Chapter 50- Cat, Dog, Wolf
Once Adelaide and James made it back to the great hall, Adelaide shimmied off of her messy haired friend's back to sit with Mary, Lily, and Marlene for dinner. After they went back up to Gryffindor tower, the other girls stayed downstairs to study/play card games in the common room, whilst Adelaide scurried up to the girls' dorm to take a quick nap before she and Sirius left to help Moony.
She had only been asleep for what felt like five minutes, but in reality was well over an hour, when she felt something shaking her awake... someone...
"Stop it!" she demanded of the mystery person. They persisted in shaking her... so, naturally, she whacked them with a pillow.
"ADDYKINS GET UP!" said a low voice.
Adelaide's eyes flew open in shock, then rested upon the figure of a lanky boy, with curly hair, and grey eyes looking quite unenthused with her being in bed.
"Sirius?! What are you— How did you even get up here?!"
"I turned into Padfoot." he said impatiently. "Now, get up! We have to go! We're going to be late!" He said, trying to drag her out of bed, but eyes wandering around the room he had only ever envisioned for the past two years.
"Go? Go where? Late to what?"
Sirius looked at her incredulously and said, "Moony."
Turns out, this was all he had to say for her to jump out of bed in a panic (without her shoes) and tear down the girls staircase, which turned into a slide halfway down, thanks to Sirius.
"Arraaagghh!" she screamed as she fell on her bum. "You did that on purpose..." she grumbled.
"Meh... You deserved it." Sirius shrugged with a smirk as they raced each other out the common room, and down the grand staircase.
"Merlin's baggy Y fronts... I forgot my damn shoes..."
Sirius held out a pair of trainers in front of her face. "You're welcome."
"Thank you! So, do we have a plan or something going in there? How are we going to even do this?" Adelaide asked in hushed tones as they crept through the castle.
Sirius looked unfazed. "I figured we'd just wing it. But we should probably transform once we get outside."
Adelaide nodded... then grimaced, looking down to her bare feet. "Sounds good to me, but um can we stop for a second? I need to put these on... I think I just stepped on some leftover gum from that prank we did the other day on peeves."
Sirius chuckled as she sat on the floor to slip on her shoes. "You didn't happen to grab any socks did you?" she asked hopefully.
"Nope, sorry Ads."
"Ughh it's fine..." she muttered, squeezing her foot into the shoe.
"Why don't you just conjure some socks?"
"I don't know how." said Adelaide, trying to scape the gunk on the sole of her other foot.
"Are you telling me you can conjure multiple flocks of living, breathing, birds to attack us during breakfast, but you can't make yourself some damn socks?"
Adelaide smirked. "I only learn the useless spells. You should really know these things by now, Padfoot."
"Ah yes, of course. My most sincere apologies Miss Tufts." He smirked back.
"What do you two think you're doing out and about the castle at this time of night?" drawled seventh year, Slytherin prefect, Lucius Malfoy.
"Putting my shoes on." Adelaide deadpanned, looking up to the boy, then looking back down to finish tying her laces.
Lucius glared at the girl her with almost palpable contempt, instantly spiking Sirius's protective instincts.
"Adelaide left something downstairs, I was walking with her to get it... never know what kind of people are wandering the halls this time of night." Sirius said cooly, eyeing the long haired teen in front of him.
"Charming story!" Lucius sneered. "I'm sure McGonagall will love it, why don't you come with me..."
"How about we don't?"
Lucius's sneer turned to a look of pure anger. "Either come with me willingly, you little miscreants, or I will make you." he spat venomously.
Sirius's jaw was clenched, hand reaching for the wand in his pocket. Adelaide could tell he was about to make this sticky situation much stickier, so she quickly stood up and gently put a hand on his forearm. "Don't," she whispered, "he's not worth it."
Sirius tore his eyes away from glaring at Lucius, looking instead toward her delicate face; her gentle forest green eyes calming him down almost instantly.
"Fine. We'll go with you." He said to the prefect after a beat, his eyes never leaving hers.
The two followed the self-satisfied prefect for a long while. Then, when he wasn't looking, they sprinted off down a nearby hallway, ducking into an empty classroom, listening to Malfoy's creative cursing and loud footsteps echo behind them.
