"Oh, bollocks," says Sage.
And she means it. Because, as life goes when you're next to Harry Potter, the proverbial shit's hit the fan. At full force. Like, it's a hot summer's day and the fan is spinning so fast it looks like it might come off the ceiling, and the shit's been hit so with so much force that it goes everywhere and covers everything and that's the sort of trouble the four Gryffindors are in right now.
Scabbers (or, Peter, as Sage assumes), has just taken a chunk out of Ron's finger. Sage doesn't understand why he bought the bloody thing with him to see a massive bird-horse get executed. She thinks maybe it's a comfort thing, but who would find comfort in a rat? Sage doesn't understand. But, back to the important thing she should be paying attention to.
Ron's gone running after Scabbers. Hermione tries to go after him and so does Harry, but Sage is frozen. She's glued to the ground, eyes wide, hands quivering.
There's a massive black dog on the horizon, and she thinks it's probably going to stab her.
"Sage!" Hermione screams, beckoning to the girl as the dog approaches her.
"Why are you after me?" Sage whispers. The dog's near. But so is Ron, and he dives in front of her as the dog lunges. The stupid great thing sinks it's teeth into Ron's leg and drags him off. Sage can hear muffled screaming. She can't hear anything past the thumping heartbeat in her eardrums.
"Sage, come on!" Hermione's cries finally get through to her. Sage reaches out and clutches the girl in her arms like there's no tomorrow.
"Hermione, Sage!" Harry yells. Sage opens her eyes, bleary from held-back tears, and sees that they've moved too close to the Whomping Willow for her to feel completely sage.
"Fuck," she hisses. She sees Harry get hit across the face. Then she feels a branch maul itself across her back, almost lifting her off the ground when it catches on her shirt collar.
"Are you okay?" Hermione shouts. Sage gives her a half-hearted thumbs up from her position lying on the ground. A streak of mottled orange passes through her vision and she thinks she's hallucinating Weasleys, but then she sees that the thing has a tail and four legs and a squashed face. "Crookshanks!" Hermione gasps.
"He's friends with that dog," calls Harry grimly, still recovering from the branch that whacked him in the stomach. "I've seen them together."
"Traitor bastard," Sage grumbles as she tries to catch her breath back. "Morceau de merde."
"Now isn't the time for French, Sage." Hermione's pulling Sage to her feet, and they stumble towards the trunk of the Willow as a two-headed, four-legged creature.
Sage asks, "Why isn't it trying to brutalise us anymore?" and her mind drifts to Conner. She wonders why the bastard isn't here to squawk bloody murder at her like he usually does.
"Crookshanks did something," Harry says, and it's all the answer Sage needs. She doesn't really care. She's just glad the bloody tree isn't trying to murder her anymore. It should be nice to her, she thinks, because she's been to several Save The Forests marches. She looks around her, head spinning from the pain in her ribs, and sees they're in almost complete darkness.
"It's a tunnel," Hermione says as they walk. Harry lights his wand. Sage just nods and wonders how she got herself into this situation. It's probably Harry's fault. It's usually Harry's fault. In cases involving dark magic and You-Know-Who, it's most definitely Harry's fault.
Sage is pretty much shitting herself. "We're not following that dog, are we?"
"It took Ron," Harry answers.
"Doesn't mean we have to follow it."
"Yes, it does," Hermione says. Sage rolls her eyes and ducks down to avoid clonking her head on the roof of the tunnel. She's the tallest there, what with short-arse-Granger and got-his-dad's-genes-Potter. Sage doesn't know whose genes she's got, the ones that make her abnormally tall for a fourteen year old girl. And she also happens to be extremely afraid of the dark, which makes this dark, tight tunnel a whole lot more fun. Every noise makes her think Black is right on their tail- if you'll excuse her pun.
Then, Sage gets so angry with how much she's crouching and stands up straight. Her head hits something that isn't earth.
"Trapdoor," she announces. Hermione takes a sharp breath in. Sage knows how much the girl loves trapdoors. Overdose of Scooby-Doo as a child, Sage diagnoses. They all climb through; Sage is sure she knows where they are.
"Harry, Sage," Hermione whispers, "I think we're in the Shrieking Shack."
Sage says, "Oh, bollocks."
There's a scream from upstairs. Sage flinches and grips onto Hermione's arm, her crush put aside while she uses the girl for safety.
Crush? No. We don't have a crush on Hermione. Who's Hermione? Never heard of her. Never seen her pretty face or gorgeous hair or incredible witchcraft skills. Definitely not.
Oh look, there's Ron. He looks like he's in pain- oh, mercy, legs do not naturally stick out at that angle. Sage drops down beside him and he's whimpering something she can't hear over the ringing in her ears.
"You'll have to speak up," she says, voice thick with fear, "I can't hear what you're saying."
