Chapter 4 Escalation
The calm lasted until the time for her second transformation grew relatively close. The same effect that her last transformation had on the school was in full force this time again. There where less of the fearful looks and there where even some nods. Rosie seemed to be in a better mood as she could not feel everyone's fear. Everyone seemed to be more and more nervous as the time went on until they were back to the start of the school year.
One day River and Rosie were walking towards dinner when Rosie suddenly stopped and bolted away from the classroom. River was confused for a second and stood still for almost half a minute. Then she tore after her. She was faster than Rosie, but with the headstart, it took a bit to catch up. It was not until Rosie slowed down River was able to catch up completely.
There was a muffled sound from a nearby lecture hall. She opened the lecture hall, out came a vail of pain and a smell of burned flesh. She followed Rosie inside d the lecture hall on the floor where a short blond Slytherin girl that was clutching her right leg. Then she saw the smoke coming out of her that leg and recoiled. Rosie had stopped moving and held her head between her hands like she had a headache. River felt like she needed to do something "get Ponfrei. I will stay here" and helped Rosie out of the room. When she arrived outside the lecture hall, she seemed almost instantly to recover and started to run towards the hospital wing.
River went to the girl's side, and she still had not acknowledged her existence and was whimpering in pain. River looked at her leg, and she took a step back her leg was covered horrible black burn marks that seemed to be glowing with a red sheen from time to time.
She took the girl's hand and started to speak and forced her voice to be calm. She did even think about what to say just that her voice did not betray her discomfort. After a while, she realized that there was something on the wall; it was the familiar symbol made out of burning red yellow and blue flames, and under it was written Slytherin no more. She felt rage build up inside and wanted to run and try to find whoever had done this, but she supposed that they were longe gone and her chance of seeing them in a random search was zero.
Instead, she held the girl's hand as she whimpered in pain. She felt so helpless. She sat and patted the girl's hand, and she was getting worse and worse. About ten minutes, her leg had gone from black to purple, and her breathing had started to become strained.
River started to panic as the helpless began to be too much for her, and she started racking her brain for things she could do. She even began to go through the few things she had learned as a captive to see I there was anything she could do to help her. There where two things that she could do that might be able to help her. The first was a charm that would slow down the girl's body, but it was made to slow down the effects of poison, so she was doubtful that it would have any effect. The second was more complicated and could be catastrophic if she did it wrong, but she was sure that it would at least stop the pain.
Before she could do anything stupid, she heard running in the corridor and in came Rosie and a heavy breathing Madam Pomfrey. She ran to the girl's side and hunkered down and examed her leg while muttering to herself. Madam Pomfrey pointed her wand to the wound, and the girls breathing became more regular. Then she made the girl levitate and started to move out of the lecture hall. "Let talk on the way to the hospital wing." Madam Pomfrey said
The explanation did not take long and at the mention of Rosie's ability to sense pain. Madam Pomfrey looked impressed and said, "I did not think that it had that longe range" she seemed to be in deep thought and had not noticed that they both had stopped talking until they had almost reached the hospital wing before she looked at them with first a bit confused than embarrassed. "Yes, of course, you can go now, there might be a couple of questions later, but for now, you should go and continue whatever you were doing." She nodded at the girls and walked away. They looked at each other, Rosie shrugged, and they made their way back to their lesson.
The following couple of days were weird for Rosie and River. News of what had happened spread quickly. Even the Hogwarts post did a special issue centered on what little they knew about the perpetrators and to fill pace, they also had people's favorite pranks.
Both Rosie and River was in the limelight again, but people were still terrified of River, and they could not communicate easily with Rosie, which created a weird stand of where groups tried to get individuals to go and ask them questions but them refusing. Sometimes they even manage to convince them, and they made it right next to them when their courage fails them, and they walked away. It took three days before a third-year finally dared to ask them questions. He looked at the ground, and he looked like he was going to bolt at any second. She recounted the event exactly as they had happened with removing the whimpering and the smell. The boy went away from that conservation discontent.
If it was the story that was a disappointment or if it was the big bad werewolf was not as scary as she was supposed to be, it was hard to tell. After that, the interest in the reduced down to the occasional glare and panicked look if they did not notice her coming near them.
