A/N: Hi there, early chapter. Oh the joys of having a laptop at hand.... Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter, I've been dying to write for so long it's wonderful to have it on paper, so-to-speak, for you. Thanks to all who have read, and review, hint, hint.
Disclaimer: Not mine, but with luck someday someone else is going to be writing fanfiction about my stuff.
*****
Chapter Seven
Saturday morning after breakfast the OGB personally informed me that I was to have my detention that very evening. As Rigel and I left the Great Hall, stuffed to lunch and off to yet another day of aimless wandering, he approached us at the doors and said to me, "You are to meet Mr Filch this evening at the entrance doors for your detention. I suggest you dress warmly, there's a blizzard coming."
He began to walk away, but Rigel spoke up, "But sir... Magnolia can't be outside after dark, it's too dangerous. I mean, someone is trying to kill her." Rigel was one of the few people I knew who would openly question the OGB, one of the few remaining perks, I supposed, of having a Malfoy for a grandmother.
The OGB stopped and turned back to us, then said stiffly, "Then your friend should have had a better relationship with the rules. I can assure you that she will not be harmed; there are new, extensive security measures all about the school. Not even the wind gets in without being cleared by me."
Rigel looked at him stunned, but the OGB simply turned and left, stalking down the corridor with an air of menace that made many give him a wide berth. I wasn't at all surprised and said to Rigel, "Close your mouth, you're not attractive like that."
He looked down at me and smirked, notably half-heartedly, "You think I'm attractive? Knew I'd win you over eventually."
I scoffed, "It's a figure of speech."
He continued to smirk, "Yes, they always say that."
I rolled my eyes. "Can we just go somewhere, I've got detention this evening and I need to prepare myself for dealing with Filch."
I began to walk in the direction of the stairs and Rigel hurried to catch up with me. As we began to ascend them though, he asked, "So, what did your parents say about the attack?"
There was a lot said about it actually, including the Daily Prophet headline, "Werewolf War Hero Attacked near Hogwarts! Magnolia Potter Not Harmed!" The WWN had run a series of reports on the incident claiming that the attack had actually happened in Hogsmeade village. Afterwards Uncle Lupin had stumbled to the school where by chance he was spotted hanging off the gate by his son who was out playing with his friends. I surmised that this was the official version the OGB had had released to the press, for we all knew that Connor had sneaked out of school the night before. Beyond that the article recounted the now very old news that Uncle Lupin had been a werewolf since very young, had attended Hogwarts anyway through the benevolence of the late Professor Dumbledore and married the much younger cousin of late best friend, the falsely accused murderer, Sirius Black, Nymphadora Tonks. In the end it had been branded as a random act, but since we refused to believe it, Rigel was very interested in my parents' thoughts.
We walked in silence for a while as I tried to come up with an answer that wouldn't reveal anything that my father didn't want me to. He'd sent a very long letter the night before that basically restated some of what he'd told me the last time, and reiterated his warning to be careful, but then also something new. Like the fact that he didn't really know of too many werewolves that had a grudge against him, for Uncle Lupin had been in charge of liaising with them during the war after Fenrir's capture. So I said to Rigel, "Dad thinks it's too early to say that it's the same person after me. It was probably just a random thing, and especially if the werewolf was off Wolfsbane, he'd attack anybody. He was just... lucky... that he stumbled upon Uncle Lupin."
"I think Cousin Remus would strongly disagree with that," said Rigel. "And I guess that you don't believe that either."
"How can I? First I get attacked in the bathroom, then Uncle Lupin in the Shrieking Shack a few days later? That's too close to be a coincidence," I replied.
We'd gotten to the top of the stairs and stood a while trying to decide which way to go. We'd been everywhere, weren't interested in sitting in the Great Hall or the library, and couldn't just stand in the hallways for the OGB had been deducting House points almost all week for loitering. Eventually Rigel said, "Let's go find an empty classroom."
"You know, if we're discovered it's going to be bad," I replied, at once heading off with him to look for one.
