A Sea Change

Chapter 11:

Sunday, 5 November

 

It was a cold, clear day; the wind whistled through the little stand of trees and around the corners of the grey stone shepherd’s hut. It whistled through the dark hair and down the collar of the small, dark woman crouched in the grass, but she did not shiver or move to a more sheltered spot. Nor did she use a warming charm; such things could be detected.

Gwynneth sat motionless in the patch of tall grass, scanning the bushes and surrounding landscape for movement of any kind. Her wand (Sirius’s wand, to be accurate, but he never used it any more) poised in her hand, she watched with a quiet smile as Harry moved stealthily into her view from behind a large boulder. He clearly didn’t know she was watching him; he stopped, almost totally exposed to view, and straightened up.

He turned away from her, looking into the copse on the other side of the Hut. Pointing her wand, she muttered the words they’d agreed on. With a yell of surprise, he fell to the ground, invisible Conjured ropes tangled around his wrists and ankles.

A rustle of branches from off to her left: she turned, a bit too quickly, and her boot kicked a stone, shoving it against another stone. The noise was hardly noticeable, but she knew someone would notice, and froze again. Too late: a shrieking avalanche of high-pitched wailing engulfed her, shocking, painfully loud. She gasped, covered her ears, tried to stay hidden, but the sound was unbearable. She yelled “Stop!” and rolled out into the open. The noise stopped.

Moody instantly appeared from around the corner of the Hut, and strode over to her, shouting, “Wrong move, lassie! What could you have done that would be better than breaking cover?” He stood before her, waiting for an answer, a grim set to his jaw.

“I could Disapparate, or maybe—could I have used a Silencing Charm? I was not thinking. I had heard about the Sound Curse, but I’d never felt it before.”

“A Silencing Charm would have worked, but then you couldn’t have heard anything at all. Disapparating would have been your best choice—to where?”

She was on firmer ground here: “To a point just behind the attacker, wand out, and Stun,” she recited quickly.

“You’ll do,” he growled amiably. They stood listening for a few seconds, hearing nothing, except a mild complaint from Harry.

“D’you think you could let me up now? I can’t reach my wand. Well done, Gwen; I thought sure you were over in the trees, and….”

“Hush, laddie—your godfather’s still out there somewhere, and we need to find him before he ambushes us….”

“Tag—you’re It!” There was a slight quiver of the air as Sirius shed his No-Shape and tapped Moody on the shoulder. His eyes were dancing with mischief and he grinned triumphantly at them all. “Can we stop for lunch now? I knew all I’d have to do was wait for you to start teaching, and you’d forget about being a target.”

Gwen and Sirius had been here for three weeks, working down Moody’s list with lightning speed. Gwen now had a fairly impressive repertoire of stunning, disabling and immobilising spells, a few more powerful curses, and a reviving charm. She could Summon objects, fly reasonably well on a broomstick, and Apparate; she knew enough beginning jujitsu that she could punch and kick from several positions, and escape from quite a few holds.

Stalking, as they had just been demonstrating in a game Sirius called “Last-Man-Standing Hide-and-Seek”, was her favourite activity. Moody had been impressed.

She strode quickly over to Harry, spoke the words that freed him, and put out a hand to help him to his feet, as Sirius always did for her, after he’d thrown her. This was the first day that Moody had visited; it was a Sunday, so he’d brought Harry along. Gwen felt eager to show her new skills off to Moody, and to make friends with Harry.

Harry grinned ruefully and took her hand, letting her pull him up. “I still don’t know how you managed to get to where you were from the trees—didn’t I see you run off that way? “

“Yes, you did, but Sirius says you should never stay where they think you’ll be. I crawled back here as soon as I reached the first bit of cover.”  She replaced the wand in her sleeve as Harry brushed the twigs and bits of grass from his jeans.

Sirius and Moody led the way into the Hut, and Sirius bustled efficiently around the kitchen, finding cups and plates, setting the remains of a ham on the table. “Harry, can you put out some bread, and get the mustard? Gwen can make the tea.”

Moody was still staring at Sirius, muttering something about “no-shape” and grinning. He clumped over to the nearest chair and sat down, his legs stretched out in front of him, and watched as the others prepared lunch.

