You know what's difficult? Thinking of a name for a house elf that would also imply they're a citizen of Lumpy Space and which isn't Brad or Melissa. So I present you with my lamest creation to date, Lumpitt the house elf. Seriously. I spent too long trying to figure out what to call a very minor character. You say 'detail obsessed perfectionist' like it's a bad thing. I'm not happy with it but there ya go, there's only so long I can keep agonizing over what to call LSP's dad's elf who will be briefly mentioned in all of one scene.
Theories! Expectations! Throw them all out of t'window, I'm going completely off script with what you're expecting from the in-universe canon stuff. What fun would a story be if you already knew exactly what was going to happen to the characters? And what point in putting them in an AU if they're just going to play through the same over-done scripts again and again just wearing different outfits? Plus the mystery is only part solved here.
Content warning: reveals, Slytherin sneakiness, sex.
Ithiel Pendragon surveyed the scene before him with a scowl of displeasure. There was his daughter asleep like she'd just fallen down and passed out where she stood, there was her best friend draped across their lounge floor like an Abadeer-skin rug also asleep and snoring like she had no intention of ever waking again. They were surrounded by empty firewhiskey bottles and dirty crockery. There was even an axe shaped guitar of some kind lovingly laid across the sofa like its owner had been very careful that it shouldn't get damaged. Ithiel had had enough. No more all-night parties, no matter how they silence-charmed the room. No more curls of long, ink-black hair clogging up his shower, no more laundry room full of bras and panties or mysterious extra vanities covered in make up and hair tonics and Merlin knew what else. He was done with letting the Abadeer heir board with them for no good reason. With a frown he went to the window and released his owl into the morning air.
"Take the letter to Abadeer Senior, Galahad." he instructed the bird, and it swooped away with the parchment gripped in its talons without a backwards glance. The letter simply said;
Abadeer,
Your daughter has trespassed on our hospitality long enough. Please be so kind as to collect her before gossip begins to spread.
I. G. H. Pendragon.
Gossip was already spreading, though, and it was mostly thanks to his own daughter and wife. Something about someone stalking her at home, about a ghost or a vampire or the ghost of a vampire, he hadn't been paying attention to Lydia's rambling explanation. Of course when the girl had first arrived claiming there was something wrong at her father's home they'd been more than happy to put her up for a while, just until she'd contacted her paramour and located more suitable lodgings. But it seemed the young Healer apprentice she'd been engaged in a romantic exchange with had disappeared off the face of the planet and for Marceline's sake Ithiel was privately glad. Hunson would not take kindly to his daughter being entangled with a mudblood, especially not a low-born working class one. If this Sugar girl had been the daughter of royalty or titled nobility he just might have overlooked her poor genetics but from what he'd been able to gather she was the eldest of a bastard, fatherless brood who lived in one of the run down warrens of muggle degradation that serviced a coal mine. The Pendragons might be almost as poor as Weasleys now that they'd lost his father's money but he'd be damned before he'd cheapen their honour by working for a living like some common halfblood with no dowry or inheritance. There was no way Hunson Abadeer, richer than a king and with twice the influence of a Malfoy, would allow his heir to rut with a penniless mudblood. Still, Ithiel would have taken the shame of being tangentially linked to a muggleborn if it got Marceline off his sofa.
"Lumpitt." he ordered, and in an instant his house elf was by his side. "Wake the girls and serve them breakfast, ease their hangovers and make sure Abadeer is fit to receive guests. She needs to be dressed and clean, not stinking like a brewery. But do not tell her that I have summoned her father."
"Yes, Master." Lumpitt responded meekly with a low bow. Ithiel strode from the room and back to his desk to draft another letter to the Wizengammot about next month's Gringotts hearing. With any luck her just might be able to get his fortune back.
...
"Anyway that's when I just apparated out of there. You understand, right Mrs Sugar?"
"I... maybe? Your father doesn't take your security concerns seriously and your friend's father was sick of you sleeping on his sofa? So instead of staying and talking it through with them you, uh, disappeared out of the air and reappeared here." she tried.
"Yeah, pretty much. And look, I tried to firecall Bonnie- it's where you put your head in a magic fire and talk to someone- but I guess she's been working or whatever or still mad at me because we sorta had a bit of a fight. But, uh, look can I just wait for her to get home? And I'll explain it all to her direct. I promise I won't be any trouble."
