Rating: PG (It was forced up by some slight imagined violence at the very end.)
Summary: At long last, Chandra transforms! Just in time for Halloween, if a bit behind the full moon.
Disclaimer: See first chapter.
------- ------- -------
Click. The door swung open.
Chandra walked in, listening for any signs of her parents.
"Hello?"
No answer. She walked in a bit further.
"Mum, Dad, I'm home!"
Still no answer. She stuck her head around the door to the kitchen. Nobody there. She ran up the stairs, and at the top called out again, "Mum, Dad!?"
A head popped out of her mother's "office", where she painted. "Chandra! You're back! I've been so worried!" She came over and hugged her daughter.
"Hey, Mum."
Caroline Loup stopped hugging her daughter and instead held her at arms length, looking her up and down very severely. "Now, what exactly have you been up to, my girl? Not home for nearly a week, and strange people coming round babbling nonsense about magic and werewolves. You're not mixed up with drugs or anything like that, are you?"
Chandra inwardly rolled her eyes at her mother. "No, Mum, nothing like that!"
"Well then? All that mumbo-jumbo about magic can't be true."
Chandra took a deep breath. Obviously, the hospital people hadn't considered convincing her parents very important. "Actually, Mum... it is."
Her mother's face took on that hard look of hers that meant she was particularly angry about something. "You're lying. You're hiding something from me. And until I find out what it is and just exactly what you've been doing this past week, you are not leaving this house!"
Chandra sighed. Punished for telling the truth.
She really should have thought of a good cover story.
Chandra's father was home at dinner. Which made sense, as when she stopped and thought about it, Chandra realised it was a Wednesday, and her father had to work.
She could be incredibly stupid, sometimes.
"Hey, Dad!"
Chandra rushed down the stairs and into the arms of her very surprised father.
"Chandra! I'm so glad you're home, pet." He hugged his daughter fiercely. Like his wife, he stopped and held her at arm's length, looking her up and down searchingly. Unlike his wife, his first question was, "Are you alright? You weren't hurt or anything, were you? When those strange people started coming around I was scared you'd been kidnapped by some sort of medical research people, or one of those strange cults that keep cropping up."
Chandra gave her father a watery smile. "No, Dad, I wasn't kidnapped, not exactly anyway. But..."
"But?"
"I'm not entirely alright either. You see, well, that stuff those people told you... it's true."
A look of fear crept into her father's face. "True? But, but, Chandra pet, you can't be what they said. Werewolves are just fairy stories!"
Chandra shook her head. "No, Dad. It's true, I swear."
"It can't be," her father whispered, but his eyes showed how scared he was that he might be wrong.
Chandra's mother came in from the kitchen at that point. "Dinnertime, Charles." She smiled at her husband, then said rather stiffly, "Dinnertime, Chandra."
"What's the matter between you two," Charles Loup asked, looking worriedly from his wife to his daughter and back.
"Oh, so you haven't heard her story then?"
"Beg pardon?"
"Our daughter has been feeding me ridiculous stories about magic and werewolves in order to explain where she's disappeared to these last few days." Caroline advanced a step with every word, speaking in a dangerously quiet voice. "I shudder to think what the true story is that she feels it necessary to sink to such banalities to explain what's been happening!" She was now standing mere inches from husband and daughter.
"Well, Dear, maybe if that's what she's been saying, and what those people were saying, well, maybe..."
Caroline turned her glare onto her husband. "You do not mean to tell me that you believe all that nonsense, do you? It. Is. Impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!"
Charles said fairly calmly, "Well, yes, it is impossible, but–"
"BUT? How can there be a 'but' after the word 'impossible'?"
He took no notice of his wife's interruption. "But we are trying to find out what happened. Not whether or not it was possible. And I can't think of any other explanation. Can you?"
"Kidnapping!"
"For what purpose? Obviously not money."
His calmness was calming down her temper, as it always did. But it wasn't giving in without a fight. "Drugs! Or one of those crazy research people."
"Does she look like she's been drugged or experimented on?"
"Well, no, but, I mean –"
"My dear, we'd be able to tell if that was the case, and I doubt she would be home now. Your theory is just as improbable as what Chandra is telling us, you know."
