Yay! I broke the Criminally-Short-Chapter Curse. It's a decent length!

"Not Your Problem"

Fen sat on a patch of browned grass. His arms wrapped around his knees. The overlarge sleeves hid his hands inside white cuffs. He looked up at Henry's brother in an attempt to ignore Nibble's unwavering glare in his direction.

The professor stood in a bright patch of sun. His eyes were closed, as though he were enjoying a rare opportunity. The owl had abandoned her perch on Fen's head for one atop a chair deep in the shadows of the porch. She didn't stay there long. When Henry walked out the door hefting the weapon that Fen thought was an enormous wand, she launched into the air, screeching. The Were watched her go, of half a mind to take a shot at her. But something—who knew what—saved her, and he slipped his head and arm through the sturdy strap instead. As he arranged the weapon comfortably behind his back, Severus eyed it disdainfully.

Henry glanced up to see his brother draw a wand and say, "That thing will be useless against anything we come across in the Forest. It's only good for killing Muggles."

He merely nodded at the words and walked into the tree line, not waiting for the wizard, owl, and boy to scramble after.

XXX

Their location was a secret known only to one. There was no path to follow, only Henry as he strode through fallen leaves.

The underbelly of the forest, normally an impregnable darkness, was now riddled with tiny cracks of light. The canopy shivered at a hiss of autumn wind. The shriveled leaves of a dead branch fled in a trembling formation. A beam of fractured light snaked through the resulting gap to strike at Severus Snape. His dark robes flared, a deep, complex green. His slick black hair whipped back, hinting at rich brown. Then the wind died, and he stepped from the light, reentering the forest's monochrome gloom.

For an hour, Fen had walked and watched Henry's brother pass in and out of darkness, fluidly shifting to match in the uncomfortable silence. It came as a surprise, then, when the professor stopped at the edge of a leafy patch of invading sunlight and threw a look back at him. Light played over the man's face. Sinister shadows fled from harsh light, which then softened, only for the obscuring dim to return. Then he turned back to his brother's receding form and started after it.

Fen was left with no idea of what the look had meant. The elfin boy stood, staring, for a full minute. Then he took a tentative step back. An enraged hoot killed any plans in that direction, and he dashed forward to catch up with the humans before Nibble could tackle and eat him. He could feel the owl's glare as she swooped through the shifting light behind him. Unfortunately, she was onto his plan to lag behind, vanish, and avoid this Hogwarts disaster altogether. And as she had so calmly informed him from her perch atop his head an hour ago, she was not letting him out of talons' reach until she saw him to the castle. The incisions in his scalp were a rather unpleasant reminder of that.

Nibble's hooted death threats ended once Fen was walking in front of Severus. That did something for his nerves. Only now escape was impossible, and he felt two pairs of eyes at his back. Uneasy, he played with the dark curls that hid his ears, ensuring that the points were hidden beneath a wild mop of hair.

Henry strode on ahead, mindless of the people behind him. He was unused to leading. Instead, he walked towards his destination at his normal pace. It should have been too fast for Fen to keep up with, but the boy seemed used to trailing after inconsiderate adults with legs twice the length of his.

Watching Fen dart after the Were, Severus was inexplicably reminded of a House Elf. Perhaps it was the boy's clothes. They bore an uncanny resemblance a House Elf's skin, being several sizes too large for his small size and hopelessly wrinkled. It also could have been the wide fearful eyes, the too-thin limbs, or the strange need to constantly cook and clean.

The man's lips thinned. In the back of his mind, his forced promise to make the boy a ward of the Ministry was sounding better every minute. At the forefront, though, was the assertion that Fenrir Albtraum Svartálfar wasn't his problem—and never would be. The boy was either destined to become a Hufflepuff or Longbottom's heir.

'Merlin save me if it's the latter.'

XXX

Severus pocketed his wand when they reached the edge of the forest.