Sirius sniggered quietly, peeking through the key hole at the stupid, clueless Slytherin, running around like a chicken with his head cut off.
"Pads... Padfoot. Sirius! Look!" Adelaide whisper-shouted, whacking his arm.
Sirius turned around to see Adelaide moving closer and closer toward the back of the abandoned classroom; toward a large, gold framed mirror with the inscription: 'erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi'. He didn't see anything all that special about it, besides the fact that it held an impressive amount of dust.
"Ads... it's just a dusty old mirror." He said slowly.
"No. No it's not." She said shaking her head and moving closer, reaching her hand out to touch the glass longingly. "This is definitely not a normal mirror..."
Sirius, concerned, walked over to the 'not normal mirror' to see what in the name of Merlin she was talking about. Adelaide looked like she was nearly bewitched; face studying the mirror intently; fingers tracing over some imaginary image. All Sirius saw was the two of them.
"Addy... come on, love. We need to go help Moony... Remember?"
Adelaide wasn't listening.
"Addy! Snap out of it!" he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, what?" She said, turning toward him in a daze.
Sirius didn't know what was up with that freaky mirror, but he was not about to get sucked into it like she was. "Come on. We're leaving." he said, grabbing her by the arm tightly, and attempting to drag her out of the room.
"Stop it!" She yelped, trying to wrench her arm free of his grasp.
"No! Addykins we need to leave!"
"But— but I-I saw..." she trailed off eyes trying to look back at the magic mirror.
Sirius firmly put his hands on either arm, trying to keep her from wriggling away to look at the mirror again. "Adelaide. Whatever you saw... it wasn't real. But do you know what is real? The amount of suffering Remus is probably dealing with right now because we aren't there to distract him from trying to mutilate himself! Now come on!"
Adelaide blinked. "Y-you're right... I'm sorry." she said softly, shaking her head, then following Sirius out of the room without looking back.
As they sneaked through the castle toward an exit, she wondered how she could have believed that anything she saw was real? It was impossible... completely impossible.
Once outside they quickly changed into their animal forms, and not a moment too soon. Filch the caretaker came huffing and puffing around the corner wearing a bathrobe, muttering something about 'those damn Marauders,' followed soon after by a parade of shimmering lights. Sirius smirked internally as they raced off in the shadows toward the Whomping Willow.
While Adelaide and James were off doing their Quidditch practice session earlier that day, he and Peter had planted a few dozen Dr Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks in Filch's shower head.
Tufts looked back at the flustered man, then gave a side eyed look and subtle nod to the big dog next to her.
The two animals quickly made their way to the violent tree. Padfoot kept his distance, watching with bated breath as Tufts scurried through the angry limbs and branches, with more grace and dexterity than he would ever possess, and place her front paws on a knot on the trunk. The tree was rendered completely and utterly motionless, right down to the small leaves which were frozen in place like a statue. Padfoot let out a little yip of gratitude and followed the fluffy white cat into the dark tunnel.
They moved quickly downward in the low earthy tunnel, trying to dodge some spiders that seemed a little larger than normal, and listening to the howls that became louder and louder the further they traveled. The tunnel began to rise then twisted— just as Moony had described. Adelaide could see a dim light up ahead. She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her feline stomach as she listened to the snapping and scraping of wood, intermingled with loud howls and whimpers.
Sirius, being the biggest, moved ahead of his feline friend, blocking her from view of the beast that dwelled within as they came closer to the small opening.
They stepped into the room that looked much past its prime; wallpaper peeling; broken furniture all around; stains splattered across the floor; windows boarded up as if for an incoming tropical storm. Then— lurking in the shadows, in the corner of the room— a werewolf.
The large dog slowly and quietly moved into the room, testing the waters to see how the animal would react to having visitors. The wolf looked at the dog, then tilted its head to the side, as if it recognized it, but couldn't quite remember how. The cat, seeing that the wolf was somewhat calm, chanced her way into the room as well.
The werewolf's amber eyes flashed in recognition and it leaped forward toward the cat. Padfoot moved to block her from the wolf, entirely out of instinct, causing the wolf to let out a low whine.
