May 22, 2003
Blood Ties-9-10
Title: Blood Ties--Chapters 9-10
Author: Aurea Chicory
Rating: PG
Summary: Lorelei Zephyr, the DADA teacher of Elmskill, is under suspicion of being a vampire. By a zealous student anyway. The truth is far more complicated than that, and Sirius finds his head spinning with all the roads that seem to lead from Esme back to Lorelei. When a mysterious creature called an ichling materializes inside of the school, Dumbledore finds doubt gnawing at him about the school's strong, ancient defenses. Has the Morthahg come? And when the shapeshifters, Tanner and Rosie, appear, Sirius realizes that Esme's in over her head, and the Thump and Click Man means to destroy. But is his target Esme, Lorelei, or Hogwarts?
Art by Serena Done for Chapter 9, and Aurea for Chapter 10
Author's Note: As usual, I have borrowed vampire lore from a wide range of places, most noticably in this chapter from the Masquerade roleplaying game. Irrelevant Author's Note: Tanner is a basically Turbo, a werewolf character I made for a World of Darkness fanfic. Few of you, if any, will have read it, so it really doesn't matter. But it's a fun fact nonetheless.
Chapter 9
In the sudden silence, ears still ringing, Sirius was nearly flattened as a door flew open to his left and Madame Pomfrey burst from it like a juggernaut in a ruffled apron.
"What is it??" she demanded. "Who's hurt?" Then, without even pausing to hear an answer, she was off like a shot down a corridor. Dumbledore followed and Sirius fell into step with him. The other teachers were puzzled, but returned to their classrooms to answer the buzz of questions that they could all hear rising from behind the doors. Apparently, with Pomfrey and Dumbledore on the move, they were satisfied that the situation was in hand.
It seemed Madame Pomfrey had an innate sense for locating an injury, because she never wavered from her sprint towards the dungeons. Just as Sirius became positive that she was heading for Snape's chambers, the Potionmaster himself rounded a corner and came running for them. A look of actual relief flickered over his pale face, making an odd change from his usual glare. But then, the Potionmaster noticed that Madame Pomfrey wasn't alone. His eyes fell on Sirius and a much more familiar expression twisted his face.
"You!" he spat in sudden recognition. Anything else he might've said was cut off, as Pomfrey seized him by an arm as she went by and dragged him bodily back down the stairs he had just come up. In the lower dungeon, they found Lorelei Zephyr convulsed on the floor. Madame Pomfrey released Snape and ran to the woman's side, just as her body twisted in an arc that should have broken her back. Lorelei's face opened in a silent scream and black blood gushed from her eyes, nose, and mouth.
Madame Pomfrey gasped, but held a suddenly produced bucket up under Lorelei's chin. She moved to hold the woman's white hair back, acting as if this was no worse than the stomach flu.
"That's it," she crooned gently. "Get it all out. It'll be all right."
"What happened?" Dumbledore asked. Snape pulled his eyes from Lorelei, shot Sirius a half-second's worth of a glare, and forced himself to look at Dumbledore.
"She drank the potion we made for her," he said. Sirius was surprised to see the dour professor was putting on a convincing show of worry. "Just like always. "
"Uh-oh," Sirius said aloud, remembering the day before. "Esme! I saw her by that distillery you were using." He saw Snape's features go from concerned to bloodthirsty, but before the Potionmaster could respond, he was interrupted again.
"ESME!??!" shrieked Lorelei from the floor. "ESME IS HERE????" They all turned to stare at her. She was heaving from the effort of breathing and her face was streaked black and red, but it looked angry. Sirius was struck suddenly by the thought that under the wept blood, she looked like Esme. A statue of Esme, he corrected mentally, carved from white marble by someone who'd only seen her angry. He shook that thought away. The crazy woman didn't even have to be there to distract him! It was just that Lorelei looked to be the same age and size, he decided.
"She's here for you, isn't she?" he asked her. Lorelei seemed to choke. Madame Pomfrey held the bucket up again quickly, but was shrugged off. The pale woman slowly pulled herself up to a sitting position. Her eyes had leaped into flame and bored straight into his own. Snape was looking a bit envious of the eye contact they had blistering between them, but then he gasped.
"They aren't red any more!" he said, kneeling quickly beside Lorelei. She stared at him and he lifted her chin in his hand to peer into her face. "Lorelei, your eyes are violet!"
"W-what?" she raised a hand to her face, but was of course unable to see them. Madame Pomfrey leaned over to see and gasped as well.
