HEADS WILL ROLL
Hermione's eyes widened.
It was, undoubtedly, a werewolf. But something was wrong...very wrong…as if the transformation had gone horribly awry. Parts of him were either still human, others were just wolf, and some...a grotesque, nightmarish mix of the two.
And out of the human parts she could see, there was no denying the fact that this was Fenrir Greyback.
The one who turned Moony.
That's not possible. That's not possible.
It wasn't a full moon. The moon wasn't even out. It wasn't even night. This wasn't possible.
Her own voice grew annoying in her ears, but she couldn't drown out that voice, which was getting far more shrill and hysterical as the reality of the situation slammed into her.
And yet, he was here all the same, advancing towards them slowly, growling, saliva dripping from his wide open snout. Greyback was massive, larger than Moony had been, creeping forward on all fours, teeth sharp, claws already bloody from a recent kill.
My wand. My wand. I need my wand. Harry, HELP!
Hermione was a very big proponent in treating all creatures equally. In house elf rights, in werewolf rights, in making sure they could live normal, healthy lives with decent wages and affordable housing. Making sure they were happy, taken care of, and felt understood by the government, their co-workers, and their peers.
But all of that flew clean out of the window when the werewolf lunged.
Hermione screamed.
"Protego Domus!" shouted Ron.
The shield was up before he had even hit the cobblestones. The gray air around him was thick and heavy with humidity, but the bluish dome covered him and, to his utmost relief, Lavender and the girls.
"Ron!" Lavender shrieked, clutching his blue sweater and helping him up.
Worry for her ripped through him, and Ron held up his wand to stop another barrage of attacks as the Death Eater came closer, shooting spell after spell.
The girls screamed and tried to run away, but Ron's dome shield held them fast, protecting them...and effectively trapping them in as well.
The Death Eater's non-verbal jinxes slammed into his shield, and Ron grunted from the force.
But more curses bounced off his dome, and Ron grabbed Lavender's unused wand right out of her hand.
"Expecto Patronum!" Ron roared, and his silver crup came out of Lavender's wand.
"Find Harry!" he told it, and the canine ran off to obey, taking off down the cobblestone street in search of his best friend.
Harry's coming.
Hope buoyed him, and Ron added the power from Lavender's wand to the shield. "Protego Domus!"
It worked. With the continuous light streaming out of both wands, none of the advancing Death Eater's spells were getting through.
"You can do it, Ron!" said Lavender, holding on to him.
Her words strengthened him with a power greater than any he had known before. The inertia required to keep up such a strong spell was taking a toll on him, but her words boosted him with more confidence.
I can do it. I can hold it till Harry comes.
Ron's weakening shield wavered under a new volley of attacks, and the fear that he couldn't hold it up reigned supreme.
The dome flickered as he sank to his knees. The girls around him screamed.
Keep holding it...just keep holding it…
But it wasn't Harry who saved her.
It was Viktor.
Viktor shoved Hermione out of the way just in time, and she fell to the ground. Whipping her head around, she watched in horror as Viktor fell to the ground hard with several pounds of werewolf on him.
"Viktor!" she screamed.
The werewolf snarled and growled as he fought the young man. Viktor grunted, holding onto Greyback's throat and jaws as he kept the gnashing teeth from biting him. They rolled around in the grass, each trying to get the upper hand...each fighting for their lives.
Where the hell is my bloody wand?
Hermione seized a pointed, fist-sized rock and threw it at Greyback's head. Then she threw another, and another, in her haste at getting the monster off the man who saved her.
It worked, a little too well.
Greyback roared and jumped off of Viktor, who remained unmoving in the grass, as Greyback turned towards Hermione—
Terrified, she screamed as Greyback leapt onto her, his paws digging unmercifully into her wrists. She slammed into the cold grass, his weight alone making her choke for air. But still she grabbed his jaw and neck like Viktor had done, in a vain effort to keep the beast from biting her. From marking her. From turning her.
"HARRY!" she found herself screaming in pain, her best friend's name wrenching out of her mouth as if the mere whisper of it would bring him to her.
But he wasn't coming to save her.
She was on her own.
The desperation for survival made her cry and scream as she had only ever done under the Cruciatus. Greyback's gnashing teeth tried to get her, and he was too strong—
She screamed again as her arms weakened and his snout lunged terrifyingly close to her face. She turned her head away from him, eyes shut tight, exposing her throat to him. Hermione rolled her head away from his snout, trying in vain to push him off her, but doing so made her neck bare to the werewolf, and a new howling sound came out of Greyback as he saw her throat and the throbbing veins.
