Chapter XVIII

Of the Big Bad Wolf

"Hermione!" Harry yelled to the blurry figure in the distance. He knew it was her not by sight, his glasses lost somewhere in the gravelly sand, nor her voice which had mingled in amongst the hundred other screams playing in his mind, but by simple instinct. It didn't matter that Hermione had been right next to him only a moment before; didn't matter that the brilliant patronus whose light he had briefly mistaken for the end of it all was so immensely powerful no fourteen year old had any right casting it; Harry quite simply knew. Someone had come to save him, and how could it be anyone else?

Besides, it felt like her. There was a tingling in his skin - in his mind's perception of his skin - that was so familiar and comforting and more than a little terrifying, and oh so quintessentially her. So he called her name, and then called it again with alarm when she collapsed a moment later.

He was up and running before his legs had time to tell him they lacked the strength, driving through the lifting fog as all the dementors' misery burned away with the reigniting of his inner fire. He wasn't the only one coming to her aid; the others with him had remained where they had fallen, mercifully all still moving in their own pathetic ways, but a small blonde figure was jogging out from the treeline.

Skipping. She was definitely skipping, and therefore Luna.

They arrived at Hermione's fallen form together, Harry stumbling as his legs, already unhappy to be moving, drew the line at the fine motor control of coming to a stop. He did manage not to fall on top of her, crouching by her instead.

"Hermione? Hermione what's wrong?"

He tried to rouse her, but found Luna pushing him off and away. As he fell on his arse, she didn't spare him a glance, setting her face in an unnatural calm as she got to work. Hermione was rolled onto her side, her arms and legs shifted with gentle force, her head carefully positioned, and then Luna sat with one hand about her wrist, concentrating on the pulse she found there.

If she finds one.

There has to be one.

"Luna?"

"Shh."

"Is she…?"

The eyes that raised to meet his were dark and troubled.

"Hermione Granger is very tired." Then her visage softened, as she shifted down to her self-appointed charge. "Her Snarlagoffipus has been most troublesome this past hour." She cocked her head in thought, before sighing. "Three? Oh Hermione, you silly thing."

"So she's just-"

"-tired. Exhaustion, physical and magical. I hope you appreciate this, Harry Potter."

He could only nod - there was undercurrent of anger he couldn't reconcile with his idea of who Luna was, and he dared not provoke it; not when his attention needed to be on Hermione. Not that there was anything he could do; he didn't understand anything Luna was doing save taking a pulse - didn't even know where one would learn such things.
Did Patricia try to teach me this? Surely not?

Hermione groaned, and suddenly her hand was in both of his, his body acting without thought or permission. He cast a fretful glance at Luna, checking that wasn't interfering - not knowing what he would do if he did have to let go - but the girl gave him a soft smile and laid her own hand on top of theirs.

"'m sorry," Hermione mumbled. "Harry. I'm sorry."

That confused him something chronic, but he couldn't ask what she meant - she looked asleep. So…

"What does she mean, she's sorry?" he asked of Luna. "And, and how is she over here? She was right beside me?"

"That is not my story to tell," Luna said, quite sternly.

"But… but what was she doing over here?"

"That much should be obvious, Harry; she was doing what friends do. You look frightfully cold."

Harry was cold, not that it mattered. He wasn't half as cold as before Hermione had teleported a hundred yards and cast a patronus which lit up the sky brighter than the sun setting over the lake. The deep chill of the dementors was wearing off, but so too was the inferno that spell had shot through his veins - in the void those battling sensations left, he was feeling rather numb.

"I'm fine."

A chuckle came from over his shoulder. "More chocolate for me, then," Lupin remarked as he joined the three of them on the floor, proffering a half-eaten bar anyway.

Harry looked greedily at the offering, remembering how strangely effective it had been on the Express, but he couldn't take any - his hands were otherwise occupied. So he was very grateful, and a little flushed, when Luna broke off a square and popped it into his mouth, before taking one for herself.

"That will rot your teeth, you know," came a murmur from the ground.

"Hermione!"

"Shhh, not so loud," she chided in a whisper. "My head…"

"Hermione what happened? How did you-"

"Did something stupid. Stupid and reckless and, and… oh God, I'm turning into you."

"Well," Lupin chipped in, "I must say Miss Granger, when your patronus does deign to show, it is quite the occasion."