"What did I tell you about not caring if people think you're my girlfriend?" he said.
"But I'm not your girlfriend," I told him. "Still not your girlfriend."
"I don't care," he replied with a smile, put an arm around my shoulders and propelled me up the stairs to the classrooms.
We were on the second floor when I saw Connor coming. He was hurrying down the stairs in a navy blue jumper, a worn-out pair of jeans, even worse trainers, and carrying what looked like a large sketch book and colour pencil set. I hoped that Rigel wouldn't see him, I hadn't wanted to see him myself, but if Rigel did there was no way he was going to pass up the opportunity to torment him. I tried then to pass him by without acknowledging him so as to avoid drawing Rigel's attention. But I couldn't.
Given all that I'd overheard and seen of Connor so far for the week I couldn't resist looking at him. Merely yards to safety our eyes met and he held my gaze until a while after he'd passed us so that we both had to look back. And that was when Rigel noticed.
He looked over my shoulder to Connor, their expressions darkened and both turned back, with Rigel gruffly dragging me off to the first available space, the door to my Ancient Runes classroom. Irritated by his actions I demanded, "What the hell happened between you and Connor?"
"What's going on between you and Connor?" he demanded in turn.
"Nothing," I replied, my voice unnaturally high.
He looked unconvinced. I insisted, "Nothing, we're just... we just say `hello' from time to time."
He lifted an eyebrow, "He spent the entire night at your bedside after you got attacked, every time I have to go looking for you you're with him and then that just now...."
I opened my mouth to answer, then quickly shut it and bit my lip. He folded his arms and looked at me. Finally, with an exasperated sigh and my face flushing red, I replied, "We're not anything. He's with Camilla; I saw them in the library Thursday night."
"What?" Rigel exclaimed, shocked.
"When I'd gone off to hide from Madam Pomfrey, I saw them together. They pretended they were studying but... any fool could see that they weren't, and especially in the way they were sitting," I told him.
He just continued to look at me, and for a moment I thought I saw something that looked like disappointment in his eyes. But just as quickly as it appeared it was gone and he replied, "You do realise that his father had been savagely attacked just that morning, don't you?"
I sighed again, "Yes, I know. But you should have seen them. Even if she was just comforting him, anyone could have gotten the wrong impression."
Rigel took hold of the door handle and let us into the vacant and dimly-lit classroom on account of its snow covered windows. When it was closed behind him again, he said, "You shouldn't be eavesdropping, Potter, it's rude."
I looked at him and scoffed. He took a seat on a desk and said, "Now let's talk about something else. What have you heard about Cousin Remus?"
"Nothing, as much as you know, I haven't spoken to Connor in a while. But Mum said that Aunt Tonks might be coming back," I replied, taking a seat on the desk facing him.
Surprised he asked, "Coming back? What about them?"
"They're still on assignment, can't, but Mum said that Aunt Tonks was supposed to be coming back early anyway," I told him. "Uncle Lupin getting attacked just sped up the process."
He looked off to the window, staring out into the dazzling white glare of the snowfall in daylight. Then he said, "Well, at least someone's going to have a good Christmas, Connor gets his Mummy back."
I sneered at him, "And you're just jealous that you can't have yours. Why didn't you just go home to Grandmother?"
When he turned to glare at me I remembered something and said, "Hey wait a tick, I just told you about `me and Connor' and you haven't told me a thing about you and Connor."
He grunted and looked away to the window again. For a long time he was silent and then he replied, "I'll tell you some other time, not today."
"I told you about me and Connor," I protested.
He grunted again and refused to reply. I turned to window as well, furious, and muttered, "Git."
He didn't respond though I knew he'd heard me. I said louder, "What could have possibly happened between you two so that you don't speak to each other? What, you don't like that his family's poor? You know something, so's yours. Your Mum's an Auror-who are nowhere near the top of the wage packet, mind you-and single parent living with her aging parents in a very nearly rundown house. All of your nice stuff comes from your grandmother.
