly. "Thanks. And, uh...I think that you and Draco make a cute couple, too."
I smiled. "Thanks."
Xenia cleared her throat, obviously trying to get our attention.
"Yes, Mudblood?" I asked, turning to look at her.
"And, uh..." Xenia said, "what about Lily and me?"
"Hm," I said. "I don't know. You don't tell us as much about you guys as Aura does with her and Luna."
"I'll explain if we survive this," Xenia said. "Now, I've gotta explain the rings." She was silent for a second, probably thinking. "You see...I've been reading up on these. It was really difficult to find. But...these rings belonged to the Hogwarts founders themselves. Obviously we already know whose was whose. But, uh...these rings were more than that... You see...these rings...the Hogwarts founders put magical abilities in them. Like...amazing magical abilities. And these rings can only be controlled, properly, at least, by somebody worthy. Somebody with the traits of someone in their House. And the founders put them in a box, and hid it on the Hogwarts ground for somebody to find it. And, uh...guess who f**king tripped over it?"
"Oh my god, you make one mistake, and you get made fun of it for the rest of your life!" I said jokingly.
The three other girls laughed a little while I just smiled.
"But, uh," Xenia continued, "the magical powers in these rings combined are more powerful than Dumbledore."
"Holy shit," Aura said.
"Yeah," Xenia said.
"Holy shit!" Tess said, gawking at her ring. "How...how do we use these?"
"It's simple," Xenia shrugged. "You think the thing you want it to do, then it does it for you."
I looked at the ring on my left ring finger like it was a national treasure... Which to me it was.
"Sooo..." I said. "It can do...this?" I flicked my left pointer finger up.
"Ow!" all three girls said like they were in pain. I imagined that I was flicking them all on their noses. Looks like that's what the ring did.
Aura looked up at me, a red mark on her nose. "I f**king hate you."
"Thanks!" I smiled at her, shrugging my shoulders into my face. "I love you, too!" I put my shoulders down.
Aura rolled her eyes, a smile on her face.
"So," Tess began, "this way to the infamous Whomping Willow."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ANIMAGI~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Hey, Mudblood," I (obviously) said. "So, uh, you find out anything about Insightful One's shared vision?"
Xenia opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and frowned. "Well...it's possible that...that maybe...that maybe she was thinking about us, and her vision accidentally came out to us. I mean...this is a world with magic. Anything can happen."
"Well," Aura said in a high-pitched voice, "most things, yeah. But not everything."
Tess stopped walking. She was looking up at something. We stopped, too, and looked up with her.
"There it is," Tess said. "The Whomping Willow. We should probably hurry and go down towards the roots before it starts doing...well...the reason it's called the Whomping Willow."
We quickly ran around the Whomping Willow to this sort of hole thing, and one at a time we went inside it, starting with Tess and ending with me.
"Ow," I groaned once I got down into the hole. We were doubled over because of the small tunnel.
"This way," Tess whispered.
We followed her, and it took us a while before we saw a dim light. It was a small room.
"Holy shit," Xenia said once we all got into the room. "W...we're... I think we're in the Shrieking Shack."
"Why do you say that?" Aura asked.
"Because when Professor Lupin went to Hogwarts he was a werewolf," Tess explained for Xenia, "and this is where he'd go every full moon to transform so he wouldn't hurt anyone. But...he ended up hurting himself. And he was...well...shrieking while doing it."
We were all silent for a minute. I think we were all thinking the same thing. We felt really bad for Professor Lupin...
"Oh..." Aura said after that minute of silence.
"C'mon," Tess murmured. "This way."
But before we could move we heard someone walking in from behind us.
"Hide!" Xenia hissed. With our rings we turned invisible, then quietly moved out of the way. The person that came in was Professor Lupin.
"WE'RE UP HERE!" we heard a female voice scream. It was Hermione Gramger. She probably heard the footsteps. "WE'RE UP HERE - SIRIUS BLACK - QUICK!"
Lupin practically ran up the steps, and we followed behind as quietly as we could.
"Expelliarmus!" Lupin said as he got to the unopened door upstairs. Aura, Xenia, Tess, and I moved towards the door, and leaned against the wall so they wouldn't see us, but we could still help if needed.
