Nick's laughter brought them out of their shocked stupor.
"Oh my gosh!" Hermione shrieked, somewhat belatedly. "Ron, run! Go to the castle, get Madam Pomfrey, now! Harry, go tell Professor Dumbledore what happened, he listens to you! Run!"
The boys took off automatically, speeding across the grounds in record time.
"What did happen?" Harry panted.
"I dunno…"
They split up at the entrance, Ron up to the hospital wing, Harry towards the headmaster's office. Harry skidded to a stop at the familiar gargoyle that guarded the staircase to Professor Dumbledore's study. He gritted his teeth as he remembered that the password had probably been changed again.
"I haven't got time for a guessing game!" he shouted irritably. "Something weird has happened. And Shikar's here!"
As he'd expected, that got its attention. It moved aside in a hurry, and he darted up the stairs behind.
"Professor Dumbledore, sir," he gasped as he opened the door, "Shikar…" he was too winded to say anything more.
Behind the desk, Professor Dumbledore leapt to his feet. "Harry, what's going on? What about Shikar?"
"Here…but Nick…something possessing him…hunting…"
Dumbledore waved his wand in one of those complicated little maneuvers Harry would never understand, and a chair appeared behind him, which he gratefully sank into to catch his breath.
"I don't understand! Shikar is here! But I would know!"
"Professor, he's here all right, he attacked us, or he was going to," Harry clarified, having got his wind back. "Ron and Hermione and I were down on the Quidditch pitch, goofing off sort of- Nick joined us later. When the lightning went off we were coming in, but Shikar intercepted us. He looked just like you showed us," he said, distracted briefly. "Anyway," he continued, seeing Dumbledore's expression, "he was going to attack us, but Nick pulled a knife out of his sleeve, and this is going to sound weird, but I swear it's what happened, he stabbed himself, and a mist came out of him and became a boy. Not human, though, he looked at least half dog. Whatever he was, Shikar ran off, and whatever it was went after him."
"Is Nick all right?" Dumbledore asked first.
"I don't know sir, Ron went to fetch Madam Pomfrey; I came here."
"Yes, of course. Come, Harry; Nick will no doubt be in the hospital wing by now, and I need answers. You told your story very clearly, but whoever this boy is, he's someone and something I do not know, and a random factor like that is dangerous in a war. To both sides, luckily; he could be on ours," he added as they left the office and went down the flight of stairs.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Nick was indeed safely in the hospital wing, and alive to boot.
"I don't know what he thought he was doing," Madam Pomfrey was muttering to herself and anyone who cared to listen, which was no one, as they came in.
"Is he all right?" Dumbledore asked her.
"Oh, he'll live, but he's not leaving here for a good long while."
"I need to talk to him. Can you wake him safely?"
"I don't recommend it, but I can."
"Do it, please."
Muttering under her breath, the nurse delicately poured a thick syrup, no doubt foul-tasting, into Nick's mouth. Within moments of swallowing it, his dark eyes opened.
"What happened?" were the first words out of his mouth.
"That's what I'd like to know," Dumbledore intervened.
"No. Shikar! Is he dead yet?"
"Dead?" the headmaster inquired.
"Yeah. Dead. Did Inuyasha bring him down yet?"
"Who?" Everyone asked all at once.
"Look, I'll tell you everything if you tell me one thing. Is Shikar dead?"
"I don't know," Dumbledore began to say, but was cut off by a horrible sound.
One of the windows in the hospital wing had been left open, and so it happened that the five of them heard the shriek of grief, pain, and complete rage.
"Oh no," Nick gasped, and smiled scornfully, pityingly. "A fine day's work indeed. In one fell swoop he is robbed of his cover, his chance, and his prey."
"Nick." Professor Dumbledore said sternly. "Your story, please."
"Ok," he said placidly.
"About a year ago, or maybe less, my family moved to this general area. We couldn't know that we'd settled in Shikar's 'territory,' I guess you could say. He must have been hungry one day or something, because he attacked me when I was out hiking.