"They are, dear!" she cried and went fumbling in her pocket to pull out a compact shaped like a frog's head. She snapped it open and held it up in front of Lorelei's face. "Look!" She seemed to recoil from it for a moment, but then blinked at hr own reflection. Sirius and Dumbledore had crowded close to see too, and sure enough, the once-crimson eyes were now a dark purple.
"They they're supposed to be blue," Lorelei said weakly. "Why would they. . . ?"
"Whatever Esme did to the potion changed it," Sirius said and she looked back at him. The chill was gone. Maybe her anger had been all that gave her strength. Without it, she seemed dazed and feeble. She swayed and Snape lowered her down to lay on the floor. Madame Pomfrey went back to wiping away the last of the blood.
"What could Esme have done to the potion?" she wondered softly. Snape glares back at Sirius.
"What do you know about this?" he asked, accusation plain in his voice.
"I met Esme in the woods," Sirius said. He was looking at Lorelei. "How does she know you?"
Lorelei began to laugh softly. It was awful to listen to. She sounded closer to tears than to laughter. She tilted her head to look back at him. The anger flared back again in her face, but this time there was sadness too.
"She did this to me," she said, touching the small scar on her throat. "It's her fault." For nearly an entire second, the thought that it made sense that Esme was a vampire shot through Sirius' brain. But vampires didn't eat peanut butter or pretzels and when they had first met, it had been outside in broad daylight.
"Well, what did she do to you with the potion?" he asked next, beginning to get tired of Lorelei's misery. "It didn't kill you, obviously." Both she and Snape looked at him angrily, but then Dumbledore cut in.
"If anything, madam," the headmaster said kindly. "You are looking better than I've ever seen you." That brought them all up short.
"Who IS this Esme person?" Snape finally asked. Sirius told him and the Potionmaster's eyebrows raised. "That delivery witch? I remember seeing her. I thought that she looked very much like you, Lorelei." Sirius felt a moment's surprise that Esme's resemblance to Lorelei wasn't just in his own mind, but the pale woman sputtered again.
"I am NOTHING like that-that" Unable to find a word that properly expressed her emotion, or perhaps just one that could be said aloud in company, Lorelei fell silent.
"But you do know her," Sirius pressed. "Who is she? What does she want with you?" Lorelei only shook her head. Madame Pomfrey patted her shoulder in a comforting manner. Sirius wanted to shake her. He might have if the nurse and Snape hadn't both been giving him dark looks. He hoped his hands weren't trembling. All his questions could be answered, if she knew who Esme was and what she was trying to deliver. Why did people insist on being difficult??
"She was bringing you something," he said through his clenched teeth. "Do you know what it was?"
"I haven't seen her in years," Lorelei gestured at her throat. "Not since this happened. Ten years ago, almost. I have no idea what she wants."
"But whatever she put in your potion seems to have done you good," Snape interrupted. "Could she. . . have found a cure?" Lorelei whipped around as if he'd slapped her. Her jaw dropped for a moment as if considering this. Sirius felt a headache coming on. He found himself annoyed that Snape had thought of it first. He didn't know Esme well enough to know if she was the sort who'd spend 10 years looking for a cure for a condition she been the cause of. He wanted to think so. He was developing a liking for her.
Ah, but you liked Peter too, a suspicious voice in his head said. And you knew him for a lot longer and had much more reason to trust him. He still betrayed you. So, he tried to harden his heart again. There was still the ichling to think of, and that unknown master of hers. He wasn't sure what am ichling really was, but if it troubled Dumbledore, it couldn't be good. In the floor, Lorelei had begun to cry. It was horrible, somehow, to see the proud, cold woman sobbing pitifully.
"The only thing for it is to locate Esme and find out for ourselves," sighed Dumbledore. "But I doubt she's still at Hogwarts." Snape had stood back up and was giving Sirius a looking over.
"Is that your blood on your sleeve?" he asked suddenly. Sirius glanced down at his robe and saw that there was a dried splatter of rusty blood on his cuff.
"No," he said. "That's from Esme, when we fought in the bath room." Snape raised an oily eyebrow at that and the corner of his lips curled up as well.
"Then we can find her," the Potionmaster almost purred. He spun around and walked over to a shelf filled with bottles.
"You have a plan then, Severus?" Dumbledore asked. Snape made a vaguely affirmative noise and began mixing things. There was a soft puffing noise and then the dungeon was filled with the strong smell of scorched grease. Madame Pomfrey rose to her feet and nodded towards Lorelei.