And, suddenly, the werewolf on top of her grew still.
Greyback grew quiet in a way that was far more unnerving than his snarls. Instead of trying to bite her like he had done to Viktor, he just breathed in, his mouth wide and almost grinning a sadistic grin that was way too human to be seen on a wolf's face.
He knew he had won.
Triumph gleamed in his bloodthirsty eyes.
Then Greyback's mouth opened as he went in for the kill—
I can't do it.
Ron felt bile rising in his throat from the sheer loss of power.
He felt so weak...numbly, he remembered what his mother told him long ago, when he asked her what her labor with him was like before he was born. She told him that her labor with him was worse than it had been with his siblings. Just before he came out into the world, one fist above his head and tearing his way out, Mum said she started throwing up, and that was how she knew she was in transition.
"But why would you throw up?" Ron had asked, revolted. "You weren't sick."
"Because there are times when a person feels all their power leaving them, and this makes everything in their body weak," Mum had replied, smoothing his hair down. "It's like that for a woman giving birth. Or for someone on their deathbed. Their body is too weak to work properly. This doesn't mean that I didn't want you to be born—heavens, no!—I would go through it all over again a thousand times just to have you here with me. Because you are worth all the power that I have, Ronnie."
Her long-ago words echoed in his mind.
And now...they were giving him strength.
"I can...I can...do it…" Ron tried to get the words out, but his ability to talk was diminished.
"Just hold on a little longer, Ron..." said Lavender comfortingly, then she rounded on her friends. "Doesn't anyone else know this spell?"
But they didn't have to shake their heads, eyes wide, for Ron to know of course they wouldn't know the spell. It was sheer luck that he even knew it. It wasn't taught in their Standard Book of Spells for a reason. Because of the dome's continual need to be fed magic to be reinforced, it wasn't favored quite like the regular shield charm, which was just a quick cast, or one-and-done as they were called.
And the fact that it drained its caster often to the point of death, made it actually rather banned.
Not that he cared at the moment. The need to protect Lavender and her friends greatly outweighed the consequences.
Concentrating on keeping his arms up, on keeping the light streaming out of both wands from the dual power of his shield charm, Ron's arms started shaking.
Just...keep...holding it…
Someone is coming.
They will help.
Head swimming, Ron momentarily blacked out. It must have just been seconds, because when he came to, he was still upright, wands in arm, holding up the wavering shield. The sheer need to stay awake lured him back into consciousness.
Just six feet away from them, the Death Eater's unnervingly masked face betrayed no emotion as he tried harder to get through. His stamina was both exhausting and overwhelming. And Ron knew the strategy his enemy was enacting just as easily as he could read his opponent's moves on the chess board. They both knew that it didn't matter what curses the Death Eater threw at him. As long as he kept up shooting power-draining spells at the weaker points in the shield, sooner or later it would be weak enough to collapse.
It was what Ron would have done. And it looked like that would happen sooner rather than later.
Just...keep...just...just...
Relentlessly the Death Eater struck harder and faster, knowing the shield was almost down. The two wands of the dark, hooded wizard faced off with the two wands of the light-encased, redheaded schoolboy. The curses striking through the growing holes in Ron's shield held tremors that shot up the streams going right into Ron's wands, and continued into his hands and arms like it was lightning.
Ron roared from the pain and knew he had mere seconds.
"INCENDIO!"
A roar of pain—smoke and burning hair hit her nostrils, and horror hit her anew when she realized that the beast on top of her was on fire—
The flames licked her clothes, and she screamed.
"Hermione!"
Hermione felt the horrendous weight thrown off her—and she gasped for breath, rolling over—relief made her dizzy, and she closed her eyes to will it away—why couldn't she stop shaking—
"Moony?" she gasped, thinking she heard his voice.
When she opened her eyes again, there was no Moony, however. She just saw the werewolf take off into the forest, still smoking, a snarling Crookshanks running after him.
"Hermione—"
Clinging to Viktor with her life, she stood.
Blood leaked through Viktor's shirt, and she gasped. "You're bleeding! Did h-h-he bite you?"
"No...no...thanks to Professor Lupin, here…"
Hermione whirled around, more relieved than she had ever been to see her favorite professor standing there.