The consensus was that this was a prank gone wrong and that Slytherin had done much worse last year. This attitude was also with the newspaper. Even if they had a hard time, specifying what this girl had done that was so extreme that it warranted that. The girl's name was Mya West, and she was in the room practicing as she always did with two other Slytherin girls. The curse had made it so that she could not use her left leg to support herself, and she had to use crickets. At least Madam Ponfrei was able to make it pain-free.
A week after the boy dared to ask her, people finely started to lose interest in her and things went back to normal.
The Monday before her transformation, she arrived at breakfast. It began with a few people steering at her in a manner that was akin to their reaction was when she first arrived. Before she even had time to sit down, Rosie came to her from the Ravenclaw table with a daily profit. Her rage, where evident, and River could feel her anger bubbling in response with hers. The effect on those around them was palpable as they started to argue among themselves. Rosie gave River the daily profit read the title with shaking hands. "The freaks of Hogwarts discover an incident." she stared at the title in disbelief. The author was Chase Fox. Someone she had never heard about probably was a synonym.
The first part was a summary of what had happened, and the little about the perpetrator was known. It was short, so they had filled the article with an interview from several students. She wondered how they had done the interview. Her first instinct was that it had been done by mail then realized there had been a Hogsmed last weekend, so that was probably the moment when they had done the interview.
With a lot of trepidation, She read what the other students' accounts.
"They freak me out. I know that we are supposed to tolerate her because of what lupin did. But I think it is wrong to put everyone in danger because of one good werewolf. It will probably work with one werewolf, but if they increase the number eventually something will go wrong and put the entire school in danger."
The second did not feature River but was instead feature Rosie "I think it is wrong that she is allowed to be here she shode be in St Mungo and receive treatment. We have the right to have our thoughts for ourselves. It is the greatest form of breach of privacy. She does not even have to be actively tying and still get our deepest secrets. If that were not enough, she forces her emotion on other people, and the teachers expect to accept that, "
The last interview was where they got their title from "we call them the freaks of Hogwarts and the place where they sleep the freaks dungeon. I am conflicted about them. On the one hand, they suffered a lot doing Voldemort rain" River flinch as she read his name. "but I think that it be safer for us students if they were getting their education from somewhere else."
She looks at Rosie and surprising herself by managing to have a calm voice. "does everyone think of us as the freaks?" Rosie hesitated. Then after a while contemplating her answer and as River feared, she noded. River felt devastated. She knew that this was probably the thought of everyone but had a foolish hope that things would be different. Rosie held up a finger to get her attention "so far as I can tell"River nodded tried to take comfort in that but knew she failed spectacularly as she could feel Roses' anger flaring up again. She sighed, and with more and more people staring at her, she hurried to get breakfast than at the first opportunity, she headed out from the great hall. She almost ran to her Potion lesson.
The lesson was about the Shrinking Solution. Potion had quickly become her second-best subject, and she was also the second-best student of the class after Rosie. As potion did not rely on verbal components, Rosie could release her true potential. She was several leagues beyond all of her peers and above River even if she tho made excellent progress. Slughorn had quickly become both favorite teacher even If he seemed to be in the habit of favoritism.
He had, in the beginning, some questions about her extended family, but he stopped after she made it clear that her extended family did not want anything to do with them and were actively paying them not to associate with them.
Their next lesson was in Defense against the darks art, which was what everyone still called the subject even if the teacher insisted that is was called Defense. In the hope that it would circumvent any jinx that was supposedly on the job. If that worked or not was still almost a year away from being proven. The teacher was still sure that it would work.
That day they were introduced to the expelliarmus spell. They divided into pers, and the teacher had the bright idea to put River and Rosie in separate couples. Their partners were a blond, blue-eyed small for her age girl for River and a tall for his age boy with long brown hair and brown eyes for Rosie.
Both were trembling as they faced off against them. The boy missed Rosie and instead hit a book that skittered towards him, and he fell on it.
The girl took a deep breath, studied her, and calmly said expelliarmus. She felt her wand leave her, and the girl caught it in the air. The girl beamed. River smiled "good work," she said the smile immediately melted away from the girl, and she backed away terrified as River went closer to retrieve her wand. She sighed inwards but put out her warmest smile and said in a polite tone "can I get my wand back so that I can try to do the exercise." she looked at the wand as it was first now she grasped what she had done. She left it on the ground and took several steps away. River was still smiling in what she hoped was a warm, friendly smile. The girl had an expression of pure terror as River was making herself ready to do the exersise. River was wriggling her brain trying to come up with a way to try to calm her down "do you want to try again?" the girl shocked her head. River started to feel desperate "look I do not want to hurt you," that seemed to have the opposite effect. She seemed even more afraid. The only way forward seemed to be to demonstrate that there where no il intent. She took a position and tried not to smile too much this time as she was unsure that it would have the desired effect. She calmly said expelliarmus the girl screamed and bolted for the door. River shocked mind noted her wand was still in her hand.
