Second... (well, first, technically) chappie up!
Dark eyes watch calmly from the fringe of the forest as he regards the empty clearing that the girl had just charmed to hide their tent. He can't see them, of course, their magic prevents anyone from seeing them, but he has other senses. He can smell the three humans in their little tent; can practically taste the scent of bacon in the air. Of course, the three of them aren't actually cooking bacon in their tent, but someone once did, and the lingering scent makes his mouth water. Oh, to eat. After three days running after their scent he finally feels the ache in his stomach.
He can hear their soft, murmuring voices and crouches forward to hear more clearly:
"C'mon, Hermione! I'm starving!" The voice is male, deep but with a hint of lingering adolescence and a Devonshire accent. He can smell the Weasley blood thick in the air around the tent and assumes it's owned by the redheaded clan.
"Yes, well, Ronald, you're always starving, so I suppose you'll just have to wait, won't you?" Female, young, refined voice, but he can't get a fix on her blood, Must not be a wizarding family; maybe a… what was the word Riddle used? Mudblood? In any case, wizard blood didn't run in her veins. Hormones, however, were rampant and the amount of lust circulating in the vicinity of the tent makes him smile.
He chuckles from his position in the bushes, reveling in the normalcy of their conversation. Relationships were all the same, no matter the circumstances, no matter the topic.
A memory-flash of a twist of hair spiraling over a smooth shoulder. A wink thrown over said shoulder. A sudden pain in his chest. He shudders and claps a huge hand on the scarred tissue over his heart.
He massages the skin with shaking fingers, mild discomfort spelled in the curves of his eyebrows, the painful sheen in his eyes.
"Last time, mate, last time," he mumbles with renewed focus on his mission. He directs his useless words at the spot over his chest, promising himself that he's going to finish this, once and for all.
He rises fluidly from his crouch, standing at his full height and shaking out his limbs, warming his muscles. The forest jumps around him at his movement, having become accustomed to his stillness in the past hours. Small birds spring from the bushes around him and a deer bounds away through the trees.
He rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, breathing slowly out his nose. He closes his eyes in concentration. His eyelids flutter once, twice, and without any sort of warning he disappears into the brush like a trap door has been opened beneath his feet.
A bird caws in the renewed silence and bushes rustle as a black dog strides out of the brush. He trots over to a tiny stream and cranes his neck at the flow, inspecting himself in its reflection. He has no need to, of course, as he has assumed this particular shape far too many times to count. Still, he enjoys his own reflection, and it's a useful tool incase he needs to tweak something.
He is a beautiful dog, big and heavily muscular under his shining black coat. Some things, he supposes as the sunlight exaggerates the dips and curves of his impressive musculature, cannot be changed. As he contemplates his image, he considers quickly that any dog out in the wild wouldn't look so clean as he. He rocks his shoulders like dogs do to rid their coats of water and his shiny fur grows coarse and ratty, his heavy muscles weaning and streamlining, exposing ribs. His ear has bites taken out of it, making his face seem lopsided and cheerful.
He rolls in the dirt by the stream until his fur stands up on end in some places and his black fur is made lighter by the dust it's covered in. His tongue lolls and he wheezes a laugh as he regards himself in the sluggish water.
He looks, well, cute.
"Uh, Hermione? Ron? Could you… come here for a bit?"
"Uh-uh. Wer e'thing."
Hermione wrestles a loose lock of hair back into her ponytail and shoots a look at Ron, chastising him both for speaking with his mouth full and for being rude with tight lips and stern eyes. Ron gulps down his oatmeal, eyes wide, and pops out of his seat like a piece of toast, Hermione close behind him.
"Comin'!" Ron arrives beside Harry and skids to a stop, throwing out an arm to stop Hermione before she gets any closer to the thing that's currently sitting outside their tent, staring at them.
Hermione, predictably, gasps at his attempt to protect her and shoves at his shoulder.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, you two, it's just a dog."
Ron throws up his arms, "A bloody enormous dog! What if it's got rabies or something? That thing could kill us!"
"How did it even get past the wards, Hermione?" Harry questions, his eyes never leaving the brownish-black mess in front of them.
"The wards only protect against wizards. Not dogs. Honestly, don't you two know anything about wards? At all?"
Ron is suddenly torn between being mindful of the dog and being mindful she doesn't see the tightness in his trousers. He can't think of anything to say back to her when she talks like that. It's bloody unfair, really. He knows he should be angry, retaliate or something. But really, it wasn't fair at all.
"Well, still…" he struggles though the loss of blood to his brain, "What if it's got rabies?"
Hermione considers the dog for a second. Its ears perk up when it sees her watching, but it doesn't seem threatening.
"Look, Ronald, it would've attacked us by now if it had rabies. Besides, it's kind of… cute."
Harry and Ron turn in synchronization to stare at her in amazement. Hermione call something cute? It was so…. girlish of her, so not Hermione.
"Are you alright, Hermione?" Harry asks, "Had enough to eat today?"
"Yes, why?"
He shakes his head viciously, "Oh, no reason." And looks away hurriedly.
Hermione crosses her arms, "What? You two don't think he's cute? Look at him."
And they do. The dog is big, blackish-brownish, with very, very dirty matted fur that sticks out in all directions. It stares at them in a cheerful manner, tongue lolling to one side, and it's got a bite taken out of one of its ears.