"You don't like that he's your cousin? Well, no matter what your grandmother told you, being a half-blood doesn't mean that he's any less related. His mother is her sister's daughter whether she wants to admit it or not. You don't like that his father's a werewolf, that his mother's a Metamorphagus? Too bad be-"
I saw him flinch and stopped talking immediately. He didn't notice that I'd noticed though so I began, "That's it, isn't it? You and your pureblood Housemates can't stand the thought of someone like him exist-"
He snapped, furious, "Don't be thick; if I cared about that stuff would I be talking to you now? Your father is Harry-fricking-Potter and your mother's Muggle-born, to half my Housemates that makes you the less than a human being already. I don't care that his family doesn't have any money, I don't care about money or any of that crap Grandmother insists on buying for me, trying to buy my affection. She won't let my mother set foot in her house, how can I care about someone like that? And I certainly am not bothered by his being my cousin, I like Cousin Remus, okay, I don't bloody care that he's a werewolf! That doesn't change a damned thing! And who are you to talk to me about cousins? You have never spoken to Violet and Dudley Jr and you met them in London when you were out with your Mum last year. Their mother didn't seem too bothered to meet a witch and she's not even married to their father anymore!"
I looked away from him, torn between guilt and anger. He continued, but quieter now, "What's going on between Connor and me is entirely personal, just between the two of us. It isn't something so big that I'll chuck him from my wedding or anything, but it isn't as simple as Slytherin versus Gryffindor. I'll just tell you about it when I'm good and ready, I'm sure there's stuff you don't tell me about."
Remembering the map and cloak, and at once being flooded by a wave of guilt that washed the anger from me, I replied, "I'm sorry."
He looked away to the window as well. "Don't be. It's really just something silly that we haven't let go of yet, maybe when we're older and more mature."
I snorted, "Ha! I'd like to see that happen, you? Grow up? Ha!"
More seriously than the situation required he replied, "I will, you'll see."
One look into those grey eyes, once cold under pale blond hair now warm under fiery red, conveyed exactly what he meant. Within hours it would almost be thwarted.
*****
For ten full minutes before I went down that evening for detention, with the sky already dark and the wind whistling loudly as it blew around the castle and its grounds, I scanned the Marauder's Map searching for any sign that anything was amiss. As precautions, Rigel had promised to stand guard at the door, though inside for the OGB would never allow it, no matter how oddly amiable he was to him, and I was taking along the Invisibility Cloak. Despite the OGB's assurance I was taking no chances.
I should have been immediately concerned then when I didn't pick up that I was going to share my detention with Connor Lupin and a Fifth Year Slytherin.
Like Crookshanks when he had a mouse right where he wanted it to be, and was just toying with it until he got bored enough to kill it, Argus Filch was waiting for me at the entrance doors, warmly dressed and holding a lantern. I descended to him making a show of putting my wand in my pocket. He scowled slightly, I smiled brightly and said politely, "Good evening Mr Filch, the O-Professor Snape said that I was to meet you here for my detention today?"
In the face of such a greeting, he couldn't help but reply, "Good evening you-Miss Potter."
I grinned at him... and then my smile faltered when I saw Connor, also warmly dressed, and the Fifth Year, a tall, pale boy with terrible acne and buck teeth-reminding me strongly of a walrus-coming down the corridor towards us. Connor looked as confused as I did, the question plainly written on his face, "How'd you get detention, didn't my Dad get you out of it?" I gave him a nervous smile and then noticed the boy openly taking note of our exchange. At once I looked at my feet and walked down to Filch who had opened the door and was saying, "I'm going to enjoy this... it's been years since I've headed a detention. I can't suspend you by your ankles or fingers in the dungeons like you miscreants deserve, but I've got something better."
The boy said loudly, "You're a Squib, we're wizards, what could you possibly do to us?"
Filch rounded on him, furious, "I'll be reporting you to Professor Snape, and we'll see then exactly how much of a wizard you are!"