It wasn't that Mrs Sugar minded her daughter's strange witch friends dropping by. She even rather liked those boys Finn and Jake who'd come by a few times, they seemed wholesome and kindhearted. But Marceline Abadeer was another type altogether. She was quite tall for a girl, slender and athletic looking like she took pains to keep herself in shape. And she had eyes that seemed just that bit too intense, eyes that seemed to stand out from her keen features and saw too much about a person at a glance. And there was something about the way those eyes had lit up for a split-second when she'd opened the door then darkened when she realised Bonnie wasn't there. The older woman didn't quite understand what emotion had lit Marceline's eyes for that moment but by instinct she didn't trust it. Still, it wasn't like she could just lie to her daughter's friend. And if she didn't know already then maybe they weren't even so close, maybe this Marceline girl was more of an acquaintance.
"Bonnie moved out almost a month ago, she said she needed to be somewhere closer to work. I suppose she found a place around Diagon Alley or somewhere in London."
"Do you have her new address?"
"I have a forwarding address for her mail, she said she needs to fix the place up before she receives visitors. But if you go to the hospital I'm sure she'll still be there, she works long hours."
Marceline thanked her girlfriend's mother and woodenly allowed herself to be shown to the door. No, Bonnie wouldn't just fucking move away without telling her, right? She'd always assumed they'd get a place together eventually, some nice bright cottage somewhere that they could fill with light and laughter, somewhere that was the direct opposite of Moor House and the atmosphere of permanent mourning that had pervaded the Abadeer ancestral home since the night her mother had died. Was this a break up? Had Bonnie just left and assumed Marceline would know what it meant? And then there was that same sensation of eyes following her movements that she'd not felt in all the time she'd been crashing at Lyds' place and out of panic Marceline apparated right there from the Sugars' doorstep, not even caring if the neighbors saw.
She reappeared with a pop in the main reception of St Mungos and with her bad mood rising Marceline stormed to the front desk.
"I need to see Healer Sugar." she announced impatiently to the bumbling bald man behind the desk.
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid that won't be possible."
"Don't bullshit me, my name is Marceline Abadeer, yes Abadeer, and I insist you get her down here right now!"
"Miss, I don't know why you-"
"Are you deaf or just stupid? Get Bonnibel Sugar here now or so help me Merlin-"
"Healer Sugar left our employment a month ago." a new voice announced before she could pull out her wand and hex the stupid receptionist into a thousand steaming pieces. Marceline whirled and found herself face to face with the huge Healer that Bonnie had been shadowing. He was easily over seven feel tall and obviously had some giant blood in his family somewhere but Marcy didn't have time to be intimidated by him. Bonnie had left the hospital? No, that was her dream job. Something must have happened and Marceline abruptly realised that she'd been so caught up in her own drama that she'd never considered that maybe the reason Bonnie hadn't contacted her was because something had happened. It felt like a strange mix between her blood running cold and being slapped in the face.
"Why?" she managed to croak out.
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss out staffing policies. If Miss Sugar hasn't explained the situation to you herself then the conclusion I draw is that she doesn't want you to know." he replied coolly.
"Bullshit. I want to know why she quit. Something happened to her, something's been going on with both of us since graduation and this is part of it, I know it. Tell me. What happened?" It came out as a snarl but Marceline couldn't find the energy to care. She was tired of everyone thinking she was paranoid, tired of unexplained things happening around her. And now Bonnie was missing, because she refused to believe the redhead would just quit her dream job for no reason, and nobody was doing a damn thing about it. Obviously this halfbreed Healer wasn't going to tell her anything and before he'd even drawn breath to reply Marceline turned on her heel and strode away. If he wouldn't tell her anything then she'd go to someone who would, someone she'd successfully intimidated plenty of times who had to take her seriously. She closed her eyes, concentrated on the Auror's office at the Ministry of Magic and felt the squeeze of apparation pull her away.
...
"I can't tell you."
"Finn, I'll break your fucking legs."
"I might lose my job! I can't!"
His round, earnest face was gazing at her imploringly and Marceline rolled her eyes. There were some drawbacks to relying on a Gryffindor for information and most of those drawbacks had to do with their annoying code of morals. If Finn's stupid oath to uphold his Auror's Code prevented him from telling her what she needed to know then Marceline would just have to Slytherin it out of him. How hard could it be?
"So, I guess I'll just see you at the surprise party then?" she started carefully. Finn's brow creased and he leaned further across his cluttered desk to hear her over the general din of the Auror's office.
"What surprise party?" he asked suspiciously.
"The one we were gonna throw for Jake and Lady's engagement?"
"They got engaged?" Finn yelped in shock.
