Raylynx's POV

The day after Sirius' attack on Gryffindor Tower, McGonagall had decided to pull Harry from the Quidditch team, since Quidditch practice out on the pitch would leave Harry exposed. But Harry had protested fiercely until McGonagall relented, though on the condition that Harry be watched over by someone from the staff. So, here I was, sitting in the stands. I waved awkwardly at Harry, who grinned at me and waved back. Oliver Wood peered over at me, and I nodded at him. It was raining, and I conjured an umbrella of air to deflect the rain above me.

At the end of practice, I came down from the stands, intending to keep my distance from the team as I watched them head back to the castle. But Fred and George came racing over to me.

"Professor Kingsley," Fred said, "we were thinking…"

"That's never good," I muttered to myself.

"And we thought we'd put what you taught us to use," George said solemnly.

I looked at them both, confused.

"We find it downright disrespectful that people think Ancient Runes is useless," Fred commented.

"And we have, in fact, found a brilliant use for Ancient Runes," George remarked jauntily.

"George, Fred, what are you talking about?" I asked warily. "With all this flattery, what mischief are you trying to lure me into, boys?"

"It's not mischief at all. In fact, it's a very straightforward application of drawing Repellant Runes on all of the Gryffindor hoops, so that if the opposing team's Chasers get the Quaffle anywhere near the hoops, it'll push it away," Fred explained brightly. Besides him, George used his finger to trace the appropriate Rune in the air. To my amusement, he was actually correct.

I sighed and leaning forward, I gently flicked Fred on the forehead, though I had to reach up to do so now. "That is not why I taught you Ancient Runes, Mr. Weasley," I chided him. "And there's another reason why you shouldn't do this."

"What's that?" George asked.

I replied, "Your Captain, Oliver Wood, will murder you two on the spot if he discovers you didn't have faith in him."

"That is the more convincing argument. Rather than, you know, morals and all that," Fred said, nodding his head sagely. "Good one, Professor."

Amused, but trying not to show it, I crossed my arms and said, "You should get going, boys. You both smell something awful from all that rain and mud."

They went racing off. I shook my head at them, not realizing how much I looked like McGonagall in that moment.

As I followed them up to the castle, I turned and looked over my shoulder at the Forbidden Forest for a moment before retiring to the castle.


The Quidditch match took place the next week. There was a bit of an uproar when the Gryffindor team discovered that they were playing Hufflepuff instead of Slytherin. It looked like the Slytherin team had backed out of the match, citing Malfoy's still-injured arm. But as a disgruntled Oliver Wood told me after their last practice, it was because the Slytherins didn't want to take their chances with the stormy weather that we had been having lately.

The day of the match, I woke up in my Crookshanks form, curled up at the end of Hermione's bed. I yawned and slipped out. As I made my way down to the common room and headed for the exit, I found myself pausing. What was it that Sirius wanted to come into Gryffindor Tower for? I looked over my shoulder towards the boys' dormitories.

Just then, to my surprise, Harry came out of the dormitory, grumbling to himself about being woken up by Peeves. Sure enough, Peeves came zooming out and blowing a final raspberry at Harry, disappeared through the wall of the common room. Harry, not noticing me, walked straight into me. I tried to avoid him by slinking around him, but Harry reached down and caught me by the end of my bushy tail. He looked down at me suspiciously. "You know, I reckon Ron was right about you," he said. "There are plenty of mice around this place – go and chase them. Go on." He nudged me down the spiral staircase with his foot. "Leave Scabbers alone." I looked up at him, feeling misunderstood, and yowled pitifully.

Harry shook his head and walked down to the common room, where he fell back on the sofa in front of the fireplace. I watched him doze off for a moment, holding his Nimbus Two Thousand across his lap. I hadn't been thinking about Scabbers at all, but now that he mentioned it… My paws itched. I slowly started to inch towards the boys' dormitories. Harry cracked open an eye and spotting me, sighed, and came over. He picked me up and carried me back in front of the fireplace, where he unceremoniously dumped me onto a chair.