The boy scoffed, "He's my Head of House. It was Professor Vector who gave me detention."
I looked at him surprised, "Professor Vector gave you detention, what did you do?"
"None of your business... half-blood!" he spat.
Connor made to come to my rescue but I laughed, cutting him off, "That is not an insult."
Glowering now, the boy said, "No, maybe not, but you're half-Mudblood, and that is."
Before I could react, Connor had thrown himself onto the boy, backing him into the wall, hard, and was choking him while he struggled to apologise. "I... uh... I-I'm s'rry! Sorry! Uh.... uk!"
It happened so fast that I could only stand there, looking on shocked. But Filch was quick on the draw, despite his age. He grabbed Connor by his collar and yanked him off, leaving the boy bent over, grasping his knees as he gulped in welcome breaths of air again and rage in gasps, "You... dirty half-breed... s-stinkin' half-blood... you don't know who you're messing with!"
At this Connor made a second lunge but Filch held him fast and as he continued to struggle against him, warned, "I'm going to tell Professor Snape about this, boy, you're going to be in detention until you leave Hogwarts!"
The boy gasped out from the door, "T-that... that might be sooner... s-sooner than you think. His Dad's a dangerous beast... one day he's going to bite him."
Before Connor could start up again, I quietly drew my wand and hexed the boy. A moment later his face was covered in a series of flapping bogies, with new ones sprouting out on his neck, arms and basically everywhere he had skin. It was Aunt Ginny's speciality, the Bat-Bogey Hex. And now it was his turn to rage, angrily shouting, "Take it off! Take them off!" while Connor started laughing at him.
Filch though, had finally had enough and barked, "Out! Now! Out with the lot of yer! Trying to stall me eh? Out!"
Silent and with heads bowed-or at least Connor and myself, the boy was forced to wait until he found his wand to end the hex-we were forced to march out of the castle into the sharp, unrelenting winter gale winds. The world without, in contrast to that within, was black and unwelcoming. The wind whipped up our scarves, threatening at once to strangle us with them and rip them from our necks. My hair went flying about my head, blinding me temporarily. Our skin reddened as the blood was forced to the surface and our eyes watered as we forced ourselves to see in the midst of the onslaught. But worst of all, I had to grab hold of Connor to stop myself from being blown away.
He looked down at me somewhat surprised, his cap and hair already white with snow, and he called out to me, "Are you okay?"
I struggled to reply, "I think.... I... I think I'm going to fall!"
Not caring that Filch and the boy were looking on he put his arm around my shoulders and drew me into him. I stood relishing it for a moment, but then I remembered the image of him and Camilla in the library and detached myself from him and asked Filch, "So what are supposed to be doing out here tonight? There's a blizzard coming."
He smiled, though in the wind it looked more like a grimace, and replied, "Professor Hagrid's left the school today, but he forgot to secure his beasts. You're going to find all of his `magical creatures' and put them away."
We three looked between us and said to him, "You're joking."
He just started laughing his deep-throated, grunting laugh and lifted his lantern towards the grounds and worsening storm. "Best get those little beasties together before the weather gets you then... or you get each other...."
Away from the castle and out in the grounds proper, with my wand lit above my head, I struggled through snow piled nearly two feet high to Hagrid's hut. Connor hung close behind me, ready to support me should I fall, while our unnamed colleague stumbled on just a little to our left. I said nothing as we went, which was easy as simply breathing was difficult enough, but I wondered if Connor was bothered by it. He'd looked at me strangely after I separated myself from him on the steps but had said nothing since. Of course, every time I wondered, I was reminded of him and Camilla and I would force myself to think about how horrible it was to have detention in this weather.
When at last we came to the hut and nearby pens, a short walk ordinarily, torture tonight, it was to discover that there was nothing missing. As far as any one of us could see all of them were there. But Filch's voice boomed over the grounds through a megaphone to the hut, "You'll be looking for Thestrals and there are nine of them in all. S'mite careless of Hagrid to let them out and not put them back before he left. Good luck!"
