A/N: Thank you to every single one of you who reviewed, especially Tessie, eclecticmum, Leandra, Jerlyz, Rugi, Lady Lupin... and Snowlily, who managed single-handedly to swell my head to twice its normal size. Thank God for Gwen Sanderson, who brought me back down to earth by assuring me that she has 'read novels that are worse' than TiS. I'm pretty sure it was a compliment. ; ) Either way, thanks guys, and thanks for your patience with this chapter - it took longer than expected. Hope it was worth the wait.

Chapter 22.

The tree was enormous. The trunk alone had to be six feet around, and a dense canopy branched out overhead. And Remus's scent led straight towards it. Without pausing in her step, Elena trotted unsuspectingly into range.

Thwack.

Elena yelped as a powerful, stinging slap across her ribs sent her flying backwards. Dazed, she struggled up from the ground and looked at the tree more carefully. One or two of the lower braches flexed menacingly, and then settled to stillness once more.

An enchanted tree, then. Charmed to keep any one from getting too close to whatever secrets were concealed in or around the trunk. But there had to be a way to pacify it, or avoid its blows.

Moving more cautiously this time, Elena made to approach again, keeping a close eye on the violently-inclined canopy overhead. She had barely moved a metre when a lower bough sprang to life and took a swipe at her. This time Elena was ready for it, and she ducked low, pressing her belly against the ground. The leaves grazed her back, but the branch missed.

She inched forward, crawling on her tummy. Again a branch came hurtling down toward her, and again, it scraped by without harming her. In this undignified fashion, Elena managed to near the trunk of the old tree. The closer she got, however, the wilder the thrashing of the branches became. By the time she was within touching distance of the wood, the tree's frenzied attempts to beat her were so powerful that the branches were stinging, even when they only brushed or clipped her.

With a soft yelp, she leapt aside out of the path of a particularly long branch that was sweeping toward her. A moment later she was forced to leap the other way to avoid another. Then another. The swipe after that she did not see, and it caught her painfully around the ribs, throwing her up against the trunk. Her paws scrabbled briefly on the knobbled wood, then she slipped to the ground and flattened herself against the earth, whining in anticipation of the next onslaught.

But there was nothing. Without warning, the tree had become perfectly still. Not even a breeze disturbed its handsome foliage. Before she could even react to this unexpected reprieve, however, Elena felt the ground move slightly beneath her and she scrambled backwards in alarm.

A tunnel gaped open in the tree's broad trunk, leading down into inky darkness. Elena hesitated, checked over both shoulders, then slithered nervously into mysterious passage. Her paws stuck dry soil about four feet down, and as her eyes adjusted to the lightless air she found she could make out smooth stone walls on all sides.

A deep sniff revealed that Remus had indeed been here in this passage way, less than an hour ago. The fresh scent revealed more, too. The taint of sickness hung lightly in the air, and if she concentrated, the sharp tang of fear was apparent to her senses.

Anger, horror, and concern all fought for precedence in Elena's stomach. Remus was ill, and wandering the grounds of Hogwarts at night. Even worse, he was afraid! Whether it was for himself, or of what awaited him at the end of this tunnel, she didn't know. But he was sick, fearful and alone - all she knew was that she had to get to him, had to be by his side.

She peered into the darkness ahead, and began to run.

The twisting tunnel seemed endless. In her desperation to find Remus, Elena found her speed increasing at every curve. Soon she was bolting through the low passage, her paws scrabbling for purchase on the gritty floor.

A dead end marked by a wooden trapdoor brought her up short. Panting heavily, she nosed it urgently and felt it give at the pressure. Twisting her body rather athletically, she pushed her way through. The trapdoor closed behind her with a heavy thunk, leaving her in a world of silence.

She was standing in almost pitch darkness, inside some kind of abandoned house. Everything smelt dusty and worn down. She could not make out any movement.

The thing that struck her more forcibly than anything else about her strange surrounds, however, was the mysterious disappearance of Remus's scent. She had followed it this far, strong and clear. Now suddenly it had faded, or ... changed somehow. It made no sense to Elena. How could someone's scent just 'change' without warning? What was more, the new scent that pervaded this house was confusing her. It was simultaneously familiar and alien to her, and it spoke of terrible things no words could describe.

She lifted her head and sniffed again, her heart pounding against her ribs. There was pain and grief and desperation, feelings of such intensity that they had tainted the air itself, but she was used to these emotions and though they worried her they did not frighten her. What frightened her was the fury, the hate, and the ferocious power that seemed to fester in every shadow. There was something evil in this place. Something dark and wild and terrifying.