"I've put her to sleep," she said in a whisper. "I'll just take her back to the infirmary and let her rest off the shock." Dumbledore nodded and held the door open as Madame Pomfrey magicked up a floating stretcher and levitated Lorelei gently out. Snape didn't seem to notice their going and only minute or two later, carried over a steaming beaker of something green. Sirius blanched from him, as much from the smell of the potion as from the sharp-looking pair of tweezers that were suddenly jabbed toward his arm.
"Oh, please," Snape sneered, plucking at the blood stain with the tweezers. "If I was going to stab you, it would be somewhere vital." He extracted a fleck of dried blood and dropped it into the potion. Sirius didn't reply to that, mainly because Dumbledore was watching them. They traded glares though, and both stepped away from each other quickly. Dumbledore sighed softly, but sounded more amused than upset. The potion turned red and began to bubble.
Snape waved his wand over it, chanting a spell Sirius had never heard of. The potion bubbled even more fiercely and began to climb out of the beaker like a living thing. Sirius and Dumbledore quickly got out of its way as it slithered around the floor. It divided into two caterpillar-like puddles, one set off under the door and out into the hall. The other followed Snape, no matter how he moved.
"That's odd," he muttered, but then shooed them off after the escaping puddle. "It's heading back toward its source. Follow it to the woman." He had to sidestep quickly to avoid the other one pooling under his feet. Sirius took off after the active one. It was halfway up the stairs. He quickly became Padfoot so he wouldn't have to be caught without Dumbledore, who had stayed behind with Snape. To his relief, the oozing puddle picked up speed once it reached the top of the stairs and went spilling down the hall.
He followed it at a trot. He found himself wondering why the other half of it was after Snape. Unless the Potionmaster had some of Esme's blood on him too, it didn't make much sense. But how could that be if he hadn't encountered her before? And why wouldn't Lorelei tell them what she knew?? Granted the woman had been through something traumatic with the altered potion, but it shouldn't have kept her from being more helpful. His train of thought was cut off as the puddle ducked under another door. He nosed it open quickly and followed into a drafty hallway. There was a single door at the very end.
Sirius grumbled to himself. He was getting angry because it was better than being worried. His one consolation was that none of this seemed to have anything to do with Harry. It all seemed to revolve around the Elmskill newcomers. And Esme, where or whatever she was. He was worried for her too, he realized. And why is that? he asked himself. Because I never could resist trouble. And if that woman is anything, it's T-R-O-U-B-L-E. She needs a shirt that says that across the front.
The puddle led him to the door, and he opened it, expecting another room. It was actually a small coat closet. Esme's scent was there, but she certainly wasn't. The puddle flowed to the back wall and seemed puzzled. It paced back and forth and then began to spread up the wall, as if feeling for a secret door. After a moment, it seemed to give up and sank back down into a pool at the bottom. Sirius looked around and listened carefully for anyone nearby and then shifted back to his human self. He tested the back wall too, even casting a magic revealing spell to look for an enchanted passageway, but nothing showed itself.
Trust Esme to leave a riddle behind, he thought, looking around for any clue in the closet. The only thing in there at all was a very old leather riding robe. It was the kind of thing one's grandmother would have worn broom-riding in the fall. It was dull green under the thin layer of mold growing over it. Sirius carefully took it down, feeling the ancient seams crumble a bit. One of the sleeves had something stuffed into it.
He peeked in carefully, giving it a slight shake to see if it would move. It could be anything after all, an infant boggart, a nest of mice, one of the Weasely twins' magical bombs. Nothing happened though, so he reached in even more carefully and pulled out a box. It was the package for Lorelei that Esme had been trying to deliver. The only thing different about it was that the magic seal on the front was broken. He looked at it for a long moment, then opened it.
Inside were five lead vials like she has shown him before, and a folded sheet of paper. The seal on the first vial was also broken. Each of the vials had a name written on them, just below the stopper. The empty one said GASTON. The others were VANESSA, OPAL, NATHIEL, and BROHM. It didn't make any sense to Sirius. He took the paper next and unfolded it. It appeared to have been ripped from a book. There was a picture of a man with bat wings suspended by ropes in the middle of a large room. The man was held upside down and spread out by his wrists, ankles, and wings.
