6 June, 1994

Severus hated that he had to supply Lupin with Wolfsbane potion. Not that he wanted the man to suffer or even wanted a mindless werewolf running the grounds where students would be at risk.

No, he hated the fact that he had to deal with a werewolf in the first place.

As magical beasts went, werewolves were on his top four list of creatures that should have been exterminated on sight. But then…he would remember that she would have chided him for lumping Remus in with the rest of the were population. It was not the Lycanthrope's fault that he despised weres. In fact, he recalled the look of abject horror on Lupin's face the day he found out what happened to their old school friend.

No, it was definitely not Lupin that he hated. Just werewolves in general. And tonight would be a full moon, the final of the school year and still a night he dreaded just like every other one since the beginning of the year after Albus decided to bring him on as the new defense professor. Oh, he knew that the reasoning behind Lupin's appointment was, ostensibly, to keep an eye on Lily's son because of Black's escape from Azkaban.

Salazar knew he, himself, had worn his own ability to keep the child safe quite thin. First with that cursed broom and then with that damnable gauntlet to protect the Philosopher's stone at the end of the boy's first year. Then, in Potter's second year, with having to brew mandrake-based restorative draughts for those who ended up petrified by the fucking cunt of a basilisk. A basilisk! How the hell they all missed out on the fact that there was a giant fuck-off serpent moving around the school, he still didn't know.

Severus sighed tiredly at the memory of the stupid snake. A crooning bark made him glance over at his owl and smile half-heartedly.

"I am fine Artemis, just thinking."

He reached out to stroke Artemis' snow white back. The owl had been with him ever since Newt's visit back in '82 and, oddly, had become very attached to him that day. He'd taken solace in the fact that he had a living reminder of the woman they'd lost during that horrible massacre in the Amazon. There were many days where he only had Artemis to talk to when he sank down into the depths of dark depressive thoughts. Between the, surprisingly still present, thrum of her magic clinging to the letter he always kept on his person, and the snowy owl, he was able to slowly drag himself back into the present.

And, irony of ironies, he remembered seeing Potter's own snowy owl and thinking it oddly fitting that they both had reminders of her. Even if Potter never got to meet the woman who'd been named his godmother. He thought she would appreciate the fact the boy had named his snowy Hedwig, patron saint of orphans.

Unfortunately Hedwig and Artemis would butt heads regularly when he brought Artemis to the owlery to send off packages to St. Mungos. It normally made him laugh when the two striking birds would clack angry beaks and puff their feathers in warning at each other. He had marveled at the unusual bars of black on Potter's bird and the long scar bisecting the bird's face, almost a mirror image of the scar on Artemis.

Shaking his head, Severus gave Artemis one last scratch to the top of her head, earning himself an affectionate nibble, then turned back to notes he'd been working on for improvements on the Wolfsbane Potion. He wanted to get some more done before he delivered Lupin's potion to him in an hour.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

It was, Severus thought angrily as he raced through the tunnel leading away from the shrieking shack, a steaming pile of shite that he had been the one incapacitated by three teenagers. Also, it was embarrassing to admit that he'd been bested by said teens just because he had not seen them as a threat. Too focused on the potential danger Black had represented and also hurt by Lupin's apparent betrayal to think to shield himself.

Ungrateful little shits, the lot of them.

Pulling himself free of the cave beneath the whomping willow, he spotted the three teens grouped together, staring stupidly over his shoulder. No, he realized in horrified petrification. Spinning, he cursed under his breath, the sound lost beneath the sickly popping and cracking of bones in Lupin's body. He had been out too long and Remus never got his final dose of Wolfsbane.

Severus backed towards the teens, his wand in hand, both arms spread out to make himself seem larger and block them from view as, with one final howl of agony, Remus finished transforming. In the back of his mind, behind the need to protect and bowel loosening fear, he laughed at the fact that his need to appear larger strongly mimicked the way that Artemis and Hedwig postured towards each other. He backed up slower, herding the kids further away from the werewolf while it was distractedly sniffing the ground in the direction of the forest. Not for the first time, he cursed the inability to apparate at Hogwarts because they barely made it ten feet when the Weasley boy yelped in pain, flinging his rat from his hand and spraying blood simultaneously.