“Dumbledore told me you were coming into a very interesting period. All sorts of new powers, he said. Full of surprises, he said. Mind telling me how you happened onto invisibility? Handy trick to know.”

Sirius, who had been carving slices off the ham by pointing his finger where he wanted the cuts to be, looked up and shook his head. “Got that one out of a book. But after Padfoot, and the falcon-shape, all I had to do was read it through; it’s just another shape-shift. The principles are exactly the same. Very useful, though.” He grinned gleefully and handed round the plate of ham.

Moody took it, and grunted. “What d’you put it down to? Years to think through it all, in prison? You were in solitary, weren’t you.”

“I didn’t think through much of anything in prison, except keeping them out of my head; that was full-time. Azkaban isn’t proper solitude, though, not with all the Dementors trying to get into your thoughts. And being on the run—you don’t actually think, in those circumstances.”

Sirius held out his cup as Gwen poured tea. He thought with surprise, and some satisfaction, that he really didn’t mind Moody talking about all this, now. Progress. He could drink his tea and discuss his years of despair with some equanimity.

“No—it wasn’t until I got out, and Harry rescued me—“ he shot a smile across the table to Harry, who blushed—“and Remus took me in, that things started to work properly again. All that talk you hear about going off into a cave or something to gather power—I don’t believe it. I don’t… care much for solitude, myself.”

He glanced around the little table with a grin of satisfaction. Gwen, Harry, Moody: part of his own network of Secret-Keepers. No, solitude hadn’t done much for him; he was a Pack animal. You needed to have someone to do magic for, didn’t you.

It had been a long morning: Moody had put Gwen through her paces while Sirius stood by, proudly and a bit anxiously. There’d been a vigorous hand-to-hand sparring session (by this time, Gwen had completely overcome her tendency to bite when she was caught by surprise), then rapid-fire questions and answers, which Gwen had enjoyed immensely. Harry was awed by her lack of shyness. She didn’t even mind giving the occasional wrong answer. They’d finished with the stalking game. 

Harry spread mustard on a slice of bread and let the talk flow over him; he was pleasantly tired and content to be at home. The first thing he’d done when they arrived was to look at the clock on the mantel: the hands labelled “Moony” and “Andie” pointed to “Work;” the hands for Padfoot and Harry pointed, as he knew they would, to “Home.”

The sight had kept him grinning all morning, and now, as he thought about it again, he glanced, as Sirius had done, at the people around the table—his table—and felt a huge, warm surge of happiness welling up inside him. He took an enormous bite of his sandwich and listened to Sirius and Moody discussing the morning’s activities. 

After a few moments, he noticed Gwen watching him quietly, as she ate; he wondered what she was thinking. He wondered about her a lot, actually. He cleared his throat, swallowed and spoke.

“So, how do you like the Hut? This is where we live, mostly. Remus and Andie come back in the summer; it’s cool when everyone’s here together.”

“I like it very much. It smells good here and the clouds are beautiful. I like the strange animals. I’d never seen sheep. The water was a surprise; I’ve never seen such small water. It’s a very good place, quite mysterious.” She sipped her tea and continued to look intently at him, clearly also wondering.

“Harry, I do not know how to regard you.  Are you a child? Or are you a young man?” She glanced over at Sirius and Moody, who were sharing a joke about something. “They treat you with great gentleness, and yet you are nearly as tall as they are. Things were different, before. Males, the powerful ones, used to drive the younger ones to the edges….” She frowned, thinking how to phrase her questions, finally giving up with a very human shrug.  “I know it must be different for humans.”

Harry shrugged too, an echo of hers. “Mostly, I guess, I’m still a kid—child, I mean. People generally don’t shove their kids out, humans don’t. And Sirius, he was my real dad’s best friend, so he treats me like his own son. Human parents, I think, at least some of them, feel protective of their kids all their lives—my friend Ron has grown-up brothers, and his mum still treats them like kids.”