"Yeah, last week! Jake didn't ask you to be best man? Oh. I mean, I'm sure he'll ask you at the party. He wouldn't ask Tiffany, for sure." Marcy nodded. She was keeping all of her breath-holding completely internal, waiting for him to get so distracted and outraged at his brother's pretend betrayal that he forgot why she was there. Come on you brave idiot, take the bait-
"So wait, are they having the party in the cabin? I thought Bonnie didn't want anyone to come out there?"
Atta boy. Pfft. Gryffindors.
"The cabin?" Marceline prompted him with an expression of innocent confusion.
"Yeah, her great-uncle's cabin? I mean, it won't be tonight, right? They wouldn't be dumb enough to hold it tonight, not after she was b- hey!"
"After she was what? Finn! Come on, I swear I'm not above breaking your legs!"
But he was standing up with an angry flush on his cheeks, clearly pissed that she'd managed to weasel even a little information out of him.
"You better get out of my office before I arrest you. Go on, just go. No wonder Bonnie didn't tell you about the accident."
"What accident?"
"Out. Now. Honest to Merlin, I will arrest you."
Marceline didn't wait to find out if he really would, she was already out of the door and hurrying along the corridor to the elevators. She needed the hall of records, she needed to look up an address. Because Martyn Gumbol had been Bonnie's great-uncle and he was famous enough to be on a chocolate frog card, Marceline remembered collecting him when she'd been small. Some famous potioneer or something, apparently Bonnie's mostly muggle family did turn out the occasional brilliant witch or wizard every couple of generations which explained the redhead herself. And the location of his cabin would be a matter of public record. All she had to do was sneak into the record files and look it up then she could be on her way. The elevator doors closed on the corridor that lead to the Auror's office and hid a slender, tall girl from view. When they opened a few moments later at the hall of records nobody noticed anything but a thick swarm of the interdepartmental paper plane memos swoop out from the elevator. Maybe if they'd looked closely they'd have noticed a fuzzy brown bat hidden among the planes but nobody was paying attention.
...
Gumbol's cabin was little more than a magically reinforced shack in a swamp and somewhere behind all the worry and panic Marceline was furious at Bonnie for quitting her job and moving out here and not telling anyone. But mostly she was just terrified that something awful must have happened to her girlfriend. Finn obviously knew what it was and he knew she'd come out here to be alone and he still hadn't told Marceline why. That could only mean one of two things; either Bonnie had specifically instructed him not to tell her which obviously made her burn with hurt curiosity or it was something bad enough to be legally bound to his Auror's oath. Either possibility caused cold knots of dread to tighten through her chest and Marceline shivered at what that implied. It was getting dark and the twilight made her jumpy; without the benefit of the full moon that had yet to rise or the last warm curls of daylight that had already seeped from the horizon the first part of the evening was also the darkest and being in the middle of an unfamiliar marsh approaching what looked to be an abandoned shack was not how Marceline wanted to spend her night. She went to knock on the ancient wood of the door but was already open and it swung inwards underneath her hand to lead to a dark room beyond. She pulled out her wand and muttered a quick Lumos before entering silently.
"Bonnie?" Marceline asked in a low voice. "You in here? I know something's up and you've been avoiding me. Come on out and we'll talk. Did someone hurt you? Why'd you leave work?"
There was a crash and a mutter from somewhere below her feet and Marcy whipped around, looking for the door that must lead down to the cellar. It was there on the other side of the dilapidated room and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could just make out the low glow of light coming through the cracks between the planks.
"Bon? Come on, it's just me. Are you hurt?"
"Don't come down here!"
Well, that was an improvement at least. Sounded like whatever else was going on Bonnibel was still alive which Marceline belatedly realised was a huge relief to her.
"Why not? I came all this way to find you, aren't you even gonna talk to me?" she called, creeping slowly towards the door.
"Please, just go away! This isn't safe, I- we're done, ok? We're over. I can't see you anymore. Just, leave!"
"Yeah, no. I don't accept. You don't get to just push me away with zero explanation after a ton of weird shit's been going down. I deserve to know what's going on at least, don't I?"
"There's no time! I can't- can't- Marceline, just leave! Now!"
Bonnie's strained voice broke off with a wail of agony and Marcy threw the cellar door open and rushed down the stairs, ready for anything. Except she wasn't. The sight that met her eyes made her stumble in horror and she fell to her knees on the dusty floor of the cellar.