"Heh, I did say that, didn't I? I remember."

"It was only a few minutes ago," Harry reminded her.

"Hours."

"What?"

"I mean, it feels like hours. I'm so tired, is it bedtime yet?"

Harry laughed. "Nearly. Sun's almost set. It's a pretty one today; lots of red. Very Gryffindor."

"Sunset…" Lupin murmured beside him, sounding… horrified?

"Oh no." Hermione was equally disturbed. "Professor, I-"

"Harry, get everyone away from here. Now."

"Professor?"

"You don't have long - I can feel it. Go!"

"Feel what?"

Hermione crushed his hand in hers. "He's a werewolf!"

There's always something... hang on... werewolf?

"What."

"Oh, that is problematic," Luna breathed. "How are we going to get him back to the castle in time?"

"No time," Lupin disagreed, shaking his head violently, with a twitch, like a dog with something stuck in its ear. "Get far away, and tell Dumbledore."

"But what about you?"

"Let's hope the wolf wants to explore the forest."

Harry looked up at the castle, mind racing. It was curfew, or near enough, but there were lights coming on in half the windows. It was no secret the upper years treated curfew as the time all the pesky young kids went to bed and the castle became theirs, if they could evade the few teachers patrolling, and weren't hated by the prefects on duty that night. On an evening like this, many of them would head out into the grounds, or be taking their sweet time getting back - boyfriends and girlfriends taking romantic strolls by the lake, stopping to admire the sunset, fliers on their brooms in no hurry to find the ground…

"Too many," he muttered.

"Hmm?"

"There's too many people out. We can't risk it."

"We don't have a choice," Hermione hissed.

"Yes we do. Luna, Hermione, get everyone on brooms and away from here. Just leave me one."

"We'll take the thestral with Sirius," Hermione disagreed - thestral? - "we won't have enough brooms otherwise. But what are you planning, Harry?"

He couldn't help smiling - the adrenaline was flowing at the mere thought of what he was about to do. "I heard someone's challenging my title as the reckless idiot. Can't be having that, so… Lupin, the wolf would follow a low flying broom, right?"

"If it catches the rider's scent, yes, but-"

"Then I'll lead you into the forest, away from the castle."

"Harry that is insane," Hermione hissed.

"Probably, but I'm the best flier, and we don't have time to argue."

"No, Harry, you can't! Lupin, tell him-"

"You're James' kid alright," he said, with an amused snort. "Fine. Stay low, but not too low - however high you think the wolf can jump, double it."

"Harry, I am not going to let you-"

Harry ignored her, as he had to; if he listened he might get talked out of it. "Luna, get her safe, I-" He stopped when a foreign hand took his shoulder. Turning, he found he was face to face with the intense features of Sirius Black.

"I'll get your girl safe, pup," he wheezed. "On my life."

Privately, Harry doubted Sirius would be the one looking out for the pair of them if they went together - his Godfather was deathly pale and could barely stand. For that, the promise was all the more meaningful. On the other hand, this was the man who'd got them into the whole mess in the first place.

"You'd better," he growled, which only drew an approving smirk from the man.

"Harry. This is…" Lupin started, then stopped as he bent double and gripped his arms, tearing at his own skin. "I… need your… scent. Need to… hunt."

"How do I-"

Luna drove a nail into his arm and shoved the now-bleeding limb under Lupin's nose. Lupin inhaled deeply - hungrily - and fell to his knees, shaking all over.

"Time to go!" Sirius urged, coughing with the strain.

Hermione pulled Harry into a tight, brief embrace. "Don't you dare die on me now," she whispered in his ear.

Then she was gone, pulled away by Luna and Sirius. Ginny replaced her, handing him a broom in total silence, before she too left. Neville shot him a shaky salute as he mounted the broom with her. Harry wished he could go with them all, go to see that Hermione was safe... and to have a long chat with her, and his Godfather, about just what the hell was going on. He wasn't much looking forward to playing cat and mouse with a werewolf either. He certainly wasn't looking forward to what Hermione might do should he lose.

"Alright, Professor," he said, slowly turning from watching his friends fleeing - seeing Luna, Hermione, and Sirius mount up onto nothing wasn't enough to register as weird anymore - "what say we-"

The werewolf raised his massive head to moon as it peeked above the horizon, bared his glinting fangs, and howled.