The entire classroom was silent as they tried to prosses what had just happened. The teacher was the first to recover as he bolted after her with a few classmates in tow.
The entire class stared a River with accusing eyes as if it had been her fault and unfortunately, a part of her agreed with them. She went through their entire conservation in her head, trying to find some way that she could have handled it differently. She turned to Rosie and asked, "was it the smile?" Rosie nodded. River took note she would try not to smile too much when trying to calm people down.
It took about fifteen minutes until they returned the girl looking less afraid and deeply ashamed. She went up to her and bowed her head "sorry I do not know what came over me" River was sure she knew exactly what had come over her. She remained herself that she used to be just as afraid of werewolves as this little girl so she could not blame her for being scared.
She was then teamed up with Rosie again to their former partners' great relief. At the end of the lesson, she was able to get Rosie's wand about half of the time the rest. Rosie had, as usual, more complicated than everyone else as the verbal part where a significant role in casting a charm and even if it was not as complicated for her as it was for typical wizard and wizen it was still far more complicated then speaking a charm out loud. Still, she managed to make her wand go out of Rivers' hand once. They got homework to practice, and they would continue the next lesson.
The incident spread like wildfire. The rumors did not portray River in a good light, and there were even debate if the girl had been right to bolt. It also made it to the school paper. There at least she was not described as a monster, and it was framed as the girl overreacting.
Aden approached her after the next day after her Potion class and with a grin said. "Hi" "Hi," she said back a bit embarrassed. I just wanted to see if you were okay after that article. She looked at him, confused before she saw his panicked expression and a light went up. "Oh you mean the daily prophet article I was thinking about your article." His smile returned, "yes, the Daily Profit article. I have no idea how they could publish something like that. For a second there I thought that I had to be the one to break the news about it "he shook his head in disgust. "To think that they would publish that in the same paper that my dad works at making me furious" With some more small talk and a promise from River to say hi from him to her sister, they parted ways. The encounter made River feel hope that there might be a chance that people would come to except her in time.
She woke up that morning, thinking that she would try to practice smiling in a fashion that did not freak everyone out. She never had that problem before. She arrived in a great hall a bit late, and breakfast was already in session as she came. She took her breakfast with little cere except to avoid attention.
After about ten minutes, the owl post came. To her surprise, a trio of owls landed next to her with a basket. Two owls landed next to Rosie a similar but with a much smaller basket. The basket to the brim filled with red letters. Her mind was stunned trying to place the letters and made the connection with a couple of seconds to spend before uncountable howlers exploded in angry shots. The sound was deafening, and the entire great hall drowned out all other sounds. The only word she was able to hear was freak, monster, and disappear. The voiced were distorted to protect the users' identity. Then it went all quiet again as McGonagall muted them all with a quick secession of charms. River took a closer look at the basked and could see now that at the bottom was the symbol.
The rest of the day proceeded slowly as she started to look for people that tried to prank her, but nothing happened more that day. She wondered if it was that Hufflepuff boy again. But she did not have any evidence. They did not even know if it is the same individual that made both attacks or if it is was different people that were using the same symbol.
She could not use Rosie's power as far as she knew not suitable for interrogation. Catching random information was not a great way to get the truth. Secondly was that she was already under a lot of scrutinies for what she might snap up accidentally. What would happen if they figure out that she had used her power to look into another mind, intentionally River thought. No, she could not ask it of her. She still wondered what she would do when she heard a Ravenclaw girl say "did you hear there was an explosion of some kind in the potion room and the entire class of 4 years Slytherin are temporarily blind". That news felt frightful to River. The attacks were escalating, and they were starting to do them more frequently. Sooner or later, someone was going to be greatly injured. But what could she do, she was not liked enough to do an investigation and did not possess an invisibility cloak so she could sneak around.
She felt so helpless, especially as the rest of the student body with some exception like Hemonie Granger was openly declaring that Slytherin was getting what they deserved and that there shode not complain.