"It's him- it's him- he's an animagus-"
The door to the room swings shut. Sage whips around so that she's sitting on the floor beside Ron, and she's not ashamed to admit she's cowering behind him. Because Sirius Black is standing there in the corner, and he looks murderous.
"Expelliarmus," he announces. Harry and Hermione's wand fly at him. Sage was both stupid and smart enough to have left her wand up at the castle. She thinks that Remus would probably be a bit angry with her for forgetting it.
And she can't draw her eyes away from the man. His hair's long; longer than the mugshot photo they've been using from when he was first imprisoned. He was slim in those photos, handsome enough that she could understand what her Auntie Flick saw in him, but now he's like a corpse. His skin is stretched thin over his bones and his cloak does nothing to hide the funny, angular bones that poke out where muscle and fat should be. And she doesn't realise, but those grey eyes of his are staring right back at her.
She doesn't mean to say it, and she's pretty sure it's going to get her killed, but she says, "Hi."
And his sallow features curve into a smile. It's a wicked, horrible smile, but a smile all the same.
"I thought grabbing your friend would get you all down here," he states. His voice is rough; the notes behind his words are reminiscent of a dog's growl. Sage decidedly doesn't like him that much. "Your fathers would have done the same for me. Brave of you to not run and get a teacher. It'll make this a lot easier..."
Sage scowls, but doesn't make any move to stand and fight. Maybe it makes her a bad Gryffindor, she thinks, but she also values her own life and doesn't want to die just yet.
"If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to go through us," Ron announces. Now there's a model Gryffindor, Sage thinks. He tries to stand and get in front of Harry, but Sage takes his hand to stop him from moving further.
"Lie down," Black says. Sage frowns even deeper. "You'll do even more damage to your leg if you stand up."
"Ron, just do what he says," Sage hisses. She manages to get him onto the bed, but he refuses to move from the edge.
"Did you hear me?" Ron shouts. Black almost seems to flinch at the volume, but Sage is sure she's imagining things. Her head's still fuzzy from the pain the Willow caused. "You'll have to kill me and Hermione and Sage before you get to Harry!"
'Oh, um, don't worry about killing me before you kill those two and Harry,' Sage thinks to herself. 'They're good Gryffindors willing to die for their friend, I'm actually alright just standing over here out of the way.'
Black's repeatedly muttering, "Sage," under his breath, and the girl gets quite scared. Like, she's convinces he didn't kill Pettigrew, but she's pretty damn sure he's not about to hesitate on a fourteen year old girl when he blew up twelve muggles without regret. He looks right at her when he says, "There'll only be one murder here tonight."
"Drama queen," Sage grumbles. Black's grin only widens.
"You didn't care last time," Harry spits. Sage can practically see smoke pouring from his ears. "You didn't mind slaughtering all those muggles to get at Pettigrew- what's the matter? Gone soft in Azkaban?"
"Harry, shut up," Hermione whispers, reaching out to tug on his sleeve.
"HE KILLED MY MUM AND DAD!" Harry bellows, then lunges forward and knocks a fist into Black's jaw. Sage sets to restraining Ron from getting up to fight, while Harry scuffles with Black on the floor and Hermione prances around them, trying to get Harry away from the man. But then Black is hovering over Harry, a hand around his neck, and Hermione's backed off with a bleeding lip and a bruised wrist. Harry's turning blue.
So Sage does the first Gryffindor thing she's done all night: she gets up and aims a swift kick at Sirius Black's head, and he topples over sideways.
"Bloody hell, Sage," she hears Ron echo from behind her. She beams at him, thinking Black's out for the count, but then there's an arm around her middle and the smell is overpowering. Harry's pointing his wand at the both of them.
"I'm sorry," the prisoner whispers to her. She stops fighting out of pure confusion
She turns her head a little and asks, "Why?"
"Sage, get away from him," Harry instructs calmly.
"Going to kill me, Harry?"
"You killed my parents."
"I don't deny it-" (Sage might vomit if she has to smell Eau de Thirteen-Years-in-Prison any longer) "- but if you'd let me tell the whole story..."
Harry's livid, and Sage thinks the poor lad's going to pop a vein. "The whole story? You sold them out to Voldemort! What more is there?"
"You'll regret it if you don't listen, you'll regret-"
Then, like an ebony miracle, Conner's swooping into the room. He perches on Sage's shoulder and starts trying to peck at Black's eyes. In the confusion, Sage breaks free from Black's grip. But then Crookshanks is leaping at him, he falls backwards, and the cat finds a spot on Black's chest.
"Fuck's sake, Conner," Sage grumbles, scratching her finger through the feathers at his neck.
Then, there's footsteps downstairs. Hermione screams out.
"Help- Sirius Black- upstairs- quick!"
