9
NORAH slowly opened her tired eyes, seeing the visions of an unfamiliar room clear from a hazy, slow blur.
A ceiling fan, slowly rotating in a lazy way, was the first thing that met her clouded vision.
She then reminded herself once more, that she herself was now clouded with a certain disability, the way her hand ached and throbbed. Her sleep had been deep, but not entirely peaceful.
Images had flashed before her, more like fragmented thoughts than actual dreams.
Some were benign and more memorable, but most had passed Jameson by too quickly for the young werewolf to comprehend what was going on inside her mind, leaving a dark, unsettling presence in their wake.
Her eyes flickered open and shut again, barely perceptively. She was beginning to wake up now, but her already weak body ached, screaming for relief that she knew was not going to come for her anytime soon.
Why did she feel this way? Had she been drugged? Had someone drugged her, was that it? And she wasn't in a room that she recognized. The first thing she was made aware of was how much her head hurt.
She lay against a soft pillowcase for a while longer, in a semi-conscious haze, feeling like she was teetering on the brink between the darkness of her nightmares and the brilliant light of the real world, wherever 'here' was for her.
She could see and hear a voice, a man's voice, speaking to her, but whoever he was, he was distant and distorted, an indistinct ripple that couldn't fully penetrate the gauze that stretched over her perception of the world around Norah.
Her hair felt damp from slight perspiration, and everything ached with a feverish chill, and her skin felt like rough sandpaper.
Norah could not recall another time past the most recent full moon where she felt so drained and weakened.
What bothered her, even more, was how much her ankle throbbed. The young woman's eyes remained closed, but her mind was racing a mile a minute.
The last thing she remembered was Rookwood getting one over on her, and someone had saved her life, but everything after that was a hazy blur.
It only took a few seconds for everything to come rushing back to her and her eyes shot open.
Where the bloody hell was she, even?
Norah found herself starting up at a slowly rotating ceiling fan in a dimly lit room with peeling old floral wallpaper. Norah attempted to lift her head but found it felt as if a stone had replaced her brain and rolled to the back of her skull, forcing the young witch to leave it pressed to the pillow for now.
She lay collapsed against the pillow, forcing her breaths to regulate to normally, as Norah willed herself to breathe calmly and slowly, though she could not ignore the raging fever threatening to burn her up from the inside, nor the swooping churning nausea rolling through the pit of her upset stomach.
And then, like a series of memoirs rolling through her head, it all came back to her. Greyback's plan, his threat of what he would do to her if she couldn't manage to locate the Order's Headquarters and infiltrate, seduce this Brennan boy, her own uncle's murderer.
Perhaps a little too quickly, Norah bolted upright in her bed, realizing that was the wrong choice to make. She could hear a voice speaking to her in a curt and annoyed tone, a young man's voice.
"No, don't get up, y—you need to stay lying down, darling."
She parted her cracked lips open to speak, trying to tell whoever was speaking to her from the shadows that she couldn't and to never ever call her darling again unless they valued not getting a bite from her and their eyes carved from their head, the Muggle way, she had to find out where she was, as she raised her upper half off the bed.
Norah bolted to her feet, and almost instantaneously, the room she was in started spinning.
Her head began pounding against her temples and her eyes went completely unfocused. Norah could hear a man's voice to her right, but just as she tried to turn her head to find his location, wondering if this was the same man who had saved her life from Rookwood, the girl felt nausea creeping over her, and it caused her stomach to lurch.
Her throat tightened and her mouth salivated enough to know she'd made the wrong damn mistake in getting up at all.
The young witch glanced wildly to the left and right and spotted a half-open door across the hallway that led to what looked to be a small bathroom connected to the bedroom and bolted.
The wave of nausea was so intense that her stomach contracted so violently that she barely made it to the toilet bowl, slamming the door shut behind her, not wanting whoever was in the room with her to see her like this.
Nausea, courtesy of both her post-transformation from this month's full moon and a side effect of when she had hit her head on the sidewalk outside earlier and passed out, clawed at her throat, and Norah tried to force down the bile, but it was too late.
Norah sank to her knees and vomited into the toilet, retching until only clear liquid was coming up. Her throat felt sore from the stomach acid that was layering it and her mouth now tasted of vomit. The stomach-acid stench of vomit filled her nostrils.
Norah pulled back and surveyed the mess in the toilet bowl with watery, red-rimmed eyes and her stomach dry-heaved again.