He grinned suddenly.  She was so very pretty. It was odd, but exhilarating, to be sitting here, feeling so comfortable, talking to her like an equal—not as kid-to-adult. Her enormous dark eyes searched his face, wanting him, Harry, to explain the world to her! He felt protective: he wanted teach her, to tell her the real truth about everything in the world; to help her understand. He suddenly decided that, the next Hogsmeade weekend that came along, he’d buy a new hand for their clock, with “Gwen” on it. He wanted to buy it himself….

“I feel like I’m almost ready to be an adult, but there’s so much I need to learn. And I don’t want to give up having Sirius look after me…I want to be in the Pack forever.” He stopped, suddenly embarrassed. “I guess that proves I’m still a kid. I want it both ways.”

He stood up, collecting everyone’s empty plates and cups.

Moody stirred and stretched, wincing a bit. “Right, then, let’s see a bit of flying before the lad and I go back to the school. Broomsticks?” They trooped out the door, collecting broomsticks as they went out.

Moody plucked disdainfully at a projecting twig on Remus’s old broom before handing it to Gwen. “Shown the lass how to dogfight?”

“We haven’t tried it; not much point with only the two of us. Easy enough to learn, though.” Sirius cupped his hands and stared into them, Conjuring a tangle of red ribbons. He handed them round, one to each person, speaking to Gwen as he did so. “Here; stick this into your belt, in the back. You try to steal everyone else’s ribbon while protecting your own. Winner is the one with the most ribbons, after, what, fifteen minutes?”

“Better make it ten; Harry has a couple of kids to help with lessons at two o’clock, and he’ll want to clean up a bit, I think.”

Sirius grinned at Harry, whose shirt was muddy and grass-stained, and whose hair was sticking out in even more different ways than usual. “Well, there’s no disgrace in being captured by Gwen; she’s the best stalker I’ve ever seen, for three weeks’ experience. Never mind, lad. now’s your chance to put us all to shame.”

He pushed off from the ground and circled the Hut, yelling back to the others: “Can’t catch me!”

Moody watched him disappear around the corner and shook his head, growling. “Bloody big kid—thinks it’s all a game. Course, it is… but it could save your life someday.” He waved his arm at Harry and Gwen. “Go on, you two, after him!” And he pushed off behind them.

Dogfighting, a standard warm-up activity for Quidditch teams, was old news to Harry; he decided to stalk Sirius for a bit, just to see how fast the old ‘family’ broom was…. Sirius was using one that the whole Pack used and nobody really claimed. Harry had brought his Firebolt, of course; Moody had told him they’d be flying. Yeah, he’d have Sirius’s ribbon first….

Sirius proved to be more difficult to catch than Harry had anticipated: the old broom wasn’t very fast, but Sirius had a nasty diagonal roll he could do which protected his back, and Harry could never anticipate where he would come up. He began to worry when Sirius rolled completely under him and came up right behind him—only a fierce burst of speed saved his own ribbon that time. He doubled back and decided to try for Gwen.  She wouldn’t yet know such devious measures.

Gwen and Moody appeared to be jockeying for position, each trying to fly slightly behind the other, clearly impossible. Moody’s broom, Harry knew, was incredibly fast, though it looked old and nondescript; he wondered what extra spells were in it. They flew in front of him on a descending  path; he grinned suddenly and dived beneath them both, coming up on Moody’s other side and making a grab for his ribbon. Moody shot off like a bolt of lightning, laughing at him, heading off after Sirius.

Harry quickly readjusted, eying Gwen. She was ready for him. Diving straight for Harry, she reached out to catch his ribbon, just as Harry swerved away. She made a desperate lunge with both hands, trying to stop him getting away, leaning far to the side. Her fingers brushed the tips of his broom’s twigs. The extra stretch was a mistake she couldn’t recover from. She  overbalanced and fell.  Harry turned quickly, partly to protect his back, and saw her hit the roof of the Hut and slide to the ground.

He caught the loose broom, then glanced across the burn, where Moody was chasing Sirius into the trees. He circled back to the ground, to where Gwen struggled to sit up.

Something was wrong.

There was terror in her eyes; her whole body was trembling. She pushed herself into a half-sitting position, and gasped with pain. “I don’t know what’s wrong; my leg will not work; I am useless…” Slowly, she lay back down on her side and kept trembling, fists clenched, her breathing shallow and rapid.