"I thought I was dead, and I would have been had not Shikar made an enemy a long time back. Inuyasha, his name is, and I think he's half dog-demon, it makes sense. We don't have demons round here, luckily enough, but they're both from a long way off. No idea where. Anyway, he didn't mean to save my life, he meant to kill Shikar. As it happens, the goals coincided.
"Also as it happens, it wasn't even really Shikar, just a very lifelike illusion. It fooled me; hey, it fooled Inuyasha too, and he's not easily deceived. He was furious when it dissolved beneath his claws- I imagine that's what happened here too. Now, see, debts are a big thing in my family. You owe someone your life, you help them out. What Inuyasha wanted most was to kill Shikar. He had a plan, but he needed a human confederate. That's me.
"Now see, he's clever. His magic isn't human magic; he can do things we can't. He concealed his very soul in mine- I can't explain it, I don't think he even knows what he's doing-, and we came here. Sorry, Harry, you've been bait for a good while now," he added with a grin. "The logic's simple. Shikar's Voldemort's ally; one of his major goals is to wipe you off the face of the earth. He hasn't had much success with that- well done on that by the way- so he'll send an underling. Voila, he has this new powerful ally, Shikar. Shikar goes for you, Inuyasha cuts him off, and, knowing Inuyasha, which I don't really, cuts him up, too." Nick chuckled at his own feeble joke. "Sorry, I don't know anything else. I don't even know why he hates Shikar so much. I got an impression of revenge for a friend, but that may or may not be true. You know, my chest is really starting to hurt again. Can I go back to sleep? Thanks."
Nick pulled the white sheets over himself without waiting for permission, closed his eyes, and was instantly asleep, or at least doing a pretty good imitation of it.
"Professor?" Hermione asked. "Do you know who this Inuyasha is? I've never heard of him."
"I knew he existed, little more. Even his name barely rang a bell. He has nothing to do with the human race, so he's not a threat of any kind. For him to actually use a human like this is unheard of, as far as I remember. I know nothing else. If you happen to come across anything in your reading, I would be delighted to hear it."
Without another word, he rose and left.
"What a story," Ron said, stunned.
"We guessed, didn't we? We said he was possessed, but I never would have expected such as this," realized Hermione.
"Who could have? We have not heard the last of this…"
"Right, I'm going down to the library. I'll let you know if I find anything tomorrow."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
She found nothing.
"But I've still got places I can look," she said reassuringly next morning. "Once I'm done with breakfast I'm going right back."
And, stuffing a last bite of toast into her mouth, she did just that.
"Now there's dedication," Ron observed.
"Yeah, but I kind of see where she's coming from this time. This we're right in the middle of. Hey, at least she's not pestering us to come help."
"True."
"I'm going to go look in on Nick," Harry decided abruptly. "See you later."
He headed up to the hospital wing, thinking hard. He did not like this at all, especially the idea of being bait. Nick knew more than he'd told, he was sure of it.
"Nick?" he asked the room at large, poking his head around the door, which was ajar as usual.
"Nope, not here, sorry, just missed him. He ran away to Hawaii." Nick responded cheerily from a bed near one of the windows.
"Nick, stop," Harry sighed.
"What?"
"You over-did it a little."
"Sorry. Why are you up here?"
"Just came to check on you. You really scared us, you know that?"
"Probably. But I'm fine, really. Now you've told your cover story, why are you really up here? Let me guess. You want to know more about what's going on."
"Yeah," Harry muttered, sitting down on the end of Nick's bed.
"Well, I really did tell everything I know last night. To find out anything more, you'd have to ask Inuyasha, and I don't recommend that at all. He'll be in a killer mood right now. Give him a week or so to get over it. It's strange, though," he drifted off, "not having him sitting right over my shoulder all the time."
"What was it like?" Harry asked out of curiosity.