I mewed and leaping over the arm of my chair, I landed onto his sofa. I put my paw on his Nimbus Two Thousand. "Don't do that," Harry said, frowning. "That's my broomstick. I'm going to need it in a bit." I wanted to pat his shoulder to wish him good luck, but my reach was too short, and I just awkwardly dangled my paw in front of his face, almost hitting his glasses. Harry instinctively raised his hand up and then paused, unsure what to do. A bit thoughtlessly, he slowly gave me a high-five. I could see the instant confusion in his eyes, wondering what had possessed him to so solemnly high-five a cat. I grinned in my cat form, shutting my eyes into pleased little crescents.

The next moment, however, a loud roar of thunder and a jolt of lightning sent me scurrying under the sofa. The storm outside was slowly but surely gaining traction, and the sound of the storm was very loud even in the common room. I could tell that Harry was starting to feel apprehensive. I licked his hand once, and then jumping off of him, made my way out of the common room and up to my own room, where I showered and dressed for the day, bundling myself up against the storm I'd been sitting through to watch Harry play today.

I sat up in the stands besides Professor McGonagall. The full moon had been yesterday, so Remus was absent. I saw Snape climb up into the bleachers a few rows down. My upper lip curled in derision when I spotted it. I had heard Harry complaining about the homework he had gotten from Snape the Friday before the match – two rolls of parchment by Monday morning on the characteristics of a werewolf and how to recognize and kill it. I rolled my eyes.

"Raylynx," a voice said disapprovingly besides me.

"What?" I said, turning to Professor McGonagall. When I saw her expression, I lifted my hands and said quickly, "I didn't say anything!" Then, I remembered my bright idea and said quickly, "Next time, if you must pair us for something, could you please send us on a mission where the animal is known for eating humans alive?"

"From what Professor Snape has told me, you will have to work on your defenses against Dark Creatures, Raylynx, or it may be you that is eaten alive," McGonagall said smartly.

"Then, send us to a creature that likes greasy food," I quipped. "That ought to give me the upper hand-"

"Enough, Raylynx." As though the gods above had heard her, thunder rumbled angrily above us.

The weather was absolutely abysmal. When the game started, I could barely see the players. If I squinted, I could make out Fred and George's bright red hair, like traffic cones whizzing about in the air. Oliver kept close to the hoops, so I could make out his figure. But the fast-moving Chasers and Harry were impossible to see, save for bright flashes of red colliding with yellow as the Quaffle was being tossed back and forth within tight-knit groups. The intentional motions of the yellow blurs made me realize that Hufflepuff had become quite a strong team. Oliver was able to keep them at bay from actually scoring, but their Chasers retained the Quaffle for most of the game. My eyes searched the skies for Harry.

Lightning flashed through the air, and I began to wonder if we should call off the match. But just then, as the lightning zagged through the air, I thought I saw a small black figure illuminated against the stormy sky on the stands directly opposite me.

I paused, and then standing up, I peered closer. Behind me, someone yelled at me to sit down. "We want to see the game, not your bottom!" I recognized that figure, up in the empty topmost stands – the black dog. Sirius. He had come to see Harry, no doubt. "Raylynx," McGonagall began to say sharply, "what are you-?" But McGonagall cut off as the crowd suddenly shouted together because at that moment, Harry and Cedric both took off after the Snitch, climbing higher and higher into the sky.

However, the feeling of excitement was quickly pushed aside by a wave of anxiety and fear… A wisp of smoke curled in my chest. I looked down to see a hundred dementors swarming the pitch. The students began to scream, and then, there was one high-pitched shriek above all of them, screaming, "Harry!" It was Hermione, who was pointing up at the sky.

My head snapped up and then, I saw Harry, streaking out of the sky. He had clearly fallen off of his broom. I knew immediately what was happening. It was what had happened to him on the train ride here, the dementors' effect on him was so powerful that it caused him to faint. Already standing, I whipped out my wand and yelled, "Arresto Momentum!" At the same time, Dumbledore, a few seats down, had stood up and raising his hand, released a most powerful Patronus, a phoenix, which swept angrily over the dementors, forcing them away.

I held Harry in mid-air for a split second, gritting my teeth as it was quite difficult to produce magic withstanding the force of gravity after such a long, fast fall. But I managed to have Harry hover until the dementors had cleared the field, at which point I gently lowered him on the ground. Poppy, who was nearest to him, immediately ran out to him. Suddenly, the whistle blew. Cedric had caught the Snitch.