As Sirius watched, the image thrashed and bared its fangs. Illustrated wizards with spears were draining blood from its chest. It was a gruesome picture, made worse by the barely audible shrieks of the drawn vampire, if that's what it was. He pulled his eyes from it to read the words below the image. They said: "The taint of the vampire is carried in its blood. A victim may be altered by the creature's bite, but will not become a true vampire itself until it has been given or forced to take some of the original monster's blood. So, each new vampire carries in its undead veins a trace of the original vampire in its particular bloodline.
"This cannot be eradicated, unless the victim can absorb the living blood of each of its ancestors', thereby cleansing the world of that family' and itself of the taint. Not surprisingly, this is difficult, as the original's blood gets weaker the more generations that are born' from it. This means that each vampire will be weaker than their maker, and therefore unable to defeat their makers for the lifeblood that will release them."
He stared at it, feeling things fall into place in his head. He folded the paper back up and closed the box with a snap. He turned to head back and froze when he realized Snape was standing silently at the other end of the hall. They glared at each other, more than twenty years of bad blood simmering below the surface. Snape was holding a wand. They could very well have a wizard's battle on the spot, Sirius thought. Surely the Potionmaster had more sense than that, though. Still, the silence was frigid.
"You were right," Sirius said to distract him from any thoughts of violence. Indeed, he blinked in surprise for nearly a whole second before getting control of himself.
"Oh?" Snape asked coldly, beginning to walk towards him. Sirius held up the box. Snape recognized it too and his dark eyes narrowed.
"It's her cure," Sirius went on. "The blood of the vampires who attacked her." Snape looked at him sharply.
"What would you know about it?" he sneered, but his eyes returned to the box. The gleam in them had suddenly turned fierce. Sirius put it in his own pocket with a snort and walked past the Potionmaster to head back to Dumbledore.
"I may not be the expert you are on Dark Magic," he growled. The corner of Snape's eye twitched, interpreting that as the insult it was. "But I didn't spend ALL my time in Defense class passing notes with your name on them to Brenda Berryball."
The expression that crossed Snape's face when he heard that would have been well worth any battle that they might have had. Sirius hurried out the door and down the steps with a grin on his face.
"WHAT???" he heard Snape scream and bit his lip to keep from laughing. The Potionmaster's footsteps came running after him, but he refused to turn around. Brenda had been a timid little witch, from a Muggle family. She had her share of magical ability, but none of the stomach for it. She wept all through Potions class when she had to cut up newt livers. She had fallen apart completely when confronted with the task of feeding whole chickens to an orphaned baby griffin in Care of Magical Creatures. She lived in fear of her Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
The constant onslaught of love notes from such a grim and dark wizard as young Snape had very nearly sent the poor girl to pieces. Snape had never shown so much as a flicker of interest in her or any other witch that Sirius knew of. That was why it had been so hilarious. Lupin had finally made him stop when he had found Brenda crying her eyes out in Herbology.
"-immature and asinine!" Snape's hissing had come into hearing range behind him. He could practically feel the Potionmaster's eyes singeing the back of his head. The second puddle of blood was still tagging along behind him.
"I thought you two would have made a cute pair," Sirius added, just to stir him up more. Snape made a strangled noise of outrage.
"She killed herself, you know," he snapped. "Or perhaps Azkaban didn't forward you the obituary." Sirius glanced back at him quickly, his good humor vanishing. Snape gave him back a look of pure venom. "It's true. She dressed herself for her funeral, drank enough poison to wipe out all of Hogsmead, and lay down on her bed to die. Seems she'd been miserable most of her life. Isn't that just a laugh riot?"
The last few words carried enough angry contempt to blister skin. A pang of guilt twisted in Sirius' stomach. He quelled it as quickly as possible. Snape was still giving him the basilisk treatment.
"I hadn't heard," he admitted. "Poor woman. I knew she was squeamish, but I never thought she was truly that unhappy." It was Snape's turn to snort and then they had arrived back at the dungeon. Dumbledore was still there, as was McGonagall. Sirius braced himself for any comment from her, but she only nodded briskly at him. No one had informed her that he wasn't Cyrus, the Headmaster's nephew yet then. Good.
"Did you find her?" she asked and he explained about the blood being thwarted at the back of the closet. "But how can that be? Are you sure there was no secret door?"
"I cast a reveal spell and didn't see one," he shrugged.
"You should have let me look," grumbled Snape. McGonagall looked to Dumbledore, who was tapping his chin and looking at the ceiling. After a moment, he sighed and looked at them all.
"The only way for powerful teleportation spells to be cast inside Hogwarts, considering the wards we have against such things," he said. "Would be to cancel out the enchantments used in the first place."
