AN: I'm trying to do a mix of the movies and books, if anyone was wondering. That's why I put it down as 'Any' in the World section just in case~
Disclaimer: I only own Lynx and the changes she makes or anything that's added because she exists (would that technically be the same thing or...?)
Dumbledore's Daughter
02 | Meeting
"What?" Harry said blankly.
Mrs. Figg was panting, taking away from the scowl etched on her face. Her grey hair was escaping the hairnet wrapped around her head, and her feet were halfway out of her tartan carpet slippers, both from, what Lynx suspected, running. Dangling from her wrist was her shopping bags clacking and clanking together.
She ignored the confused wizard, staring pointedly at Lynx. "Mundungus Fletcher left! Oh, I'm going to kill him!" she growled, on the verge of irate. "You have to stay until that idiot comes back! We haven't got time to stand around!"
"What?" Harry said again, this time completely lost.
She whirled to him, obviously in the mood for more ranting. "He left!" she repeated. "Left to go get a bunch of cauldrons that fell off of the back of a broom! I told him if he went, I'd flay him alive, and now look! Dementors!"
"But—" he stopped. "You're—you're a witch?"
"I'm a Squib, as Mundungus knows full well, so how on earth was I supposed to help you fight off Dementors? He left you without anyone but L—" She stopped when Nolan rubbed her leg, warning her, "—without anyone but a lynx," she corrected.
However, this only brought Lynx's existence back to the forefront of her mind.
"You!" she shrieked, pointing a bony old finger at Lynx's snout. "Do you understand what problems this will cause!? Why didn't you do anything else? Now—oh, what's Dumbledore going to say?"
Lynx grunted, rolling her eyes. What was she supposed to do? If she would've transformed, her cover would've been blown! Of course, protecting Harry Potter was first, but Dumbledore told her to keep her identity a secret. Did everyone forget she was a wanted being?
"You know Dumbledore?" asked Harry, staring at her in what seemed to be a mixture of surprise and confusion.
"Of course I know Dumbledore, who doesn't? But come on—I'll be of no help if they come back; I've never so much as Transfigured a teabag." She bent down, seized one of Dudley's massive arms in her small hands, and tugged. "Get up, you useless lump, get up!"
But the shaken Muggle didn't budge, still curled on the floor with an ashen face.
The lynx sighed and looked over at Nolan, nodding towards the delirious boy lying on the floor. The leopard understood, moving towards Dudley.
With a light roar—that sounded more like a rough purr—Lynx nodded to her back.
"Put him on your back?" the woman scoffed. "He's far too heavy for you."
Noland tugged lightly on her sleeves, grunting and nodding to his back too.
"Both your backs?" She thought about it for a few seconds, looking from the delirious boy to the giant carnivores. "Fine. Just hurry it up."
Harry studies the lynx and leopard with suspicious eyes, unmoving.
"What are you waiting for?" Mrs. Figg hissed. "We have to hurry!"
They both bent down and lifted the baby killer whale Muggle onto the wildcats' backs, trying to distribute the weight as evenly as possible. Each of Dudley's arms were dangling off of either animal, body cradled between their bodies. His feet, slightly too tall for them, were hanging off at their tails, limp.
"Keep your want out," she told Harry as they entered Wisteria Walk. "Never mind the Statute of Secrecy now; there's going to be hell to pay anyway, we might as well be hanged for a dragon as an egg. Talk about Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery… this was exactly what Dumbledore was afraid of—what's that at the end of the street? Oh, that's just Mr. Prentice… don't put your wand away, boy, don't I keep telling you I'm no use?"
Nolan and Lynx were starting to feel the effect of having someone as heavy as Dudley weighing them down. Lynx, who wasn't used to carrying anything, could already feel a cramp itching in her stomach, while Nolan, who'd only carried Lynx (which wasn't even an eighth of Dudley), was starting to feel a dull ache on his broad shoulders.
"Why didn't you tell me you're a Squib, Mrs. Figg?" Harry asked, strolling in between Lynx and her. It was clear he still didn't trust the wildcats. "All those times I came around to your house—why didn't you say anything?"
"Dumbledore's orders. I was to keep an eye on you, but not say anything; you were too young. I'm sorry I gave you such a miserable time, Harry, but the Dursleys would never have let you come if they'd thought you enjoyed it. It wasn't easy, you know… but oh my word," she said tragically, wringing her hands, "when Dumbledore hears about this—how could Mundungus have left? He was supposed to be on duty until midnight—where is he? How am I going to tell Dumbledore what happened? I can't Apparate…"
"I've got an owl; you can borrow her," Harry said matter-of-factly, eyes flickering to Lynx when an airy groan escaped her whiskered mouth.
"Harry, you don't understand! Dumbledore will need to act as quickly as possible. The Ministry has their own ways of detecting underage magic; they'll know already, you mark my words."
"But I was getting rid of dementors; I had to use magic," he tried to reason. "They're going to be more worried about what the dementors were doing floating around Wisteria Walk, surely?"
"Oh, my dear, I wish it were so, but I'm afraid—MUNDUNGUS FLETCHER, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"
There was a loud crack just as the strong smell of alcohol and stale tobacco filled the air. A short, unshaven man wearing a holey overcoat materialized right in front of them. His squat legs crooked outwards, barely covered by his trousers. His ginger hair was straggly, messily covering his bloodshot eyes that reminded Lynx of a basset hound. In his hand was a silver bundle easily identified as an Invisibility Cloak.
"S'up, Figgy?" he said rudely, eyes trailing from Mrs. Figg to Harry then Lynx, Nolan, and Dudley. "What 'appened to staying undercover?"
