Authors note – thoughts are signified by " "
Chapter 8: Halloween!
It was now Halloween and the peace and quiet was shattered by
"That bloody Filch, I'll kill him one of these days, I swear I will." Rachel ranted as she climbed through the portrait, returning from her detention for hexing Mrs Norris.
"What he make you do?" asked Amy now with black hair with green tints, not looking up from her book.
"Scrub the Dungeon floors with a toothbrush without magic." Rachel moaned.
"Lovely." said Amy sarcastically.
"Lets go and look for Clare and Kirsti." said Rachel, now a little calmer after grabbing a Chocolate Frog.
They found Clare and Kirsti standing outside the Great Hall, in an in-depth conversation. When Amy and Rachel approached Clare and Kirsti stopped talking and looked at them excitedly.
"Did you hear, Snape's gone." Clare said.
"Did he get sacked?" Rachel asked excitedly.
"No." Kirsti snapped.
"Well then where's he gone?" asked Rachel.
"To the Ministry of Magic." said Clare
"Probably something to do with Voldemort. That's what we think anyway." interrupted Kirsti.
They entered the Great Hall to discover the feast had already begun and they noticed walking pumpkins going up and down the isles singing.
"Where's Lupin." said Rachel, noticing that he wasn't at the teachers table.
"I don't know. Oh isn't the full moon tonight?" said Amy.
"Oh yeah. Do you want to go and surprise him?" said Rachel.
They put some food in their bags for later and went and got Clare and Kirsti from their tables and raced up to Gryffindor Commonroom. Amy grabbed the Marauders map from her trunk.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!" said Amy
They saw Lupin going down to the Whomping Willow on the map, and began to walk down there themselves. They got to the Whomping Willow and Clare transformed into her animagi form, a flying goldfish, to find a way into the Willow. She accidentally touched a knot and the Willow suddenly stopped whomping. They climbed down the passageway.
"Remus are you down here?" asked Amy.
There was no answer.
They continued walking until they came to a trap door above a few stairs in front of them. Kirsti tried to open the door but it was locked.
"Oh get out of the way." said Rachel as she stepped forward and after a couple of minutes and muttering a few unlocking charms the trap door swung open.
"That's a nice knowledge of advanced magic that you got there." said Amy.
"Thanks." replied Rachel.
They walked up through the trap door but didn't close it as they were too busy taking in the sight of the area around them. They were in a musty old house, a boarded up musty old house that appeared to be full of wrecked furniture and violently scratched walls. The house was so dusty that they left footprints along the floor. Amy walked towards the next room to see if there was anyone there, but she was greeted with more dust and cobwebs and more furniture that looked as though it had been clawed and ripped apart by something, something strong and dangerous.
"Where do you think we are?" Amy whispered to Kirsti as she came back into the room.
"I think we're in the Shrieking Shack." Clare said in a half whisper from a nearby window.
"And how did you came to that conclusion?" Kirsti asked sceptically.
"Because I can see Hogsmeade through the tiny gap in-between the boards on this window." Clare replied.
"Where? Let me see." said Kirsti, shoving Clare away from the window so she could see.
"Hey guys, I don't think we're the only ones here." Rachel said in a low voice from the foot of the stairs.
"Why? What is it?" Clare asked in a slightly worried tone.
"There's another set of footprints here and they only go up the stairs." Rachel replied, pointing to the footprints in the dust, which were barely visible as the sun was setting, letting even less light in to the already dimly lit shack.
"Remus are you up here?" Amy called as they began to ascend up the staircase.
"Get out of here now." Lupin shouted followed by screaming.
They all transformed into their animagi forms, Kirsti was now a white wolf and Rachel was now a normal wolf with Amy now a tawny owl.
They followed the screaming up the stairs and hesitantly began to advance on the open doorway in front of them but came to a sudden halt when they heard bones cracking and screaming as though someone was being tortured. Rachel and Kirsti slowly walked into the room but paused when a sound like flesh splitting and ripping tore through the room. They stayed rooted to the spot when Remus' head reared up from behind the bed on the other side of the room. His screams turned into unearthly snarls as his spine appeared to break and jerk out of place and snap into a more curved, haunched appearance. His face seemed to crack, elongate and reform as dark fur began to emerge over his face and body.
The screams and snarls suddenly stopped as though the person making them had been killed. Rachel began to edge forward and stopped when a long howl pierced through the tense atmosphere of the Shack. Rachel edged forward a little further. She had barely got to the edge of the bed when a huge snarling werewolf with jaws full of two and a half-inch long, razor sharp fangs, ready to infect the curse of lycanthropy on to whoever they sank into. Remus gave Rachel a fixed, insolent stare with his unblinking, evil yellow eyes. Then suddenly Remus lashed out at Rachel with a huge paw with one and a half-inch, curved black claws that could easily slice through human flesh. Rachel, who wasn't as big as a fully-grown werewolf but just as quick, managed to dodge the attack and snarled at Remus, who snarled back and stared.