She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand and shakily rose to her feet, wishing she had her wand to conjure a toothbrush with which to brush her teeth to rid her mouth of the disgusting taste of vomit, but the sink water was just going to have to do.
Standing on shaking legs that felt as though she had been hit with a Jelly Legs Curse, Norah turned on the faucet sink and rinsed out her mouth as best as she could, emotions swirling with the ice-cold water circling the cold metal drain as streaks of fire burned her cheeks as a few stray tears escaped her lids.
Each new wave a hot trail of agony as her shoulders shock wracked her thin, slender frame.
The fire of shame and anger burned just underneath her skin and a deep, sorrowful emptiness at what Greyback was making her do filled her heart as the sentiments brewed over and boiled past the seams Norah Jameson could no longer hold together.
Norah glanced up at her peaky reflection in the mirror and immediately flinched, wishing she hadn't looked.
She froze when she saw herself in the dirty bathroom mirror coated in dust and grime, looking as though it hadn't been cleaned in Merlin only knew how long.
Her knuckles bone white as she clenched onto the edge of the sink.
She stared at her reflection, more specifically the area of skin near her collarbones, just above her right breast. At the three angry scars, white, pink against her pearly skin tone. They were strange-looking scars, of that there was no denying, an odd mixture of bright white and dark, obvious pink.
Norah supposed she should have been grateful the wolf who'd bitten her, ruined her life, hadn't gone for her face, she thought bitterly.
The skin of her collarbones near the scars themselves was pulled taut and tight, and also slightly discolored, suggesting that the bitemark that had turned her when she was a little girl would never fully heal properly.
Norah slowly unclenched one of her hands from the edge of the porcelain sink and lightly brushed it down her scar, tracing the jagged lines with the pads of her fingers, hissing in ire at the werewolf who'd bitten her, ruined her life and made her a monster.
Norah sighed and turned her head sharply to the left, biting her bottom lip in a sense of anguish.
Even after all this time, she was still only ever able to look upon it for no longer than a minute. Her knuckles were white with the effort to steady her shaking form upright against the white porcelain sink, and she forced herself to look into the monster's eyes.
As her own reflection stared right back at her, her lips curled up in disgust and her nostrils flared in agitation. Her mind felt as if lead were coursing through it rather than blood, and she averted her gaze from her own image because if she was forced to look into the eyes of the monster again, Norah thought she might very well vomit again.
Disgust. Total disgust is what she felt. There was no changing what she was, this—this monster, this beast, this demonic, accursed—
There came a knock at the door and a voice. Norah froze, her blue eyes widening in shock.
"Are you all right?" came a male's voice from the other side of the closed door.
Norah's eyes widened and the scream that emerged from her lips was so loud, so incredibly loud, and high-pitched as she faltered backward from the sink and in her haste to look for another way out away from here, wherever here was, she latched onto the shower curtain behind her and fell backward into the tub and hit her head. Again.
Groaning, Norah lifted a hand to the back of her skull, not surprised when the edges of her fingertips came away slightly bloodied.
Letting out an agonized moan, Norah collapsed, lacking the strength to untangle herself from the tub.
"Just—just let me lay here, let me bleed," she moaned. "It'll be good for me," she snapped, lowering her voice.
Though whoever was on the other door seemed to have no intentions of allowing that to happen.
Norah squeezed her eyes tightly shut and turned her head to the right the moment the door burst open so violently, the thing shook in its rusted hinges, and a burst of blinding white light filled her vision.
She thought she might get sick again from the way her head throbbed and pounded against her temples, and she felt herself begin to squirm as she forced herself upright into a sitting position, managing to wriggle her way back to the furthermost corner of the tub and assumed a defensive position.
Though she was still considerably weakened and in no condition to put up any kind of a fight, she wasn't going anywhere easily with a stranger.
She didn't even know where she was! She felt her lips part open as she let out a low, wolfish hiss, and her hackles raised, silently warning whoever had entered into the bathroom not to come any closer or she would bite them.
As her eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness, Norah slowly swiveled her head to find a man close to her age, perhaps a few years older, staring at her.
"Are you hurt?" The stranger answered in a flat voice. "Answer me," he said, his voice low but quite clear.
"S—stay away from me!" Norah warned threateningly, baring her incisors, which were still sharpened, pointing, and she watched in a sick satisfaction as the dark-haired stranger recoiled, a look of fleeting disgust on his features at her savage snarling and growling as she attempted to retreat further within herself, though she lifted her chin and forced herself to get a good, long look at him.
