Standing before her, elegant, proud and strong as he had always been, was none other than Whisper. Clear eyes gazed intelligently, yet almost desperately, urging at the girl. The beautiful head tossed up and down, shaking the pearly, silvery mane to the sky, glittering as if covered in bright, starry powder. The sound that had woken her up from her sleep had been a nervous neigh, one far from fear hence full of worry. Hermione noticed the right leg lifted up untidily, painfully, and the ankle, the conjunction where the hoof joined the leg was very swollen.
"Oh my, Lavender, what have you done?" Inquired Hermione to herself, deducing at first that the poor stallion had been forced over his limits, and that all had been a fall.
Hermione directed a reassuring gaze at the intelligent horse, and turned on her heels. She took barely a few minutes to get dressed on her ridding suit, her hard, leather books, thick pants and security vest. She stormed then out of the room with the speed and strength of a hurricane, pushing away without mercy anything that impeded her way past. She knocked on various doors rather harshly, and raced down the stairs to the room which had once been her Common Room, Gryffindor's Common Room.
Her wait was short, barely, seven or eight minutes before the reclaimed people made their presence, more physically than mentally. The three people that appeared still rubbed their eyes, puffy and with dark rings present under the orbs. They where half dressed, for their attempts at such early hours, and so recently awoken where pointless. The boy had a gentle brown face and was gazing at her concerned, yet more annoyed at the fact that he had been awoke so abruptly at such early hours. The two girls, one had curly flaming hair, while the other wore a dreamy expression in her large eyes, gazing at Hermione expectantly through her strands of sleek, golden hair.
"I hope you have a good explanation for this, Hermione!" said the boy with a gentle face, swallowing down a yawn.
"Yeah, the fact that you are in charge of the Equitation School doesn't give you right to boss us around!" the pretty girl pointed out visibly bugged at her insistent calls.
"Neville, Ginny, shut up and let me talk first, then you'll judge!" Hermione retorted severely, hence her voice hid a stutter of worry.
"Yes, let her speak!" the girl, shorter and rather scrawny glared at them through her starry gaze.
"Shut the fuck up Luna, it's five thirty in the morning!" Ginny muttered yawning profusely.
"Now listen up, last night Lavender went for a walk with Whisper, and the horse has returned alone, his leg more injured than it was!" Hermione explained, looking behind her back as if seeking something.
"What!" gasped the three people in unison, now fully awake, startled and worried all at once.
"So we will do this, Neville, hurry up, saddle Saletta, Balkan and Bankara, Ginny, Luna and I will go search for her!" Hermione ordered urgently.
Neville gazed at her. He was confused, at some point, for he had some difficulties in understanding why he was not allowed to go with them. Surely he was not the best of riders, and controlling a horse was not as easy as it might seem, but he was good willed and hard worker, and was more than sure that he could do well in accompanying the girls.
"Neville, HURRY!" Hermione urged him on with a harsh, yet shaking yell.
It was all he needed to react, one of those angered screams that had always terrified, and ashamed him. With a speed only he could gather when receiving the urgent message of his friend and companion, Neville vanished through the round hole in the wall. The Fat Lady was now an immobile picture drawn in oils, and the five decided to put it aside in order of an easier entrance to their chambers.
"What do you think might have happened to her?" Ginny inquired, now her impetuosity and annoy cooled to leave place to an increasing worry.
"I don't know Ginny, I don't know!" Hermione responded, staring blankly at the gap out of which had vanished Neville.
Ron raised his brown eyes to meet, out of his expectations or his mild, weak desires, an unknown figure, or rather unrecognizable. It was a slender man of a medium height, with thin, dry lips, and a sleek jaw. And that was as far as he could scrutinize with his gaze. The man before him was dressed in a black coat, hanging down to his ankles, and covering his face to the sparkling eyes was a hoof that allowed him as much as to see what was before him.
"Who…Who are you?" inquired Ron desperately, glaring at the man warningly, and clenching his fists ready to strike if necessary.
"I'm a friend!" the man said moving uncomfortably, noticing the hesitation of the creature before him.
"Why are you not afraid of me? Or surprised at least?" inquired the red haired boy with a nervous glance at himself, showing his tan hands as the most critical prove of his condition.
"I have seen worse than a poor boy growing a furry tail and ears!" the man said with a dry chuckle, his voice seemed hoarse, as if it had not been used in a very long time.
"What am I?" Ron inquired again, his hesitation towards the man gone as his body was dominate by his thirst of knowledge.
"I don't have the answers to your questions, but I have the ways of helping you for the time being!" the man answered in the same hoarse voice.
"Then help me, make me change back!" Ron snapped standing up and gripping the man's cloak, a pleading gaze glinted in his eyes, mixing with the tears that began to flow again, the young voice breaking.
