Trinity: Happy-!

Draco: YOU'RE LATE!

Trinity: -Mother's Day?

Harry: Where were you young lady?

Trinity: Unlike you two, I have a life. And I was living it.

Draco: The story is your life!

Trinity: No it isn't!

Draco: You should make it your life...

Chapter 10: The Body of a Wolf

Everything was going so well, I even had the chance to closely watch every one of my Knights, but once again, something bad happened to Harry. He had a spasm of some sort and passed out at the party. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the spell that was cast on him, or some other outside forces acting on him. His mind is locked again, and despite the fact that I can see him right in front of me, I can not sense him.

Darkness.

Nothing but pure darkness surrounded Harry. But it was always like this, inside the sanctuary of him mind, always filled with a darkness that only he existed within. It was in here, Harry realized, that he first heard the voices whispering to him. But within this void of his mind, they didn't babble pointlessly, cry or shout. The voices never hurt him, only whispered to him and comforted him.

For now, they urged him to wake and return to the reality that was consciousness. Harry found himself lying in a bed, staring up at the moon striped ceiling. Everything around him was so quiet, Harry was tempted to slip back into sleep. Indeed his eyes were already halfway closed when the illusion was shattered by the voices of his friends. Glancing around, Harry saw the three figures standing over him through the haze of his mind. Harry shook his head slightly to clear his head, and the figures looked down at him.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Hermione said. "I was so worried about you!"

"What happened?" Harry muttered, his words slurred by drowsiness.

"You had some sore of fit and passed out at the party," Ron said.

Harry let his head fall back on the pillow and looked around at the people in the hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey was bustling over something near the cabinets. Harry could hear a familiar clicking and figured the Creevey brothers were somewhere taking pictures. Hermione and Ron were standing on opposite sides of his bed, leaning over him. Least expected was Draco Malfoy, standing at the foot of Harry's bed.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked, head tilted to the side.

"You practically collapsed in my lap," Draco said. "Granger made me carry you up here."

"Oh, okay then…" Harry rubbed his eyes. "How long have I been out?"

"Oh, a good few hours," Ron said with a shrug. "It's early Friday morning now."

Harry wasn't listening, but staring at his hand. It was remarkably sharp, without his glasses. Harry sat up and saw that his glasses were neatly folded on top of the nightstand. As realization dawned on him, Harry cautiously reached up, grabbed the tip of his ears and groaned as he pulled the doggy ears down in front of his eyes. He sat up, threw the sheets aside, and looked at his pawed feet then twisted around to stare at his tail.

"Why didn't the spell wear off?" Harry cried indignantly, glaring at Hermione.

"I never said, um…I guess…" Hermione said sheepishly, her voice getting small.

"I guess you're stuck as puppy boy for awhile," Ron said. Both he and Draco snickered.

"Shut up! Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is?" Harry flinched at the guilty looks on Hermione's and Ron's faces. "I mean, it's not so bad now that I'm out of that outfit from hell, but still."

"Outfit from hell?" Draco asked, still snickering. "I thought you looked cute in it." Hermione's eyes lit up.

"I don't know how many times I've said it, but that thing was Evil and Fear manifested!" Harry snapped, glaring at the blonde. "I don't care if I looked like an angel in that thing. It should be burned and never released on male kind again!"

"Oh no! But I put so much into it!" Hermione said. "You should cherish it."

"I'll cherish its ashes! And there is no way you're gonna make me wear that abomination ever again!"

"Do the two of them fight like this often?" Draco asked Ron curiously.

"Yeah, usually over petty stuff like this," Ron said with a shrug.

"In that case, I'm leaving." Draco said, turning toward the door. "I've done my good deed for the day and made sure Harry was okay. Bye!"

"Listen," Harry said after Draco left, then turning to his friends. "I need to talk-"

"Not tonight, Potter!" Madame Pomfrey said, appearing at Ron's side. She thrust a small cup of potion into Harry's hands while shoving Ron toward to door. "You all need to get to bed and get some sleep! Go on, shoo!"