Henry slung his weapon off his back and readied it. "Put that back," he said when the wand reappeared. "An' take off your outer robes. Hang them over one arm. The rest of you's Muggle enough. Boy looks fine." He sat and returned to his work. He looked up a minute later to find his brother had done nothing. His face darkened. He frowned and pointed through the trees. "First of all, when you go to a place, you look the part. That's a Muggle settlement. Second…" he paused and spared a glance at Fen.

"They should be asleep at this hour," he sighed. "But I'd rather not take that chance." He tugged on the weapon. It made a dangerous sound.

The wizard glanced up at the noonday sun. "Since when are Muggles nocturnal?" He turned his attentions to his brother. "And if you want to be inconspicuous, a gun—"

"This is inconspicuous," Henry cut in, raising the rifle, "for them." He swung the weapon around and used it to point at the settlement. "You see that last row of fields before the town gets dense? You have to get that close before apparition works."

"And how would you know that?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he said, "Just follow me and keep moving." He stood and strode out of the trees, the gun lowered but ready. "Keep the boy close," he added.

Severus stared at Henry's back a moment. Then he pressed his folded robe into Fen's arms. "Hold this." He missed the boy's reaction to being handed clothes as he withdrew his wand and slid it down one shirtsleeve. He fisted that hand, trapping the wand tip between two fingers. It didn't work so well as a sheath, but it would work. With his free hand, he took Fen by the shoulder and steered him out of the trees after Henry.

His brother's wariness seemed unfounded as they followed the Were across a reaped field. In spite of the high sun, everything looked asleep. The only sound Severus could hear was their crunch footsteps as they tread on the field's dry stubble.

Henry moved quickly in a straight line. Severus was hard pressed to keep up; he didn't know how Fen managed. He did become accustomed to the pace, though, and began to study his surroundings. The fields were in the flat area of a large depression that the forest ringed. The grade was rather shallow where they had exited the trees, but it grew steeper further west. By the time the fields ended and the town began, the area was loomed over by two veritable cliffs. The flat area bottlenecked as it went west, and the town was the cork.

Severus began to feel uneasy.

He didn't notice the structure wedged in between two fields until they were nearly on top it. The reason why was obvious. It was shorter than he was tall, and was only about that wide. He was reminded of a chicken coop, only it was built far too sturdily. The thick, padlocked door suggested a tool shed for important equipment, but the structure was too short for a person to get in and out without stooping or crawling. When he neared it, he half-heard an odd, hiccupping sound. He frowned.

"Henry?" Fen asked, tugging one ear uncomfortably. "What's in that shed?"

Screams rent the air.

The heavy door started to rattle frantically. Fen was suddenly welded to the side of Severus that was furthest from the shed. The boy winced at every shriek for help.

Henry whirled. He saw Severus with his wand out, halfway through the motions to blast the shed's door open. He wrenched his brother's arm down. "Put that away and keep going," he said. Severus escaped his grasp only to be caught again. Henry pinned him with his eyes for good measure. "This is not your problem," he asserted, clipping each word.

Severus, though, had decided that it was. "What is this!" he hissed.

Henry sagged. He had wanted to avoid this, to take a different route, but the next closest place to safely exit the forest without a parachute was six hours to the south. Six hours at his normal pace, and that was assuming the Redcaps didn't hold him up. He sighed. With a child in tow, it wasn't even an option to go through Redcap territory. And the northern exit was too far; it would take days of steady running. That only left the town. Gripping the rifle, he scanned the row of houses closest to the fields for movement.

This would have been so much easier if he and the town alpha were on speaking terms.

His brother was glaring at him. "This is Fenr—Fe—His legacy," he sighed at last. "The town, these people; they're all Weres."

As Severus's eyes widened, he pointed at the shed, where the girl's screams for help had dwindled to teary mumbles. She wouldn't tell; she just wanted to go home. "She's new." He gestured with the gun. "Can we please move? There's nothing you can do for her. The town will take care of her—for the rest of her life. I don't know how else to reassure you, just move." He turned and walked west, leaving Severus and Fen to follow.