The man's eyes were piercing blue, like hers, like the sky on a clear winter's morning.
Though she had eyes, Norah never quite fully trusted what she saw through her wolfish sight. She had been deceived one too many times by Greyback.
However, they were, at the moment, anything but kind. The man's burning blue eyes burned like midnight torches, and Norah could clearly see the loathing that spiraled within them, though why his anger was directed towards her, she had no idea.
But there was something else: something she began to shiver for, something that, in her mind, resembled abhorrence, and even worse, frustrated…desire.
She recognized the look quite well, having seen it hours ago in Rookwood's eyes.
The young chap who was confronting her in the bathroom of…wherever she was, was arresting and utterly hypnotic. A light, rough sort of a beard graced his strong jawline.
Norah, who did not put much stock into a person's appearance, could not deny this fellow was most likely not made of the same flesh and blood as most people were.
His face was not princely like the handsome princes in the fairytales her parents had read to her before they died, her real parents, but he had the strong build of a man underneath this thick black woolen sweater and jeans, the kind of man she once imagined to embrace before Father made her realize that no one would love a monster like her.
Norah let out an audible gasp of revulsion the second her eyes landed on a horrific-looking burn mark underneath the man's right eye that marred and twisted the skin around it until it looked like one of those rubber masks the Muggle children wore on Halloween.
A grotesque, ugly scar, of that there was no denying. She thought him a plain chap. But she was not about to be fooled a second time.
Norah had made that mistake a long time ago thinking she could trust Father and look what Greyback was making her do with her life.
The moment his hand outstretched towards hers, she shivered, but not from the cold or her fever that was sending waves of heat through her bloodstream, igniting it hotter than dragon's fire.
"Leave," she hissed in a short, disconnected, and emotionless tone, shakily rising from the bathtub, and almost tripping over the curtain again.
The man shot out an arm to catch her as she stumbled forward, though she violently jerked away from his grasp and shot her hands along the edge of the wall in order to steady her trembling legs.
She was not about to let this man get anywhere near her. Greyback's stupid plan was just going to have to wait.
Anger rose within her when he spoke up.
"No." Just one word, but more than enough. The man's eyes darkened, almost cerulean in color as he straightened his posture and stood upright to his full height of around 6'3 if Norah had to hazard a guess at the man's height.
Suddenly, a loud, slow, threatening, impatient exhale was heard coming from someone, and it took Norah a moment to realize the noise came from her as the sound exited through her nostrils.
Norah swallowed down hard as another wave of nausea wracked her form, and her fingernails scraped the edge of the wall for support as she slowly inched her way towards the door that would take her back out into the unfamiliar, nasty bedroom.
Whoever lived here certainly didn't take pride in appearances. This hovel was truly filthy.
Her attention was thrown in overdrive as the man moved deftly and with a surprising speed to stand in front of the doorway, blocking her exit. His stubbornness seemed to keep him planted in his spot.
His wand clutched tightly in his hand, he raised it half-heartedly, looking as though he meant to jinx her, and Norah's body stiffened.
She braced herself, preparing for the worst.
"What?" she snapped in a voice that was low and surprisingly calm, though Norah recognized the menacing undertone of the wolf within her.
The man remained unfazed, standing his ground, though she swore she caught the briefest flickers of anger and annoyance flit through those piercing eyes of blue of his, and she didn't like it.
"I said no." The man's answer in his deep voice was firm and louder to punctuate the wizard's unwillingness to comply with Norah's wish that he leaves her alone. "You're injured and hurt. You need medical attention and to lie back down, Miss…?" He paused, his voice trailing off slightly.
Norah startled at hearing the man's voice more clearly as her wolfish hearing perked up at the soft, tenor-like tone of the man's quiet, reserved voice.
Though right now, he sounded annoyed with Norah's resistance and general reluctance to accept his help.
But…she did not know this man, nor did she particularly want to, by the way, he looked at her. She could feel his eyes crawling up her body. Norah narrowed her eyes at the dark-haired, blue-eyed stranger's stubbornness.
She clenched her jaw in anger and back to weakly move past the man's broad figure blocking her exit, hoping to duck underneath the man's arm, though he shot out his arm and latched onto her forearm, gripping onto it tightly.
Norah flinched and stepped back a few paces at his sudden pouncing. She didn't want to show him fear, she knew it would only feed his strange dominance he was currently exhibiting.