Students who were hanging around, trying to catch a glimpse of Harry were ushered out the door. The Creevey brothers disappeared from sight with their awesome ninja powers, but Madame Pomfrey uncovered their hiding spot in no time and used her wand to encourage them to leave. The hospital wing was emptied within minuets and Harry sat in the bed with a small cup of something in his hands.

Harry looked down at the jewel red potion swirling slowly in the cup. Now that there was no one to distract him, Harry couldn't ignore the dull pain that engulfed his entire body. He realized he never looked closely at the potions he's taken before, but Harry couldn't help but eyed the potion in his hands, feeling something wasn't quiet right. Deciding not to take any chances, Harry asked Madame Pomfrey about it.

"Um, what's this for?" Harry asked meekly. Madame Pomfrey was known to loose her temper easily during the winter when she had so many patients.

"For the pain," she snapped as she forced a different potion down the throat of a patient Harry hadn't noticed before.

"But nothing hurts," Harry lied.

"Then just leave it on your table and go to sleep. I'll get it later."

Harry shrugged and put the potion on the bedside table. I'm getting paranoid, he thought to himself and plopped back on the pillows, pulled the sheets over his shoulders. Why shouldn't I trust a potion that she's given me? It's just medicine. But Harry couldn't bring himself to sit up and drink the thing. For one reason or another, he was highly suspicious of that jewel red potion, swirling slowly in its little cup.

Running.

Running through the field, across rightly packed snow, the tiny crystals of ice falling from the sky. Running through the darkness of the night, with no sign of the morning to come. Running nowhere, yet running everywhere one chooses to go.

Running on all fours.

A joyous black wolf ran, danced, and jumped across the snow covered earth. He ran alone, but he didn't need the company of another. He was excited by the ice crystals that fell silently from the blackened skies and gathered on his dark mane. The wolf loped down to a frozen lake and around its ice crusted shores and came to the base of a bluff. He climbed the steep cliff, hopping from ledge to ledge until he reached the top. The Moon and the Stars peaked through the clouds when he reached the top and bathed the land with their gentle light so he snow that covered the ground and fell from the sky glowed softly.

The wolf sat with his tongue lolling out of his mouth and tilted his head back so he could catch snow in his parted jaws. Next to the wolf was an ominous forest, where no speck of snow was touched by the light of the Moon and the Stars. The forest was shrouded in darkness cast by the tall trees. The dark forest lingering in the corner of the wolf's eye interested him, so he trotted confidently to the edge and slipped in cautiously. The wolf moved in a different way when he walked in the forest, slinking quietly across the ground instead of bounding across the snow like he would have in the field.

In the forest, the snow wasn't tightly packed, so the wolf's paw sank the two inches to the dirt below. He walked on his padded toes, however, so the crunch of the snow was muted. The wolf would slip between the trees silently, moving as nothing more than a shadow. The silence that would have oppressed a human comforted the wolf, because silence wasn't what he heard. The sounds of owls in the branches above creatures burrowing in the dirt under his feet reached his ears. A group of centaurs were heading in the opposite direction, and one stopped to regard him through the low leaves. He pawed the ground in a greeting, and the wolf swung his tail in a farewell.

The wolf finally found what had drawn him into the forest. He heard a pair of voices talking quietly as to not disturb the peace. But the wolf was so deep in the forest, where trees were close together and knobby roots protruding from the ground rose high, it was difficult to see anything that wasn't right in front of his eyes. But he tracked the scents of flowers, river, and abundant life, scents that were strong enough to lead him to the two voices. The wolf found a huge root that rose made an arch to crouch under and twisted his ears to center the voices on his eardrum.

"…I cannot tell you that I understand any of this."

"How can you not? Are you not supposed to have these great inquisitive skills? This should be easy for you."