Moony had come to save them.
That was when Ron saw them.
Hestia Jones was running towards them. And she was matching stride for stride with Professor Snape.
Through the blue forcefield, Ron could hazily see them fighting off the Death Eater, volleying curse after curse, drawing the Death Eater's focus away. But Ron's energy was quickly being used up. The magnitude of the spell he was casting was too great to hold it for long periods of time. Minutes passed as his energy drained. He longed to go join the fight but knew if he did, the girls would be unprotected.
I have to hold it...I have to keep holding it…
Face a mask of fury, and definitely looking the worse for wear, Professor Jones' magenta streaks of magic struck the double-wanded already-weakened Death Eater again and again. And Snape's own greenish streaks hit the Death Eater in places Jones could not.
Ron knew the debate behind that mask. Three opponents trying to fight him off was far too great a risk. Hope was kindled in Ron as he saw the hesitance and frustration in the other wizard's steps.
And finally, finally, the Death Eater knew he had lost, and disapparated.
Ron's arms fell and the dome shield faded away, as he collapsed to the cobblestones once more, and knew only darkness.
Moony staggered to a boulder to sit down, looking utterly exhausted from the force of the spell he cast, and from wrestling the burning werewolf off of Hermione. He looked deeply confused and startled at finding a werewolf in broad daylight, much less attacking a student.
"Moony!" Hermione hugged him. "Thank you, professor! I don't know what we would have done if we...i-if you hadn't…"
His arms encircled hers, obviously touched by the gesture, until she let go and backed away to give him space. Moony ran a hand through his light brown hair, his face ashen.
"Are you all right, Hermione? He didn't...he didn't…"
His unasked question hovered in the air, souring it, and Hermione shook her head, thanking Merlin that she remained untouched. Intact. Unbitten.
"No. We're safe. Both of us. You got here just in time."
Moony sagged, visibly relieved.
"Here, Viktor, let me take care of that wound..." he said, conjuring bandages, and fixing Viktor's arm quickly. Hermione could feel bruises begin to form on her wrists where Greyback pinned her, but thankfully, Viktor's scratch was the worst of it.
"Vhat made that verevolf?" Viktor spoke, unbidden fear leaking out of his voice. Hermione had never heard such a sound come from him before, and it scared her even more than the attempt on their lives.
Hermione's questioning eyes turned to their professor. "It is broad daylight now, and the full moon was two days ago. Professor...why was Greyback transformed today? Has something happened with the werewolves? Are they...becoming stronger?"
Moony closed his eyes and glanced away from her piercing stare.
Viktor gripped Hermione's hand, and she found the pink fuzzy sensation in her brain trickle back in, now that the adrenaline from the danger was ebbing away. Subconsciously, she pulled him closer to her body and sat with him facing Moony.
"That, my dear," Moony started, "Was the Wolflord Potion."
"Won-Won!"
"Ron!"
"Mr. Weasley…Mr. Weasley…"
Worried voices met his ears.
Ron's eyelids snapped open. The scowling face of his slimy git-faced professor was emphatically not the first thing he wanted to see upon waking.
He gave out a startled yelp, and tried to scramble away, but his body was too weak to obey.
"I told you he wouldn't want to see you first," said Hestia's voice wryly, but he couldn't see her.
A potion was shoved in front of his face.
"Here. Drink this."
A glass vial was forced into his mouth and Ron was made to swallow the vile stuff. It burned going down, and it was only seconds that the Pepper-Up Potion started taking effect and Ron was filled with energy once more.
He picked himself up, eyes wild, looking for whatever the hell just happened.
"You okay, Ron?"
Harry was holding on to his elbow, glasses askew, worry ingrained in his skin.
"Harry? What…"
"I don't know. I just heard the commotion. I was a few streets away. They said it was a Death Eater, but his mask was on and nobody could see who it was. He disapparated when Snape and Jones chased him off. Merlin, Ron, I didn't know you could do that!"
Ron leaned heavily on the shorter Harry, feeling exhausted and wobbly, even with the Pepper-Up.
"Harry, where were you?" he asked, his speech still slurring a bit. "Why weren't you...helping...me?"
Guilt sliced through his best friend's eyes, but Ron didn't care. He needed Harry. And Harry wasn't there.