Everything had happened so quickly that no one could quite make sense of what was going on. The Gryffindor players began to dive down to crowd around Harry. I quickly made my way down to the pitch, with McGonagall right behind me. "Harry!" I called out. "Harry!" I raced to his side.

"He's breathing. He's all right," Poppy told everyone. I breathed out in relief. The rain was still coming down hard. Poppy made an irritated motion. McGonagall, who could read Poppy quite well, as they had been friends since their days at Hogwarts, quickly barked, "Stand back." We did, and Poppy expertly conjured a stretcher from thin air.

Cedric, who had been standing nearby, and was holding the Snitch, seemed distraught. "I didn't realize-" he cut off, anguished. He looked over at Madam Hooch and said, "We should do a re-match."

"Cedric, no," one of the Hufflepuff Chasers said. "I think we won that fair and square."

Madam Hooch nodded and said crisply, "What happened is most unfortunate, but I believe you caught the Snitch before Mr. Potter fainted."

"Still, it doesn't feel right," Cedric protested, but he was shouted down by everybody else.

Fred and George carefully lifted Harry onto the stretcher. Poppy flicked her wrist, and the stretcher levitated in front of her.

"Poppy…" I began.

"He'll be all right, Raylynx," she reassured me, as she left the pitch, with the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team following after her, and everyone following them out of the pitch.

"Oh, look," one of the students at the tail end of the procession said, and pointed up to the sky. "Isn't that Harry's broomstick?" The wind was carrying it quickly away from the pitch, past the stands and high into the sky. I started to race after it, running from below. I ran in the opposite direction of everybody else, leaving the stadium from the exit that led out to the grounds, rather than towards the castle. The wind must have been incredibly strong up in the sky, because by the time I'd gotten out of the stadium and out onto the grounds, I saw that the broomstick was quite a ways away. Worse, it was headed straight for the Whomping Willow. I groaned. Please pass by it. Please miss the tree, I prayed. But the Whomping Willow snatched it straight out of the air.

"No!" I cried out, but the tree was already ruthlessly smashing the poor broomstick to bits. My mouth fell open as splinters of wood sprayed into the air and then landed at the base of the tree, scattered into more than a dozen pieces. No, that was Harry's broomstick… The one I bought for him, first year. I had been so excited that he was a Seeker, and as a first year too! And I had been ecstatic that I could finally do something for him. It had been one of the few things that I had been allowed to do as Harry's godmother that had made Harry happy. So even though I knew it was stupid, I couldn't just leave the broomstick scattered everywhere like that.

Making sure that no one was around, I hid behind a nearby boulder and transformed into Crookshanks before running down to the tree. I darted this way and that, lithely jumping between the tree branches as I gingerly picked up a large piece of wood from the Nimbus in my mouth and then leapt out of the Whomping Willow's range. I dropped the piece under a bush in an attempt to keep it dry before making my way back to the Whomping Willow. I was going to have to do this for a while because there were at least a dozen pieces of the broomstick to collect.

Suddenly, I heard a bark behind me. I jumped and whirled around, only to see Padfoot behind me. He quickly sat down, indicating that he was not threatening me. He let out a smaller bark. When I calmed down enough, I sat too, and stared at him. He cautiously approached me and then lowered his head and sniffed at the piece of wood I had put there. He looked up at me, puzzled.

I hesitated. How can I communicate to him what I'm doing? I slowly pawed three circles into the wet dirt. Then, I rolled an acorn into one of the circles with my paw. Finally, I picked up the broken piece of broomstick and laid it gently next to the little picture I'd put together. Understanding flashed in Padfoot's eyes. He let out an excited, bright yelp and raced around the bush a couple times, so fast it made me dizzy. I shut my eyes.

But when he skidded to a stop in front of me and whined a little, I opened my eyes again, blinking slowly as the rain pelted me across my face, pushing my ears and whiskers down. Giving another bark, Padfoot jerked his head at the broomstick pieces, then at the Whomping Willow. I gave a small meow of affirmation. Then, I got back up and made my way back to the tree. Padfoot followed me. The two of us danced around, avoiding the Whomping Willow's angry stabs at us and picking up the pieces of Harry's broomstick. Finally, all of the broomstick pieces were all collected under the bush.