Elena shivered and swallowed the frightened whine that rose in her throat. Whatever dark creature lived here, she did not want to alert it to her presence.

But perhaps it was too late.

In the shadows to the left of her, her adjusting eyes caught a glimpse of movement. She backed around to face it, snarling silently in fear as her hackles lifted. The terrible scent of mad pain and untamable viciousness assaulted her again, and all her senses strained to discover what manner of beast she was confronting.

For a long moment, there was a heavy silence. Then a low, rasping growl swelled softly in the shadows, and Elena shuddered. In the dimness, she spied a gleam of white.

It took a moment for her to register that the gleam was reflecting off teeth. Suddenly she realised why the scent of this monster had confused her with its odd familiarity - it was at least part wolf.

Lowering her tail and cowering slightly, Elena took a step backward. The creature in the shadows moved forward immediately, narrowing the gap between them. Elena could make out a little more now. It was a wolf all right - large and lean, with long limbs and a shaggy grey-black coat.

But as it loomed from the darkness, her desperately roving eyes noticed other things. Things that stopped her breath in her throat and filled her entire being with terror like she had never known.

Instead of the earth-blunted claws of ordinary wolves, this creature had enormous paws studded with short, curving black talons, designed to shred flesh from bones. Instead of yellowed and slightly worn canines, its mouth was packed with shining silver-white teeth, its needle-pointed fangs exposed by a permanent snarl. This was no wolf.

This was a werewolf.

And she was as good as dead.

Before she could check it, an instinctive growl of terror and hatred welled in her throat and rumbled around the small room.

At the sound of it, the werewolf's head jerked up and its ears pricked sharply. Its horrible claws flexed and it sniffed the air intently. With another painful, rasping snarl, it began to advance on her.

In desperation, Elena cast out her mind and made a clumsy contact with the hazy, half-maddened mind of the werewolf. She opened her consciousness to it, letting it see all of her motivations and emotions - her desperate concern for her lover, her fear, her disinterest in doing the werewolf harm, her desire to escape.

She felt its reaction as it sensed her inside its head, but it did not open up to her. This didn't really surprise her. The contact dropped away, and Elena could not summon the energy, nor the proper level of concentration required to cast out again.

Even though it would not let her into its mind, Elena's aborted attempt at Charming seemed to have confused the werewolf. It behaved as though it were angry, as though it was fighting a battle within itself. It shook its head violently, snapped at her, backed away, then launched forward again, stopping just short of a fully fledged attack.

Elena didn't understand, nor did she want to understand what was going on in its head. She wanted to get away, far away from here. Her mouth was set in a snarl as she lowered her head and took another step backwards toward the trapdoor.

All of a sudden, something seemed to snap in the mind of the werewolf and it launched towards her once again, claws outstretched, growling, salivating and snapping uncontrollably. Left with no other choice, Elena tried desperately to defend herself, rearing backwards and clawing desperately to avoid the snarling, snapping jaws. The werewolf's claws lashed out, catching her across the shoulder and raking four parallel gashes that immediately began to seep bright red blood.

Elena yelped in pain and fear, and just as suddenly as it had begun, the assault was over. The werewolf backed away, shaking its head frantically in anger or confusion or madness, it was impossible to tell which.

Without waiting for a second attack, Elena scrambled backwards to the trapdoor she had entered by. Scrabbling with her back paw, she managed to lever it open a crack. The werewolf had by now backed well away, and was hunched in a corner of the small room. Its eyes were fixed upon her and its limbs were quivering with the effort of restraint. Elena wedged the door a little further open, her lower body dropping into the passage below.

But just for a moment, before she dropped out of sight and to safety, Elena caught the werewolf's gaze.

Grey eyes, like the sky before a snow storm.

Then the wolf threw back its head and howled. The tortured cry of unspeakable pain and unfathomable loneliness lanced through Elena like hot steel, shattering her heart.

No... It can't be... Remus, please, no...

The trapdoor thunked closed above her, and she was alone in the passageway beneath the house.

Elena turned on her tail and began to run, wanting to escape all that she had just seen.

But no matter how fast she drove herself down the passage and over the grounds of the school... no matter how long she lay weeping on her bed, returned now to her human form... no matter how weak she grew as her blood continued to flow unchecked from the wound in her shoulder, soaking into her bedsheets and mingling with her tears... she still could not forget.

As long as she lived, she would never forget.