Title: Lusus Naturae
Chapter: Chapter Sixteen
Rating: M for Meddling
Warnings: Abuse, Death, Werewolves
Remus attributed the first night Harry Potter went missing to happenstance. While pouring over the Marauder's Map that night he must have skipped the Hospital Wing and perhaps Harry was being kept in the infirmary overnight. Even as he assuaged his own curiosity with a logical explanation, he found himself checking again the next night.
When he couldn't find Harry then or the next night either, he thought for some reason the boy must not show up on the map. He couldn't fathom the reason why. Perhaps due to the glamour Harry wore - the details of which none of the Hogwarts staff had been forthcoming about. He couldn't put his finger on why he grew increasingly disturbed by the fact.
He told himself as he stood in the corridor connected to the staff's sleeping quarters the night before the winter holiday began that he simply meant to put to bed his misgivings about the situation. Despite continued efforts to connect with Harry in and out of classes - as he was instructed to by the Headmaster - Remus was no closer to unravelling the mystery of Harry Potter. He had witnessed the boy's birth, for Merlin's sake. He had hoped the rest would come naturally.
Remus waited in the corridor for most of the night, but neither Harry nor anyone else came to pass him by.
"Disrobe," Madame Pomfrey ordered, referring not only to the literal robes Harry wore, but to the enchanted accessories that maintained his appearance. "Have a seat on the bed. I'll be right back."
Professor Snape stood off to the side glowering into one of the corners in the examination room. Despite the man's reluctant appearance, after Harry told him he didn't have to stay Snape had been rather insistent that he be a part of all on-going treatments. It wasn't unusual by any means, but Harry hadn't willingly undressed in the man's presence before.
"Alright," Harry called when he was safely tucked away with his lower half beneath a privacy sheet.
Madame Pomfrey swept back into the room with a tray of odds and ends she would need to perform the physical. Over the course of the last several months Harry had become intimately familiar with each of them. He despised the traction device that peeled apart his outer eyelids the most.
With a wave of her wand the tools rose into the air and then descended on Harry like a flock of feral birds. A measuring tape prodded him in the chest until he reclined to allow it to document the full height of him. Something reminiscent of an otoscope plugged his right ear and chimed with a rather displeasing harmonic frequency before proceeding to his left. Meanwhile, Madame Pomfrey chanted diagnostics charms over him with a well-practiced tongue. It took a minute at most for the assault to reach its conclusion.
"My word," Poppy huffed. "You've grown nearly two inches since July."
"The nutrient potions at work?" Professor Snape asked from his corner.
"Quite. Let me see here," the Medi-Witch hummed, perusing the notated scroll in her hands. "Your core is healing quite nicely in spite of the surges. Still showing an excess, but you must be practicing enough to keep it within a normal range."
"Yes," Harry said. "I've been working with Neville on our Charms homework."
"Very good."
Madame Pomfrey reached behind him to offer assistance sitting upright. She ran a hand down his spine with a frown.
"Not quite enough weight on you just yet," she explained. "I can feel each of the vertebra through the muscle. Have you been eating enough?"
"He's ravenous at meals," Professor Snape answered for him. "He ate four pork chops for dinner. Nearly whole."
"Good, good," she said nodding. "Keep it up and you'll pack it on soon enough."
She pulled back her hands and wiped down the front of her apron with another thoughtful huff.
"What about the nausea? Still getting dizzy?"
"Yes," Snape spoke again. "Three hours seems to be the limit for the glasses. He's gotten to six with the glamours on, but it tires him."
"Put them on, Mr. Potter," Pomfrey instructed.
Harry obliged, feeling the sickly second skin slip over him as he donned the necklace. His vision sheared into two as he pulled the glasses over his eyes.
"How does it feel?"
"Gross," Harry grumbled.
"Eloquent," Snape sneered.
"Heavy," Harry tried. "It feels like a weight sitting on my chest. When I put on the glasses I see two of you."
"You should have adjusted by now," Poppy sighed.
She cast another spell, aiming the tip of her wand between his eyes. With a frown she looked away and instructed him to take the glasses off. She cast the spell again.
"Oh."
"Is it bad?" Harry asked slowly.
Professor Snape took a step closer.
