Hermione made a point of apologizing profusely to Harry over breakfast next morning, Friday.
"Forget about it," he said absently, internally debating whether to tell them or not about the cries he'd heard last night.
No, he decided, they'll just think I'm going crazy. I say that I hear things far too often anyway.
"Friday!" someone said happily somewhere down the table.
"Oh, good, an easy day," Hermione mused, running down her schedule.
"Hey, it's tryouts this weekend," Harry remembered out loud. "Anyone thinking of trying out for the team?" he asked the table at large.
"Nope, you guys spend far too much time in the rain and mud for me to want to join you," Seamus joked, to general laughter.
"What about you, Nick, are you any good?" Dean asked across the table.
"Not me! I belong on a broomstick the way a fish belongs up a tree," Nick countered, mostly jokingly. "Really, no joke." He added, still grinning, "I like watching, but actually up that high… Not my thing at all!"
"Hey, Harry," Ron mentioned, "I'm going out to the pitch this evening to practice a little before the season actually starts. D'you want to join me?"
"Sure, after dinner, though."
"Is that entirely wise?"
"Come on, Hermione, how many times have you bullied us into eating something before a game? It won't hurt us, I seem to remember you saying."
Hermione huffed indignantly about being so set aside for a brief moment, then forgot about it as the boys continued to talk Quidditch. Sports jabber was not interesting for her this early in the morning.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The evening was overcast, not quite threatening rain, but enough to make the entire stadium look gloomy. Harry and Ron, accompanied by Hermione for no reason whatsoever, headed down to the field carrying their brooms and uniforms, talking about who might try out for the team this year. Considering that quite a lot of their team had graduated last year, there were quite a few vacant positions.
When they reached the stadium, the boys headed off in the direction of the dressing rooms to change into their robes. Hermione seated herself against the stands and pulled out an ever-present textbook.
"Hermione, that's not due till next week!" Harry laughed, startling her by zooming right over her head on his Firebolt broom.
"Just because you procrastinate everything doesn't mean I have to!" she yelled back, breathing hard from her surprise. He ignored her and did a loop-the-loop in midair as Ron joined him in flight.
The boys goofed off for another five minutes before they remembered that they were supposed to be practicing. Harry dived to ground level to get the ball, while Ron took up goal-keeping position in front of the three large hoops a long way up in the air. From the sound of their laughter as they threw and caught the ball, it was obvious that this wasn't really a practice session. They were more having fun than anything else.
"How they can stand that is beyond me," a cool voice observed.
"Hi, Nick."
"You don't fly?"
"Sports are not my thing. I'd rather read."
"So I see."
"Hi, Nick!" Harry called down, distracted.
"Having fun up there!" Nick shouted up at them.
"You bet!" Ron shouted, at the exact same time Harry responded, "We're practicing!"
"Could have fooled me!"
"Silence, Nick," Harry replied with mock sternness, "or Ron and I will tie you to a broom and fly you in circles!"
"Yeah right!"
"And what would stop me?" Harry enquired, still pretending to be a judge.
"No rope!" Nick volleyed right back with the air of a prisoner presenting an unshakeable alibi, which indeed it was.
"He's got you there, Harry." Ron agreed, laughing.
Lightning suddenly flashed across the stormy sky, and thunder growled threateningly soon after, though no rain fell.
"Uh oh," Ron muttered. "Quitting time, you think?"
"Yeah, how about it?"
They dived for the ground, swooping into the changing room through the door they'd left ajar. Suddenly the evening seemed much darker as they changed hurriedly back into normal clothes.
As they ran out of the dressing room, they both stopped short. The instant they'd crossed the threshold, they had been plunged into pitch darkness.
"What the…" Ron muttered, "What's happened?"
"I have happened," said a smooth, cruel, voice. As it spoke, the darkness lifted somewhat, leaving them in a murky grey twilight. They could now see Hermione and Nick, who weren't actually that far away, as they'd come over to the doorway to wait for them. They were both standing stock still, staring at a glowing figure that was approaching them ominously.