"But!" gasped McGonagall. "Those enchantments are ancient and are reinforced all the time! How could that happen?"
"The Morthahg," Sirius said, wondering again if Esme was host to the thing.
"No!" she snapped. "If the Morthahg was here it would spread like wildfire and destroy every enchantment! Not just a certain patch of one!"
"What if it was being controlled?" he countered. "If someone could contain it-"
"You can't contain a Morthahg!" she threw her hands into the air. "It's hate and fear in a tangible form! It isn't a ghost. It doesn't have anything like a mind to be controlled!" They might have argued it further, but Snape stepped back into the conversation.
"Take Lorelei's box to her," he told Sirius. "She knows this more about this than the rest of us right now, and might be able to tell us something." This was agreed upon and they all begin to walk towards the infirmary. McGonagall crept to Sirius' side.
"Don't you worry," she whispered. "Your fiancee will be just fine." She patted his arm comfortingly and picked up her pace to move up beside Dumbledore. Sirius rolled his eyes behind her back, but was glad that she was still in the dark. They went into the infirmary and found Madame Pomfrey fussing over Lorelei's pillows. Lorelei, herself, was looking annoyed at being mothered over.
"I know what happened to the potion," Sirius told her immediately. He pulled the box out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Some vampire blood was added to it." Lorelei looked baffled, but took the box and opened it. She pulled aside the piece of paper and stared in disbelief at the labeled vials. Her hands trembled as she picked up the empty one.
"Gaston. . . " she said softly. There was no emotion in her tone. She might have been commenting on the time. Still holding it, she shook the paper open and read it over quickly. Her hands begin to shake harder. Snape stepped to her side and took the paper from her to read it himself. Lorelei didn't seem to notice he was there. Her weird eyes seemed unfocused. "She killed Gaston."
"And Vanessa and Opal and Nathiel and Brohm," cut in Sirius, nodding at the other vials. "What is this all about Ms. Zephyr? Enlighten us, if you will."
"This is a page from The Mayhem Manual," Snape said suddenly, interrupting.
"You would know that," snapped Sirius uneasily. "So what?" The Mayhem Manual was a guide to all the worst-case scenarios in the magical world. Unfortunately, it was widely studied by Dark Wizards for inspiration. Legend had it that its author was a warlock who had gone around capturing all sorts of creatures, centaurs, vampires, werewolves, as well as human wizards and witches to perform experiments on. The results were documented in the manual.
"So there's a copy in the Library's private section," the Potionmaster snarled back. "Who knows what this fiancee of yours actually did to the potion? If it is a cure, it is best to know exactly how to go about it before we do anything. It wouldn't be in the manual at all if it couldn't go horribly wrong!" That was a good point and Sirius had to admit it. Snape hurried off to fetch the book, still clutching the torn page. The little puddle glided along after him, forgotten. The click of the door closing behind him made Lorelei jump.
"But. . . I thought the girl was a Muggle," McGonagall said, puzzled. "What would she be doing tinkering with potions and, and vampires?"
"There's more to this than we told you," Sirius told her quickly to keep Dumbledore from explaining. McGonagall fixed her best professor glare on him and he managed a weak smile. "I don't know how much to tell you that won't compromise her situation further," he added. Her eyes narrowed and for a moment, she looked very much like her cat form.
"Very well," she said, a hint of ice in her voice. "But I do expect an explanation, and it seems the sooner we find this Esme the better."
"Esme!" Lorelei gasped, snapping back into focus. Where is she?" She looked wildly around the room, as if expecting to see the other woman lurking in a corner.
"The thump and click man has taken her," Sirius said. That didn't make sense to Lorelei either, judging by the confused look on her face. But then the pale professor shook her head and tried to climb out of bed.
"I need to find her," she said, more to herself than to them. She shrugged off Madame Pomfrey and took her wand from a nearby table. "I need to know. . . " With a flick and word, she summoned up a black robe over the gown she was in.
"You should wait for Professor Snape!" Pomfrey cautioned. "He's going to make your cure as soon as we're sure how!"
"I'm sick of waiting!" Sirius snapped. "I'll go find her."
"Not by yourself!" cried McGonagall.
"Yes, by myself!" he nearly shouted. "Get her cured, and figure out the Morthahg if you want to do something!" And with that he tore out of the infirmary. His patience was gone and with it his caution. He transformed into Padfoot and ran out to Hagrid's rabbit hutch. Fang loped out to challenge him, barking madly. Sirius bared his teeth and the boarhound fell over himself getting back to the porch. That done, Sirius searched the rabbit hutch for any of the ichling's scent. It was there, cold and greasy among the warm, fuzzy scents of the surviving rabbits.