Hermione heard the howl from behind and below, far too loud and much too soon; they were barely in the air, so she could only hope Harry had the sense not to dawdle. She wanted desperately to turn back and help, but had to admit she simply had nothing left to give. She wanted to tell Sirius Black to get back down there and help his Godson, to fix this damnable mess he'd dragged them into, but she was too busy keeping him from falling off the thestral - the dementors had obviously done a number on him, more so than anyone else.

Luna was up front, keeping the thestral going the way they needed it to; for now, that was away from Hogwarts. Sirius couldn't show his face there until things had been cleared up, not with so many dementors around, but he was guiding Luna to where he had been living, which was remarkably nearby - overlooking Hogsmeade in fact. So much for the Aurors' extensive search efforts.

Hermione wouldn't have sent Luna back to face a werewolf even if she could; the girl was too sweet, too innocent for that sort of trouble. Leave it to the veteran, which apparently means a young boy. What the fuck is the world coming to… or has it always been there?

God I hope Harry is doing okay.

Harry was not doing okay. Getting his broom in the air before the werewolf - Professor Lupin, it's still him in there somewhere - could catch him was hairy as anything, and the relief it brought was short lived; Sirius had said he should double his idea of how high a wolf could jump, but it turned out the appropriate word was 'triple'. He'd almost lost his leg to the first swipe, as a shallow gash in his trainer would attest to. Then, when Harry pulled up to where he was sure the same could not happen again, the wolf had started losing interest almost instantly, looking up toward the castle for easier prey.

The margin between being high enough to feel safe and low enough to keep the wolf enticed was non-existent, leaving only one thing between Harry and a pair of slathering jaws - his skill on a broom. With every great leap he had to change direction on a knut to avoid being ripped from the sky. With every failed attempt, the wolf's interest waned, and the next tantalising sweep of his broom had to be lower.

Eventually they would be too low. Eventually he would make a mistake, or simply not have time to dodge, or chicken out and let the wolf get away from him. Unless he found some new tactic…

Gulping, and gripping his broom so hard his fingers might just fall off, he dove for the Forbidden Forest.

He risked one glance over his shoulder to check there was a violent, magically resistant, supernaturally powerful mass of muscle and fur and claws and teeth right behind him, then he had to fix his eyes forward. The trees were ancient things, each dominating a wide swathe of ground, and that left ample room to thread a broom through, assuming one was doing a reasonable speed.

Harry was not doing a reasonable speed. Harry was gunning it, flying on pure instinct, no time to plan his route up ahead; only the hope he wouldn't get closed in on in the maze and fly into a turn he couldn't make. He was surprised when he burst out into a small clearing, and immediately found a problem; the trees had grown thick at the miniature treeline facing him, leaving him no clear way back into the canopy. Tugging hard, he sent his broom into a tight loop around the pond at the clearing's centre, scanning the dark forest for an opening, and for any sign of the wolf.

Think of the devil, and it shall burst from the canopy, hurtling through the air in a flurry of spittle and deadly sharpness. Harry rolled under his broom to avoid a swiping claw, but the motion was too instinctive; it took no account for his being nary twenty feet above the ground. Too low - a thicket grabbed hold of his robes and yanked him to the hard earth before he could recover it. He slid for several yards, rolled the last few, and came to an undignified rest at the base of a tree, laid out on his back facing the way he had come.

Watching the wolf pick itself up, shake off from an equally hard landing, and turn to stare at him.

He cast about for his broom - seeing it nearby, he called for it, hand outstretched, but all it did was flop in his vague direction. The bristles were bent, and the whole thing was caught up in a vine. He would have to go to it; go closer to the wolf, which was already stalking toward him.

Nothing else for it. He leapt to his feet and ran. The wolf ran too, bursting forward into the thicket, meaning to go straight through the obstacle which had taken Harry down so easily. If those grasping branches didn't delay it, the broom would be in Harry's grasp around the same time he was in the wolf's.

Harry flicked his wand and cast "incarcerous!"

That spell wouldn't even tickle a werewolf if cast directly, he knew. He also knew casting it on the thicket itself was entirely outside the scope of the spell as he had been taught it. He also had it on the best of authority that magic was all about intent anyway, and a wizard could theoretically do anything they put their mind to. After feeling her patronus, how could he doubt her on that?

