…~oOo~…

Chapter Seven: Operation Werewolf Panties

Teddy's head was still whirling by the time he got back to his room.

What was that?

What was he thinking?

Was he crazy?

Not only was Teddy's best friend interested in Ronia but Teddy had a girlfriend! Why was he snogging a different girl in the stacks? All he remembered was during the entire conversation, he was suppressing the need to touch her and then she got close to him, her nose brushing her shoulder, and it was like tunnel vision when she started walking away…So he snatched her back, pulling her back against the shelves with no particular plan and she kissed him so hard that he thought his lips were going to bruise. Not that he minded at all.

It probably only lasted for less than two minutes, but the kissing was wild and feverish and in those few moments, he was hungrier for Ronia than he'd ever been for another human being.

Even more than Victoire. Which was insane. Victoire was the most beautiful girl in Hogwarts and was his and he couldn't even say that he wanted her more than anyone.

But this happened to boys, he consoled himself. Boys get randy over different girls at different times. The difference is whether or not the boy acts on it…which he had. But never again, he swore! He's keep a safe distance from Ronia for good measure.

He was lying on his back, staring at his ceiling in his dorm about that when his friends barreled in, looking excited and determined. Teddy checked his clock and grinned. Time to go break into the girls' dorms.

…

Teddy and Abe were in Ronia and Freckles's room. Freckles's side of the room had posters of cute Qudditch players and wizarding celebrities while Ronia's side was bare. It spoke volumes of the girl. It said that she wasn't planning on being here for long, like she anticipated having to go. But that was ridiculous. Maybe she was monk in her past life or something, because it was absolutely spotless. Freckles was clean, but Ronia's side of the room was almost the definition of compulsive. Not a speck of dust.

Teddy was still transfigured as a rat. He'd refused to take the risk of going through the wards still half-human, so he'd forced Abe to transfigure him. They decided the rat was the best idea, because it was a common familiar among the students so it wouldn't be a weird thing to detect coming and going from the girls' dorms.

Abe they weren't worried about in his Animagus form. He was, after all, and owl.

Even if he knew the owl was Abe, that little part of him that came with being a rat kept insisting that he run from the predator, but he felt better when Abe transformed back into his human self and picked Teddy up in his palms.

"You do not know how tempted I am to just let you stay that way," Abe said with an evil grin. Teddy squealed loudly in response and bit down hard, breaking skin on Abe's palm. "Ow!" Abe hissed. "You better not have rabies, dammit." Then he took his wand from his pocket and transfigured Teddy back into human.

It was disorienting at first for Teddy. He stumbled to the side and caught himself on a wall. He didn't particularly like being a rat. Everything was too big and too wonky to look at.

"Oh my God!" Teddy said, his hands over his big rat ears. "You did the spell wrong!"

Panic flashed across Abe's face and Teddy cackled, morphing his ears back to normal. "Just joking, mate. Like you could ever get a spell wrong," Teddy said with a roll of his eyes.

"Damn you, Metamorphmagus," Abe grumbled. "Now quit fooling around and start looking for something. Anything. Like Parker said, a diary would be convenient."

And they both started scouring Freckles's living space thoroughly, putting everything back where it was before they touched it. Teddy was still feeling bad about invading one of his best friend's space, but he kept telling himself that Parker was right and they had to do this. No turning back now, after all. They'd already shuffled through all the stuff.

Teddy kept an ear out for Parker's some-one-is-coming call. They agreed that he would hoot like an owl twice if he heard someone coming. He was currently under the Disiullusionment charm, so if another girl in the hall left their room to go to the bathroom or something, they probably wouldn't see him.

There was a loud, protesting squeak as Abe moved back onto his haunches when he was bent down looking under her bed. Teddy paused and so did Abe. Experimentally, Abe shifted his weight again and the squeak resounded.

"The floorboard!" they hissed in unison.

Teddy knelt down next to his friend and they each took a corner of the wooden plank with spaces around it and pulled it up. Inside, sure enough, were stacks of parchment, all pinned together and organized. Abe snatched up the top stack, ran his eyes over it, and then his eyebrows came together in bewilderment.

"What? What is it?" Teddy whispered.

"None of it is in English. It's in…I don't even know. German or something. I didn't know Freckles spoke more than one language," Abe murmured, nonplussed.

"Neither did I," Teddy muttered, thinking hard. "I don't think Parker's mentioned it."

"Hmm…" Abe considered. "We'll have to take them with us."

"We can't! She'll know we've been in here!" Teddy hissed.

"Don't you know that copying charm that you use on my notes for class when you fall asleep?"

Scratching his head, Teddy said, "I haven't used it since Fifth Year…let me think." He thought about it and hesitantly said the spell he thought it was, and sure enough an identical stack of parchment appeared next to the other.