"But at least it isn't impossible!"
Charles waited.
"Well...well, maybe they've been practising hypnotising techniques on her, or something!"
"I have a suggestion," Chandra cut in. Both her parents turned to look at her. "Why don't we all just wait for the full moon and see what happens? If nothing happens then we know I've been brainwashed."
"A good idea," her father said, cutting off any protestations from his wife. "Especially as I don't see what we can do about it in any case, so there's no point in arguing." His wife looked at him in disgust, but she merely turned around and marched off to the kitchen.
Chandra and her father looked at each other, shrugged, and followed.
------- ------- -------
The rest of the month was not good for Chandra. Her mother was unequivocally refusing to believe that what Chandra said could in the slightest way be true, and seemed to believe that her daughter was caught up in something dangerous, illegal, or both. Her father didn't seem to disbelieve her, but he didn't seem very ready to believe her either. He seemed to think that whatever was the matter there was nothing they could do about it and Thank God his daughter was alive and unharmed except for this strange idea that she was now a werewolf.
Chandra had managed to slip off to get her potion, which had been a nerve-wracking experience. The entrance she had been directed to use was some sort of back-way in, which had been expressly created for the few people such as herself who weren't magic but had legitimate business in a magic hospital. Apparently, there had been several panicked riots back in the early days of the hospital when they had been forced to let non-magic patients in through the front door along with everybody else. There had been a few other people with her in the tiny room for people waiting for their potions, all of whom seemed to be concentrating on not catching anyone else's eye. Although several of them had looked curiously at her for a few minutes before dropping their eyes again. (She had supposed that it was fairly obvious that she didn't belong there, the way she stared at everything.) And then she had almost knocked over a youngish man with greying brown hair when she was leaving, she had been in such a hurry to get away from all those silent, depressed people. He'd been very nice about it though.
So now here she was, on the day of the full moon, waiting. Just waiting. Waiting to find out if it was all true, or just some elaborate hoax, or any other alternative the tiny hopeful but desperate corner of her brain could come up with.
She had been a jittery wreck all day. She couldn't concentrate on anything. At breakfast and lunch, she just sat at the table for hours, picking at her food, long after both her parents had finished and left. When she tried to read to take her mind off things her eyes wouldn't focus on the page properly, and she read every word beginning with a "w" as "werewolf". When she turned on the TV, her mind kept wandering off and she watched an entire show without even realising what show it was that she was watching. She tried doing other things, but simply couldn't find any interest in doing anything. But she felt a hopeless need to do something, anything, to burn off her energy and leave her too tired to think. Every so often she'd notice one of her parents standing there watching her go crazy. She could see the thought "drugs" in her mother's eyes when she caught her mother looking at her.
It was the worst day Chandra had ever had.
Dinner that night was a subdued affair. Chandra said nothing and didn't bother even picking at her food. Her parents' conversation fell flat every time they tried to get Chandra to join in. Eventually, Chandra just got up and went to go barricade herself in her room.
Earlier, in one of her fits of nervous energy, she had cleared the main part of her room of anything breakable or precious and had put them neatly into the wardrobe and locked it. She now locked her main door (unfortunately, only a simple slide bolt) and hauled her desk in front of it. Then she turned the lights off and sat down on her bed to wait.
So now here she was, waiting. Just waiting, in the dusk of a summer's day. The very last dregs of sunlight came in through her window, the shadows playing over her face, across her room, reaching for the opposite wall. She sat and watched the fingers of light retreat slowly, oh so slowly, towards her, as somebody hanging from a cliff might watch their grip start to slip. The light left the floor, then the edge of the bed, then her, and then it was gone altogether in that moment of transition before night comes in to really take hold.
And then the moon came up.
She could actually feel it come up, could sense it moving before its beams came in through the window to taunt her. And then she felt the pain.
Chandra screamed with the shock and dread of the pain, and fell off the bed onto the floor as she felt her body start to change.
------- ------- -------
Downstairs, Caroline and Charles Loup jolted upright as they heard a scream rip through the quiet of the house.