XXX

"Here." Henry knelt in the tall grasses of a field that had been allowed to lie fallow. His eyes never left darkened homes in the near distance. "The forest stops here up on those ridges; you can apparate here." He paused, then called, "Fe—Boy? I'm sorry about that back there. But you have to realize, that girl, she's…sick. The symptoms haven't shown yet, though, an' she doesn't want to believe it."

As Henry spoke to Fen, Severus looked down at his rumpled, sweat-stained clothes. With a sigh, he took his robe back from Fen, donned it, and then dropped down low to the ground. Under the cover of grasses, he ran his wand over his attire, muttering. Wrinkles straightened out, mud disappeared, and a fresh scent replaced the lived-in one. His skin was stripped of dust and sweat, and his hair straightened. Experience had taught him not to try spelling his hair clean.

He flicked the wand at Fen next. The boy's clothes smartened up, and smudges of dirt disappeared from his neck, but the deranged tangle of hair atop his head didn't budge.

Severus's brows furrowed.

"When she realizes she's infectious…that it's safer for everyone if she stays here with the others, she'll move into town nights and days…and live a normal life." Henry closed his eyes when he said normal. "Do you understand?"

Without warning, Fen wrapped his arms around Henry's neck.

XXX

"Can I please stay with you?" Fen whispered the desperate words into Henry's ear, low, so Nibble and the Potions professor couldn't hear. "Please?" This was his last chance to escape. Unabashedly, he plucked at the man's heartstrings, using the argument he had overheard the brothers having about him. "Please, he's going to make me go back to…Him." He choked on the last word, having dredged up every dark memory he could to taint his voice with emotion.

Severus noticed Henry's sudden stricken look. "We need to be leaving," he said quickly and reached a hand out towards the boy. Fen disentangled from the Were only partially, his fingers knotting behind the man's neck. Henry's breath went uneven. He pulled the boy towards him and felt the small arms reassert their grip.

Severus's eyes narrowed at the look on Henry's face. "I swore," the man growled. "On our father. Isn't that enough for you?"

Henry stared up at Severus. His grip on the boy slackened. Then he felt tears bleed through his shirt. They burned him worse than silver ever had. He realized he was shaking his head and had been for some time. "No," he said simply. Fen relaxed slightly in his embrace. He closed his eyes.

"Henry," Severus's voice pleaded before taking on a harsher note. "You know you can't keep him. Even if it was legal, it's not safe for him here. You said it yourself; this entire town's infected with lycanthropy. He'd be the only human for miles; they would swarm him on Full Moons. Do you want to be responsible for his death? For that death?" Henry's eyes snapped open.

The two humans stared at each other, their eyes filled with memories of monstrous, slavering jaws. There was silence for a full minute before Henry bowed his head and pulled a trembling Fen off of him. Severus stepped forward and gripped the boy's shoulders. A flash of brown swooped down from the sky. Fen raised an arm quickly to protect his head from the owl's talons. Nibble landed on the arm instead. She turned her head nearly a full half-turn at him and smirked, 'Nice try.'

Fen stiffened and almost missed Henry's farewell. "Bye," he replied emotionlessly. Then he closed his eyes and waited for the professor to apparate him to his doom.

XXX

The hands trapping his shoulders gripped him tight right before the ground fell out from under his feet. Then it reappeared with a thud, and the hands were the only thing that kept him upright. In a flurry of motion, Nibble abandoned his arm for the sky, and his captor led him forward. He kept his eyes closed as they walked, being of the opinion that what he didn't see couldn't hurt him.

"Severus?"

Fen froze even before the professor's feet ground to a halt. It couldn't be. It just couldn't. He opened his eyes to prove his ears wrong. His face fell slack.

Severus smiled. "Lucius," he greeted.

…Well. The next scene should prove interesting.