"Magick is disappearing, and I no longer hold the power to perform complicated spells. I can't assure it but I believe that the unfortunate events that encircle the disappearance of Magick might have affected you somehow!" the cloaked figure pointed out, clearing his voice violently.
"Wait a minute, you are a wizard?" The boy exclaimed startled at the realization of the previous words.
"I was a wizard, a long time ago!" the figure said with a profound nostalgia attacking his soul, tearing him inside and making him wince miserably.
"I don't think I can understand it!" Ron muttered sadly referring to his previous words, looking down defeated and letting go of his grip on the calm figure.
"You will, I promise. You only have to find the person that bears the answers to your questions!" the man explained sighing profoundly, as if missing his very own answers to his troubled existence.
"What am I to do now? I can't walk around with this appearance and pretend nothing is happening!" the boy yelled anxiously at the man.
"Goodness Ron, use your imagination! Here, use this!" the man sighing defeated tossed at the boy a long, black coat like his own and a cap.
"I'm not going around with this! I'll look ridiculous!" the boy snapped glaring at the black clothes with disdain.
"Fine, just show your tail around! Whichever you like for that matter!" the man, exasperated at this point, snapped angrily, turning around on his heels to depart.
"Fine!" Ron exclaimed angrily, and giving in he dressed on the long coat and put on the cap to hide the furry ears.
It was then that he realized various things, dashing through his brain like a lightning, illuminating his ideas. The first one, and the most grave one for that matter was that he was late for his exam, which was very disturbing. However the doubt that stood out as more extraordinary was the one that lacked importance, in a way.
"Wait, how do you know…!" he began questioning, hence realized the mysterious man had vanished, apparently, into thin air, "…my name!"
The day, apart from the mysterious and unnatural events that accused Ron, should have been peaceful and pleasant, one tranquil day to a university student on exams. Ron would have wanted to do that exam and then race home and see if he could gather the last remains of Magick of his want to try remove the tail, black nose and furry ears. What he didn't know was that his problems had barely begun.
On his rushed way towards the station people stared at him. He felt uncomfortable but knew well it was only due to his ridiculous choice of a black, Matrix style coat and the intense red cap. It was not a pleasant mix, and made him look startling in a laughable way. However his attention was focused on two things, the train he had to pick and the possible presence of the cloaked figure in the surroundings of the station, or perhaps inside it.
His efforts were pointless, the figure had vanished for good. Only once he had thought he saw the mysterious figure, until he realized upon a closer and more accurate view that it was a gothic styled teenager smoking something with a pleasant, calming odour. The boy then wondered himself upon his very accurate senses, the scent recognizing the contents of a bag before he even saw it, the hearing being able to listen to whispered conversations metres away from him, almost as clearly as if they were yelling at his ears. Leaving aside his prejudice against his animalistic features, Ron began to see the advantages of his newly acquired weapons. They could be very useful indeed to survive in the terrible world he had to live.
"I don't think I have ever ran this much in my life!" gasped Ron, trying to inhale in as much air as possible through ragged breaths.
He was running past Universitarian City, having left the underground with urgent speed. He gasped at the strong shots of burning pain that ignited his lungs, flaming needles penetrating the soft, venous skin and muscle, tearing him with cruel fangs and claws. Boiling sweat ran past his skin, making it shine in a copperish tone, the black coat roasting his skin under the hot, summer climate. A hand rested upon his cap to maintain it in place, not risking loosing his disguise now that he could, finally, achieve some normality in the ways a former Wizard could understand it.
Ron leapt past the door and stormed inside the enormous examination room. The students were all seated, yet chatting animatedly, various gazing forwards nervously, pale and on the verge of tears, or about to faint. Silence flooded the room as he appeared through the door, entering violently, shaky, dressed on a ridiculous mixture of Dumb Boy, Neo and Hannibal Lecter due to a strategical, medical mask he had placed to cover his humid, black nose and sharp fangs.
Ron cowered slightly, feeling intimidated by the murmuring people, the fixed eyes placed sharply upon him, and the slight chuckles that became audible through the dense silence, tearing it without consideration. But the worst was the severe glance from his professor, a cranky old woman with short, silver hair and hard features who had a dangerous resemblance to professor McGonagall in severity with the cruel humour of professor Snape.
"Well Mr Weasley, you have made it in time, I see, how did you do it? Did the Holy Spirit come down and bring you here?" the woman snapped tearing her black eyes from him to focus on her choice of papers, doubtlessly the exams.
"I had some problems coming here!" Ron said ashamed, demonstrating it by lowering his head passively.
A gasp caught his attention, and he couldn't help but look up at the row of students, now recovering their animated chitchat, and some doing a last hour studying, reminding him so much of Hermione. But that was not of his attention now, but the pale girl who was on the train, one of his class companions, someone with a terrific resemblance to a girl he remembered seeing a long time ago.
