Little Bitty Magic one

The night before the full moon always had Mischa itching with unspent energy. While she did not need to shift on the full moon, her powers seemed to be charged by the lunar event, and it was undoubtedly more relaxed if she did. The type of creature didn't much matter, but if she didn't, she usually spent the night tossing and turning with hot sweats. She wrote a letter, as she often did, to her mother telling her to be careful and look after herself. Mischa knew Remus was suffering the same as she, and she'd seen how he struggled to sit still and write out his transfiguration essay.

The two of them had struck up a kind of friendship, Mischa supposed. He would seek her out to chat, or even to go visit the stables if she was headed down there. He had put an end to the pranks and had also intervened once when Evan Rossier had cornered her in the dungeons. She surprised herself by actually caring how he fared on the full moon and had suggested he take a small amount of ground-up valerian before the change to help keep the werewolf more relaxed. It had certainly helped her mother.

Instead of heading for the stables and spending the night among the mooncalves, as she usually enjoyed doing, Mischa changed into a raven and waited in the branches of a tree looking out at the whomping willow. Her nocturnal activities during the full moon had led to her discovering that the boys liked to play with Remus in the Forbidden Forest where he could spend some of his energy running around without fear of being noticed by onlookers. She wasn't sure where the secret passage beneath the willow led, but she was convinced that he was happier being able to play around the trees.

Sure enough, half an hour after the sun had set, a rat, a stag, a dog, and a werewolf emerged from the roots and began walking in her direction. As they passed beneath her, both the dog and the wolf sniffed into the air as though they recognised her scent. She flew from the branch further into the forest towards a small pond where Remus would be able to drink some of the water.

To her surprise, it was not Remus who was the first to chase after her and break the treeline to the water. It was Sirius. His nose still keenly twitching as he sought out the origin of the scent. He moved to her side, but she still remained unseen in the branches. So as not to tip him as to her abilities, she turned back into Ambrosia and descended onto one of the lower limbs. As she did so, in no time at all, Sirius noticed her tail flicking above him and barked, attracting the attention of the other animals.

Remus came over first and whined when Mischa wouldn't descend from the tree so he could inspect her further. She playfully jumped onto different branches, causing him to follow her helplessly before she jumped down onto the forest floor.

Remus wasted no time in investigating the new creature to his group, and placed his snout soundly into her fur and sniffed. They surprised the rest of the group who had not seen the werewolf version of their friend so docile in the company of another. While they would never abandon their friend in his time of need, he had gone after them more than once, and they had learned to err on the side of caution. As Remus began licking her fur though, the boys were unsure whether to interfere or just to allow Remus to be in such a position over Mischa.

Sirius, bravely, dared to crawl closer towards them, but upon witnessing Remus stop his grooming and turn to look up at him, he halted his movements and settled for laying down nearby instead.

Mischa was perfectly happy for Remus' wolf to groom her for a little while, but as her fur began to get damp, she crawled from between his front paws and began to walk back to the pond only to be stopped when Remus put a paw on her tail. She turned and hissed, to which Remus's wolf let out a low growl.

The rest of the animals watched nervously, ready to jump in at a moment's notice… though what they could do to de-escalate the situation was beyond them. To their confusion, it was Remus that bowed out of the confrontation and released her tail.

The rest of the night, the five of them spent in the forest. Occasionally Remus would become restless and would coax Sirius and James into running with him, other times he was happy to lounge alongside Mischa and have a snooze. It put Mischa at ease to be back around a werewolf. Years spent by her mother's side, and then going to not being around for most of the year made her feel useless. Though her mother still preferred to be confined to a cage, Mischa knew she was more at ease with the beast that she was and as a result the changes had become more manageable for her. Remus, she realised, still needed help to accept who he was.

Sirius' barking snapped Mischa from her thoughts, and as she looked around, she could see that it was dangerously close to dawn.

Wiggling out from beneath Remus' snout where he had appeared to use her as a pillow, she batted at his face to try and get him to wake up. Remus looked up at the animals having heard the barks and felt Mischa's claws, but then re-settled by the side of the pond.

Running through the thick layer of trees, Mischa returned to her human form and howled as she began running towards the Whomping Willow. The tremors she could feel in the ground beneath her feet let her know that her plan had worked and that Remus was now running in her direction. Sirius and James, with Peter on his head, ran ahead, and seeing Mischa now in her human form pushed on even harder. Sirius barked alongside her as she ran.

"Yes," she yelled as she ran, "I'm aware it wasn't the most well thought out plan!"

She knew she wouldn't be able to outrun him for long, but the whomping willow was in sight, and she figured she might just make it. In an instant, she was back to being a cat. She set a punishing pace for her form, but she could feel Remus' breath on her back. As Remus went to take a swipe at her, she felt Sirius barrel into her side, knocking them both clear. Remus halted and looked around at them. Seeing Sirius stand over Mischa, he let out a growl, but James ran between them, and using his antlers to bat Remus away, he then guided him towards the willow where Peter had managed to open the entryway.

Seeing Remus disappear, Mischa turned back into a human as the first rays of the sun appeared.

"Mind getting off me?" she asked Sirius.

Turning back into himself, he trained his eyes directly on hers.

"What were you thinking?" he growled, "Do you know how dangerous that was?"

"Of course I do," she supposed that it was probably far more terrifying witnessing the scene if they didn't know that Remus would never have harmed her. The howl she'd let out had merely been one of another werewolf wanting to play, and Mischa and her mother had long since discovered that she was not susceptible to the werewolf venom changing her any more than she already was. "It would have been fine."

"You can take that risk if you want- but imagine how Remus would have felt if he'd hurt you."

"Sirius, I know how to deal with animals. If I'd have ever thought that Remus might have hurt me, I wouldn't have done it. He chased me because he thought it was part of a game like last night!"

"You're mad."

"And you're not?" she pushed him off of her and stood to her feet. "Tell Remus I'll visit him in the hospital wing later."

Mischa returned to the dorm room, but only to retrieve a roll of parchment and a quill. Sitting in amongst the owls, she wrote a second letter to her mother about how she had helped Remus and was planning to help him further. She didn't add details regarding with what in case the message should fall into wrong hands, but her mother knew who Remus was and would understand the letter as it was meant. She also wished her mother well and asked her if she had any advice she could pass on to Remus that Mischa may not have already thought of. Normally she would have held off writing so soon, but a sensation in her gut as the sun fully emerged from the horizon had her worried, though for what she couldn't describe.

She fastened the letter to one of the Hogwarts owls and wished it luck as it set off. The note wouldn't arrive until the evening, and that her mother would not have gathered her wits again to be able to write back until then anyway. She just hoped that the dread sensation was for nought.