"He was only there in a way I could actually hear him part of the time, you see. Most of the time I couldn't even tell he was there. When I could, it was more a sense of someone standing right behind me…have you ever felt that? Creepy feeling. I could hear him talking when he had something to say, but he didn't often. He couldn't control me physically, so he had to ask me to look at things for him. He would look through my eyes."
"Would it be wise to go out and look for him?"
"No! He'll be furious at falling for Shikar's trick like that. And besides," Nick added, his voice deadly serious, "he'll be grieving again. He'll have retreated into himself, and there's nothing but time as can call him back from that. Harry, listen. You don't want to deal with him more than you have to. He's completely insane. Completely. From the impressions I got, nothing definite really, he exists in his own little corner of hell. He lives for only two reasons. To kill Shikar, and because he cannot kill himself. Did you see the scars across his throat? His own claws did that. Be very, very careful. There's nothing as can save you if he decides he wants you dead."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Harry wandered the corridors of Hogwarts aimlessly, Nick's words still ringing in his head.
What kind of tragedy, he wondered, what horror, could have driven him mad? I don't know whether to fear him or pity him. Perhaps both.
He made his way outside onto the lawn, letting the sun spill over him. The Forbidden Forest caught his attention, and he looked hard at it as if trying to see the demon-child it surely contained. Of course, no such person could be seen.
…his own little corner of hell…
Harry shuddered, then turned at the sound of approaching feet.
"There you are," Ron greeted him. "We've been looking for you."
"Why? Hermione, are you ok?"
Her face was a mask of horror and grief.
"Yes, but look. I found this." She held out a small brown book.
"What is it? Did you find the information you were looking for?"
"Better. Or worse." She flipped to a page and held it out. "Does this look like a familiar face to you?"
It was a hand-sketched picture, pretty good quality. But it was what it depicted that Hermione wanted him to see.
It was a sketch of a group of people, gathered around a campfire, clearly just talking, just as clearly enjoying each other's company. Harry's eyes were drawn to one face in particular. It was clearly the same boy- Inuyasha, Harry fixed in his mind- that they had seen yesterday, but with significant differences. In the sketch, he sat beside a girl, a content look on his face, both watching the fire burn. She was smiling openly, watching him out of the corner of her eye. It was clear she adored him. The Inuyasha they had seen had looked like hell had spit him out.
"It's a first-hand account of what happened five hundred years ago," Hermione continued. "Believe me, if you only knew…you would not only let him kill Shikar, you would cheer him on."
"Nick said he was completely insane."
"I don't blame him. I won't read you the whole thing, because only about half of it matters right now, but I bookmarked some. It's the journal of a girl named Sango. She and several others traveled with him for quite some time. She actually listed the names of those in the pack with short descriptions-"
"Pack?" Ron interrupted.
"I guess that's how they thought of themselves, and you do have to know who these people are to really understand what happened.
"Sango herself," Hermione introduced, pointing out an older girl in the sketch, "didn't include a self-description, but she was a demon-slayer who seems almost like one of the voices of reason…a kind person, generous, loyal, but proud.
"Miroku, she describes as 'supposedly a monk, but his morals leave something to be desired. If he'd keep his hands off me, I'd like him just fine.
"This little one is 'Shippo, a orphaned fox-demon who never learns to stand out of arm's reach. A bit of a mischief.
"She manages to sum up Inuyasha in one sentence, albeit a long one, and I quote, 'arrogant, obstinate, temperamental, and probably exactly what they had in mind when they coined the term "wild child," he's nevertheless a good person to have at your back, and he would kill or die for Kagome.
"Kagome, here," she indicated the girl seated next to Inuyasha, "I gather is the source of his vendetta. Sango depicts her as 'a time-traveler with a sixth sense for a lot, a dead shot with her bow, and really far too patient with Inuyasha, who she adores.'"
"Ok, so what happened? Hurry up, Hermione; we're right in the middle of this whole thing. Get a move on," Ron encouraged, bored with descriptions.
Hermione sighed and began to read from her first bookmark.