"I believe - I would need to examine your eyes closer without the glasses..." she trailed off. "I believe your eyesight may be recovering. The dioptre of the lenses is off."
"You mean we can fix it?"
"Perhaps. I am loathe to modify the existing pair. Professor Snape and I will have to work on this over the break."
Thus began the third Christmas of Harry's life, not counting the ones spent with the Dursleys. It seemed a lifetime ago now. Trying to dredge up those memories took a monumental effort, and one he was not keen on undertaking.
The castle emptied of all but a few students. With an Azkaban escapee on the prowl and letters to the parents about the intruder at the school, most were averse to allowing their children to stay. For Harry not much changed in regards to his day to day.
He still shared his meals with Professor Snape over the holidays, but with so few staying at the castle during the break he found he had more freedom to explore. Professor Snape was found to be otherwise occupied - namely working on a second iteration of Harry's spectacles - leaving Harry to his own devices. Even so, Harry waited a good while before venturing off to the Whomping Willow.
He couldn't quite put to words what drew him there. In the light of day it seemed silly to wander so far from the castle to bare witness to a gnarled, embittered tree. It was secluded enough to sit down without his glasses and enjoy reading one of his books without the hinderance, though. He settled to the ground in a patch of tall frosty grass and retrieved a tome from his book bag to do just that.
The sun had turned fluffy white snow into hard packed ice across the ground and even melted out a few divots where flora protruded defiantly towards the heat. Harry was pleasantly warm in a extra layer beneath his robes and the wind had died to a gentle breeze. He sat cross legged on the hard earth with his transfiguration textbook split open across his lap.
"Harry!"
He paused in the process of taking off his spectacles and roughly jammed them back to the bridge of his nose. His head turned towards the source of the sound. At the top of the hill leading down from the main grounds of Hogwarts Castle stood Professor Lupin, holding a bit of folded parchment with his wand drawn. Awkwardly, Harry waved.
Remus paused, looking torn for a moment. He took a few clumsy steps down the hillside with his hands and the paraphernalia therein raised out before him. Then he folded the parchment and pocketed it before continuing down to the flat ground near the tree.
"Come away from there, Harry. The Whomping Willow can be quite dangerous."
Harry turned to observe the girth of the tree trunk. As if sparked to life by Lupin's words it began to shudder sending a flurry of ice into the air. Above his head the leafless limbs of the Whomping Willow began to twist and whip through the air. The very ground beneath Harry began to shift as roots deep below retracted and coiled around one another.
"Let's take a walk, shall we?" Lupin suggested with a sense of urgency.
Harry was not keen on the idea, nor did he believe the tree posed any true danger. His instincts were shouting at him again in that same stern tone that had told him his professor was a werewolf. Now they were telling him to send the wolf away.
"I've only just started reading, Professor," Harry explained succinctly. "Perhaps another time."
Lupin frowned, the ends of his not-so-neatly trimmed moustache turning down. "You had better come with me, Harry. I don't think Professor Snape will be pleased when he learns I found you down here."
The professor made a move towards his book bag as if to grab it. Harry quickly tucked his book back inside and shouldered the strap. He made no move to stand, however.
"Professor Snape would be even less pleased if I allowed you to escort me anywhere," he said mirthlessly.
His words seemed to find their mark. The werewolf recoiled as if he had been physically struck. It did nothing to dissuade the man from continuing his efforts - only to embolden him apparently. Lupin reached for Harry's shoulder instead and had nearly sunk clammy fingers into the fabric of the cloak laid around his neck when something stopped him.
Lupin jerked back and raised his wand at Harry.
"Come away from there," he ordered lowly. "Right. Now."
Harry twisted around once more, but the space between him and the gnarled trunk of the willow was filled by a black mass. He craned his neck upwards to find a snarling maw with jowls retracted to expose two rows of rotted teeth. The big black dog had its eyes trained on Lupin.
"Harry," Lupin pleaded now. "Run."
The black dog lunged, clearing the top of Harry's head in a single leap, and flew through the air at Lupin. The Professor slashed his wand at the attacking canine and a wicked light caught the beast around the midsection blasting it off course. Furry black limbs tangled and flailed as the dog was flung down the remainder of the hillside. Harry watched in rapt amazement as the creature shook the ice off its coat and awkwardly uprighted itself.