Once Remus had calmed down, Kirsti and Rachel walked with him back down the passage and began to walk in to the Forbidden Forest, with Amy and Clare flying overhead. Somehow the group managed to stumble across Aragog's nest. Aragog was a monstrous, black-haired acromantula spider. His eight glistening eyes were fixed in a hungry stare on the unwelcome newcomers.
Click, click, click.
Aragog was clearly agitated by the arrival of the group. He advanced on the group with suprising speed, aided by his fifteen-foot legspan. Kirsti glanced at Rachel, who was slightly shaking.
"Merlin's beard, we're all going to die. We're all gonna get our butts chewed." Rachel thought. She looked up nervously and saw hundreds of young acromantula raining down from the over head trees. Aragog started clicking again, which must have been a command to his children to attack because they advanced forward and down and surrounded the group astonishingly quickly. Remus began snarling and snapping at the surrounding spiders, as he identified then as a threat. The first wave of spiders poured over the group, submerging them, but it didn't last long as the group fought back. Rachel was thoroughly enjoying herself venting her rage and frustration by biting and hurling spiders twenty feet into the air, which soon became a competition with Kirsti to see who could throw them the highest. However Remus was savagely ripping the spiders apart, with entrails and torn off spider legs flying around all over the place. Amy and Clare, who had been previously flying out of eating distance, had now swooped in were enjoying tormenting the spiders. Amy was pulling the flesh off of those that were half-dead after encountering Rachel, Kirsti or Remus. Clare was flying through the webs so that the spiders themselves became entangled in them.
After ten minutes of fighting, Rachel notice that she wasn't enjoying herself as much and that the group was gradually becoming so exhausted that there was no chance that could last much longer. Rachel waved her paw in the air and managed to freeze the closest spiders. This gave Rachel and Kirsti enough time to force Remus away. Rachel then froze more of the spiders as they approached and after a while of continuous freezing the group were a safe distance away from Aragog's nest.
The group slowly made their way to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, on the Hogsmeade side. Remus, Kirsti and Rachel were walking together when Remus stopped and began frantically sniffing the air and then gave a violent growl. Remus turned around urgently and ran along the edge of the forest, shortly followed by Rachel and Kirsti on the ground and Amy and Clare in the air. Remus suddenly ran into the Forbidden Forest as though he was chasing something. There was only one kind of person who would be in the Forbidden Forest during a full moon. Werewolf hunters. Remus ran even faster in the direction of the voices that could now be heard.
"You can get 500 Galleons for a fully grown werewolf." said one of the hunters.
"Yeah that maybe so, but we still need to find one first." stated another hunter.
Remus saw the hunters but they didn't see him because Amy and Clare swooped down and diverted their attention, whilst Rachel and Kirsti attempted to pull Remus away. This soon failed because Remus started howling and snarling. The hunters began to run towards the howling. Rachel immediately froze the hunters, as it would be easier to fight Remus then three fully-grown men with wands and guns with silver bullets in. Rachel and Kirsti had to physically fight Remus to force him back to the Shrieking Shack. They managed to get back to the Whomping Willow just before sunrise and spent fifteen minutes snarling and growling as they went along the passageway. They walked up through the trap door, which they had left open. Rachel and Kirsti shut the trap door whilst Remus disappeared upstairs. Amy, Clare, Kirsti and Rachel walked, or flew, upstairs and waited on the landing for Remus to transform back. They didn't have to wait long before they heard snarling and howling and the sound of bones cracking and realigning to their original structure.
They then transformed back into themselves. Kirsti and Rachel were covered in scratches.
"Well that was a wild night out." said Rachel.
"Oh yeah, lets do it again some time." shouted Kirsti sarcastically.
"Would you two stop arguing and shut up." Amy said, who was now getting angry with Rachel and Kirsti's senseless bickering.
They stood up and faced Lupin who was on the opposite side of the room.
"Yyyy, you're animagi?" Lupin asked.
"Er yes." said Amy.
"None of you were bitten were you?" Lupin asked in a very worried tone.
"No" said Clare.
"What do you think you were doing? I could have killed you all. Look at you two, you're covered in scratches." said Lupin.
"That would have been on our heads not yours and we're fine. They're just a few scratches, we're not going to bleed to death so don't worry." said Rachel,
"Anyway why didn't you take your Wolfsbane potion?" Amy snapped.
"Snape was and still is away and couldn't make the potion, so I came down here. Anyway do you really think that matters? Your parents have been through enough without you jeopardising your lives." replied Lupin.
"Sorry. Are you going to tell our parents?" asked Clare.
"Right, I'm going to tell Lily, Sirius and Danielle that your animagi, but that's It." said Lupin once he had calmed down.