It is, startlingly, very cute.
Unknown POV
He approaches the first human as it's about to step out of the tent, possibly to stand guard or something. Actually, he knows it's time for them to change guards because he's been watching them for the past seven hours. He brings the scent of a downy white feather to the forefront of his mind and allows the boy's scent to circulate in his brain. Yes, this is the one, he is certain. The Potter boy stands in front of him, eyes wide at the sight of him.
He settles directly in front of the entrance as to prevent anyone from going in or out and regards the Potter boy with mild disinterest.
The Potter boy calls back into the tent for his friends and he hears a rustling as they make it to the entrance. First the tall, skinny Weasley, then…
The breath whooshes out of his lungs as the unidentifiable girl he had heard earlier runs straight into the redhead's elbow. It's the hair that gets him, wild and frizzing out of control, twisting about her face in a way that's so exactly right it makes his teeth ache. But his gaze drifts to her eyes and the moment is lost, gone forever. They're brown, ordinary, not the blue-bottle color he was expecting. The face is wrong too, the figure too lean, but that hair. It drudges up memories he'd rather not think about.
He realizes with a bit of a shock that they've been talking this whole time, about him, too.
"How did it even get past the wards, Hermione?"
The responding answer is sharp and biting, and he laughs a bit when he smells the Weasley's reaction to her bossiness. He knows exactly what that tone of voice did to him when it was directed at his stupidity, so very long ago, and he sympathizes. Sort of. The hormones make him a little sick to his stomach, actually.
"Well…still. What if it's got rabies?" Weasley insists, but he can see how hard it is for the boy to formulate a sentence to the girl. Especially, he snickers internally, when one's got one's blood rushing places one doesn't want them to go in front of said girl.
Ah, to be young once more.
Then the girl turns her eyes on him. He perks his ears and carefully rearranges his features from mocking to cheerful. He nudges a bit at her mind too, just to… secure her affections, as it were.
"He's kind of… cute." She proclaims and his tail thumps once on the ground in his pleasure. Right. Good. Phew, fucking knew adorable was the way to go.
The boys stare at her, jaws open in surprise, and he can't help but think that maybe he pushed her a bit too far. Perhaps he should've toned it down a bit.
But, to his surprise, it works like a charm and soon the girl walks up to him and pats his head. He plays it up a little, leaning into her hand and wagging his tail forcefully. His long pink tongue sneaks out to lick her and she giggles, cooing at him and scratching his fur.
"C'mon," she says, looking at the boys, "Look at him. He's friendly." She scratches behind his ears, "Who's a good doggy?"
He yaps in affirmation and rolls over onto his back, exposing his belly and looking upside down at the two boys who are just approaching to play with the doggy.
That's right, suckers. Play with the cute puppy.
And he revels in his success as he rolls in the cool grass.
Later that night…..
The night is still and quiet outside, the tent is dark. Crickets chirp loudly in the grass and an owl hoots once, twice.
Black eyes snap open, almost glowing in their darkness.
He raises his head from the floor silently, his ears alert and focused. In this light his form has lost its shaggy, adorable appearance. In the darkness, curled beside the foot of Hermione's bed, he looks dangerous. His internal clock tells him that they'll be changing the guard soon. The time is now.
A paw touches the ground. He's walking so slowly that his muscles ache but not a single noise escapes him. The ground is cold under his paws but firm, and his eyes are trained on the Potter boy's bed. He briefly considers how he'll pull this off: Let the boy scream once so that the others hear him. Take your time getting to the door so that they find a way to keep you captive. Take any blows they throw at you.
Step by step, he reaches it. He prepares himself.
A tent flap flutters.
Footsteps.
Good. Weasley's coming in.
He rears into human form and clamps an enormous hand down on the Potter boy's neck. The boy wakes instantly, shrieking once before he can breathe no longer.
The girl jumps from her bed, a stick in her hand, and the Weasley bursts into the room, roaring.
He lifts Potter easily and holds him in front of his body, choking him with a heavy forearm.
"Everybody stop right there!" he shouts, his rich voice booming through the small room. "I'll kill him, I swear I will." The accent he has tried so hard to cover is thick through his lips and garbles the simple words. He won't, really, but the important thing is that the humans believe him.
The girl says something and a flash of blue light envelopes his arm. He stares at her in the stunned silence that ensues.
"You- I- that was a body-binding spell!" she exclaims, flabbergasted.
He nearly rolls his eyes, but he has other things to do, more important things to finish. She squeaks in fear as he pushes her aside.
He starts to walk to the door, slowly of course, dragging Potter's struggling body with him when Weasley steps directly in front of him.
He nearly laughs. As if you could stop me. But he pretends to be stalled and panicked.
"How the hell did you get in here?" The Weasley boy yells loudly, and he catches a movement in the reflection of Weasley's bright blue eyes and startles. The girl is standing behind him, a huge tome held in her small hands. A book he notes, that's new. He cringes a little bit at the impending pain of such a heavy novel but remembers his plan.
THUNK
He shouts in pain as something connects forcefully with his skull, bowling him forward. He struggles to reach the entrance as his vision darkens. In his last moments, he imagines a soft face and fluttering lashes.
He vaguely registers the pain in his knees as he falls to the floor, and his world goes black.