"Brilliant!" Abe said with a wide smile. "You finish copying the other stacks and I'll go looking for Ronia's knickers." He wagged his eyebrows and bounced of the ground.

Teddy did not want to have to think of Ronia's knickers. Not after what happened in the library.

Teddy was going about his copying when he heard Abe swear under his breath.

"What's wrong?" Ted asked.

"I can't find her knickers! They're not in her dresser or her trunk or her desk. But that's just ridiculous! She has to have panties, unless she…"

The silence hung there for a long, thoughtful minute of oncoming epiphany.

"Bloody hell! Holy shit!" Abe said, his eyes as big and round as saucers, blinking owlishly. "Ronia Vargstrom doesn't wear knickers! No wonder she never wears skirts."

Teddy felt his face getting burning hot with the blush. The thought was definitely sexy, especially after having been snogging her in the library, and to think, as they were kissing she was commando under those leather pants.

This girl was one giant conundrum.

Teddy was about to open his mouth, but from the hallways came two, soft owl-like hoots.

"We gotta scram!" Abe said, quickly picking up all the copied papers while Teddy crammed the originals back into the floor and sealing the floorboard. Abe tucked their evidence into his jacket and threw the transfiguration charm at Teddy who was hit with it like a hurricane and was suddenly a rat again.

Just as quickly, Abe was an owl and they were each hurrying out of the room like hell. That's when they saw the reason for the emergency call. A Prefect, not Freckles, was coming back to her rooms looking exhausted, cursing Peeves under her breath.

Abe and Ted saw the shimmer in the corner of Parker masked by the charm and all three of them ran as fast as their long human or tiny rodent feet allowed them. Stupid, lucky Abe could fly other them with lazy, confident ease. Everyone had owls flying around, no reason to worry about someone being suspicious or get stepped on.

When they got back to their room, they all almost screamed when they someone was in there.

"Jesus, James!" Parker grumbled after he nearly jumped out of his socks. "What in God's name are you doing in our room at ten o'clock at night?"

"I need to show you guys something," James said, adjusting his glasses and looking up at them with concern in his eyes. "It's about Freckles."

Parker and Abe were immediately on him, asking question after overlapping question and James was looking overwhelmed and kind of scared. Teddy brought his fingers to his mouth and let out a shrill, sharp whistle that grabbed all their attentions.

"Let the boy talk," Teddy commanded, walked over to push the older boys away from the First Year to get him some room. "What is it, James?"

"Well, I was looking through the Marauders' Map -"

"Wait. How did you get that?" Ted asked in awe. Last he heard, Harry kept it locked up nice and safe.

"I filched it from my dad's study," James said with a shrug, like he did it all the time. "My point is that I was…um…looking at the girls' dorms and -"

"Why were you doing that?" Parker asked, nonplussed.

James's face got red as a cherry. "I like a girl, alright? And she's a Prefect, I wanted to see if she was still doing her rounds or -"

"You fancy a Sixth Year?" Abe clarified.

"Seventh Year, actually, and I -"

Abe snorted. "Sorry, mate, but you probably have no chance."

"Do you want to hear what I have to say or not?" James snapped, getting sick of the interruptions. "My fondness for older women can be discussed later, you twits! Now, listen! So I saw you guys in Freckles's room, and when I saw she wasn't there, I started looking for her other places. I went through the entire castle, and she's just…gone. She's not anywhere. I looked everywhere dozens of times."

They all took a moment to absorb this news.

"Are you sure?" Teddy asked firmly.

James nodded. "Positive. Ophelia White is not currently on Hogwarts grounds."

…

After the news of Freckles's status as missing from the whole school, they all started talking at once, following more conversation with themselves than the other people in the room. There was panic, worry, and anger. Parker was dead-set on believing that her Slytherin boyfriend convinced her to sneak off-grounds in the middle of the night. Abe thought she'd been kidnapped. Teddy didn't know what to think. James just stood there, staring at the older boys with wide eyes in his pajamas and sitting on a bed, waiting for there to be some kind of conclusion to the cloud of nonsense that they were emitting. None of their theories made sense and even if James could hear one over the other it would do no good.

They were freaking out.

They'd looked through the map themselves for her name, but there was nothing.

They were still freaking out about an hour later.

Abe had just ripped the Map out of Parker's hands to look through it one more time when he gasped and everyone huddled around him in anticipation.

"Look!" Abe pointed to a space on the map.

The girls' dorms.

Freckles and Ronia's room.

The name "Ophelia White" was on the bed. Not moving, like she was sleeping, her name floating on the paper as if it'd been there all along.