Sage can't believe her eyes when the man comes barrelling through the doorway. But as she lurches forward to hide behind him, Lupin disarms Harry and Hermione. Sage shudders to a stop, as the escaped prisoner calls, "Remus!"
"Sirius?"
"Professor Lupin?"
"Hermione?"
"Rocky!"
Lupin shoots Sage a look. She shrugs; she just wanted to be involved. Black seems amused at this too. She supposes he saw the film before he became a mass-murderer. Lupin reaches down to pull Sirius to his feet, and they hug like two brothers reuniting. Well, they sort of are. But Lupin's spent the better part of thirteen years hating Sirius's guts, according to Harry. Sage wonders what's changed.
"I can't believe this," Hermione breathes. Sage turns to her; everybody else turns to her. Then, Hermione screams, "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!"
"God, 'Mione," Sage mutters, rubbing her ear.
"I didn't tell anyone!" Hermione shouts, "I've been covering for you all year!"
Lupin had pleading eyes that made Sage's heart wrench. "Hermione, please, if you'd let me explain-"
"I- I don't understand," Sage whispers, stepping backwards from Lupin, backwards from Black.
"We trusted him," Harry spits, "And he's been his friend all this time-"
"They haven't been friends," Sage says desperately, wanting to trust this man that betrayed her father but earned her respect. "They're not friends. Right, Professor?" After a moment of silence, she asks again, desperately, "Right?"
Remus looks at the girl "I- Sage, it's not like you think. I haven't been Sirius's friends for twelve years-"
She snaps backward, part disgusted and part confused. "You- you're friends with him? What- why-?"
"Sage," Hermione says harshly. "Sage, get back here. Please."
"I just want to know what's going on, Hermione!"
"He's been sneaking Black into the castle, he wants Harry dead too- he's a werewolf, Sage."
Harry and Ron's reactions are immediate. They wince backwards and give hateful eyes to Remus. Sage chokes down an awful noise. She can't see what Black looks like, probably because of the layer of grime and grit all over his face. Or maybe because he has this permanently angry look on his face. Lupin's features change ever-so-slightly, a small wince of pain glances over his features. But he keeps his calm collect and gives Hermione a cool smile. "Not up to your usual scratch, Hermione. Only one out of three. I haven't been helping Sirius into the castle and I certainly don't want Harry dead..." -Sage braces herself for the words- "But I won't deny that I'm a werewolf."
Ron tries to move backward away from Remus, but instead twinges his leg and cries out in pain. Both Sage and Remus make to move towards him, but he spits out, "Get away from me, werewolf!"
Sage gives him a look filled with daggers and flames. Conner's boding presence adds to the effect of it. "Let me look at your leg, you're obviously in pain-"
"How- Why aren't you freaking out about this?"
"I wasn't raised a prejudiced arsehole," she snaps, and decides that after that remark that she's not going to help him. So she turns to Hermione.
Lupin's peering down at them all. "When did you work it out, Hermione?"
"Professor Snape's lesson on werewolves," Hermione cuts in. Sage nods. She thinks about the grease-ball and grinds her teeth. Lupin and Black seems to be doing the same thing beside her.
"He'll be delighted to know that his lesson achieved what he hoped it would," Lupin replies coolly. "Was it the lunar charts that gave it away? Or my boggart during our lesson in the staff room-?"
"Both," says Hermione in a small voice that's very un-Hermione.
"You really one of the most clever witches of this age, Hermione," says Lupin.
"I'm not," Hermione responds. "If I'd been a bit smarter, I'd have told everyone."
"What good would have come from that?" Sage pipes up. "All the teachers already know, right?"
Ron scoffs, "Dumbledore purposely employed a werewolf?"
"It was probably more to do with the fact that he's a really decent teacher, rather than the fact he's a really decent werewolf," Sage suggests. She's sure Black laughs this time, so she shoots him a glare.
Lupin begins, "I had to work to gain certain teachers' trust, seeing as they were rather prejudiced-"
"And they were wrong to believe you!" Harry yells. "Because you've been helping him this whole time!"
Sage doesn't know what to think. On one hand, there's Remus Lupin, who she's sure would never hurt a fly. On the other hand, there's Remus Lupin, the werewolf school bully who would do anything to get his friends back from their post-war fates, and abandoned her father when he needed him the most. She's confused. And Sage's don't do well in confusing situations. Her breathing gets quicker as the others speak. Her shoulders shake and her knees get weak, and Black is the only one who seems to notice. The last thing she hears before she collapses is Lupin saying, "an animagus by the name of Peter Pettigrew", and she feels a little smug. Then her eyes roll back, and she feels a pair of calloused, grubby hands catch under her arms before she hits the floor.
author note from ya girl clo: gif at the top is sages reaction to basically anything that happens ever. also i'm never writing a chapter this long again it takes so friggin long to do the indents. peace and love boys n girls ✌️