He was still surprised when the thicket did as he bid it, coming to life to wrap around the charging wolf's limbs, tripping him and dragging him down, wrapping about his hulking form. Not that it lasted; the wolf was tearing free before he had even gone down, ripping the thicket out by the roots.

"Fiet ligmetum!" Harry cried, brandishing his wand for a second spell, reaching right back in his repertoire to his first practical transfiguration; matchstick to needle. Wood to metal.

The last vine holding the wolf at bay, one about his hind leg, spasmed and turned at once to glistening steel, finally bringing its ensnared to a halt. Harry scrabbled the rest of the way to his broom, checked the damage as he mounted it - real bad, this'll barely fly - and shakily took off. Down below, the wolf took the inch-thick steel bar coiled around its leg in its jaws, and… bit right through it!?

"What the fuck?"

Then the chase was back on, and in earnest - the vicious glint in the wolf's eye had gone from hungry to murderous, and at that point Harry stopped bothering to think of it as the Professor; there was only an animal behind those golden orbs of rage. Harry tried to weave between the trees once more, but with half its bristles shorn off his broom was on its last legs; if the wolf didn't catch him and kill him, striking a tree surely would.

He had no choice but to slip through a gap in the canopy and turn back toward open ground, shooting off an incendio to guarantee the enraged wolf stuck on his tail even as he climbed. Hogwarts lay ahead of them, and where he was coming out of the forest, it was closer than when the chase began. Harry saw no hint of his friends, neither fleeing nor coming back with help… he hadn't yet bought enough time for that.

A howl echoed out; below and ahead of him a grey blur streaked from the treeline, racing for the castle. What time he had bought was going to have to be enough.

I hope Dumbledore's ready for this.

A howl echoed out in the valley; a howl he remembered better than he wanted, and had wished never to hear again. How he hated that howl; how he had suffered countless nights of fitful sleep, dreaming of those jaws, those claws… Still, nothing else for it. He drew his wand and levelled it at the distant blur racing up the hill toward the castle.

"Run along, children. And lock the doors behind you."

"Sir, can you really… on your own?"

He peered down at the useless lump of a boy, quivering in fear - probably wetting himself too. Some Gryffindor he was… if his father could have seen him cowering like that, he would-

He would have been screaming at his son to run as far and fast as he could. The way Severus wished he could. Fifteen years dreaming of this day, and now all he wanted was to be anywhere else; to let someone else do this.

Instead, he took a step forward; another step toward the danger, as he always had. Another chance to face death for something worthwhile; to prove to her he could be brave.

To finally settle the debt.

"I suppose," he muttered to himself, watching the golden boy dive his broom across the wolf's path, "we shall find out."

Harry spotted the potions professor a fair way out - there was no mistaking that billowing black robe. Moony was heading in a different direction, bearing down on the other side of the castle where the greenhouses stood, but Harry had a solution for that. From his pocket he pulled the snitch Hermione had enchanted for him, wiped it across the cut on his arm, and to it he whispered, "Severus Snape."

Then he swept across Moody's path and threw it as hard as he could at the wolf's head. The charm pulled it into an arc, buzzing across Moony's face before it raced to its assigned target, showering sparks; laying a trail for the wolf to follow.

It was no secret Professor Snape wanted the Defence Against the Dark Arts post. Here's a chance to prove you deserve it.

Then Harry felt a twinge of guilt at setting a werewolf on someone, even if that someone was the greasy git, and he raced his failing broom to land at Snape's side, a hundred yards or so ahead of the wolf bearing down on him - them. The glare he got from his professor was one of hatred and confusion both.

"Are you stupid, James? Fly!"

Harry held his broom up, to show the last of the unbroken bristles falling from the bushel - the thing was kaputt.

"Run then; you have legs, don't you?"

Harry didn't have to be asked twice. He didn't have to be asked once; asking wouldn't change his decision. That it was Snape doing the asking didn't matter. It could have been bloody Voldemort for all Harry cared. There was an angry werewolf charging at one of the two places in the world Harry had ever seen as home, and with the defence clearly to be made on that spot, that was where Harry would stand. As Harry took up a fighting stance at Snape's elbow, the moon broke through the clouds, casting its eerie light across the valley sloping out below them, and upon the wolf coming to kill them.