Adelaide, well... Tufts, could see from between Padfoot's legs that there was blood in Moony's fur, dripping down slowly unto the already bloodstained wooden floor beneath his gigantic paws. Without a moment's hesitation, she bolted out between the large dog's legs with ease and trotted over to the wolf. Moony, again, looked at her with searching amber eyes which flashed in recognition— but this time, abruptly leaned down and licked her whole right side: from her leg, all they way up to her little tufted ear.
Padfoot growled, stalking closer, but Tufts shot him a warning look, and meowed as if to say she as okay. Surprisingly, Sirius completely understood and relaxed a bit. The wolf's gaze upon the snowy white cat shifted to it's wound. Adelaide's eyes focused on the spot, and she wished that there was something she could do; that there was some way that she could help him. But, her wand was far away in a bush by the castle, and there was no way she could turn human to do wandless magic on him... But what if she didn't need to be human to do wandless magic?
It was worth a shot.
Adelaide hopped up onto a chair with a missing chunk of stuffing, in order to get closer to the place where the wound was located on the wolf's right shoulder. Sirius and Moony both looked at her as if she had gone mad. She made a sort of bossy-meow sound, plainly asking for the wolf to move closer, which it did, though it had no idea why.
With forest green eyes focused on the wound, she lifted her dainty white paw and pointed it toward the laceration, then thought the spell needed to heal it; imagining the wolf's flesh stitching itself back together. The wolf and dog both looked with astonishment as the large gash healed itself into nothing more than a scratch.
The wolf let out an excited yip and went to lick her face once more. Tufts growled before it got too close, and she swore she heard Sirius's bark like laugh, though he was still indubitably in dog form.
Padfoot bent down in a playful position, tongue hanging out to the side, and panting in a way that looked like he was smiling (which he probably was). The wolf caught on quickly and matched his position across from him, then leaped to attack the dog playfully.
Adelaide watched them tussle around from her perch upon the sad looking chair, giving herself a little cat bath. However, soon she felt the two animals eyeing her and acted surprised when one of them prodded her back with their nose.
She leaped down from the chair and mimicked the playful dog stance, shimmying backwards for them to follow after her. When they did, she bolted around the room like a rocket, running over and under the broken furniture faster than they could reach, slowing down every once and a while for them to catch up with her.
After a while, Moony became quite tired and contented himself in curling up onto an old bed in the corner of the room, and falling asleep.
Padfoot looked through the cracks of the boarded up windows and realized it was nearly sun up. Moony would be transforming back into Remus any minute. Padfoot quickly went over to the fluffy white cat and herded her back toward the tunnel entrance, so as to give him a bit of privacy.
They were just inside when they both heard a loud, heart breaking, howl-like scream come from inside the room. The scream became more human, and after a minute... it was quiet.
Adelaide slipped through Sirius's dog legs and padded her way toward the boy sitting on the edge of the bed in a black robe. She quickly turned human and made her way toward her friend.
"Pads! You can come out now!" She said towards the dog. Seconds later Sirius appeared at her side.
"Hey buddy... how're you feeling?" He asked carefully with a half-smile.
"I-I-I think that was the best full moon I've ever had..." Remus said quietly in disbelief.
Adelaide's face lit up. "So it helped? Having us around and all?"
Remus looked up to her with amber eyes welling with tears, looking upon her delicate face. "Yes. You-you have no idea— Usually it's the wolf that's in control, but tonight— it was like I was myself." He said smiling up at the two of them, wiping away his happy tears of gratitude. "Thank you."
Adelaide, beaming, went to hug him, nuzzling her face in the fluffy robe. "You're welcome Remmy..."
Remus blushed slightly. "You two should probably get out of here, Poppy will be here soon to come get me."
Adelaide let go, then transformed along withSirius back into their animal forms, trotting back to the castle. They hid behind the bush where they stashed their wands, and waited for Remus to walk back with Poppy. The last thing they overheard before they walked through the castle doors, was how Remus looked better than she'd ever seen after the moon and how he should be able to go free that morning, as soon as she gave him the once over.
