I DON'T OWN HARRY POTTER OR ANYTHING AFFILIATED WITH IT. I ONLY OWN DEVYN AND HER PARENTS.
Chapter 23
To say Devyn and Harry was working ferociously to master the Patronus Charm would have been an understatement. Devyn couldn't speak for Harry, but she knew that the Patronus was consuming her thoughts almost 24 hours a day now.
She had always been a quick learner when it came to spells, and was always able to master them quickly, so the fact that she had to work so hard at mastering the Patronus both excited her and frustrated her.
They had both made rather good progress since their first lesson. Devyn's Patronus was able to stay around longer and the image of the wolf that it became was getting clearer and clearer every time. Moony desperately tried to keep his expression neutral whenever he saw her Patronus, but Devyn knew that he was struggling with the idea because of the detest that he held for anything to do with the wolf.
Devyn could hardly blame Moony for hating even the idea of a wolf so much, because of hard his life has been due to his condition, but it only made her more nervous about the notion of him finding out about her Animagus form. It was one thing to have a wolf-shaped Patronus, but it was another thing entirely to actually transform into a wolf, regardless of whether it was done willfully or it was forced.
Devyn's mind was so preoccupied as of late, she was quite surprised to find herself suddenly walking across one of the school's many courtyard with her friends and boyfriend. It took her more than it should have for her to remember that Hagrid had gone to the Ministry of Magic in London recently for Buckbeak's hearing. They were heading for Hagrid's cabin to inquire as to how the hearing had gone.
She shook her head and deliberately focused on her friends. She needed to get her mind off of the Patronus and Moony. It was getting ridiculous now. It was a lovely day, rather warm for it being early spring.
Harry looked slightly preoccupied, as she had been, and Neville was looking calm and happy. Devyn smiled at him and took his hand in hers. He grinned back at her and then nodded his head toward Ron, getting Devyn to look at him. His expression was stormy at best, furious at worst.
She also noticed that Hermione looked calm but a storm was brewing behind her brown eyes.
What had happened now?
Ron and Hermione were always fighting about something, and Devyn, Harry, and Neville were left to either take sides in the argument or be stuck in the middle and be forced to just wait until the two of them forgave each other and things got back to normal. Devyn, Neville, and Harry usually opted for the latter.
"Beautiful day," Hermione commented. Her voice was light and airy, but anyone with half a brain would be able to sense the dangerous tone lurking behind her words.
"Gorgeous," Ron answered sarcastically. "Unless, of course, you've been ripped to pieces!"
The three of them looked at the other two, alarm written all over their faces.
"Ripped to pieces?" Harry asked, clearly perplexed. He looked at Devyn and Neville, but they both shrugged at him. They had no idea either. "What are you talking about?"
"Ronald has lost his rat," Hermione told them.
"What?" Devyn asked. "Scabbers is gone?"
"I haven't lost anything!" Ron snarled, ignoring Devyn completely. "Your cat killed him!"
"Rubbish!" Hermione growled at him, her pace speeding up.
"Harry," Ron said, trying to appeal to a neutral party. "You've seen how that bloodthirsty beast is always lurking about! And Scabbers is gone!"
"Well maybe you should learn to take better care of your pets!" Hermione snapped.
"Your cat killed him!" Ron insisted.
"Did not!" Hermione protested.
"Did!" Ron muttered.
"Didn't," Hermione muttered right back.
"Ron," Devyn said. "Have you actually got any proof that Crookshanks killed Scabbers?"
"Well…no, not really," Ron admitted, although it looked like the admittance of his lack of evidence was causing him immense pain.
"Well, then…innocent until proven guilty. I know that Crookshanks seems to have taken a special interest in Scabbers, but he's a cat, Ron. And Scabbers is a rat. Cats chase rats, you know. I'm sure Scabbers will turn up sooner or later."