The rest of the head boys and girls were all a bit more hesitant to speak out against them. The only one River saw speck about the subject the school paper asked the head boy of Ravenclaw what he thought about it. River had a hard time knowing what he thought about the issue as he made sure he spoke a lot of words that meant nothing.
She realized that she did not have the right to criticize them as she had not been there last year when the death eaters ruled the school with a lot of help from the majority of Slytherin house. She also had her last remaining blood relative that cered for her in that house. Still, even if they could forgive, there had to exist another way then to drive them away from Hogwarts River thought desperately.
The news about the class was at least uncomfortable for most people which mad River feel a bit better.
Then it was time to go to the cabin again. In the morning, however, Rosie nervously touched River's shoulder. River could feel the nervousness when Rosie without looking at River aked "can I come?". River gape at her for several seconds. She asked her, "why?" in a tone that River realized where a bit condescending. She then felt frustration growing inside her that she knew came from Rosie. "Because I have no one else here, I must make all communique by myself," I am entirely alone without you, and the last time people used that time to bullying me. Finally, it is safe; the cottages are created to withstand a Werwolf, and you take the potion, so it is perfectly safe." River could feel that this was important to her; she nodded still a bit shocked. McGonagall was surprised as well "why you would want to do that? "Rosie looked down in the ground scarlet" I am not able to communicate alone. Besides with the recent howlers, I would like not to be alone."
River translated and McGonagall sighed and said, "you are unfortunately right we have captured several people that have used the symbol, but the founders still elude us at the moment. We still do not know why the people sent those howlers to you, but we suspect a copy cat ". We are going to consult an expert, so do not worry," she said the last word with an odd smile on her face.
Well, let us be going. The trip to the cabins was far more enjoyable with Rosie around. Rosie was moderately impressed by the cottages and was utterly astounded by the gardens and library.
She took a cabin next to River. They entered Rivers cabin were Slughorn had prepared her potion and Rosie looked intensity at her as River drank the potion. When River then looked over at Rosie, she blushed, and she could feel Rosie's shame. River tried to smile as she felt her cheeks grow red and said, "if you did not at least show that amount of worry I would have to reconsider your sanity." Rosie returned the smile sheepishly "sorry I know that you would not forget but" she hesitated, and River continued her sentence "having a werewolf a few meters from you shode with all right make anyone nervous. It is okay" Rosie nodded still River suspected that it still bothered her.
River and Rosie worked together on the assignments given to them, and they finished them before the day was over. The rest of the time they were in the library reading books and playing wizard chess which River lost all their matches.
On the day of the full moon, she could cut the tension with a knife. When the afternoon, there would not even go five minutes when she did not look at the clock. The hardest part where Rosie's emotion was out of control, she could not calm herself so that River felling her stress as well as the shame as Rosie knew that she could feel the stress.
When the clock was almost three River could not handle it anymore. "why do we not go to our cabins and read books and we will meet tomorrow after I have transformed back okay?" she felt her shame again, but also pride "no need you will not transform for several hours, and even if you do you have consumed the potion, so you are safe" ""yes you are completely correct, but I can feel how nervous and stressed It makes you. And as I have already told you would be extremely weird if you felt nothing with having a werewolf transforming next to you. I am extremely grateful that you are here even at all doing the transformation, but there is no need for you to force yourself. I am grateful to have met someone who tolerates me this much" she felt happiness flow through her. She just answered "same" there was a bit of silence then River took her things and walked to her cabin.
The transformation was as usual extremely painful, and then she was bored. There was nothing to do than to wait until she fell asleep. Then she woke up from the pain of transforming back. The next time she woke up, it was daylight out, and she felt the tiredness and fatigue and saw through the window Rives face and felt relief from her. She forced herself on her feet and walked towards the door. Unbolted it and let her through. "sorry if I woke you. I thought something might be "she then lay her eyes on her left arm and River felt her instant fear and disgust. But it was fleeting. She had told her about her arm, but hearing about something and seeing it in person was two different things. Shame took the place of fear and disgust. River was too tired to care. She went back to her bed and took her blanket and wrapped it around herself and made a motion for her to continue. "I was worried I was aware that the transformation was painfull but is it rely on that level? "River thought back to last night and noded. "Rosie looked concerned but was able to contain her emotions so well that River did not get any backlash" "can I get you anything?" she shook her head already feeling the fatigue taking over her and feeling that she would fall asleep. She did not even notice Rosie leaving as the next time she awoke she was not there.