"That is not surprising, tell me something new for a change, that old excuse is becoming monotonous and repetitive!" the woman snapped never tearing he eyes from the block of papers.
"May I sit?" inquired Ron sighing to himself, the presence of this professor becoming as unbearable as Snape's.
"What? You are planning on doing my exam dressed as a mime?" inquired the professor glaring at Ron as if he was some specimen of insect that had to be exterminated.
"Er…!" Ron shrugged, nodding shyly, hence starting to suffer some nervous convulsions at the thought of revealing himself to the hundred or so students present in the room.
"Of course, tomorrow I'll come in skiing suit to match yours, don't worry, but for today you are to take of that cap, coat and mask!" snapped the professor, returning her attention to the papers she was so accurately and tenderly ordering.
"Er, I suffer allergies?" Ron commented in a timid, low voice that was more a pointless attempt to convince the woman into letting him conserve his dignity.
"I know you students have allergy to exams, but that isn't a good excuse to engulf yourself into such clothes!" snapped the professor, now getting frustrating, hence visibly never running out of her spicy and smart responses.
"But professor…!" began the boy in a last, desperate attempt to convince the severe woman into letting him do the exam without leaving his coat aside.
"Listen Ron, you are NOT doing the exam like that, understood? Get rid of those things, or leave this room with a zero!" snapped the woman, now dim of patience and visibly angered at the boy's insistence.
Ron stared at the students, once again interested in the ongoing events. His eyes landed upon the girl, the very familiar girl, someone who inspired him anger, frustration, not close to disdain but a similar feeling of fury. And he knew who she was, she recognize the face, not her face but the fact that she was close to someone he had known well and gotten to despise slightly.
"Marietta! Marietta! You and I are One against the Dark Mark!" yelled all of a sudden the boy, pleading her to speak up for him.
The girl gasped startled. She had recognized the boy long ago, but attempted not to be seen by him, trying hard to blend in with the Muggles, never wanting to reawaken the horror lived during the terrible months that lasted the war. And now she could no longer hide. She tried shaking her head, she attempted to let him know she didn't recognize him, she ignored the meaning of his words, but he was hard headed and would not give up so easily.
"Enough Weasley, leave this room!" snapped the woman, not wanting the order of her exam to be disrupted by this sort of a metaphorical clown.
"Marietta, you know what I have, and I know you have it too! The DA, Marietta, the DA!" snapped the youngest of the Weasley boys, pointing at the side of his pants where he hid the precious want, last connection with the magical world.
"No!" vocalized Marietta trying to let him know she didn't want to have any more closeness with the world that had become her life and her agony.
"Weasley, to the rector's office, NOW!" the professor snapped seeing with maddening eyes how the semi adults began laughing uncontrollably at the hilarious situation represented by the ridiculously dressed boy.
Ron, against his will, left tamely, yet casting a look of deception and sadness towards the girl who had been former student of Hogwarts, friend to Cho Chang, and girl who had told Umbridge the situation of the DA headquarters.
Ron could have easily left to evade the talk with the University Rector. However he had grown out of his childish behaviour and grown into a more mature one, nearing an adult's but not reaching it completely as traces of Ron children still lit his soul. He paced past the long corridors with strong, secure steps, a valiant gaze igniting in his nervous, chestnut eyes.
"Why is this happening? Why do things have to be this way? Oh, it would have been so much easier at Hogwarts!" Ron thought as his eyes scanned the maps and signs, automatically seeking for the office.
His unanswered questions would hang in the air, and his meditations would reach no theory yet as his attention was called towards the door that stood before him. It was a door of a dirty white colour, the paint seemed to be peeling off, and nests of unidentified insects crawled between the remains of such paint. On it hanged a clear sing that read "Bernard Tabstinge: Rector" . Ron, taking in a deep breath, knocked on the door with calm, passive touches that were audible enough to be heard inside, yet not violent and frustrating. A calm voice filled with curiosity answered from the inside, and Ron proceeded to turn the handle (carefully as not to touch the bug bulges) and penetrate inside the chambers. The gentle, dim light of a flame lit his features, making his skin look darker, more copper like than it was already. The boy's eyes widened surprised.
"This isn't…this is, this is…" Ron gasped with an strangled knot on his throat, gazing intently at the whole room, passing briefly past the figure sitting on a rolling chair, its back to him.
To Be Continued…
AN: Ok, what is the room like? Who is the mysterious cloaked figure? What happened to Lavender? And why is Marietta so hesitant towards Ron? Ok, that might be because he is a fox boy, or something like that. Don't worry, all those questions and Ron's questions, and what happened to Magick will be answered on its time. Please, read and review, I'm liking the way this story is turning out.