"Oh, yeah, take her side, I knew you would!" Ron shouted at her as the five of them started walking across the covered bridge towards the path they had walked so many times before.
"Watch it, Ron!" Neville warned.
"Oh, shut up, Neville," Ron snapped. Neville only raised his eyebrows and flushed a little.
"OI!" Devyn shouted at Ron, making him flinch at the noise. "Don't you tell him to shut up! Now listen: I am not taking anyone's side, Ron, but you haven't got any concrete evidence that Crookshanks killed Scabbers. More than likely, Scabbers is just running around the castle somewhere. I know you're upset that your pet is gone, but that doesn't make it alright for you to take it out on us. We haven't done anything!"
Ron flushed a deep scarlet and muttered an apology before they continued walking towards Hagrid's cabin.
"It's alright, Ron, just take it easy…" Devyn told him. Harry once again sunk into deep thought, or so it looked…Devyn guessed he was either thinking about the Patronus Charm, or about Black, and Devyn sincerely hoped it was the Patronus. It wasn't healthy for him to brood over Black this much.
They walked the rest of the way in relative silence, and eventually found Hagrid calf-deep in the Black Lake, skipping stones.
Devyn decided to join him. The water was cold, but she could sense Hagrid was very upset about something, even if he wasn't showing it. He needed someone there right now. The other four stayed on the shoreline and Hermione called out, "How did it go, Hagrid? At the hearing?"
"Well, first off, the committee members took turns talkin' about why we were there. And then I got up an' did my piece…said how Buckbeak was a good Hippogriff, always cleaned his feathers. And then Lucius Malfoy got up…"
Devyn groaned in disgust and annoyance and Hagrid nodded in agreement. "Well," he said, "you can imagine, he said Buckbeak was a deadly and dangerous creature that'd kill ya as soon as look at ya."
"And then?" Hermione asked.
"He asked fer the wors', did ol' Lucius," Hagrid replied, his voice started to shake a little.
"They're not sacking you!?" Ron exclaimed. But Devyn didn't think it was that. Hagrid's expression was much too sad for it to have been something like that.
"No, I'm not sacked…Buckbeak's been sentenced to death!" Hagrid wailed, throwing a large stone out into the water, causing a large splash. He hung his head and started to cry.
Devyn was shocked. She'd never seen Hagrid cry before, and it scared her a little. She did the only thing she could. Although she only came up to his waist, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him as best she could.
He moved his hand and placed it on her shoulder and squeezed tightly. Devyn tried not to gasp at the pain (he was squeezing her shoulder quite tightly) and luckily succeeded.
"I'm sorry, Hagrid. I'm so sorry…" she said quietly. "He doesn't deserve this. It was Malfoy's fault anyway, not Buckbeak's. He should have been listening when you said not to insult the Hippogriff. And maybe if he wasn't such a baby about the whole ordeal…I mean, Madam Pomfrey fixed him up in a heartbeat. She regrew half the bones in Harry's arm last year and fixed my skull the year before that! A slash from a Hippogriff would have taken seconds, maybe a minute tops!"
"I know, I know, but they don' see it like tha', Devyn. They just see an animal that injured a student…s'all they see…and Lucius has got 'em all in his pocket…they frightened o' him."
"I really hate the Malfoy family," Devyn muttered and Hagrid nodded.
"There's nothin' we can do now..." Hagrid said softly. "Nothin'."
Devyn felt so useless. She wanted to save Buckbeak, but there was nothing she could do. The Ministry's decision was final…Buckbeak had lost his case and that was the end of it. She just wished there was something she could do to stop this…but there just wasn't.
That night, Devyn had been tossing and turning in her bed for what felt like hours. Hermione, Parvati, and Lavender were all breathing deeply, clearly fast asleep, although Lavender's breathing was punctuated by occasional snorts and snores.