Hell of a hill to die on.

If he had spared a glance at the man beside him, he might have noticed one eyebrow raise in a begrudging show of respect. He didn't, because his attention was squarely on the werewolf pouncing from thirty paces. Snape snapped his wand down then up, bringing a wall of dirt with it, shoving Harry to one side as he leapt the other way. The dirt monolith exploded as Moony crashed right through it, falling into a roll and skidding to a halt, wild eyes flicking between his two victims. He picked the weaker of the two.

Harry threw the strongest incendio he could muster, causing the wolf to abort its advance, slipping to one side instead and allowing the fire to flare harmlessly past. Snape yelled something and a violent yellow curse lashed across the field, striking a foreleg. Whatever that curse was, it drew a howl of pain and a misting of blood; by the crackling it left in its wake, Harry was certain it would have killed a mere human.

The wolf shook it off and changed target, turning on a knut as it charged. Another rending of the earth caught the wolf under the chest, launching it into the air to sail over Snape's head, who was twirling dramatically to cast at the ground where it would land. His spell left a purple glow which, the moment Moony landed on it, blossomed into a dozen tendrils of vibrant magic, rising to ensnare the wolf's limbs. It was an impressive display of magic Harry couldn't even categorise, let alone recognise, and it held long enough for Snape to let off all of five quick-fire stunners, which connected to limited effect.

The wolf was looking unsteady as it tore free of the trap, but so was Snape. Harry stepped in, instinctively casting another incendio into a wall of flame between human and wolf; hoping it wouldn't dare try the defence and discover how thin and cool the flames had to be for his spell to cover that much area.

A snarling mass of undeterred fury came barrelling through moments later. Snape's hasty protego saved him from the snapping jaws, but he was driven back, only a well-planted foot keeping him upright. Claws beat against the shield, Snape whirling his wand with every impact to reinforce against the damage, and it was evident it was all he could do hold it steady. It was equally evident which of them would run out of energy first.

Everything Harry threw at the wolf had no effect, other than to enrage it further, which had it striking Snape's shield even harder. The rock he literally threw was even less useful. So Harry did what he did best: Something recklessly stupid.

It was in the exact moment there was no way he could pull out of rugby-tackling a werewolf that he heard Minerva screaming his name. Hitting the wolf was like he imagined hitting a brick wall would be: Painful. But, unlike a wall, there was some yield; they collapsed to the ground together. Harry used his abnormal amount of experience in forceful bodily contact with dark creatures to keep his wits about him and roll clear of the claws before Moony knew what was happening, and then the world about him became… insane.

The earth roiled, surging over the wolf. Creatures of fluid rock tore from the ground and leapt upon the beast's back, dragging it down as it fought to climb through the tumultuous soil. More and more piled on, bringing Moony down until only his head showed above the ground, and then in an instant all about him was gleaming, solid metal. The wolf howled and gnashed at the air, but from the neck down he was utterly immobilised.

Minerva knelt a hundred paces away, wand to the ground, taking a moment to get her breath back before she approached. Snape was up at once, springing to readiness with his wand trained on Moony and twitching; by the fir in his eyes, he was contemplating finishing the job. Harry stumbled over, clutching an agonised leg, to place himself squarely in the path of that potential curse.

"Foolish boy!" Snape spat at him. "I had him, had I not been forced to protect you!"

"Bullshit. And you're welcome."

"Step aside."

"Fat chance." It's still Lupin in there somewhere.

"Why do you feel such a need to interfere in things which do not concern you?"

Harry shrugged, as best he could while doubled over. "You saved me from that dementor. Let's call it even."

That gave Snape pause; he looked at Harry as though he'd seen a ghost (not really apt for a wizard), pinched his nose, and sighed. "We are far from even."

"I dunno," Harry said with a grimace as he looked down at his leg, removing his hand to show three long gashes laying across it. "Reckon this has to count for something."

A/N:

To call my upload schedule trash recently would be inappropriate, because it bears no real resemblance to a schedule. So, uh, sorry for that?
My reviewers are still so appreciated, especially when it becomes a slog as this third act has. My mind just wants to write other stuff right now... Stupid brain.