The second he moved forward, she faltered. His abrupt brazenness made the worst of her anger towards this man dissipate, only to be replaced by fear, not liking how his cobalt blue eyes darkened, almost cerulean in color the angrier he became.
He wants to know my name, Norah thought wildly, noticing how at first, his gaze appeared hardened, though as his eyes briefly wandered and settled on her injured, bandaged hand, she swore something within the man shifted and softened.
It was this that prompted her to tell him her name only, thinking that she was not about to allow this man to call him by her first name until he acted more civil towards her and did not demand things of Norah.
"Norah Jameson," she answered simply in a soft, shaking voice. Norah swallowed down past the lump in her throat. "Who are you?" she shot back.
She had told the man her name, it was only fair he now told her his. She drew in a breath, waiting for him to speak.
"Ollie," the man retorted in a smooth, languid voice. "Ollie Brennan," he said quietly, lifting his chin and his gaze to better look at Norah just then.
Norah felt a cold chill waft over her as her heart dropped to the pit of her churning stomach, and she thought as she felt it lurch, she might get sick again.
Oh, Merlin's left…this was the man Father wanted her to seduce? The one that killed Uncle Bryce?! This…this had to be some kind of sick joke. He—he couldn't be the one! Father was wrong! He just had to be wrong!
Norah reluctantly lifted her gaze and desperately searched the man's face for any hint or shred that he might be toying with her, playing with her emotions by lying to her and not revealing his true name, but one look at the man's solemn blue eyes that were laced with just a hint of melancholy told Norah Jameson the truth: that he was not lying.
Merlin's Beard, oh, god, but she couldn't do this! Norah felt bile rise in her throat, and she wanted nothing more than to lash out at her uncle's murderer, to scream at him and hex him where he stood for killing the one good family relation Greyback had, who might have changed him.
Norah blinked back the beginning of briny, salty tears, though before she could take a staggering step backward and violently wrench her arm free of the man's surprisingly iron-tight grip, his brilliant blue eyes wandered to her bandages.
"You're bleeding, Miss Jameson," Ollie Brennan answered curtly in a hardened tone by way of response, sounding on the brink of annoyance. "Please, Jameson, allow me to see it. It will do no one any good if you continue to allow it to bleed and become infected, least of all you," he said in a voice that, though still sounded quite perturbed the fuss that Norah was making, now carried a slight begging tone to his lilt as he took a step forward and reached out a hand.
Norah shrank back into the corner of the bathroom even more, scared.
"Don't call me that," she snapped in a clipped and aggressive tone, allowing the she-wolf within herself to come out for a moment. "Just Jameson, Brennan. Only friends call me Norah," she hissed. "You've not earned the right," Norah hissed lowly, baring her sharpened fangs in a show of anger and fear.
Ollie's face paled and drained of color as the man's mind processed her words.
There was something disgustingly noble about the way this young blonde werewolf was behaving towards him, after all, that he had done in helping save her life.
He felt an unpleasant bitterness and anger at the back of his throat as his father's temper surged within his chest.
What did she think she was, then? A saint? Ollie let out a frustrated growl as he gnashed his teeth together and carded his fingers through his black hair, not liking seeing the girl's terrified expression as those haunting blue eyes lingered on the burn mark underneath his right cheek.
It quickly became clear to Ollie that Norah Jameson saw nothing but a monster. And of course, she would be right, yes…
Norah Jameson looked up at him with defiant eyes as Ollie, without even thinking of what he was doing, lifted his hand once more and slowly grazed her purpling and bruised cheek with the back of his hand gently.
Ollie heard Jameson gasp slightly at the contact, and her pallid cheek was surprisingly warm. Feverish, even.
The girl was burning up. He felt a sudden urge to continue caressing her cheek. Managing to control the urge rapidly rising as the fire within his stomach and chest, Ollie reluctantly let his hand gently slide off before stepping back.
He heard her sigh with relief before stepping back, her shoulders slumping with relief he hadn't tried anything else.
It was then that his father's inherited temper within him snapped. Gritting his teeth, Ollie glared at Jameson. Was he really that much of a monster? That despicable?
Out of the corner of his peripherals, he swore he caught Albus Dumbledore's piercing blue eyes staring at the pair of them in an almost amused gesture, which set his blood aflame in his veins.
Did the Order founder think this a joke?! The girl was injured and refusing his help. Was Dumbledore out of his mind by assigning him her? Was he perhaps short of a marble or two?!