"That came from Chandra's bedroom," Charles said agitatedly. His wife went pale. Without another word, or pause for thought, they both charged up the stairs towards their daughter's room.
------- ------- -------
Chandra imagined she could hear her spine crunch and snap as it changed shape, forcing her over onto all fours. She screamed again, only this time came out half howl. Her entire body pricked as it sprouted fur. She watched in horror as it sprang out of the backs of her hands, and then up her bare forearms. As she gave out a whine of self-pity at the sight, she heard her parents voices at the door.
"Chandra? Chandra what's going on in there?"
"Chandra? Are you alright? Chandra!?"
She tried to tell them to go away, to leave her alone, it wasn't safe, but all that came out was a growl.
------- ------- -------
Halfway up the stairs, they heard another scream, this one sounding much more animal. Their speed increased, and as they reached their daughter's door, they heard a whine coming out from behind it.
"Chandra?" Charles called. "Chandra what's going on in there?"
"Chandra?" Caroline called, simultaneously, "Are you alright? Chandra!?"
A growl was all that answered them. Charles tried the door. "She's bolted it, and shoved something in front of it as well."
"Wait," Caroline commanded, and ran into her office, coming out a moment later with some of the wire she used for hanging up her paintings. "Will this help?"
"It should." He took the wire from her and hastily fastened it into a hook, then shoved it through the crack between door and frame. The growling on the other side got louder.
------- ------- -------
Her hands shrank into paws and her nails curled into claws. She felt something starting to burn on her right hand. She turned her head to look at it, and saw the wire coming through the door. She growled at it. Why couldn't her parents realize that she wasn't safe right now, and go away? She yelped as her tail bone suddenly lengthened into a real tail and got squished on the inside of her pants. The burning on her hand became hotter, and she yelped again.
------- ------- -------
Charles managed to catch the bolt hook as they heard the first yelp, and he had it drawn back by the second one. He and his wife started frantically shoving against the door.
------- ------- -------
She could vaguely hear scrapping sounds from somewhere near by, but she wasn't paying it any attention. Her paw hurt too much from what was burning it – Granny's silver ring that she always wore. She tried to shove it off with her other paw, but that didn't work, so she tore at it with her teeth (which was incredibly awkward as they were in the process of sprouting into fangs), trying to ignore the burning it caused her mouth. She got the vile thing off just as she felt twin twinges of pain where her ears were, and a second before the door burst open.
------- ------- -------
Caroline and Charles stumbled in through the suddenly unobstructed door, just in time to see their daughter's ears grow pointy and shift to the top of her head, which had become smaller, and lengthened into a dog-like snout. The werewolf looked at them and spat something shining out of its jaw. They left as quickly as they had entered, slamming the door, which they locked from the outside. They stood panting against it for some moments, listening to the sounds of their wolf-formed daughter coming from the other side.
"Well," Charles said eventually, then cleared his throat and tried again, "Well, it looks like she really is...really is...a werewolf." He finished in a half-whisper.
"Yes," Caroline said equally shocked. She turned to look at her husband. "Oh, Charles, what are we going to do? Our poor girl..." And she sank, sobbing, into his arms.
------- -------- -------
With some struggling, Chandra managed to pull herself out of her clothes. Amazingly, she could still manage to think like herself, which she guessed was due to that potion. She was happy about that. She hadn't liked the thoughts her wolf-self had sent her when her parents had come in. She mentally shuddered at the gory images of her tearing into their throats that the animal side of her seemed to delight in.
A sound came from the outside of the room. She cocked her head to listen, and her now much improved hearing could distinctly make out the sound of her mother crying. In complete agreement, she threw back her head and howled.
------- ------- -------
A.N: Wow, that took a ridiculously long time. I'm really sorry, I was very busy at work, then university, and I didn't have internet access for about a month, and I took some time off to write another HP fanfic for this contest on another site. (I've posted it on here as well, it's called "Awakening", and I personally think it's a better story.) I am now officially going to be working on another story, but if I think of something else to add to this, I will. This is just the farthest I actually planned to go with this, but I don't think it's going to be officially finished sometime soon. Hope you enjoyed. Happy Halloween everyone!