She came to about a half-hour before Madam Pomfrey would arrive. With Rosie returning ten minutes later. This time River a bit stronger, and they discussed Rosie's power. They decided that they would take cabins on opposite sides of the clearing next time to mitigate River's influence." "have you heard from Madam Pomfrey she should be here by now?". River wondered if something had happened. She was worried about her sister even if they had decided that she would arrive tomorrow. She could not feel safe as they where targeting Slytherin even If they thought that her sister was one of the good ones that still she could be in the proximity of the next attack and get hurt. She wondered when she had stopped thinking them as pranks and started seeing them as attacks.
The next time she woke up to see the face of her sister grinning at her, "you forgot to lock the door after you, who knows who could get here." She looked tired but seemed to be in good spirits. River held out her left hand," which made Vivi smile broaden what "no hello before I help you?" River smiled back "hello vile would you kindly remove this extremely was fur from my left arm? "Vile was a nickname that she had given her sister longe ago, and she knew that she hated it. "fine but you did not have to use the v-word." they talked about what had transpired on Hogwarts in their short absent.
The pranks seemed to have increased again, but that was ultimately hard to know for sure as there had started to be copycats, but they were quickly found out with the new expert. She had a grin on her face when talking about the expert, and she refused to give up the person's name. No matter how much River tried, she finely gave up and knew that she would have to see for herself.
Her sister suddenly got quiet "there is something more serious I need to talk to you to about." She took a deep breath before continuing "someone tried to break into your quarters back at Hogwarts when you were gone" "they do not believe that it is the same people targeting Slytherin but you can never be too careful so promise that you will be careful"River smiled "of course I will have I ever been the kind of person that would be snooping around where I should not be" "yes, unfortunately, that was how you got yourself captured in the first place so please for my sanity can you promise that you will not do anything stupid?" she was going to make a joke but bringing up her capture made her remember a couple of bad memories that where not covered by the charm. "mention my capture was a low blow, and it cured me of that nature, but I promise not to try to seek out trouble. If" she pointed at her sister "you promise me to get some rest" Her sister laughed a genuine laugh "deal" they shook hands.
When River returned to school after her second transformation, the whole school seemed to be calmer as they had survived two transformations. They both were getting a bit paranoid as half expected their quarters to be destroyed or something like that instead of their rooms as clean as they had left them.
River was on her way to herbology and was at the moment at the rare occurrence that she was alone. The corridor she was in was infamous for its shallow roof as hagrid could barely fit. She was thinking about how she could get something to do when in wolf form. She was so distracted with this thought that it took her a second to realize that she was falling and the roof had suddenly become the flor. Fist, her legs were off the ground. She managed not to hit her head luckily enough. She lay still for a moment, shocked what had happened to her. Then she decided to look up at the floor and everyone steering at her with wide-opened eyes. She heard running, and she saw both Filtwich and another person she had trouble placing. Flitwick pointed his wand at her. She felt herself regaining normal gravity and levitating safely to the ground. Flitwick came to her side, and with a concern, a voice said, are you okay "she smiled and said, "yes." "when the red-haired man smiled back at her she realized who he was. He was one of the Weasley twins, but he seemed to have lost weight and seemed not to have gotten much sleep. His smile quickly vanished as River realized that this was the expert. "it seems to be a harmless prank. The charm is difficult, and they used it here so she would not fall too far".
She was a lot more alert the rest of the way to the classroom, and when she saw Rosie, she conveyed what had happened. Rosie was furious and had to be told by the teacher to calm down. The lesson istelf was uneventful. Herbology was something that Rosie handicap did not limit her, so she was determined to get good grades, so River put in more effort than she usually would have as her eternal partner.
She wished for her have old friends, but everyone from her past life b was still ignoring her at the best of times and ar the wors were openly hostile. Was not Hufflepuff meant to be loyal? Why had they abandoned her? She had expected it in the begining . She was begining saw that she had always been the odd man out among their friends, and even the person she would have described as her best friend did not see her that way. She was just another in her group which seemed to have imploded doing her absent and no one of them that where inseparable where even on speaking terms. She knew that she was extremely Luckey to have Rosie as a friend. Even luckier was that all the teachers at lest seemed to tolerate her. It was a small comfort she had been here now for a couple of months, and still, people looked at her in disdain. Then there were the attacks that were getting more and more violent, and River was starting to fear what the future was holding.