The next he knew, Lupin was rushing towards them, glowing amber eyes filled with murderous delight. Then there was blunt pain against his ribs and the sound of tearing cloth as he got thrown back into the students. Their terrified screams pierced the air and he felt the Granger girl grabbing at his arm, her panicked breathing unnaturally loud in the seconds between Lupin rearing up again before being slammed into by a large black dog.

Snarls and barks then a shrieking yelp of agony as the wolf threw his attacker off of him to advance forward once more.

A burst of white feathers crashed down from the sky on the wolf's left side, then another ghostly form descended from his right. Outstretched talons raked mercilessly down the werewolf's flanks as Artemis plowed across Lupin's body. And Hedwig's wings buffeted the wolf's face, raucous shrieking barks coming from her throat while she clung tenaciously to Lupin's neck.

Artemis rose into the air, her white form glowing in the light of the full moon as she gained altitude then hung, for one breathtaking moment, wings outstretched on either side of her feathered body. The full moon provided a stunning backdrop as it painted her in silvery shades that highlighted her ethereal appearance.

Severus heard Potter's voice whispering an awed 'Brilliant' at the spellbinding sight of the all white owl's magnificent form. Then his heart clenched when she spun in a circle and tucked her wings against her body as she plummeted back towards the pair grappling below her.

Artemis hit Lupin in the head with the full force of her dive behind her fisted talons, the sound a percussive 'crack' that echoed around them.

Severus let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding when both owls continued harrying the werewolf as it fled from their assault. His bruised ribs complained painfully when he jerked forward to grab Granger before she followed a crazed Potter after the wolf and owls.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Harry Potter thought he was losing his mind as the swarm of dementors descended around Sirius and himself. He had to be delirious from the cold and depressive aura brought on by one hundred dementors swirling around him. Because only delirium would explain seeing Hedwig transform into a woman with a scar down one side of her face, wand outstretched before her. The woman's expression was a mix of both serenely calm features and unadulterated rage glowing in her eyes. Harry marveled over the fact even as she yelled out the Patronus charm and the meanest, most aggressively blinding, Patronus he had ever seen careened from her wand and through the dementor horde like a clawed whirlwind of hissing and spitting death. And then, to add to his state of befuddled delirium, an even brighter stag Patronus galloped at high speed across the surface of the pond beside them.

Future Harry and Hermione both looked at each other incredulously when the woman turned towards them and smiled before turning back into his owl and flying back towards the castle, a ghostly white snowy following behind her. The two silently agreed not to tell anyone about what they'd just seen.

Which, admittedly, turned out to be easier than they thought since the entire focus for the remainder of the school year was on Sirius Black escaping arrest once again. Yet another secret shared between the two teens.

Gold eyes stared into green then blinked lazily and turned to look out the closed window.

Groaning, Harry threw himself back into his rickety desk chair. Every day over the summer, thus far, he had tried everything he could think of, short of goading his obese uncle into losing his shit, to make Hedwig respond to his prompting. Nothing worked. Not talking about classes, his teachers (in spite of her momentarily flapping her wings when he mentioned Snape), his godfather, even the dementors. If it hadn't been for Hermione asking him if he had any luck getting her to change back, he would have chalked the whole incident up to a lucid hallucination.

The problem was that, because only he and Hermione had witnessed the entire event, he wasn't sure who they could potentially trust about it. And he was super curious about her Patronus after Hermione identified it as a honey badger. He didn't think anything could hurt dementors but, even before his stag had reached the swirling mass of dark forms, her patronus had shredded several into motes of dust and bits of rotting cloth.

Also, what was up with the second snowy owl? She had been magnificent during their tag team scuffle with Professor Lupin. Especially in front of the moon like she had been before cracking Professor Lupin in the head while he was a werewolf. He had never seen the pure white snowy before but she obviously belonged to someone at the school. Professor Snape had certainly seemed unsurprised by the sight of Hedwig and the white snowy owl attacking Professor Lupin.

Harry frowned thoughtfully at Hedwig then pulled out a piece of lined paper and a pen and wrote a quick note to the last person he expected to try and contact. He needed at least one adult to talk to and, as much as it pained him to admit it, Professor Snape had always stayed true to contradictory form. Acerbic, cutting, and biased, but also dedicated to protecting his students even to the point of putting himself in harm's way if necessary.

Taking a deep breath, he quickly attached the note to Hedwig's leg before he could change his mind and opened the window. "Take that to Professor Snape please, it's important."

Hedwig stopped to preen Harry's hair before launching out of the window and heading out towards Scotland.