If the unnamed master and the thump and click man were the same, then the ichling would have returned to him after feeding. Since the beast could fly for a small distance with its shaggy wings, tracking it would be difficult, but anything was better than waiting around any longer. He followed the trail for a short stretch and then it stopped. Sirius looked around, imagining the ichling taking to the air and flapping to where? He sniffed the garden fence and found nothing. Raising on his hind legs, he caught a whiff of the creature on Hagrid's gutter.
This would take awhile, he thought, but it was activity. There was a scent trail on the ground for about three feet before it vanished again. He searched in a ten foot radius of the spot and found the scent again. The hunt was on again.
**********
Chapter 10
Harry and Ron had gone to meet Hermione in the library and found her hidden behind a stack of books at her favorite table. They sat down across from her and waited for her to put down the leatherbound Guide to the Notable Dead, Vol. 11'. Most of the books did deal with monsters or ghosts.
"Either I missed an assignment in Defense class," sighed Ron. "Or she's reading them all by section now."
"Oh, don't be silly," said Hermione, finally lowering the book to look at them. "I was just looking up some stuff on vampires to see if Raye knows what she's talking about."
"Does she?" asked Harry.
"No," was the answer. "From what she's told me, it sounds like she's studied more Muggle folklore than actual vampire studies. And I don't know what that hunter she was writing was telling her!"
"Maybe it wasn't a real vampire hunter," suggested Ron. "Just somebody like Lockhart, all talk." Before Hermione could answer that, Snape burst into the library. Everyone inside looked up and Madam Pince appeared to lecture whoever had caused such a disturbance. Snape nearly bowled her over as he marched straight back to the Private section. Madame Pince fell into step right on his heels.
"And just what do you mean by barging in here?" they heard her whisper loudly as they disappeared into the other room.
"I wonder what he wants in the Private section," Hermione mused.
"Probably going to research the most difficult potion of all time to give us before Christmas break," sighed Ron.
"Speaking of which," added Hermione, glaring at him. "Have you done your part of the Tongues Potion research?"
"Almost," Ron grumbled, his face falling.
"Really?" Hermione pressed and Ron turned a little red.
"Well, I have the book anyway," he admitted. Hermione made an annoyed sound in her throat, but a shriek from Madam Pince saved Ron from further criticism.
"That page is torn!" the librarian ranted. "Severus Snape! You of ALL people should know better than to manhandle my-"
"It's not from one of your books and I'm not the one who ripped it!" Snape yelled back. "Leave off!"
The students were treated to a rare sight, as Snape came sweeping back into the main Library, carrying a huge old book. Madam Pince came after him like a harpy. They were practically shouting at each other as they went through aisles; Snape insisting that he had not damaged any books and that he would not damage the one he was carrying, and Pince wailing that he wasn't going anywhere until she could put an anti-ripping spell on it. They disappeared out the door and down the hallway.
There was a moment of silence and then Ron snickered. That set everyone off and the whole library burst into laughter. Still giggling, they waited for Hermione to pack her satchel and then went out to the Griffyndor common room. There was a fire burning and Neville was there. He had managed to find Trevor the toad and they sat together in one of the armchairs by the fire.
"Hi," Neville said cheerfully. It appeared his good luck had been holding up. They took seats of their own around the fire. Hermione immediately started to grill Ron on his research progress and the redhead grudgingly went to get the book in question. Harry found himself watching Neville's bracelet.
It didn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary. The silver eye was just a button. Trevor sat in Neville's lap, looking as dour as Snape at his worst. Neville was flipping through a book on rare lichens. He was probably still trying to perfect his sleep potion. He had gotten the lumps out of it by last class, but it was still more gray than purple.
Ron returned with the book, just as Padma and Lavender came in from outside. Raye was with them and they were all rosy-cheeked from the chill. The day had grown frosty. Raye seemed downcast and hurried up to the girls' dorms.
"What's wrong with her?" asked Ron. Lavender looked sympathetic.
"Her messenger owl has been missing for weeks now," she said. "She's worried about it. Oh yeah, and something's up with your dog." Harry sat up suddenly.
"What? Where is he?" he asked. Padma chuckled.
"We saw him running in circles out on the grounds." she told him. "He took off for the lake when we started to go see him."
