Pfft, this site strips my formatting. Idiot thing. God, that's annoying. Anyway. Onwards! random plug Go see my website! Go and look at it now…now… ::commands thee with feminine wiles::
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Vulpe disappeared into the morning's early gray light, thin red form picking its way across the grass while dew soaked grass tickled her belly fur. She paused once at the edge of the borders, looking back. She was human enough for that. Had been among them long enough for some sense of finality to wear off on her carefree nature. Whether it dulled her edge or kept it sharp would be seen soon enough, when she passed from among them and went far out into the world. There were appointments to keep, people to whisper dreams to and creatures to awaken to their true nature. Things to do. Such things. The pointed muzzle of her fox face swung reluctantly back around as the sun rose inches higher into the sky, brightening the ground around her as she loped away.
And was gone.
With much less fanfare then she arrived, but leaving change stirring and boiling behind her. A flicker of her tail seemed to linger, black tipped red brush streaking glimmers of magic across the damp green grass. Then even that trace faded away into the soft apricot and rose colours of the sunrise.
Draco woke up and turned over in his bed to find it empty. The scent of burnt sugar and cinnamon covered his sheets, and fine red hairs dusted along the white expanses told him that it had not been a dream. Which meant that now she was gone. He sat up, sheets falling to crease around his hips and reached for a scrap of parchment on the bedside table. It was a small yellowing scrap of reused paper, sentences from a Transfiguration essay on the back of it.
I will return.
And a fox's pawprint emblazoned boldly below.
The Slytherin princeling smiled, then swung his legs out of bed and stretched. Today would be an interesting day. He had a feeling that Tamsin would take advantage of the fox's absence and commence sleeping with anything or anyone that lay down long enough. It was bound to prove interesting.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Jack reclined on the ledge of the Gryffindor window, juggling a trio of small silver balls as he joked around with the girls in the dorm. Hermoine laughed as she watched him play the fool for her amusement, quill idle in her hand and essay for the moment forgotten. The jackdaw grinned, fingers flicking the toys around almost idly.
"So, you see, once I was flying eastwards through the skies of beloved Alba, which of course you now call Britain, and what do I see below me but a troop of Romans? Bah, Romans. No mystery in the souls of that race of soldiers and road builders. They like squares and lines, lines and squares, neat and tidy and boring, luvvies. Never liked them, but ah! Italians are much more fun and lo, their pictures speak to the soul like raindrops across muslin and glass. Flying eastwards, was I, and there were these Romans roaming. One, two, three, four, Ave! You know, how they do. Yes Centurion, no Centurion, Hail Caesar! Julius knew how to treat a bird right though, sleeping his way through Britain just as surely as his armies conquered it and no maidenly tears to be seen until he left! Yah, that was Julie for you…"
"And you were flying eastwards?" Hermoine prompted. Jack grinned and started to juggle the balls with one hand as he leant towards her.
"And I called up a storm and soaked that legion to the skin. Rain, rain, thundering down like stones and twigs!" He pursed his lips slightly as he leant back, nearly falling out the window and still juggling the silver glittering balls in increasing arcs. "I see what is to be, what has been and what is! Jackdaw, stormcrow, Jack o' all trades a' master none, jester, fool! Such things I have seen, and what is to happen is more awesome yet! Ah, la! The beauty of it, like a fire mountain pushing upwards from the earth and the thundering crescendo of an avalanche...earth calls to earth and call thee home to it, deep in the burrow and the fold, the flick and whimsy."
Abruptly, he shifted shape and flew away, the three silver balls falling to the earth far below him as he winged it across the azure sky. Laughing hoarsely in his bird's voice, dark ragged shape against the arch of the heavens. Hermoine laughed and shook her head in amusement. Jack was by far one of the oddest beings she had ever met, and with Harry she had met some very odd ones. There was something kind and gentle about him, a wise gentleness brought out by knowledge of pain. And yet he looked so young. Jack was a paradox, and Hermoine loved puzzles. She thought that the wild creature playing at human would be a puzzle worth a lifetime of study.
Whether she would take that last step outside the world she had been born in was yet to be decided.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Tamsin crouched on the end of Sirius Black's bed, paws gently kneading the white coverlet as amber eyes surveyed him carefully. It had been eons upon eons since a canine had caught her interest, even an Animagi who turned into one of the creatures she hated most. It had been different once, before humans came. Dog had gone in and cat had stayed out. Domesticity was something that never settled easily on cats and they despised the dogs for so easily taking to what the felines thought was slavery. Use the humans, yes, but to call them Master? Never! A thousand, thousand times no! Yet the dogs had. Tamsin growled a little deep in her throat before creeping up the bed slightly, a golden shadow made solid beside the gentle rise of his leg under the sheets.