"I'm sorry...I really am...I didn't know…"
"You didn't hear the raucus?" said Ron snidely. "Didn't see my Patronus beg you to come help me? Didn't hear me shouting in pain? I bet you haven't even told Dumbledore about You-Know-Who trying to get to Hermione and me yet, have you? Considering nobody stopped the bloody Death Eater from popping up in the first place, in the middle of the street and trying to off me, I'm guessing not. Or was it you just didn't care?"
"Ron—"
"I can't even trust you with my life, now can I? What should I be able to trust you with, Harry? Huh?"
Ron refused to look at him, and turned away. If he was being unfair to Harry, he really couldn't care less. Someone ought to be mad at 'The Chosen One' when he was supposed to be protecting his best friends and failing abysmally. But no...nobody was ever mad at the Golden Boy. He could do no wrong...
Distrust at Harry gnawed at him, and Ron felt like he was going to be sick. He just wanted to be as far away from Harry as possible.
Harry's protests went unheard, as Ron was helped over to a bench by someone else. The other pair of arms helping him up belonged to their steely-faced Defense professor.
"Merlin, that shield was one of the strongest I've seen in a long time, Mr. Weasley," Jones appraised him. "I am very impressed. It seems to have taken quite a bit of strength. That was very fast thinking on your part. Are you all right? Should we take you to the hospital wing?"
"No," Ron refused. "I'm fine. Don't need any help. I'll just...walk it off."
"Won-Won, let me help you...that was so scary…you were so brave..." simpered Lavender, clinging to his arm, and Ron felt better.
He noticed there was a crowd around them, and grew flushed at the attention, at the admiring stares and whispers, and he realized with red ears that several people were gushing about how he had saved the group of girls he and Lavender were with. They were presently immersed in the crowd, gossiping in loud voices about the Death Eater that almost killed them, and how much of a hero Ron was.
Ron gave a shy smile at the piercing stares, but then Harry pointed something out that completely wiped it from his face.
"What is that?"
Ron followed Harry's pointed finger to the object that had been thrown at Ron's head.
It was a human skull.
"The Wolflord Potion?" said Hermione, hands flying up to her mouth.
"It's...new. And highly illegal. I've only just heard about it. It is very high in demand among the more... unsavory...werewolves. Apparently it is like the Wolfsbane but in reverse. Instead of allowing them to keep their mind...it allows them to keep their werewolf forms. As a sort of lingering effect from the full moon. It only lasts a few days afterwards, however it seems to...morph their minds even moreso than living in the wild as a wolf pack has already done to them." Moony looked fearful. Then he remembered himself, and dusted his robes off.
"But, I'm sorry, Hermione, I cannot leave Greyback as he is on the run like this. I shudder to think of the dangers he may cause. The fact that he just stumbled on the pair of you...Merlin knows what he could have done...but I have to go track him down. Viktor, take her back to the castle. Make haste. Quickly now!"
Moony ran off into the woods, casting a tracking spell as he went.
Eyes wide, Hermione and Viktor held tightly onto each other's hands. Viktor summoned their shoes and picnic items to his arms as they hurried down the dark, forested path to the castle.
For a minute they walked quickly in silence, until Hermione couldn't take it anymore. The horror of the Wolflord Potion sickened her. Not only that, but the fog in her brain grew thick and moist and rather pink, and it was so hard to concentrate…
"Viktor...Viktor, stop, please," she said quietly into the growing darkness. "My feet are bleeding. I need to put my shoes on. Please, we need to stop and rest—"
"No," said Viktor harshly, pulling her along. "I need to get you to safety. Come, we must hurry. Ve are still a mile avay…"
"Viktor, stop!"
Hermione protested and wrenched her hand out of his grip, snatching her boots from him before he could grab her again.
He sighed in irritation and looked around the dirt pathway furtively, before admitting defeat and pulling his own shoes on.
They were deeper into the forest now, and the smaller path they were on still had hundreds of yards of twisting every which way until it joined up with the major road that led from Hogsmeade to the boar-flanked gates. Dusk had long since set in, and the first glimmers of starlight were making their way across the sky.
Under the canopy of the trees however, very little of that light came through.
And so it was only blackness that could be seen when a large branch cracked in the forest.
Hermione's and Viktor's heads snapped up.
Another loud crack.
Then another.
Someone was following them.
Ron jerked back.
The skull was staring up at him by his feet. Everyone around them was muttering and whispering under their breaths, watching as Harry bent down to pick up the nasty thing. Lavender shrieked and scooted back, but Ron got closer.