I looked across to Connor, "I can't look for Thestrals. They're invisible unless you've seen death; I've never seen anyone die."
"Me neither," said Connor, looking hopelessly about us.
"That bloody Squib's barking.... how are we supposed to find something we can't see?" asked the boy behind us.
Connor shrugged, "Er... bait?"
The boy stared at him for a moment and then said awkwardly, "I... do you think that old Squib's gonna help us?"
I looked back to the castle where Filch's lantern-light appeared suspended in mid-air like a moth-hole in a black velvet dress held up to the light. "I don't think so," I replied.
Connor, who had been staring at the boy in turn since he had asked about Filch, said, "I didn't mean one of us, there is a way to draw Thestrals to you... even in the midst of all this snow."
The boy sneered, "I know that, you've got to use blood. But where are we going to get that? Want to open up a vein, cub?"
For a second it looked as if Connor was going to lunge at him again, but I cut in quickly. "Connor, um... do you still have that cloak you were wearing when you came back to school Thursday morning?"
Still angry, he looked at me slightly puzzled, and then shook his head, "Madam Pomfrey took it away yesterday, I think she had it burned."
"So what are we going to use as bait?" I asked, more to myself than them.
For a time we all stood looking around ourselves in the dark, cold night. Despite the whistling wind it was hard to miss the overarching silence of winter; it presented itself as a void at the end of each blast. The moon was waning now, and the approaching blizzard's towering storm clouds had blotted out the sky. It was fiercely cold; my skin was so dry that under the wind it felt raw and stung. The castle stood behind us like water being withheld from a man dying of thirst, the forest sprawled before us, an endless span of dangerous darkness. And there was no comfort to be sought in looking at Professor Dumbledore's tomb or the lake; both were trapped under the ice and snow, lost and too far away. If we wished to return to the castle we'd have to walk around all this area and possibly the forest too with fresh blood or rotting flesh, unfortunately a tempting treat for many of its inhabitants, and retrieve nine creatures we couldn't even see. I looked up at the sky and a cluster of snowflakes landed in my eyes. It was going to be a long night.
At long last, the boy said, "Well, see you two at the end of this, I'm going into the hut for the night."
"You can't do that," I said.
"Yes I can. That half-giant oaf isn't home," he replied.
I glared at him, "Half-giant he may be but he's no fool, that door's locked."
He refused to listen to me so he was forced to accept the truth when the door refused to budge under his hands. I grinned at his back, "Told you so."
His only reply was a scowl.
Connor suddenly spoke up behind me, so close that I could almost feel his breath, "How did you get detention?"
"I was rude to Snape," I replied. "Or rather, I told him the truth."
"So he sent you to detention out here?" he asked, surprised. "You shouldn't be out here, it's not safe.
I turned to him and said, "I know that, he knows that, but he doesn't care. So let's just get this over with."
He was about to answer, his mouth open and the first syllable stumbling out, when it happened. Scotland winter cold suddenly became Antarctic, the whistling wind died to a whimper, and suddenly I was left thinking of the day I almost died in the prefect's bath. In fact I could see myself being dragged across the cold stone floor to the foamy water of the pool-sized bath, knowing that I was going in there and that I couldn't do a thing about it. I could hear the girls muttering to each other and themselves, one of them was crying, whispering over and over, "I don't want to... don't let me do this...." But that was impossible, for I was unconscious when that happened.
I looked up at Connor, scared and confused, and only caught a glimpse of his face before he suddenly grasped me tightly to him and began dragging me off to the forest while yelling over my head to the boy, "Run! If you want to live, run! Now! Go get help! Those are Dementors, RUN!"
I couldn't see the boy, I could barely see Connor or where we were going, and it wasn't easy struggling through the snow, but the knowledge that we were suddenly the prey of a pack of Dementors was terrifying enough to get me going without protest. I held onto Connor's arm around my shoulder and said, "We're going to have to find a safe place to hide... but where's safe in there?"