Lupin leapt for Harry this time and the grasping hand dug into the scruff of his neck. Harry hissed as he was dragged off his seat, but the grip at the base of his skull immediately relented. Lupin howled in pain, staring at his hand which appeared to steam in the frosty air. An angry red line was cut across the palm of the appendage and continued to release plumes of white condensate from the heat of the injury. Amber eyes found his, wide with shock.
A shadowy blur crashed into the werewolf at full speed sending both attacker and victim sprawling to the ground. Inhuman howls and snarling broke through the serene silence and overhead the branches of the Whomping Willow whistled as they whipped furiously through the air.
Harry got to his feet as he carefully observed the struggle taking place a few feet away. He stooped to retrieve the discarded cyprus twig that had fallen to the grass before him. He raised it and his own holly wand, aiming both at the the pair tussling in the dirt.
"Black," Harry snapped.
The canine creature froze in the air, jaw hung open in mid-bite. Lupin's hands were around the dog's throat, holding it a safe distance away from his own where he lay out on his back in the dirt that had quickly turned to mud from the heat of their bodies.
"Leave him."
The dog whimpered and shoved back with all four paws, scuttling backwards away from Lupin's fallen figure. Lupin pushed onto his elbows and then reached for his wand.
"My wand," Lupin rasped, hoarse from the shouting. "Harry, now."
The double vision caused by his spectacles was overwhelming him. Lupin's face undulated between a single and double picture and the light spilling over the crest of the hillside did nothing to help. Harry shoved the glasses off his face with his forearm, keeping one wand aimed at the fallen professor at all times.
"What are you doing?" Lupin demanded, now pushing up onto his knees.
"Shut up," Harry mumbled, rubbing his face into the crook of his elbow to help clear his vision.
" This is no game, Harry!" Lupin shouted. "Give me my wa-"
Harry looked up.
Professor Lupin froze solid. It was as if the ice on the ground had overtaken his body. Firmly settled on his knees, Lupin did not fall to the ground as Petunia Dursley had done. He merely knelt there, frozen, one hand pointing to Harry as if to accuse him of the crime that had just been comitted.
Black was still whining a few feet away, saliva pooling at the corners of his jowls. He inched closer.
Harry whipped his head towards the mutt in the mud, training a wand on the dog.
"I've brought your rat," Harry said with a tone of finality.
His words rippled across the flesh of the canine. Black fur changed to dirt-caked skin and greasy locks of long hair clung to an emaciated face. There was nothing but madness to be found in the man's eyes.
"Please," Sirius Black crooned, crawling on all fours through the mud. "Let me kill him..."
Harry pretended to mull over the idea, dropping a hand to his book bag. "I could," he began. "It would serve no purpose..."
Sirius growled as the madness took over his body for the briefest of moments. His progress across the clearing increased in derangement as bloodied fingertips dug into the hard earth. He stopped only when Harry sent a Stinging-Hex at the backs of his gangrenous hands. The man settled back to his haunches as if he were still a dog, mirroring the pose of the petrified figure off to the side.
"If you were to kill Pettigrew," Harry said, pausing when the name ellicited an unsavory reaction from his audience. "You would lose all recourse. You would never live a day as a free man for so long as you should live. Hunted by dementors for the rest of your life."
He waited to see if perhaps those words might sink in through the insanity that clearly plagued the man. Sirius shook his head against them.
"Alternatively," Harry drawled.
He reached into his bag and retrieved the stunned rat, lifting 'Scabbers' into the light by his furry tail. A distinctly mutt-like growl escaped Sirius' lips as if against his will.
"If we were to play our cards properly, you would be free, and Pettigrew here would receive the Dementor's kiss in your stead. You would be a free man. Free to protect your godson where you've failed for so long."
Sirius was crying now. Hot tears streamed from the corners of his eyes and drew pale lines across the dirt-covered planes of his cheeks. He clasped his hands in the tattered fabric covering his chest and grunted in pain - emotional or physical, it was impossible to say.
"Tell me," Sirius begged. "Tell me what to do James. I'll do it. Anything."
Harry Potter grinned.