Devyn finally gave up on trying to sleep and went down to the common room. It was dark, but the embers of the fire were still burning slightly, cooling down with every passing second. Devyn allowed her eyesight to enhance itself and she touched her wand, which was currently in her sweatshirt's pocket, thinking…
She supposed it wouldn't hurt if she practiced a few spells…she wouldn't make any noise. Making the decision, she took her wand out and twirled it a few times in her fingers.
"Lumos!" she whispered, and the tip of her wand lit up.
"Incendio!" she said softly, pointing her wand at the fire, which lit up again, crackling merrily as though it had been just lit, instead of having been put out hours ago.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" she muttered, pointing her wand at a pillow, which she levitated around the room a few times, entertaining herself.
A stupid idea popped into her head and she aimed her wand at herself and whispered, "Ascendio!"
Immediately she shot up into the air, rather high above the floor. "Whoa!" she said. She knew it had been a stupid idea, but she was rather tired and was not thinking straight. Thankfully, she had kept hold of her wand and whispered, "Finite Incantatum!"
She plummeted back to the floor, luckily landing on the couch, bouncing off it and tumbling onto the floor. She groaned at the sudden feeling of being on the floor and muttered, "Oh, that was stupid. Not doing that again…"
She heard a creak on the stairs and immediately picked herself up off the floor.
"Harry?"
Harry jumped at the sound of her voice and looked up from the Marauder's Map. In one hand, he held his wand, the tip of which was lit up brightly.
"What are you doing up?" Harry asked, sounding defensive.
"Couldn't sleep. And you? What are you doing, Harry?"
"Couldn't sleep either. I was watching the map and then I saw this." He walked over to her and pointed to one of the inky sets of shoeprints. The name attached to the shoeprints was…
"Wait a minute. Does that say -"
"Peter Pettigrew. Yeah…" Harry said. "I was gonna go investigate it…"
"Oh, Harry, no! You could get into so much trouble if you're caught!"
"I know, but…" he sighed heavily and looked earnestly at her. "They say Sirius Black betrayed my parents to Voldemort and also murdered one of their friends –"
"Yeah, Peter Pettigrew…" Devyn said. Harry nodded.
"But the map says that Pettigrew is alive and is in the castle! I mean, something isn't adding up here, you know? I just…I need to know the truth. They were my parents, Devyn. I need to know…"
"Harry, I just…no, you're not going."
Harry looked like he was about to protest vehemently but Devyn held up a hand and said, "You're not going without me."
Harry grinned broadly at her and said, "Let's go then, Scooby!"
"Rall right, Raggy!" Devyn joked back, in her best Scooby Doo voice. Harry chuckled and shook his head.
"That was a horrible Scooby voice."
"Yeah well, I tried and therefore you shouldn't criticize me," Devyn said. Harry laughed and said, "So if I'm Shaggy, and you're Scooby…who would the others be?"
"Hmm, Hermione would be Velma, hands down. Ron would be Daphne, if only cause of the red hair…which leaves Neville to be Fred."
Harry and Devyn looked at each other and shook their heads. "No, I think you would be Fred, Harry; Hermione would be Velma, Ron would be Daphne, Neville would be Scooby and I would be Shaggy."
"Yeah, that's much better," Harry agreed. "But I don't think I would be Fred."
"You're kinda the leader of our little group of friends. So yeah, you're our Fred."
Harry rolled his eyes and Devyn started humming the Scooby Doo theme song under her breath and Harry chuckled.
"Okay, we seriously need to be quiet. We're gonna be caught if we aren't," Devyn said. Harry nodded and they fell silent.
As Harry checked the Marauder's Map to see if the location of Pettigrew's label had changed, Devyn was thinking about what Black said to her.
Pettigrew. Peter Pettigrew. He's alive. He's the one you should be worried about, not me! He's the one who wants Harry dead, not me!
Devyn sincerely hoped she and Harry weren't walking into danger here. All she wanted was a quiet, peaceful year where she wouldn't fear for her and her friends' lives. That wasn't too much to ask for was it?