Padfoot and I were both breathing quite heavily from all of the darting around. I turned to him and slowly, my cat instincts relaxed enough that I was able to step closer to him. Padfoot paused and instinctively stepped away from me, though in a controlled manner, before stopping himself. He looked down at me, his much larger frame now dripping wet from the rain. I tried to calm myself and look into his eyes. Don't let your emotions show. Just be Crookshanks. Don't be Raylynx, I told myself. Padfoot blinked, trying to resist the rain from getting into his eyes. My own whiskers were drooping down, soaked with rain.

At that moment, a loud humming and the sound of rather heavy footsteps crunching up the stone path to the castle sounded out. Padfoot immediately made a run for it, disappearing into the Forbidden Forest quicker than in the blink of an eye. But the movement caused Hagrid, who was coming up to the castle, to look over at me. I mewed unhappily at him, not liking that Hagrid broke my communications with Sirius nor that I was soaking wet. As a cat, I felt quite uncomfortable with the extra weight and loss of protection of wet fur.

"What are yer doing over there?" Hagrid said gruffly, stomping over to me. "Yer's a strange fella, aren't you? You're no wild animal, that's for sure. Must be a student's pet or sumthin'." He started to bend down to pick me up, but I deftly avoided his large hand and put my paw on top of the small pile of sticks that Sirius and I had gathered.

"What's that?" Hagrid asked, peering down at it. It took him only a moment to recognize what it was, as the glistening cracked letters "Nimb-" could be made out on one piece of wood.

"Oh no," Hagrid said, and his face fell and his eyes were troubled. "This is Harry's broom, ain't it? Must've hit the Whompin' Willow after what happened. I saw what happened to him… He fell. Scared me half to death." Hagrid sighed. "Those dementors. They aren't supposed to come inside the grounds. Dumbledore's furious." I would have considered it quite odd how much Hagrid was talking to me, but I realized that he probably talked to animals like this all the time.

Hagrid shook his head sadly. "I should take this up ter him. I was planning on visitin' him anyways." Hagrid pulled out what might have been a scarf or handkerchief for him, but it was large enough to fold over all of the pieces of wood Padfoot and I had picked up. He bundled it up and held it in his hand. Then, he offered me his arm. I climbed up to his shoulder and sat there, my claws clutching onto his large thick jacket. As Hagrid walked back up to the castle, I imagine we would have cut an strange figure for anyone watching – quite a large man carrying a bundle of sticks wrapped in a makeshift bag and with a strange bow-legged cat swaying on his shoulder. Hagrid walked up to the hospital wing, where I found that Harry was well-cared for. He was surrounded by the Gryffindor Quidditch team and Hermione and Ron until Poppy shooed them all away.


Remus was not at the hospital wing, but I was sure that he was resting and I didn't bother him. In the hopes of cheering him up, I'd decided to take it upon myself to catch a hinkypunk. I had overheard Hermione telling Neville about how she appreciated that Remus stuck to the order in the textbook, and that she'd looked ahead and found that they were going to study hinkypunks next.

That night, Hermione fell asleep a bit early. She was reading in bed when I jumped up onto her lap. Hermione reached out and scratched me behind the ears. "Professor McGonagall showed us her Animagus transformation today," Hermione told me. "It was amazing! Her Animagus form is a cat. And we've got an essay on Animagi due in a week, and look, Crookshanks, I went and looked up the names of the Animagi registered with the Ministry of Magic. There are seven in our century…"

Debatable, I thought lazily, as I yawned and stretched out on her lap.

She talked until she slowly fell asleep still holding her Transfiguration textbook. I gently eased it from her hands with my claws and then, with some difficulty, I moved it over to her nightstand where some of her other books were stacked. I leapt softly onto the nightstand. With a quick swipe of my paw, I pushed out the Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook. It slid out from the stack. I stealthily flipped through the pages until I located the bit about hinkypunks. I vaguely remembered that they were connected to lanterns. Hermione's textbook informed me that a hinkypunk was a diminutive, one-legged creature that appeared as a wisp of blue, grey, or white smoke. It appeared to travelers at night, luring them off their path and into treacherous bogs or wetlands before torching them with fire balls or drowning them in swamps.