But he smelt so good.
It was a very unsettling thing for the cat. Ages of experience told her to stay away from him, except to tease and torment him as she did the other collared dogs of the humans. The dogs had given up their other nature long ago, settling into dull contentment as animals completely and solidly. Foxes, wolves, those canines stayed free and burning brightly with magic. Dogs had for the most part lost their magic entirely.
The cat looked up briefly as the door to the small room off the main infirmary opened. Sirius hadn't woken since he had been pulled through from the other side of death with her. Perhaps the peculiar connection she felt was due to that? She sneezed briefly in disgust, muzzle wrinkled up in feline contempt as the three people she had tagged as Hogwarts answer to the Scoobies crept in. With a silent snarl, she warned them off coming too close. Including little Jack's newest infatuation, the ever so perfect Hermoine Granger. Harry gestured for Hermoine to take the seat placed near the body of the comatose figure that was his godfather, Ron standing near the door and looking ill at ease.
"Sirius..." Harry began, sighed. "'Mione, I don't know what to say."
"Well...I don't know either. If you remember, we didn't get much of a chance to talk," Hermoine said quietly.
Tamsin's tail twitched, flicking from side to side in irritation.
"The thing I would like to know is why Pomfrey lets that thing stay," Ron said, gesturing at Tamsin. Her ears swiveled back in anger, hair starting to rise along the ridge of her back. "I mean..."
"Ron, have you even talked to any of them?" Hermoine interjected, usually calm voice sounding a little stressed. Tricky little undercurrents warning anyone male that this was a woman who was verging on ticked off and it wouldn't be a very good idea to push her into the realm of the very angry. Ron soldiered on regardless.
"No, I don't need to. If they're involved with Malfoy and Snape then-"
"If you haven't noticed, I've been spending a great deal of time with one of them too. His name is Jack. He's a jackdaw, he speaks French poetry and he juggles," Hermoine said in an icy voice. "He brings me wildflowers and shiny stones because they're pretty like I am. He's teaching me air elemental magic." Her eyes burned. "So, Ron. What am I then, if these…things only hang out with Malfoy and his ilk? Maybe I should go and spend some time with the Slytherins. At least they're not hypocritical about their actions."
"Hermoine…" Ron began and she threw her hand up to stop him from speaking.
"I don't want to hear it, Ron. Isn't it about time you and Harry grew up?" She turned on her heel and left. "I'll visit with Sirius later. Once you two are done." Ron looked at Harry, who shrugged slightly.
"She's your girlfriend, not mine."
"Thanks a lot, Harry. You're a real friend, you are."
"Well, you're the one that ticked her off, Ron. I know better then to say things like that to 'Moine." Tamsin ignored the two youths bickering and nuzzled Sirius's hand, darting a rough pink tongue out to taste the salt of his skin.
Somehow, she knew him.
Nudging her triangular head under his slightly cupped hand in a parody of a caress, Tamsin sighed. She'd never had a thing for necrophilia or unconscious partners before. She just plain wasn't interested unless they could respond. And yet...here this man lay. And about the only thing she could think of was jumping his bones. She only demurred because she didn't like the idea of him not knowing exactly what was going on and who it was with him. Playing the substitute or the sex toy was never something she relished. She may be a slut, but she wasn't a whore. It was a fine and subtle distinction, leaving her her self worth, but giving her massive amounts of scope in her behaviour. And he was disrupting everything.
Maybe that was why she wanted to jump him and ride him until he howled like the dog whose skin he borrowed on occasion, unconscious or not.
Closing her eyes, Tamsin settled into a doze as the two boys talked above her head. They didn't try to oust her, so she eavesdropped without feeling any remorse. Not that she would have anyway, because she didn't feel guilt over the things she did. She did what she wanted because she wanted to, and there was never any reason to feel remorse for doing what you want. Cats have a very limited type of morality, mainly concerned with themselves and how other people are allowed to treat them. The idea of other people having opinions or lives that matter hasn't managed to sink in yet.
So, she catnapped and eavesdropped, tail twitching slightly on the coverlet as she tried to puzzle out her own place in the tangle the world had become.