Harry stood up and went to get his heavy robe and scarf. He didn't know what Sirius was up to, but wanted to help if he could.
"I'd better go check on him," he said. Ron offered to go with him at once and dropped the book on the table by Hermione. She rolled her eyes, but agreed to come too. They all bundled up and trotted out into the cold afternoon.
The sky was gray and a chill wind whipped up around them as they went. Harry led the way to the lake, looking around for any sign of Sirius. He wondered if Sirius knew about Buckbeak. Hagrid had taken them to see the recuperating hippogriff, and the shed wasn't too far from where they were.
But then, Hermione gasped and grabbed his arm. She pointed to a rustle in the trees and they hurried over to find Sirius as Padfoot, running in a wide circle with his nose to the ground. He raised his head to stare at them for a moment and then went back to circling.
"Are you all right?" Harry asked. "What are you doing?" After a moment of silence, Sirius reverted to his human form.
"I don't have time to explain it all," he said quickly. I have to find this trail and find the thump and click man."
"What can we do?" Harry asked, baffled. Sirius shook his head irritably. He looked like he was about to shoo them off, but then he stopped.
"Find out what an ichling is and why one would want blood," he said. "Sorry, but I have to find this before the trail gets any colder." He became a dog again and went back to sniffing the ground.
"Ever hear of an ichling?" Ron asked Hermione. She seemed to be thinking.
"I remember something about something," she said after a moment. "Something about wizard-made familiars."
"Like those monkey cats Professor Binns told us about?" asked Harry. Hermione started back to the castle and with a final glance at Sirius, Harry followed.
"No," she said. "Giving cats hands to make them more helpful in a laboratory was a total failure, and even then it was only tampering with a species. The completely wizard-made familiars were made from scratch. They weren't altered animals. They were made from magic and I think they were outlawed after Muggles started noticing them."
So, we're going back to the library?" asked Ron, with a note of resignation.
"At least I know where to look," she told them. "With luck Madam Pince won't have put my books away yet."
*********
Madam Pince was in fact still hovering over Snape as he flipped through the huge book in the infirmary. Lorelei was pacing the floor behind them, the click of her bootheels on the floor as regular as a ticking clock. Madame Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall talked in hushed voices.
The Mayhem Manual was a difficult read, especially with Madam Pince grabbing at it every few moments. The book was cold to the touch and the print seemed to writhe on the pages. Even more eerie was the fact that the pages would change if you looked away from them. Snape looked away once to tell Pince to shove off, and when he looked back, the page that had described the basics of captive werewolf breeding was now a full-color, squirming diagram of the internal organs of a crucified house elf.
With the torn page in one hand and flipping through the manual with the other, Snape tried to find any extra information. He could all but feel Madam Pince's breath on his neck and it didn't help his concentration any.
"I can't take this," Lorelei snapped suddenly. "I have to talk to Esme." She turned and stalked over to the door, followed by Madame Pomfrey.
"Are you sure you should, dear?" the nurse-witch asked.
"It's bad enough that poor boy is tearing around by himself without you putting yourself in danger too!" said McGonagall, putting her hands on her hips. Snape sputtered and half turned to glare at her over his shoulder.
"Poor boy?" he echoed. "Do you mean to tell me that you don't recognize him?"
"He's the Headmaster's nephew!" she replied, then paused as he turned an interesting shade of purple. "What?" He grumbled something unintelligible and kicked at Madam Pince to keep her back when she yelled that he was being too rough with her book. The puddle of blood potion had pooled under his left heel and moved with him like a small shadow. He appeared to have forgotten about it.
Lorelei looked at him and then at the three women. Her aura of chilled detachment was back in full force. She didn't need red eyes to stare down Madame Pomfrey. There was a long moment of icy silence and then she turned on heel and left the room.
***********
Ron and Hermione and Harry were in mid-argument over whether to take a book from the library without telling the absent Madame Pince, when Lorelei swept by them. The Elmskill teacher was robed completely in black and was wearing her dark sunglasses again. With the black robes and her white hair billowing around her, she was a formidable sight. They were silent as she went by and then fell to bickering again.
"Who knows what hex has been put on each book?" Hermione insisted. "I'm not taking it anywhere until it's checked out! Just give me a moment to read it!"
"But if it's important, we need to get the information to him quickly!" argued Harry. She gave him a very level look and opened the book to read through it. Ron and Harry traded despairing looks and dropped into chairs with weary sighs.