Ollie knew he would not be able to work with this witch if she continued to fight and resist his efforts to help her like this.
Ollie blew out a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut, silently willing to Merlin or anyone up there if anyone would listen to a monster, a bastard such as him, that he could calm down. He did not want to yell at her, but Jameson was being so…so difficult!
"Let me help." Ollie continued to offer and merely receive a hiss in response from the young blonde werewolf. "You're bleeding, Jameson. You're hurt. Allow me to help…"
Though the moment he raised his wand, with the intent to conjure a salve and fresh bandages to apply to her bleeding hand and the purple bruises on her cheek, he knew that had been a grave mistake.
Her face drained of color. "I—I don't NEED your help! Ngh—let go of me!" Norah screamed, her breathing starting to go uneven and she swayed a bit. Her arms were still bracing against the wall for support.
Ollie flinched at the harshness of his new partner's voice but stayed motionless in the doorway of the spare bedroom's bathroom.
She was practically pressed up against his body at this point, and Ollie could see the details of the condition the young wolf was in.
Her short blonde hair was in a disarray from sweat, strands of hair clinging to her cheeks and forehead. Her skin was pale, clammy, bruised, her blue eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed at the edges.
The man knew from the look of her, she'd not slept. Ollie wondered if she'd eaten recently.
Finally, Jameson's legs buckled from sheer lack of strength, and she landed on her knees, though Ollie moved with surprising speed and caught the worst of her fall, holding the girl up in a hugging position, and he was relieved the werewolf didn't try to fight him.
He knew Jameson was entirely too weak. Without a word, he lifted the young blonde witch to a standing position with the strength of his legs and shoulders.
Ollie threw one of his arms around her neck, encircling his arm around the small of her back, and they both hobbled outside to the room.
Once they were near the comfortable-looking leather armchair that rested in one of the bedroom's corners, Ollie gingerly set Norah back against the chair and Jameson instantly went limp.
She collapsed her head back against the headrest of the chair and wearily closed her eyes. Her lids went heavy, and Ollie, fearing she would go to sleep and not wake up for several more hours, felt worried as the foreign emotion wormed its way into his stomach, despite his anger and annoyance with this witch.
He snapped his fingers in her face and Jameson blinked rapidly.
"Jameson?" he barked roughly in a rough, grating voice that sounded like sandpaper.
She tried to stay at attention as she blinked rapidly and groaned as she forced herself to sit upright in a chair, and Jameson looked at Ollie coherently enough to allow Ollie to get a word in edgewise.
"Do you know where you are?" he asked. A numb shake of her head no mutely. He sighed, feeling his shoulders slump forward in defeat. He should have expected as much from this one. Ollie blew out a deep breath and continued. "You're in the Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. Surely, you know Dumbledore?"
Jameson responded to his questions by merely raising an eyebrow in alarm at Ollie's statement.
"Who doesn't?" she snapped in an angry tone. "The man's the most eccentric-"
Ollie bristled, cutting her off, gnashing his teeth together in annoyance, feeling his blood boil within his veins.
No one insulted Albus Dumbledore in front of him, not when the man had done so much for him, given him a chance to prove his worth to the Order when no one else dared to go near him, all because of who his father was, and the burn mark under his eye that automatically labeled him as a form of beast or monster.
He balled his hands into fists, his fingers of his wand hand twitching to draw his wand, though he did not want to argue with her.
"You dare insult Hogwarts' Headmaster, werewolf? You watch your mouth around the Headmaster—" he started to say, though the quiet, reserved voice of Professor Dumbledore interjected whatever Ollie had been about to say to the young blonde werewolf next.
"I do believe that is quite enough, Oliver Brennan and Norah Jameson, don't you agree?"
Norah jerked her head away from her challenger as Ollie rose up to his full height again, towering over her from her place in the armchair that his shadow completely engulfed her in the darkness.
Fitting, she thought bitterly, considering what Father is ordering me to do, Norah thought.
There, nestled in the corner of the dimly lit bedroom, was Professor Dumbledore himself.
Immediately, Norah felt her cheeks begin to redden. Oh, Merlin's pants, she'd had no idea!
Albus's pristine set of gray robes that swooshed and billowed behind him as he strode towards Ollie and Norah's positions were neat and immaculate, a rather comfortable looking gray scarf draped loosely around his neck.