"And yet, it is not, Li'kosen. I have, however, ruled out the witch's spell. But the only other conclusions I can come up with makes no since. There has to be something I'm missing…perhaps something about the Shadow Knights…"

"You blame this on your lack of knowledge?"

"I blame this on nothing. I am responsible for these Knights! I take the blame if something happens to them! …But why only Harry? That boy is a magnet for trouble."

"Is it the Dark One?"

"He is the most logical suspect. But what did he do, and why did he do it? He would not have hurt Harry without a reason. He needs him."

"Do you really need to know the reason, Li'say?"

"I need to know what his plans are. I must stop him, at all costs. And I must protect these young Knights from the Dark One! The thought that one of them could have already sworn allegiance to him…"

"Pah! A traitor to be taken care of! Don't you worry about that!"

"How can I not worry! An innocent life who doesn't know any better could have fallen into the hands of a great evil!"

"Shadow Knights put a lot of though into things before they pick a master. Most live as loners for the entirety lives, because they can't find someone to server. If he's sworn to his side, he's not very innocent."

"Is that what you think? Then let's hope he is only playing follow-the-leader for the moment. I do not want to be the one to take his life."

"Then don't. I'll do it. It's the reason why I'm being sent here. To help you do your job and protect the Order from rouges like him. Besides, he hasn't done anything to prove your instincts wrong. He's still one our side, or at least he's open."

"Thank you, Li'kosen. However, do not rely entirely on just my intuition. I have been wrong…red eyes?"

The wolf, which was licking the fur on his shoulder, turned his head slowly toward the voices at these two words. His eyes, designed for the dark nights, glowed and caught the attention of the Knight. His fur bristled silently and his ears quivered as the snap of a twig much closer than the voices echo through the silence. Realizing his was discovered, the wolf wiggled out from underneath the root and quickly left the forest. He moved like a ghost between the trees and protruding roots, and didn't stop running until he could see the Moon and Stars ahead.

The wolf streaked into the cover of the underbrush and crouched, panting slightly. He looked up at the clear sky, to the Moon, the Stars, and the falling snow for comfort. The wolf slipped out of the forest and jumped into the snow that covered the ground. He rolled around in the white powder, then stood on his feet, shaking the snow off his coat. He broke into a run, heading toward the lake, using his chest to plow through the snow, and danced happily on the banks. He ran onto the ice of the lake, turned, and then threw himself back onto the snow. Lying on his side, the wolf looked up into the black windows of Hogwarts.

Harry sat up in his bed, panting hard. Looking around, he saw he was still in the hospital wing, sitting in pajamas that were sticking to him with sweat. He was definitely not a wolf, just an embarrassingly cute puppy boy. Harry shook his head defiantly and tried to convince himself he just had an odd dream. But Li'say was in it again…

"Sir, are you alright?"

Harry jumped and looked around. A small Ravenclaw was sitting in the bed across the aisle from him and blushed lightly when Harry looked at him. Harry looked out the windows at the snow covered grounds. Was it his imagination, or were those wolf tracks dotting the snow next to the lake? Maybe a wolf bed in the snow?

"I'm fine," Harry managed to lie, tearing his eyes away from the window.

"Y-you just look like, ah, you had a bad dream," the boy stammered. "You, er, whined and growled a lot."

"I didn't say anything in my sleep, did I?" Harry asked with a frown.

"No sir!"

Harry sighed and went back to staring out the window. Li'say, you're right. I'm definitely a trouble magnet.

Madame Pomfrey was up as well, bustling around the hospital wing. Some students were waking up coughing horribly, and she went from bed to bed, pouring potion down their throats. Harry sat in his bed, watching her run back and forth, and waiting for her to tell him he could leave. Finally, she took notice of Harry and those who were obviously not sick anymore. Madame Pomfrey told them they could leave, but as Harry was dressing, she went to Harry's bed side, a small cup in her hands.

