Author's Note: A fluffy little diversion for Corvus while she's recuperating in the hospital. May this help to give you the strength you need. 3
I was going to do this as a one-shot, but it's getting a bit too long for me to keep it as one chapter. Expect two to four chapters at the very most.
Chapter 1: In the Woods, There Be Monsters
Severus Snape scowled at the dog-eared map in his hands. He'd been traveling for more than five hours and his feet were growing increasingly sore.
"Damn Potter and his damnable friends!" he hissed angrily, casting another Cushioning Charm on his dragonhide boots.
It had been three weeks since Professors Potter, Granger, Longbottom, and...Quidditch Commenter Weasley...were supposed to have returned from their yearly camping trip to the Forest of Dean. Severus wouldn't have worried about it normally, but Minerva had insisted, as the school year was about to start in a few short weeks. As Headmistress, she couldn't leave Hogwarts due to the heavy summer workload in preparing for the incoming students in the fall, but Severus Snape, Potions master and self-professed shut-in had no such duties. Though he'd grumbled and griped, he finally relented. Which was why he was standing on a dusty dirt trail that was more of a deer track than a proper pathway looking for a group of former students that had always given him no end of trouble.
It was nearly dark by the time he'd oriented himself on the map, so Severus reluctantly set down his pack and began setting up camp. He cast a few wards out of habit, but he wasn't worried about being discovered. So far, other than a few birds and a skittish fox, he hadn't come across another living soul.
Just as Severus finished setting up a nice little sausage roast on his modest campfire, a terrible thrashing noise echoed through the forest. Severus was immediately alert, his wand drawn as he extinguished the fire. Wearing all black had its perks, and he melted into the darkness of the forest, his eyes slowly adjusting to the lack of light. The sound grew closer, then further away, and Severus found himself growing irritated instead of unnerved. His sausage would probably be cold by the time the damn thing showed itself. Finding this thought unbearable, he began to slowly make his way towards the noise.
He stopped abruptly as he approached a large clearing, its contents lit up by the waxing moonlight as though it were midday. It was obvious from the snapped and broken trees that it wasn't a natural clearing, though, and the heaving sides of the creature that stood, its body largely encased in something dark and glittering, made it obvious exactly what had caused it.
The creature was about the size of a tiger, but it stood taller than he did, with a long, horse-like face and impossibly long, tufted ears that fanned out and flattened as it snarled and snapped at the dark thing that twisted around it like a smoky snake. Its body was long and serpentine, and it appeared to be covered with dark downy fur that shone like a metallic oil slick as its tiny clawed paws clicked together and dug at the earth below it. The tail was long with pontes plates at the end that twitched and reshaped into a spiked club, which thrashed around, splintering a nearby stump as the creature bellowed and screamed in an almost human-like manner.
"Is that...an Anoroth?" he whispered, his eyes widening in shock. Even in a world where centaurs and unicorns were well-documented, the Anoroth was supposed to be mythical- the sort of thing that idle wizards told tall tales about after one too many firewhiskeys. Legend had it that their feathery fur and nail clippings could enhance potions without changing how they reacted in the body, and kept them fresh for far longer than normally possible. Many crackpot "cures" bragged that they had fossilized Anoroth traces mixed in, but Severus had always known they were bullshit.
The creature's large, slitted eyes darted over to where Severus was standing in the darkness and for a moment, Severus froze. The Anoroth opened its mouth, revealing three rows of serrated teeth, its long, notched tongue testing the air for a moment before the black smoky thing that surrounded it seemed to squeeze against its body and it began to struggle once more.
On one hand, Severus knew that the Anoroth was supposed to be incredibly dangerous- its tail could slice through steel and its rotating rows of teeth were known to tear into its prey like a meat grinder. But he also knew that the creature was being harmed- the side of the Anoroth was dark with bright blue blood, and he knew that it was weakening, which would not do.
For Severus also knew that dead Anoroth lost their potency. Similar to a unicorn, the creatures could choose to gift their feathery fur, their nails or teeth (which were similar to a shark's in how quickly they regrew), but forcing materials was said to be inviting death upon oneself.
Severus only had a moment to think about what he was about to do before he sped forward into the clearing, his wand raised.
When the Anoroth saw him, its ears perked up and its hackles raised as it hissed menacingly at him.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said, trying to keep his customary disdain from his voice.
The deep, thrumming purr-growl and bared teeth he received in return was not encouraging.
"I'm going to free you," Severus continued, keeping his eyes on the flashing blade-tail and using a soft, even voice. "I promise to only hurt the spell-construct that's trapped you."
The creature's eyes were still slitted, but it's mouth closed slowly and it regarded him silently.
"It's as I thought," Severus said, casting a diagnostic spell on the smoky mass that encircled the creature, pinning its wings down at its sides. "Odd, it's similar to the spell the Dark Lord used on Nagini…"
His neck scar ached as he said the name, but he ignored it.
Making an exaggerated backwards "S" and spoke the words to the counter-spell. "Stellus Exitus Ventilabus!"
With a sound like grass shattering, cracks of light appeared around the darkness and the smoke dispersed into nothingness. Severus frowned as he heard what sounded like a scream of fury from very far away, but he didn't have much time to think about it, as the Anoroth was shaking its long neck back and forth and coo-humming with what sounded like happiness. Impossibly large wings unfurled from both sides, nearly filling the clearing as it stretched them and beat them slowly up and down, sending a shockwave of wind around its body.
Large, amber eyes opened and turned to stare at him, the slits of pupil growing round as they stared deeply into his eyes. Severus found himself stumbling at the sheer magical presence of the freed beast. Power rolled off her in waves and he had to force himself not to gape at her in wonder. He watched in stunned silence as her wound knitted back into whole flesh in mere seconds.