"Look—there's something in its mouth—"
With trembling fingers, he reached in and grabbed the long, slender stick out of the skull's jaws. He pulled it out.
It was a wand.
No...it was Hermione's wand.
"What the hell?" he said in shock.
"She said….she couldn't find…" Harry whispered.
"She didn't misplace it," said Ron with gritted teeth, the implications of what was happening hitting home. "Someone stole it…"
"But how? It would have been with her...on her…the whole time. All morning. They would have had to have gotten extremely close to her..."
Ron sucked his breath through his teeth. Rage beyond anything he had known before hit him.
"Malfoy did," he hissed. "When we were in the tunnel. She fell against him, didn't she...he tripped her on purpose...made her fall...and he grabbed it when he pushed her away...that slimy, slug bas—"
"While I don't disagree with you, Ron, please be aware of listening ears," said Jones, coming back to them, voice lowered. "You wouldn't want it getting round that Death Eaters had stolen something as important as a wand from Hermione."
"Hang on...there's something else in here…" said Harry, peering into the depths of its mouth.
Ron looked and saw it too. Something cream-colored was wedged in between teeth. Harry wrenched it out.
It was a scroll.
With growing dread, Ron unfurled it and the two boys read the markings therein:
DIE, BLOOD TRAITOR!
WE'LL HUNT YOU
TILL YOUR HEAD ROLLS
ON HALLOWEEN
Hermione drew in a sharp breath.
Where's my wand? I need Viktor...no. Wand. I need my…
Where's Viktor?
Her thoughts were jumbling up in her head. Fear for the unknown presence in the woods that they couldn't see. Her urgency to have her wand. But mostly, just how much she wanted to forget both those items and wrap her arms and legs around Viktor and just...kiss him. Lots.
Crookshanks streaked through the woods, an orange blur amongst the black. There was a grunt and a muffled yowl.
"Crookshanks?" Hermione called out. She couldn't see anything, but her cat did not come back.
"Her-mione...I don't think…"
His wand was out, held up guardedly, lighting its way into the growing darkness, but still something eluded them.
Concerned, Hermione drew back into Viktor, her back pressed up against his chest.
A snarl...then a roar…
"What is that?" she gasped. "Viktor…"
The pink fuzzy cloud in her brain tried to encircle her once more, and his name kept repeating with fervor in her mind. With all the strength she could muster, Hermione pushed it back and tried to concentrate on the fear right in front of them.
The fear which was a fleeting dark shape in the blackness before them. She could hardly make it out. Was it Greyback? Or another werewolf? After all...they came in packs…
She could faintly see her cat's golden form streak around the beast as they fought…
A mrowl of pain.
"Crookshanks!" Her hand clenched Viktor's free hand. "Crookshanks, get back here!"
She stepped forward, trying to go and retrieve him from the...the...thing...but Viktor's hand clamped down around her wrist, refusing her.
"No, Her-mione. I must to keep you safe—"
Fear for her pet made Hermione nauseous. But she obeyed.
Viktor held his wand higher and cast a light in front of them, trying to peer into the darkness. His arm pulled her closer to him, and she shivered in apprehension, hugging his masculine arm closer to her chest.
But they didn't hear any more noises after that. Whatever it was left. Perhaps Crookshanks was chasing it off, because she didn't see Crookshanks after that too.
She bit her lip in worry, leaning out into the darkness to look back the way they came, hoping to see Crookshanks trotting back.
"Crookshanks!" she called out into the unanswering gloom.
No cat, half-Kneazle or otherwise, appeared.
Viktor pulled her the rest of the way to the main road, their feet on the cobblestones making loud sounds in the solitude.
"Come…" he said nervously, looking around them, lit wand held aloft. "We must to be getting back. It isn't safe…"
She took one last look into the darkening gloom for her cat. Reluctantly, she followed her Viktor back to the castle, clutching his hand tightly.
The overwhelming pink cloud in her brain just intensified as they walked to the castle.
Author's Note:
I really am sorry this update took so long! I wasn't happy with the original draft, and kept trying to make it better for you.
That, and life just gets in the way. We found out our baby needs another surgery, so that's taken quite a bit of my time.
In any case, here's the final draft and I hope you like it! This chapter came up to around 8000 word count originally, so I ended up splitting it up into two chapters. Next up is "Her Mr. Rochester"!