"Where is he, Sirius?" Lupin asked.
It was silent for a moment.
"But then..." Lupin muttered, "why hasn't he shown himself before now? Unless-unless he was the one...unless you switched...without telling me?"
What.
The.
Actual.
F**k?!
"Professor," Harry Potter interrupted loudly, "what's going on -?"
Silence for a second before Hermione screamed again, "I DON'T BELIEVE IT! You-you -"
"Hermione -" Lupin said.
"- you and him!"
"Hermione, calm down -"
"I didn't tell anyone!" Hermione shrieked. "I've been covering for you -"
"Hermione," Lupin yelled, "listen to me, please! I can explain -"
"I trusted you," Harry shouted, "and all this time you've been his friend!"
"You're wrong," Lupin said. "I haven't been Sirius's friend, but I am now - Let me explain..."
"NO!" Hermione screamed. Again. "Harry, don't trust him, he's been helping Black get into the castle, he wants you dead, too - he's a werewolf!"
There was more silence.
"Not all up to your usual standard, Hermione," Lupin finally said. "Only one out of three, I'm afraid. I have not been helping Sirius get into the castle and I certainly don't want Harry dead... But I won't deny that I am a werewolf."
"Knew it, bitches," Tess whispered. "Ha. Professor Trelawney can kiss my ass."
I heard Ron Weasley gasp. "Get away from me, werewolf!"
"How long have you known?" Lupin asked.
"Ages," Hermione whispered. "Since I did Professor Snape's essay..."
"He'll be delighted. He assigned that essay hoping someone would realize what my symptoms meant... Did you check the lunar chart and realize that I was always ill at the full moon? Or did you realize that the boggart changed into the moon when it saw me?"
"Both," Hermione answered Lupin quietly.
Lupin laughed, but it sounded forced. "You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione."
"I'm not," she whispered. "If I'd been a bit cleverer, I'd have told everyone what you are!"
"But they already know. At least, the staff do."
"Dumbledore hired you when he knew you were a werewolf?" Ron gasped. "Is he mad?"
"Some of the staff thought so," Lupin answered. "He had to work very hard to convince certain teachers that I'm trustworthy -"
"AND HE WAS WRONG!" Harry suddenly yelled. "YOU'VE BEEN HELPING HIM ALL THE TIME!"
"I have not been helping Sirius," Lupin said. "If you'll give me a chance, I'll explain. Look -" Silence. Then, "There. You're armed, we're not. Now will you listen?"
"If you haven't been helping him," Harry began, "how did you know he was here?"
"The map," Lupin answered. "The Marauder's Map. I was in my office examining it -"
"You know how to work it?"
"Of course I know how to work it. I helped write it. I'm Moony - that was my friends' nickname for me at school."
"You wrote -?"
"The important thing is, I was watching it carefully this evening because I had an idea that you, Ron, and Hermione might try and sneak out of the castle to visit Hagrid before his hippogriff was executed. And I was right, wasn't I? You might have been wearing your father's old cloak, Harry -"
"How d'you know about the cloak?"
"The number of times I saw James disappearing under it... The point is, even if you're wearing an Invisibility Cloak, you still show up on the Marauder's Map. I watched you cross the grounds and enter Hagrid's hut. Twenty minutes later, you left Hagrid, and set off back toward the castle. But you were now accompanied by somebody else."
"What? No, we weren't!"
"I couldn't believe my eyes, I thought the map must be malfunctioning. How could he be with you?"
"No one was with us!"
"And then I saw another dot, moving fast toward you, labeled Sirius Black... I saw him collide with you; I watched as he pulled two of you into the Whomping Willow -"
"One of us!" Ron spoke angrily.
"No, Ron. Two of you. Do you think I could have a look at the rat?"
"What?" Ron asked. "What's Scabbers got to do with it?"
"Everything. Could I see him, please?"
After a moment of silence, Ron spoke, "What? What's my rat got to do with anything?"
"That's not a rat," an unfamiliar voice croaked. Possibly Sirius Black.
"What d'you mean - of course he's a rat -"
"No, he's not," Lupin told Ron. "He's a wizard."
"An Animagus," Sirius said, "by the name of Peter Pettigrew."