She is...magnificent.
Though he didn't know how he knew, he could tell that she was female. He dared to blink and when his eyes opened only a fraction of a second later, she'd moved silently to stand only inches away from him. Rather than fearing for his life, Severus looked up at her with wide eyes, raising his hands to cup the long, soft sides of her muzzle. She lowered her head and pressed her forehead gently against his.
Severus knew he should flinch and run away, but he found himself frozen. Rather than feeling fear, though, he was filled with a warmth and elation that he'd never felt before. Her ears swiveled and fanned out like miniature peacock displays on either side of her head and she coo-hummed with a pure joy that made Severus crack the tiniest hint of a smile.
"So, then, now that's taken care of, I'll bet you're hungry, eh?" Severus surprised himself at the affable words that escaped his mouth.
"Nrrrrrppp!" He received an overly-enthusiastic head bump in reply.
Lighting the tip of his wand, Severus led the way back to his campsite. A part of him wondered if he was slowly going mad. After all, legend did say that the Anoroth was known to attack humans, but for some reason, Severus couldn't bring himself to feel suspicious of the creature's intent.
The campsite was undisturbed, but Severus wasn't taking any chances. He easily doubled the strength of the wards so that neither he nor his new guest would be easy to find, even by other wizards or witches. Something told Severus that he had stumbled into something far more insidious than a bunch of slackers skivving off on their duties.
The spell that he'd seen surrounding the Anoroth was worrying. Not only did it dredge up a number of unwanted memories, but he'd been the one tasked with creating the spell to keep Nagini safe, and he'd taught it to the Dark Lord in the strictest confidence, due to the despot's increasingly pronounced paranoia near the end of the war.
The spell was never made to contain such a large creature, but it had certainly kept the Anoroth from flying. Severus stoked the fire and resumed cooking the sausages on autopilot. His mind was so focused on increasingly grim thoughts that it took him a moment to realize that both of the ends of the skewers he'd used to dangle the sausages over the fire were now engulfed by a somewhat smug-looking Anoroth.
"Shoo!" Severus shouted, pulling the sticks from the creature's mouth with a wet popping noise. "Those weren't even fully cooked!"
"Nrk nrk nrk!" clicked the Anoroth in reply, moving her head from side to side as though mimicking speech.
"Bloody menace," Severus muttered, Scourgifying the skewers and reloading them with frozen sausages. "You'd better give me some feathers and claw clippings of your own free will, or I'll stuff you and give you as a start-of-term gift to the DADA professor!"
Her expression was bored and he almost could have sworn that she shrugged at him before she yawned, exposing the three rows of teeth and turned three times around before lying down, extending one wing to rest her head on like a pillow.
Severus found that she was rather sneaky after she stole five more sausages from under his nose. Finally, he enlarged one sausage after cooking it and tossed it onto a plate for her to tear into. This seemed to do the trick, and she quickly curled up and fell fast asleep.
Severus snorted at the soft snores escaping her muzzle, but enjoyed an uneventful supper. Then, he covered her with a large blanket, though he told himself that he was being silly.
His dreams were warm and soft and he could feel those amber eyes watching him, protecting him.
"I can't just call you 'hey you' or 'Anoroth,' he said the next morning at breakfast. The Anoroth was in the middle of devouring a giant bowl filled with scrambled eggs, but she paused mid gulp and made a happy noise that Severus hoped was one of agreement. "And so, since I have absolutely no sense of creativity, and your eyes are your most prominent feature, I've decided to call you...Amber."
The creature paused and regarded him with skeptical eyes and a snort as if to say is that really the best you could come up with?
"What, then, would you like me to call you Sausage-breath?" Severus replied sardonically. "How about Toothy? Spot? Maybe you'd prefer to be called Glutton, hmm?"
The Anoroth snorted and bared her fangs.
"I see. Then Amber it is. At least until you learn to bloody talk." Severus turned away with a mild look on his face and made a show of doing the breakfast dishes, but he almost expected to find himself pounced upon by the deadly creature.
When he turned to face her again, she was halfway through with the salmon he'd placed on her plate earlier, her expression one of happily sated hunger. She even had the decency to look embarrassed when she let out a decidedly fishy belch.
It was only when Severus finished his own breakfast that he found himself surrounded by a large, purring Anoroth. Somehow, the late August chill in the air could not compete with the thrumming warmth of such a magnificent creature. With a dextrous, clawed paw, she plucked a handful of feathery down from where it grew over her chest. They regrew almost immediately, but Severus could see the oil-slick sheen of the feathers as they fell into his pale hands. Conjuring up a flask, he gently placed the offering inside and sealed it immediately to preserve the freshness of the gift. Then, Amber ran a claw over one cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. She angled her head over the flask that Severus had conjured up, dripping a few precious drops of her blood into it before the wound closed up and healed.
"I can only imagine that this is goodbye, then?" Severus asked, finding himself strangely choked up about the prospect of being left alone again.
She shook her head.
"Krrrrk," she replied solemnly, nipping the hem of his sleeve gently with her teeth and pulling him towards a path to their left.
"Are there...more of you?" Severus knew this had to have been a distinct possibility, but he had hoped to be wrong.
She nodded. "Krrrrr."
Severus knew he should continue looking for his original quarry, but he couldn't bear to leave such a rare and obviously intelligent creature to fend for herself, especially if there were others trapped due to a spell that he'd created.
"I have to think about it." Severus turned to the tent and began the process of breaking camp.
She waited patiently behind him, but he knew they both already knew what his answer would be.
"Very well," he said, once he was ready. "Let's find your family."