There was a huge metal cage in the centre of the room made from bars thicker than a person's arm. The door was held tight with a heavy padlock and the whole thing gleamed in a familiar and unexpected way in the light of a few charmed candles that hovered in the air. There was only one window and it was barred too, with that same lustrous metal that the cage was made out of. And there in the very middle of the cage, naked as the day she was born, Bonnie twisted with some unspeakable agony.
"Grnn.. no- leave-" she panted between snarls of pain. "Can't stop- don't- Marcy, please!"
Marceline belated realised that the cellar window was at exactly the right height to catch the first rays of the full moon as it rose and the part of her mind that had been responsible for her amazing NEWT level results wondered, why have it at all? Does moonlight control the transformation or just speed it up? If she never goes out under the full moon would it still happen? Or would it be more painful, slower? Is she just trying to get it over with by having a window aligned to the full moon?
Bonnie had fallen to her hands and knees and the noises of pain she made were less and less human. As Marceline watched in morbid fascination her knees and elbows cracked, broke, and rearranged themselves into a different configuration. Skin tore and reformed, hair sprouted, fingers retreated into claws and when the redhead screamed next it didn't stop. Her face simply stretched out into a muzzle full of knife sharp fangs. The scream ended in a howl and the hairs on the back of Marceline's neck stood up, although she distantly wondered why she didn't feel more afraid. Probably because the cage was at least coated in pure silver, like the window and probably the back of the cellar doors too. Bonnie was nothing if not thorough and she'd had weeks to figure out how to keep herself contained.
It only took a few seconds but to Marceline it felt like so much longer, probably to Bonnie too except that her consciousness was lost behind the uncontrollable rage of the beast. And for a heartbeat Marceline locked eyes with the amber gaze of the newly transformed werewolf in front of her before it lunged with a snarl and the whole cage trembled despite the silver.
"Oh Bonnie, what happened to you?" Marcy felt herself whisper in shock.
The wolf fell back from the bars with a yelp of pain as the corrosive silver did its job and it let out a howl of frustration, shaking its head like it was trying to dislodge the scent of the hated metal from its nostrils. Bonnie had designed the cage with typical Ravenclaw efficiency; it was definitely up to the task of holding an adult werewolf so long as it had no real reason to try to break out. And a delicious human standing right there on the other side of the cage was about as good as a reason to break out got. As the wolf rounded for another agonizing assault on the silver bars Marceline tried to gather as much courage around her as she could. This was Bonnie, she wasn't some evil beast and she didn't want to be like this. Mrs Sugar had said her daughter had moved out less than a month earlier, was this her first transformation? Marceline's heart filled with sympathy for her girlfriend as the wolf tried to press its snout through the gap in the bars only to fall back with a yelp at the agony of the silver against its flesh.
"I'm going to look after you. You'll see, you don't need to be afraid." Marcy murmured to the wolf as she slid her wand back up her sleeve. It just whined and snarled in response but that was fine, she hadn't expected anything else. A moment later the werewolf sank its teeth deeply into its own flank in frustration. The human had gone and so had the intoxicating human stink; there was just a stupid brown bat fluttering around outside the hated silver cage and that wasn't even worth killing, it was so small. The silver didn't give it any breathing space at all, even moving too much to mutilate itself was difficult. The wolf did the only thing it could, it sat on its hind quarters, stared out to the full moon illuminating the window in the corner, and howled in melancholy and pain.
...
Of course she'd researched it. The very first thing she'd done after coming around in the hospital to a tearful Billy explaining she'd contracted lycanthropy was to read as much about werewolves as possible before coming to the conclusion that she needed to leave and isolate herself for everyone's safety. Bonnie had also read that she would wake from her first full moon in pain, cold, stiff. She'd brewed as many potions as she could to counter the effects of the transformation although her newly heightened werewolf metabolism meant they wouldn't help for long before her body burned them up. But it seemed that the books had been wrong because the first thing she felt as her mind began to return and she struggled up through the folds of unconsciousness was warmth. She was warm, lying somewhere much softer than the floor of her silver cage. And yes her whole body throbbed with the raw agony of the change but she was surprised at how bearable it was. Most of her books had said that a newly infected werewolf's first change was unusually vicious and agonizing. Then the arms she hadn't even registered were holding her tightened their embrace a little and her eyes shot open.
"Shh, take it easy, dork. You're still recovering, you need to rest."