Connor didn't answer, just continued leading us off to the thick line of trees, with his wand out, Light Spell flickering on our path. Annoyed I looked up at him to complain, and saw then the pained expression on his face, as if someone or something had sunk claws into his back and was slowly tearing out the flesh. Then I looked up over his shoulder and saw something that could have only been unleashed from a Dark Wizard's darkest dream.
It looked like, at a first glance, a black, moth-eaten curtain or shredded bed-sheet a Muggle child had turned into a Hallowe'en costume. The second revealed it to be a living creature, an embodiment of the worst of the Dark Arts, a faceless representation of the Grim Reaper come to collect his due. My attacker had to be one powerful wizard or at least someone high up in the Ministry for he'd sent Dementors after me.
I stared up at it open-mouthed, completely horrified, and then down at Connor's face. It was to discover that it was affecting him more than me, for though his face showed grim determination, his eyes revealed pure agony. Merely feet away from a nightmare come to wraith-like life, I realised that if I didn't do something fast Connor was going to collapse into the snow like my father, and so many others before and after him, had done. What horrors he must have known to react like this, until recently the worst thing that had happened to me was getting lost in number twelve, Grimmauld Place one day as a child when my father had gone to collect something.
But Connor didn't fall. He made it all the way into the forest and deep enough that it began to feel very lonely and terrifyingly dense before he let me go and said, "I have to do something, they're going to come in here after us if I don't."
"I should do something, they're affecting you more than me," I told him, holding my wand light up to his face to see him better.
"Dementors will go after anyone and anything and you're the one someone's trying to kill," he replied.
I scoffed, "Don't tell me you're trying to become my Knight-in-Shining-Armour; I can take care of myself thank you."
He looked genuinely surprised, "I'm not trying to do anything but keep us alive, the both of us. But someone is trying to kill you, and if these Dementors were sent by whoever it is, they're going to go after you first."
I would not hear it, "You just said they will go after anyone, I'm not staying in here-which isn't exactly a sanctuary by the way-while you run out there into their waiting arms-cloth-folds-whatever! I saw your face, if you're going out there, I'm coming with you!"
In the light of the wand his grey-blue eyes looked strangely bright, and then he said, "Fine, but stay behind me. Since they're affecting me more than you, like you said, then I should be irresistible."
"Good," I replied with satisfaction, unlike Rigel he apparently was willing to let me try to defend myself.
Then the wind died overhead and the temperature dropped several degrees. I gasped, horrified, and then was distracted by him saying, with a grin, "I'll have to put on some armour though."
Then, to my absolute amazement, his teeth grew half an inch, the canines almost to his gums on either side like a vampire's. Long wiry hair sprouted out all over his face and neck, his fingernails tore through the tips of his gloves as they lengthened to talons and his eyes changed colour to an unnatural amber. I couldn't help myself, I took a step back, eyes wide, mouth open, as he suddenly grew long, thin arms and legs and a slightly hunched back, stretching his already battered robes to the limit. But when he spoke it was the same Connor, not a raging Dark Creature, asking, slightly embarrassed, "Er... could you transfigure my robes into something like a wolf-skin coat? I'm horrible at Transfiguration."
I couldn't speak at first, but eventually I stammered, "I... I... er... b-but... but you're a... a...."
"A Metamorphagus, yes, but I have the worst ordinary Transfiguration grades of anyone in my class. It's kind of funny.... er, can you help me?" he asked.
"Oh, right," I replied, and extinguishing the light, tried to picture a wolf-which was easy given the circumstances-and transfigured his clothes into an assortment of grey, white and black fur sewn together in patches like the Innuit dress of a childhood story book.
He looked himself over in the light and said, "Good, thanks, now remember keep behind me, I'm going to try to clear your path to the castle. But if I tell you to do anything, anything, you have to do it at once."
"What are you going to do?" I asked, becoming worried.
"Maggie, please?" he pleaded.