"No fecking way," Parker murmured.

They all agreed with that statement.

Wherever Freckles had disappeared to, she was back once again and in bed. And they all didn't have a clue what to say to that.

None of them slept, of course. They all just laid in their beds and stared at the ceiling after James returned to his room with the Map. Teddy, Parker, and Abe all knew what the others were thinking, but no one bothered to voice it. What was the point of saying aloud all your questions when you knew your company didn't have any answers?

…~oOo~…

Ronia awoke on the floor of the Forbidden Forest, naked, and sweaty. The sun was just starting to touch the horizon, the sky a dark lavender and the moon still apparent. Not making an effort to move, Ronia watched as she lay on her back, looking up at from the tiny clearing she was in, up at the warring colors painting the sky. The beautiful periwinkle of dawn against the onyx of nighttime. The moon was reluctant to relinquish its dominance, but was forced out by Morning.

The sun was now a pretty light blue, the grass dripping with dew, and the fog still heavy in the forest. Her entire body ached and Ronia knew getting up would only make it worse, but if she stayed much longer she was sure to be eaten by something in the forest. Dark predators didn't take kindly to werewolves. No one took kindly to werewolves, Ronia realized with a grim smirk.

Pulling herself up off the ground with shaking legs, and looked at herself. Covered in dirt and little spatters of her own blood, she retreated to the spot closer to the edges of the forest where she stashed clothes the night before. She found her cloak, wrapped it around body, and began dragged her aching feet out of the trees.

"Would ya be Miss Ronia, by any chance?" a deep voice said, stumbling over her name a little bit.

Ronia gave a little jump and turned to the source of the voice. The man was very tall, very broad, dressed in ragged clothes, and had long black hair and a long beard, each tinged with grey near the roots. She knew him from sitting up at the head table at meals and had to think hard for the name.

"You're Professor Hagrid, aren't you? Care of Magic Creatures teacher, right?" she asked hesitantly.

"That I am, that I am," he said with a big smile. "And you the new werewolf student, aren't ya?"

She nodded slowly.

"Poppy told me t' bring ya these," Hagrid said, holding out three bottles of potions, all labeled. "I was never one for potions, meself, but these're s'posed to help, I'd imagine."

Accepting the potions, Ronia recognized each one. Pain tonic, Pepper-Up, and some blood-replenishing draught that she imagined was just in case. Werewolves were known to get pretty torn up during their Change, and some wounds just didn't stop bleeding. Ronia used to have to take the blood-replenishing draught all the time, especially before she started taking Wolfsbane.

Ronia downed two of the three easily and slipped the extra in her pocket.

"Do ya need any help on back to the castle?" Hagrid asked and continued smiling in that friendly manner.

"Um. No, thanks. I'll be fine." Ronia tried giving a smile, but it was tired and probably weak-looking. "Once I get up to my bedroom and in some clean clothes, I'll be good as new." Already she was feeling the effects of the Pepper-Up potion. Making it to her room would be a piece of cake.

Mmm…cake…she thought dreamily. Maybe once she got to her room, she'd try calling for a house-elf to bring her a nice big piece of cake in lieu of breakfast.

Then her stomach turned over in protest and she halted in her shuffle back to the castle. The nausea ebbed and she continued. Okay, I guess the cake is a no-no.

Ronia eased into her room quietly in case her roommate was asleep, but Freckles was far from. Standing at the mirror, getting dressed in her uniform, Freckles was humming a song that was strangely familiar to Ronia. She dismissed it, knowing that most lullabies sounded very similar no matter the country you were born in, and cleared her throat to announce herself.

Freckles spun around with a big smile. "Good morning, Ronia! How do you feel?"

"Ya chuvstvuyu sebya kak der'mo," Ronia mumbled miserably, shuffling towards her bed.

"Huh?" Freckles said, clueless.

"I said I feel like shit," Ronia repeated, falling face forward into her pillows and remaining like that, half hanging off the bed and curled up in a ratty coat, her body still filthy.

"I'm assuming you won't be in class?" Freckles said.

"Yes."

"I'll take notes for you, and I'm sure so will Abe." The Irish girl walked over and moved the short brown and silver hair off of Ronia's neck affectionately before planting a kiss on her head that Ronia was too exhausted to growl about. "And I'll come up during lunch to check on you. Sound good?"

Ronia barely nodded before sleep overpowered her mind and body and she faded into the black.

…~oOo~…

A/N. PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! REVIEWS MAKE ME HAPPY AND ARE BETTER THANK ICE CREAM CAKE AND ORGASMS. OKAY, MAYBE NOT THE LATTER, BUT PRETTY DAMN NEAR CLOSE.

~ So Long And Thanks For All The Fish ~