There were moments in her life that were simply overwhelming. Bonnie wasn't someone who cried easily but sometimes things were impossible to hold in. Years later she'd cry at her mother's funeral. Cry when an older Marceline folded herself down onto one knee and presented her with the most beautiful engagement ring she'd ever seen. Cry when her decades of painful and frustrating research finally paid off and she remained human on a full moon for the first time in almost fifty years. But that morning she was still a new werewolf, still only seventeen and still convinced her life was over because of the crippling disease she'd been cursed with. And Marceline was there, lying right next to her in the cabin's only bed and reaching out to smooth her cheek like she wasn't some horrifying monster-
The tears came. At some point Bonnie realised she'd allowed herself to be tugged back down into a loving embrace and wrapped in sheets that must be layered with an expert warming charm to ease the dull agony in her muscles. She couldn't hold the tears back once they'd begun. They dripped down her face and soaked the pillows and Bonnie shook with the force of her sobs as Marcy held her and murmured comfortingly to her.
"It's ok, it's going to be ok. Did you think I wouldn't love you anymore? You're wrong, I still love you just as much. More. You're the bravest person I ever met, Bon. We're going to get through this together, I'm going to look after you. It's going to be ok."
"I'm so sorry. It happened when I was working, a muggleborn boy was killed. We didn't know what we were dealing with. By the time Finn and the other Aurors rescued me it was too late, it had bitten me. They killed the werewolf but I'm still cursed. I'm sorry." Bonnie whispered around her shameful tears.
"It's ok, you have nothing to be sorry about. You were scared. I understand, I'd have been scared too. But if this was the other way around, if I was bitten, you wouldn't abandon me, right?" Marcy replied softly. She wiped the tears away from the cheek she could reach and gently tilted Bonnie's chin up until their eyes met. Marceline tried to push as much honesty, as much love and tenderness as she possibly could into her gaze. She'd had all night to think about it while the wolf raged below her perch, she'd made up her mind already. And really it wasn't a choice anyway, how could she have left?
"I'm always here for you." Bonnie replied. For the first time since she'd woken, maybe the first time since the bite, a fragile smile lit her face. "If this was the other way around I'd do anything I could for you."
"Well then you know how I feel, right? I love you. I'm not gonna leave you to suffer this alone."
"But this is different, I'm different. I'm not worth it. You are."
"Don't make me tickle you, Sugar. I swear I will."
The lips that met her own were warm and hesitant, like Marcy was scared she'd hurt the other girl just by kissing her. But relief made Bonnie bold and as well as her newly acquired metabolism other things about her physiology been changed, heightened, made that much more insistent than before the bite. And more than anything she needed her mate, craved her in a more visceral way than she ever had before. Soon her hands were pulling insistently at Marceline's shirt and her lover was only too eager to wriggle out of her clothes and give the werewolf what she craved. Sleep might be the best medicine but intense, incredible, mind-bendingly lustful sex was definitely a close second, Bonnie thought distantly through the hot ache of pain-pleasure that her still sore body was filing with. For a moment that stretched endlessly she was more perfectly aware of every detail around her than she had ever been in her life. Air rushed in and out of her lungs, hot blood raced through her veins, limbs trembled with need and ache. The places their skin touched were hot and slick, burning with the heat of two bodies tangling together. Bonnie opened her eyes and took in every detail of her lover's face, eyes bright and sharp with desire, full lips parted around her gasps and moans, that same silky midnight hair that Bonnie loved so much mussed and falling ignored into her face as they writhed and struggled to be as close as possible. And in that moment Bonnie understood that the wolf was now woven through her so deeply that she heard its thoughts in her own internal voice. And the wolf saw through her eyes, saw Marceline above her flushed with pleasure and desire, felt the desperate ache of need radiating through her core, and the wolf quivered with a single thought; ours.
The climax surged around her like a tidal wave. Everywhere was heat and sensation, her mind was finally blissfully quiet, all thoughts were drowned beneath that unrelenting flood of pure pleasure. For the first time since the bite Bonnie felt the wolf quieten, finally content and peaceful, and all she could do was moan her lover's name and arch into the overwhelming sensation.
Mate. Master. Ours.
(Yes, it's a deliberate homage to Wolfstar. One day a long time ago, or not that long ago depending on your point of view, a newly-teenaged little dinosaur whose name sounds a lot like Cresiosaur discovered Wolfstar. And that was fine, right? Because shipping two boys in a suuuuper gay ship didn't mean she was a lesbian, right? She liked boys! Totally! So much that she wanted them to be together with each other and live happy queer lives and adopt baby Harry together! So. Very. Straight. Fast forward some and here we are. My own little hat-tip to the queer ship of queerness that started it all.)