I nodded, and he turned and began stalking back through the knot of trees to the castle grounds. He looked in that moment every bit of a tame werewolf-if such a thing could exist without the Wolfsbane potion-and now the OGB's statement began to make sense. Why else would he transform himself into this state if he wasn't obsessed with werewolves? Anyone else would have just drawn their wands and ran out into the pack, foolish though that idea would have been.
As soon as he stepped clear of the last tree a Dementor swooped down into his path. It appeared so suddenly that he didn't have time to react, but I did. Hoping that it would work I aimed and yelled, "Impedimenta!"
It wasn't much, but it was blasted back long enough for Connor to dive out of the way and yell, "Come Maggie, keep close behind me!"
I dashed out of the trees at once, trying to keep up with him as he bounded across the thick snow to the castle grounds in a wildly zigzagging fashion. It seemed that his "armour" was of some use after all, for the Dementors, though indeed more attracted to him than me, appeared to hesitate at the idea of getting too close to him. It was as if they couldn't tell whether he was man or beast and therefore were torn between the desire to taste his soul and the need to be sure that there was a soul to have in the first place. It must have been infuriating for them. Overhead I could hear those not immediately drawn to him circling us, and occasionally one would swoop into my path and I would be treated to the memory of turning round in the bathroom and seeing my watery death coming.
Realising that they would soon tire of him in frustration, Connor came to my rescue. Breathing heavily, he called over his shoulder as he ran in a circle round me, "There's a spell that would chase them away! Expecto Patronum, but you have to think of something happy; something really happy or it'll never work!"
"I can't do that spell, I'm not my father!" I protested, nearly out of breath myself and being treated to the irritating feeling of shivers crawling up and down my spine while I desperately tried to keep up with him. And yet ahead of us never had Hogwarts Castle seemed so far away.
"You have no choice, try it, even if it doesn't work it might keep them away from you for a while!" he called back.
Groaning slightly, I stopped running, stood stock still and tried to visualise something happy. The first thought that came to mind was of seeing Mackenzie for the first time, just hours after she was born and being truly glad that it was a girl and not another boy. With that in mind I raised my wand and called, "Expecto Patronum!"
A puff of white smoke was all I could muster. I looked at the end of my wand, shocked that I'd managed to create anything, and then took off running again just as a Dementor swooped down above me. Connor had apparently forgotten that Dementors fed off of happy memories so failing at the spell meant that they would come in droves. Running full tilt and swearing in frustration, I looked across to him just in time to see him repelling the Dementors with a silvery-white otter, in sharp contrast to his wolf-like appearance. But there was something odd about the otter, about its movements in the snow before the Dementors. I stopped running again to look at it, and then realised what.
Though to all appearances it was a Patronus, an otter like my mother's, this Patronus could be used as a conduit for other spells, like a wand, and-for it did it right before my eyes-change into a large, stunning white wolf. I completely forgot that I was supposed to be running for my life; I just stood there looking at it in amazement until something came up behind me and harshly swept me up into its arms.
I screamed and began to struggle, until my hands fell on shoulders and I found myself looking into the face of the OGB. He had come out of the castle to help us and now he was racing back to the castle through the snow with me in his arms and Connor trying to defend a pack of Dementors on his own. I tried to draw his attention to this.
Pointing back over his shoulder I yelled frantically, "Sir, Connor! Sir, Connor's out there alone, the Dementors! Sir!"
He did not hear me until we were at the steps and he had set me down on the last one, where Madam Pomfrey stood waiting with a blanket. Then he turned and ran down the grounds to Connor and set his Patronus on the Dementors who had, in the interim, managed to overpower him at last. As a matter of fact I realised, with horror, that Connor was lying in a heap on the ground, a dark smudge on the immaculate snow. I screamed again and tried to run out after him, but someone grabbed me-I saw a flash of red hair, it was Rigel-and held me back. When I turned to pull myself from his grasp it was to see someone else holding onto Camilla who had come undone, screaming at the top of her lungs with tears in her eyes, "Connor! Connor! Help him! Somebody help him! Connor! CONNOR! CONNOR!"