I knew exactly where I would find a hinkypunk. There was a stretch of land between the Black Lake and the depths of the Forbidden Forest that was not exactly marshland, but close enough. That night, I slipped out of the castle, slipping past the dementors in my cat form and running down to the Forbidden Forest. Once there, I transformed back into my human form. Having become somewhat accustomed to my feline sense, which was far superior in every way, I felt uncomfortably boxed in by the darkness as I struggled to see or hear much of anything in the thick blackness of the night.

And there was another reason for my going deep into the Forbidden Forest at night, of course. I wanted to see if Sirius would approach me.

The treetops blocked out any moonlight or starlight and the tree trunks and bushes effectively blocked out any hope of light from any other source, such as the glowing lantern and window of Hagrid's hut. I didn't dare to light my wand too much, knowing that even the small dim light I had to illuminate the immediate path in front of me was basically a beacon to all of the creatures in this forest that had far better nocturnal vision than me. I knew that among those creatures, Padfoot was sure to see the light. The question was whether he would show himself to me or not. I purposefully took the long way around to pass by his hiding place, though I did not indicate that I knew where exactly he was hiding. But no black dog came bounding out. His name nearly crossed my lips, but I forced myself to stumble forth until I finally reached the semi-marshlands.

A dark landscape stretched out in front of me. The trees appeared on the barely existent horizon as symmetrical ink blots on once-folded paper, and the grey sky was lightless, despite the silvery flecks shimmering in the small pools of water stretching out before me. The chirping of the crickets was so loud that I couldn't hear anything else. Wand out, I slowly traced a Runic Circle in the air above the ground and it laid itself flat into the dirt, glowing silver for a moment before turning invisible.

I had recently learned this skill of not having to draw the Runes directly into the ground or dirt, and instead, being able to trace them directly into the air, during my attempts to separate Voldemort's soul from Slytherin's locket. If I laid the Circle first, the Horcrux would refuse to enter, literally wrenching itself out of my hand to jump outside of the circle, so I had to figure out a way to deceive it. I discovered that if I drew the Runes in the air, it would transform into a type of light-filled glass before bleeding into the earth. The result was that it was a weaker form of magic, but much faster and invisible.

Having drawn the circle, I stepped back. Then, I lifted my wand and murmured, "Aurum luminous." A small string of floating gold lights left my wand and trailed out before me. I knew that if there were any hinkypunks around, they would be attracted to the lights. Sure enough, a small light came from the weeds, and as it neared me, I saw that it was a little floating lantern attached to a small wisp of cloud. More gold specks blossomed from my wand before I lowered it.

The hinkypunk came closer, and I heard enticing whispers, "Come. Follow me. I will show you the way. I will show you the way out of this mess." I paused.

"Come… Let me show you…" My wand dropped to my side. I stepped towards the hinkypunk. The bright wisp of light came closer to me, bobbing before me. I took another step towards it. It floated before me. I reached my hand out towards it. It was right in front of me.

Whoosh!

A transparent cube folded upwards from ground where I had set up my hidden Runic Circle, trapping the hinkypunk in a clear, but unbreakable box, not unlike the one James had set up for Lily in an attempt to have her go to the ball with him when we were still at Hogwarts.

I looked into the glass box. With a loud, angry squelch, the hinkypunk pressed itself up against the glass at me. "Not so nice when the tables are flipped, is it?" I asked. "But don't worry, I won't hurt you. As odd as it sounds, we're just going to have some third years stare at you for an hour, and out you go, all right?"

The hinkypunk did not seem at all pleased about this.

"And if it's any consolation to you, I think you nearly had me there. For a split second…" I murmured, as I awkwardly tucked the unshapely glass box under my arm as best as I could.

I made my way back through the forest, again, in a roundabout fashion. When I came before Sirius' hiding spot, I walked more slowly. For a moment, I thought I heard a low whine, but when I stopped and turned around, it was silent again. My heart was thumping against my chest. The hinkypunk hissed inside the glass box, not liking that I was stopping. I counted to five. One. Two. Three. Four… Four and a half. Five. With a deep sigh, I kept moving. Clearly, Sirius doesn't want to see me. Why?


On Sunday evening, I went down to Remus, with a small blanket thrown over the glass box.

I knocked on his office door. "Can I come in?"

"Yes. Please do."

I entered to see Remus, who looked quite haggard and pale, poring over his lecture notes for tomorrow's class. He only looked up briefly to greet me, as he was tiredly scrawling something at the bottom of the page.