The person was mainly humanoid, though with significant differences. For one, glowing green scales festooned his arms, laced through with darker, dustier green in no discernable pattern; easily visible because of the short-sleeved black tunic he wore. His eyes had no pupils, and were merely ovals of muddy orange. Brighter sparks swam through them, glinting in the evening's indirect light. His face was intelligent and manipulative, a bad combination in anyone.
As he strode towards the four of them, a lizard's tongue slithered out of his mouth and back in again rapidly. Flick.
"Shikar," someone whispered. A second later, they realized it was Nick.
"So you are the three that he wants dead," Shikar hissed fluidly. Despite his reptilian tongue, he did not hiss S's as might be expected.
"I can't think why, little as you are. And a spare, an extra, hmm. Disappointing. And I did try so hard to get you on your own," he rambled.
"Cover for me," Nick breathed quietly from behind them.
"What are you doing? You can't fight him! Not even the four of us together would have a snowball's chance in a supernova if we took him on!" Harry replied quietly, keeping one eye on the still verbally wandering Shikar.
Unexpectedly, Shikar's eyes snapped into tight focus, and he smirked.
"Come now, you didn't think I was that scatter-minded?" he hissed deliberately, mocking them. "Now that is disappointing."
He tensed as if to leap, only a few meters from the foursome.
Abruptly, Ron, Harry, and Hermione were shoved aside as Nick leapt forward.
"Shikar!" he shouted.
He drew a dagger out of his right sleeve with his left hand and brandished it at Shikar, who had stopped short, shocked at the audacity of the pitiful human.
He wasn't the only one.
"What does he think he's doing?" Hermione gasped. "He can't fight Shikar with a dinky little knife like that!"
Nick didn't intend to touch Shikar.
"Run like the murdering coward you are!" he cried, reversing his grip on the dagger so that it pointed back at him. "For I set upon your heels a very hound of hell!"
He gripped the dagger tightly and drove it into his right shoulder, dragging it diagonally across his chest. Blood spurted across the green field and onto Shikar, whose eyes had widened in comprehension and definitely something a lot like fear.
Nick collapsed on the ground, lying face down in a pool of his own blood, having just pulled the blade from his own heart. Behind him, Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared in horror and shock as more blood stained the grass, steaming.
Steaming quite a lot, indeed, more like fog…
Shikar had turned tail and was fleeing across the field…
The fog that had come from Nick's lifeblood intensified, and a solid form began to consolidate from it. Rapidly, the fog vanished, leaving behind a person, who stood with eyes closed.
He was about their height, appearing no more than sixteen. Seen in profile, his face had an oddly canine cast to it. A long mane of bluish-white hair spilled over his red-clad shoulders, reaching almost to his waist, which bore a sheathed katana. Vivid white scars stood out across his throat. He would have looked fairly human were it not for the long claws on the ends of his fingers and his ears; no human ears, but dog's ears like a husky's on his scalp. He stood for a brief moment with eyes closed and head down.
Shikar was standing halfway up the stadium seats, watching in shock.
The demon boy's eyes sprang open. Shining bright gold, more canine than human, they focused instantly on the lizard-like man still standing rigid, with a hunter's gaze.
"Look out, Shikar! I swore I'd kill you and here I am," he cried out, leaping into motion, dashing across the field in pursuit of his foe.
Shikar turned and fled, leaping over the back edge of the seats.
The boy didn't blink twice. Coming up on the seats, he tensed and sprung, clearing the sky-scraping bleachers in one leap, and vanishing over the edge with another. A few seconds later, a howl wafted back to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
Nick lay still, and smiled.
"He's loose," Nick murmured to himself. "Inuyasha… bring Shikar down…" And he began to laugh weakly until he fell unconscious once more.