"Are you sure you don't want this?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Harry said, as it was the truth this time.

"Alright," She said, obviously not convinced. "Dumbledore just thought you might need it and brought it over last night…"

She took the jewel red potion and stored it in a bottle, then shooed Harry away, muttering about how much work she had to do. Harry went up to the Gryffindor Tower, expecting to see Hermione and Ron sitting in the common room, and found Ginny with her fiends instead. When they girls saw Harry walking around barefoot with his tail poking out of the bottom of his robes, they immediately set off giggling.

Ginny, speaking calmly and without cracking a grin, told Harry that her brother was in the library. Her friends erupted into another fit of giggles when Harry impulsively wagged his tail in thanks. Harry growled at them and sent them running with squeals and screams, then left the common room felling slightly satisfied. The library was as quiet as usual, and the smell of old books tickled Harry's nose. He found Ron and Hermione easily enough, tracing their scent like thread through the room.

"Harry!" Hermione said, jumping when he appeared behind her. "I'm glad you found us. I'm looking for a counter spell right now."

"Don't worry about that right now. We've got bigger problems," Harry said and told them everything, from the voices that pounded in his head the night before to the fact that he ran through the fields last night in the body of a wolf. "Hermione, you don't think your spell made me a werewolf or something, do you?"

"I doubt it. Maybe more like an Animagus," Hermione said thoughtfully. She went silent for awhile, pulling on her thumb nail with her teeth.

"So, you're hearing strange voices again, and you had another dream about Li'say," Ron said slowly, staring at the table. "Why? I mean, what is really going on here?"

"You need to tell all of this to Dumbledore, Harry," Hermione said. "Maybe he can tell us what is going on."

"I suppose so," Harry said. "But I've hardly seen him at all this year."

"Dumbledore has been doing a lot of work every since you told him that Voldemort has returned," Hermione said. "Now that the public knows that you were telling the truth, I guess he feels he can leave the school more often. There can't be a lot he can do within these walls…"

Hermione's voice trailed off, as it was obvious Harry wasn't listening to her anymore. Warning bells were going off in Harry's head and he frowned as he struggled to put two and two together. Hermione and Ron exchanged glances full of exasperation, but Harry's eyes were widening as a chilling realization began to dawn on him.

"Li'say said the wolf had red eyes. You know who has red eyes, don't you?" Harry said in a low voice filled with his anxiety. "Voldemort."

Hermione gasped and Ron jumped a little, but shock kept them from doing little more. Gloom settled over the still group, made all the more gloomy by the still silence of the empty library. Harry's panic and fear settled like a heavy blanket on Ron and Hermione's shoulders. The three looked between each other, theories already forming in their heads and worries clouding their faces.

"Come on Harry, you can't be sure that it was Voldemort," Hermione said meekly, trying to cheer Harry up. "He's a snake person, remember?"

"I know that," Harry said, "But who else could it be? He's the only other person I've ever shared a dream with."

"Is it possible he wasn't in control of the wolf this time?"

"Maybe," Harry said. A little sparkle of hope came to his eyes, but then he frowned. "But if that's the case, then Voldemort would still know about Li'say. I suppose it's a good thing I didn't see his face, but I'm sure I recognized his voice."

"So is Li'say a professor here at the school?"

"Yeah, there's a good chance he is," Harry said, thinking of all the professors he's run into at the school.

"Harry, you have got to speak to Dumbledore about this," Hermione said.

"Yeah, alright," Harry said. But when will I have the chance to try?

Harry: (sigh) Being a puppy boy is problematic...

Draco: You're telling me...because?

Harry: You do know Trinity turned you into a puppy last time, right?

Draco: (looks at his paws) I forgot about that...

Harry: HOW?

Draco: (shrugs) It happens.

Harry: Not logically...

Trinity: When was the last time we did anything logically?

Harry: Point...