I glanced back at the OGB and Connor and found now that the Dementors were gone, banished by the Potions Master. But Connor was still lying on the field and when the OGB approached him, nothing he did seemed to work. Behind me I heard Camilla slump to the ground, her cries reduced to mournful groans. I clenched my jaw at the burning at the back of my throat and eyes, but it did not stop my vision from blurring and the hot tears that spilled over my eyes down my nearly frozen cheeks.
Madam Pomfrey herself was moaning, "No... no... no, no, no.... Poor Remus, his only son... their only child...."
Down on the grounds the OGB conjured a stretcher and lifted Connor's limp body unto it. My heart sunk, I could almost literally feel the sharp dive it took in my chest, and I choked back a sob. As they came towards us, the OGB levitating the stretcher before him, my lips trembled and I felt myself beginning to lose the battle with my tears. Rigel beside me said nothing though a sideways glance revealed that he was utterly distressed. Though the two may not have liked each other, like I'd told him, Connor was his second cousin through Aunt Tonks. When at last they were standing at the steps, discovering now that the OGB had ended the spell I'd cast on Connor's clothes and that when he lost consciousness he'd reverted to actual form, I could take it no more and audibly cried. And very much the entire school-for they'd all come rushing out at the commotion on the grounds-did with me.
Or at least, that was, until the OGB declared, "He's alive, just unconscious, so I suggest you give Madam Pomfrey here room to attend to him."
Happily surprised to the extent that I was immediately weak, unable to lift my arms even at that moment, I took a second glance down at Connor and imagined I could see a tiny sliver of his eyes through his thick fringe of eyelashes and the mist of his breath. Even Rigel beside me exclaimed in a happy gasp, "What?"
Madam Pomfrey at once pounced on Connor with her wand and the OGB with her tongue.
"How dare you, Severus? How dare you-knowing full well that someone out there is after Magnolia-send them out to detention in the snow? How can you hate someone so much? What has Harry Potter ever, ever done to you? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! And his wife, what on earth did Hermione Granger ever do to you other than top your classes? You could have killed their child tonight! You could have had to face them, like I have to Nymphadora Lupin, and explain why their child is dead! Or is as good as!"
Weakly, numbly, he replied, "He's not dead."
She raged, "But he could have been! What kind of monster are you to do this to children? What kind of man takes out his petty grudges on children? If Harry Potter kills you tomorrow I shall not be sorry for it. If Mrs Lupin has you sent to Azkaban tomorrow I shall not shed a tear! You could have killed their children!"
His face suddenly became a mask, blank and forbidding and he went silent. Neither speaking nor moving, he looked on as Madam Pomfrey attended to Connor, raging all the while, ("I know you don't like Remus, but his son? He's fourteen years old; he doesn't know a damned thing about you and his father!") and we stared at them, shocked. None of us had ever seen Madam Pomfrey rage at anyone save for accidents that were their own fault, but here she was deconstructing Professor Snape, feared and respected Potions Master, Second War "Hero", as if he was just a naughty boy. And it did not end until at last she said, exasperated, "I need to get the boy to the Infirmary, let us through!"
The crowd of students parted at once, clearing a space down the middle that went all the way to the stairs inside where many of the school ghosts had gathered, the portraits peering down on all. Madam Pomfrey then took control of the stretcher and sent it in before her, while all who could on either side craned their necks to get a good look at Connor. Camilla had to be held back again from going after him, still crying, not caring for the looks her Housemates were giving her. But then Madam Pomfrey, nearly to the stairs, called back slightly hoarse, "Come along, Miss Potter, you were out in that weather too and I need to check you up as well."
Rigel plainly refused to let me go as I turned and followed her in and no one tried to stop him. Seeing this I took hold of Camilla's hand at the door and pulled her after me. Connor was her boyfriend, she should be there too.
We were almost to the stairs when someone brushed past me on his way to the stairs to the dungeons, head bent and looking for the world like something broken. It was the OGB.
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