Outside, Sirius had managed to track the ichling another fifteen yards. The cold day was barely felt through his fur, but every breath sent clouds of mist into the air. A sense of urgency kept him going, but suddenly a soft chuckle brought him up short. He looked around carefully, trying to pick up a scent. Then, from down wind, a man seemed to appear out of a windswept pile of leaves.
The stranger looked like a scarecrow, thin and ragged and wearing a widebrimmed hat. He sauntered up to Sirius, making almost no sound in the dead leaves. Sirius eyed him uneasily, all the more so because he had not had any idea that this person was nearby. Now that he was no longer downwind, the definite smell of animal hit Sirius.
Sirius felt a warning growl began to ripple in his throat, uneasy in the face of this stranger. The scent didn't match him, it was too wild and feral to be anything in human shape. The man pushed his hat back and looked Sirius in the eye, and the black dog realized that he had one blue eye and the other was gold.
"Just relax there," the stranger said. "I'm no threat to you." Sirius backed away, unnerved. The scarecrow man chuckled and sat down in the leaves with a crunch. He was skin and bones under a long, military-green coat that had seen better days. Under that, he wore a few layers of grubby t-shirts and pair of battered blue jeans with the knees out. Surprising in the cold, he was barefoot.
"You probably didn't want me to see that shapechange, did you buddy?" he asked. Sirius froze, ready to bolt, but then the stranger shapeshifted into a thin, straggly wolf with a rusty red-gold pelt and back again.
"My name's Tanner," he said. "And I know where the little flying furball went." Sirius stared at him, mind in a whirl. Tanner seemed more than willing to wait for him to make some move, so after a minute of thinking, Sirius shifted back to his human form. Tanner grinned at him, a thatch of copper red hair falling over the gold eye.
"You know about the ichling?" Sirius asked carefully. Tanner shrugged.
"If an ichling looks like this," said Tanner, pulling out what was immediately recognizable as another page from the Mayhem Manual. "Then yeah." The picture was of a leering, hissing creature much like the one he'd seen in the bathroom with Esme.
"So did you guys just rip the whole book up or something?" he asked. Tanner nodded, looking serious for the first time.
"We had to," he said. "The pages will only keep the same information if you rip them out. Otherwise they just keep showing you something worse. That's why so many dark mage types go screwy. Now come on, you're in the calvary now."
Tanner jumped to his feet in one smooth movement and strolled back into the trees. Sirius hesitated, but followed him.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, still keeping an eye on the ragged stranger. "Who are you?"
"A mutual friend got word to me about a week ago," Tanner said. "Seems she's in over her head."
"Esme," realized Sirius. "And you are one of the shapeshifters she was telling me about..."
"Ain't she a doll?" Tanner chuckled. "We're the calvary, like I said, coming to the rescue when things get bad."
"We?"
"Me, Rosie, and now you," Tanner went on. "Rosie has been tracking the itchy thing, so we catch up with her and go on from there."
"Is she an animagus, too?" Sirius asked. Tanner looked at him sideways again.
"Neither of us are," he said. "We're shapechangers. It's what happens when werewolves marry."
"But..." Sirius was taken aback. After the week he'd had, that fact that he wasn't completely numb to all surprise, was amazing in itself. "The moon...is not up."
"And it wouldn't be full even if it was," sighed Tanner. "Most werewolves get that way from being bitten by another one. It's a curse. However, if cursed creatures band together, their offspring are born with the werecreature in their blood. We aren't limited by the curse of our parents. We can change whenever we want."
"So you keep your human senses?" Sirius was now eyeing the thin man with more caution. Tanner was still good-natured, though.
"I wouldn't say human'" Tanner mused.
"Well, what's wrong with Esme, then?" Sirius wanted to know. "The taint on her."
"She and Rosie would never tell me," Tanner admitted. Sirius felt his jaw clench with frustration. "I assumed it was a female problem and left it at that. Oh, and your hair is changing color, man. Is that normal?"
"What?" Sirius pulled a strand up to his eyes. The chestnut red was fading to its natural black. As he watched, it became longer and stringier, returning to his usual unkempt mane.
"The spell is wearing off," he realized. "Or the spellcaster is losing power." Concern flickered on the scrawny shapechanger's face.
"Then we'd best hurry," he said and in a twinkling, he returned to the red wolf form. With a snap of teeth, he shot off through the bushes. Having no better plan, Sirius became Padfoot and charged after him.
Posted by rockygirl at May 22, 2003 10:44 AM