"I'll give you undercover!" Mrs. Figg cried, face turning red. "Dementors, you useless, scavenging thief!"
"Dementors?" repeated Mundungus, shaken. "Dementors 'ere?"
"Yes, here, you worthless pile of bat droppings, here!" she shrieked. "Dementors attacking the boy on your watch!"
"Blimey," he said weakly, looking at each one of them again. "Blimey, I—"
Mrs. Figg raised the arm she had bags dangling from and, with a painful whack, attacked Mundungus.
"Ouch! Gerroff—gerroff, you mad old bat! Someone's gotta tell Dumbledore!"
"Yes—they—do!" she whaled. "And—it—had—better—be—you—and—you—can—tell—him—why—you—weren't—there—to—help!"
"Keep your 'airnet on!" Mundungus yelled, arms over his head in defense. "I'm going; I'm going!" And with another loud crack, he vanished.
"I hope Dumbledore murders him," she grumbled furiously. "Now come on you two over-sized cats. What are you waiting for?"
Lynx shot the impatient woman a deadly look. Her limbs were aching from holding the bulky teenager, and her paws were quivering, threatening to give out—if it hadn't been for Nolan, she wouldn't have been able to make it as far as she had.
Thankfully, they had arrived in front of Privet Drive number four, and Harry reluctantly took hold of one of Dudley's elephant arms, hoisting it around his neck and dragging him towards the door. Before he opened the door, however, he turned back to the wildcats, eyes staring directly into Lynx's.
"Go!" Mrs. Figg barked.
Harry blinked a few times, but did as he was told, pushing open the front door.
Seconds ticked by as Mrs. Figg waited, making sure he wasn't paying attention to anything happening outside. When she was sure he was too busy with the Dursleys, she turned to Lynx.
"And you! You should be more careful, idiot girl! They were dementors—dementors, I mind you—and you pounced on it like it was a mouse! What would you have done if Harry could use the spell in time!?"
Warmth flitted through Lynx's body, igniting every little crook and cranny with a blazing heat. She could feel her bones crack as they reordered themselves, forming back into a normal human skeleton.
Mrs. Figg watched as the black and white lynx turned into a teenage girl. Her black ears melted into long black hair that stopped somewhere near her lower back, bangs shaping her face and curving over one of her glowing amber eyes. The fur receded, showing pale skin, and her paws lengthened into long, slender fingers. Unfortunately, clothes weren't part of the Change; Lynx standing entirely bare to the warm air.
Mrs. Figg tossed her a black cloak she had been concealing in her plastic bag of cat food, and Lynx quickly wrapped it around her body, letting it flow past her bare feet.
"I had it under control," Lynx half lied. She had, indeed, kept the dementor away from Harry, but the problem was getting rid of it completely without the Patronus Charm. "Our main problem is Harry's safety, remember?" Though it did warm her heart that the old woman was worried about her too; she'd thought the woman would surely chew her up and spit her out for not guarding Harry better.
"Yes, but you still need to worry about you," she said, exasperated. "If transforming to your human form unravels the plan, so what? Dumbledore would be furious if you let yourself be killed, do you hear me?"
Lynx blinked, taken back.
Had she been wrong? When the woman had scolded her earlier, was it because she was worried if Lynx would be hurt too and not just Harry? Had she jumped to the wrong conclusion; was her safety also a factor?
"And your eyes," Mrs. Figg continued, shaking her head in annoyance. "You better hope that idiot boy isn't as intelligent as Dumbledore thinks he is."
"What?"
"Your eyes are glowing. Again," she stated unhappily. "Surely you can learn to control them."
Lynx groaned, once again cursing the dementors.
This was the third time this summer that they had sparked up with the bright gold. The first time had been her first sighting of the Dursleys and they way they'd treated Harry Potter—it was only due to the fact that she couldn't speak while Changed that she hadn't jinxed them with the first spell that had crossed her mind.
The second time, which wasn't really her fault, was when two Death Eaters decided to make themselves known. They had Apparated illegally across the street, scaring one of Mrs. Figg's cats, Mr. Tibbles, and were planning on waiting for Harry to return from some shopping trip his aunt and uncle forced him to go on. Because they were out—and no Muggles were around—Lynx had been abled to attack in animal form without any problems (it was hard to use magic when a giant lynx pounced you out of nowhere and snaps your wand, though she really hadn't meant to).
And now this time. It was worse now, though, because Harry had actually seen her. If she was lucky, he wouldn't think anything of it and she would be able to enter Hogwarts without any suspicion, but she and luck were never on good terms, so her doubts were high. Of course, her eyes were more beige when she was calm and safe, so maybe it wouldn't matter; maybe she was still on safe grounds. All she had to do was keep her temper in check and avoid danger—should be easy in a school where Dumbledore was the headmaster.
She blinked a couple times out of habit, even if she knew it wouldn't help cool the color down any quicker, and finally noticed the time.
"I have to go," she said, petting Nolan's head and looking at Mrs. Figg. "The Order is waiting for me."
Mrs. Figg huffed, not happy being left alone while Mundungus was still gone. "Fine. That stupid thief should be back soon anyway—at least he better be or I'm going to skin him alive—but leave your tiger here while you're gone."
Nolan growled, aggravated that the cat-obsessed woman called him a tiger when he was obviously a snow leopard, and Lynx agreed, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she agreed, too tired to argue with her since she was sure to get yelled at when she reached the Order's meeting. "Alright," she said reluctantly, bending down to rub her nose against Nolan's. "Be good and listen to Mrs. Figg. I'll be back in an hour."
He grumbled in protest, making Lynx chuckle.