"I've got something for you," I said happily. Without warning, I put the box down in front of him and yanked off the quilt. The hinkypunk, not liking the sudden infiltration of bright light, rammed itself into the side of the box, causing a large suctioning noise.

"Merlin's beard," Remus said, jumping back as much as he could in his chair.

"Oops, sorry," I said quickly, pulling the box back a little. "I didn't realize the hinkypunk was still so angry about all of this."

Remus looked at the hinkypunk, then at me, and then back at the hinkypunk, which was now bouncing on its one smoky leg in a quite aggravated fashion.

"How did you know…?" Remus began.

"Hermione," I said shortly. "I heard her talking about your class at the start of Ancient Runes. She loves your class, you know."

Remus blushed. Staring intently at the hinkypunk, he asked me, "Did you catch this?"

"Yes."

"All by yourself?"

"Yes."

"At night?"

"Of course."

"Where?"

"The area between the Forbidden Forest and the Black Lake."

"That's quite far out."

"You would know, Remus," I said, with a little smile.

His eyes flashed up to me, a little crease in his forehead. "What I mean is that that's dangerous."

"Oh, don't say that. What does that make me?" I said. "If third years can learn to get past hinkypunks, surely, I should be able to."

"Well, yes, but… but…" Remus was struggling with his words.

I decided to help him out. "You can say it. I'm bad with dark creatures," I said bluntly.

"No, not bad," Remus corrected me. "Just… inexperienced. And going after a hinkypunk in its environment is a completely different challenge than facing it in a brightly lit classroom."

I raised my eyebrow. Can't say he's wrong, I thought wryly to myself, remembering how I had been very susceptible to the hinkypunk's allure for a brief moment last night.

"Promise me you won't go after another magical creature without me," Remus said sternly.

"I promise, Professor Lupin," I said, teasing him.

He walked over to his kettle and tapped it with his wand to make us some tea. When he came back with two steaming mugs, I said, "Did you hear about what happened with Harry at the match?"

Remus shook his head. "I haven't seen anyone since the full moon. Why? Did something happen?"

"Well, the Gryffindor- Hufflepuff match was this weekend and the dementors came to the Quidditch match," I said grimly.

Remus blinked in surprise. Then, he sighed and said, "I take it they weren't holding Gryffindor signs or wearing Hufflepuff scarves."

I shook my head. "Afraid not."

"Why did they come to the match, do you think?" I asked. "They know they're not allowed."

"Most likely because of the high emotions at a Quidditch match. All that excitement and despair in one place. It's a feast for them," Remus replied darkly. "And with Dumbledore keeping them off the grounds for the most part, I reckon they feel starved of human emotion as of late."

"Harry fainted," I told Remus. "He fell off his broomstick."

Remus put his mug down too quickly and some of the tea sloshed out onto his notes. "Tell me he's all -"

"He's all right," I said quickly. "He's not hurt."

Remus closed his eyes. "Thank Merlin."

"What does he see?" I wondered quietly. "What could he remember that haunts him so?"

"I don't know," Remus said sorrowfully. "I hope that his memory spares him of the worst… of the worst moment…" He faltered and fell quiet.

I let out a shaky sigh.

Remus looked up at me and said, "That's not all, is it?"

"It is," I said, but I sounded unconvincing, even to myself. I don't want to tell him this, but if I don't and he finds out later, he'll know that I was keeping it from him.

"Raylynx…"

"His broomstick was destroyed," I admitted.

"Destroyed?"

"Yes. After he fell off of it, the winds carried it across the grounds… to the Whomping Willow." As I said these last words, my eyes fell onto the desk in front of us.

Remus fell back in his chair. "The Whomping Willow," he repeatedly, his voice muted. "This all started from when I came here…"

I started to cut him off, but he continued, "Sirius… the Whomping Willow… all of it."

I gazed at him, feeling terrible. Finally, I said gently, "I wouldn't think of it that way, Remus. But if you do, well, maybe fate brought you here to fix it all."


Jasper's POV

Back in London, I stepped out of the craftsman's shop, holding a small black box. I opened it up. Nestled in black velvet, there was a golden ring, re-casted from my family crest ring that was ancient pure gold, and the ring now held a small, glistening diamond. I closed the box and put it into my pocket.