One end was thrown casually over his left shoulder while the other tail hung down his front. Norah's blue eyes widened.
Clasping his hands in front of him in a rather business-like manner, Dumbledore gave a small incline of his head towards Norah before speaking.
"I do believe that is enough," he repeated. "Kindly still your rage, Mr. Brennan. The young lady is quite right. I do tend to behave eccentrically at times, a side effect of my intellectual intelligence, Oliver. She meant no harm. Seeing as your new partner within the Order, Miss Jameson," Here, he paused to send Brennan a wane, reproachful stare. "Has forgotten proper edict and how to behave towards a young woman in a respectful manner, then it falls to me. May I ask, how you came to be in Remus Lupin and Oliver Brennan's company on this dreary evening?"
Wait. What? Norah blinked owlishly as she felt her eyes widen until they were the size of dinner plates. Her…her partner?! Merlin, but could today possibly get any worse?
It was bad enough that Greyback was forcing her to seduce this accursed bastard of a man, but now, Dumbledore was forcing the two of them to work alongside each other?
Was Fate, that cruel bastard, truly so unkind to her? Norah swallowed thickly past the lump in her throat as she felt it hollow and constrict. Apparently, it was.
"Ah, f—forgive me, Headmaster," she stammered, struggling to find the right words, "but, ah, what?"
Professor Dumbledore shot Brennan a dark look as Ollie made an odd little strangled noise in the back of his throat that suggested he agreed with Norah's sentiment, and the man fell silent, waiting.
Norah snorted as the handsome man rolled his eyes before turning his blue gaze on her.
"Albus, I think she hit her head harder than Remus and I thought. Just look at her. She's in no condition to do night watch alongside me for the next several nights, at best. I think you've made a grave mistake in appointing me to be this girl's partner." He huffed in frustration and looked away, his jaw tensing.
"My decision on this is final. Both of you," Albus added in a stern voice that was quite clipped, as he fixed Ollie and Norah with a rather pointed stare, "will kindly put aside your differences and work alongside one another for the time being, but…considering the circumstances, Mr. Brennan, I think it best if I speak to the young witch alone. We don't need a repeat of events, do we?"
Norah drew in a sharp breath that pained her bruised ribcages from where she'd fallen earlier when Rookwood had grabbed her roughly as Brennan glared at Dumbledore for a moment before sparing a brief glance in Norah's direction.
A muscle in the man's jaw twitched, and the burnt skin underneath his right eye was pulled tight and taut, and, in the dim light of the bedroom, given how tall and towering the raven-haired chap was, it gave him a truly grotesque and frightening appearance.
Norah shivered, though not with cold. Her chest heaved as the man's piercing blue eyes met hers and locked on, not pulling away, and Norah felt hot liquid immediately pool in her gut.
Norah's face flushed in horror as she realized her body was reacting to her current situation as her mind struggled to process that she had made it.
She was here, in the Order of the Phoenix, and the man whom Father wanted her to seduce was truly monstrous.
Her first initial impression of him was the man would have made a fine werewolf.
Norah decided to further goad the man further, by simply smiling at him, to kill the bloke with kindness. It's what her mother, Rena Lestrange, back home, would have told her to do.
Brennan furrowed his brows and frowned at her in response as his face rapidly paled, and then turned on the heels of his boots and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him so hard that the door rattled in its hinges.
Norah flinched at the loud noise that her overly sensitive wolfish hearing picked up on.
She took a moment to glance around the now-empty room, save for her and Dumbledore, who was taking a moment to get himself situated.
He sat upon the edge of the mattress and merely was regarding Norah as though she were an interesting specimen that he'd caught a magical menagerie and did not know what to do with her.
Norah sighed sadly with a shake of her head before turning towards Professor Dumbledore.
"My new partner isn't very friendly, is he, Professor Dumbledore?" Norah asked dryly as she stared after the now-closed door, unable to believe what had just happened to her, thinking this was all a horrible mistake.
There was no way on Merlin's green earth she could do this. But judging by the look in Dumbledore's eyes, she knew there was no other option available to her at this time.
Like it or not, she was now Brennan's partner. And she was quick to decide that she did not like it.
Not. One. Bit.
Glad Norah's finally awake! She and her new partner did not get off on the right foot, but considering the night she's had, I don't blame her for being cautious going forward around Ollie & co. , considering what Greyback is making her do.
Coming up in Ch. 10, Norah further talks with Dumbledore and attempts to get her bearings!