Awkwardly, Harry brushed her hair back from her face and looked down at her legs. One leg was twisted; broken, he thought. Easily enough mended.… “Never mind, Gwen; Moody can help you, he knows how to set bones. Hang on, will you? Just don’t move, OK?”

She gave no sign of having heard him.

Harry climbed back on his broomstick and took off after Moody and Sirius, shouting.

                  *********************************************

By the time they reached her, she had stopped trembling; eyes half closed, she lay so still that for a second Harry was afraid she had died. She made no response, not even when Sirius took her by the shoulder and called her name.

“She’s shuttin’ down, it’s what animals do when they’re hurt. Like shock. Makes it easier to die, when they can’t hunt for food any more, or run from enemies…Seen it before.  We should have been expectin’ something like this.”  Moody rolled her onto her back and grasped her injured leg, moving it gently into a more natural-looking position. He took out his wand and muttered a few phrases. Gwen blinked.

“That’s mended it, but I think it’ll take her a while to come out of the state she’s in. Take her inside and get her warm.” Sirius lifted her gently, and she began trembling again. She made a brief effort to struggle free, then collapsed passively in his arms.

They went inside; Harry flung back the comforter on the big bed in the main room, and backed away. Sirius placed Gwen on the bed and drew the cover up to her chin; Moody stared balefully at the two of them, hands on his hips.

“You know, this sort of reaction could be a problem. Can’t have her folding up like this when she gets hurt; wonder if it’s physical, or if she can be trained out of it….”

 He continued staring down at the bed, where Gwen lay in silent apathy and Sirius knelt on the floor beside her, stroking her hair.

“Sirius?” Harry cleared his throat. “What about chocolate? Or maybe a Cheering Charm? There ought to be something we could do….” He subsided, embarrassed.

“Chocolate—worth a try.” Sirius quickly stood and strode to the kitchen; there was the sound of a cupboard door being slammed, and he was back, tearing the wrapper off a large bar of chocolate.

“Here, love, try this—it should make you feel better….” He pulled down on her chin, causing her mouth to open just a bit, and laid a small piece of the chocolate on her tongue. She closed her mouth as the others watched tensely; slowly her expression changed. Awarenes returned to her eyes and she coughed. “What happened? Why am I eating chocolate? Is there any more?”

There was a collective sigh of relief; Moody clapped Sirius on the shoulder. “You do lead an interesting life. See what you can make of all this and let me know. I’ll get back to you when I can.” He picked up his rucksack and looked around the little Hut, his eyes resting on Gwen, who was pushing back the thick comforter and trying to sit up. “Lassie, you rest awhile, then talk this over with your lad, here. I don’t want to lose you.” He walked out the door and down the path, toward the trees where he would Disapparate.

Harry watched as Moody strode away, then turned to Gwen. “Are you going to be all right? I should get back to the school, but—Sirius…” He knelt down on the floor beside his godfather, anxiety in his eyes and his voice. “She’s OK, isn’t she? I mean, that was pretty scary….”

Sirius took a deep breath and suddenly remembered that he still had the chocolate bar in his hand. He broke it into three pieces, and gave Gwen and Harry each a piece. “I think we could all use some cheering up; here. Yeah, scary.” He bit into the remaining piece and sank from his knees to a cross-legged sitting position on the floor.

Gwen reached out her hand to stroke his head, and looked at them both with concern. “Why are you frightened? Can I help?” She paused for a moment, then: “Why am I in bed?”

                                        **************************

5 November, evening; a letter.

Hello Harry—

Gwen’s finally asleep. We sat together and talked the whole thing through after you left until I was convinced that she understood. I know you’re worried, and Moody too, so show him this if you like; you will most likely see him before I will.

She does remember what happened. It took a bit of time. All she remembered at first was the feel of her fingers touching the twigs on your broomstick, but as we talked it began coming back to her bit by bit. It took us a while to translate her feelings from seal memory to human speech, but I think it’s finally straightened out.

It just never occurred to her that healing of any kind was possible; the subject never came up before. (We seem to be a remarkably healthy lot.) She remembers how her leg hurt, and being desperate to stand up; then she thinks she remembers not being able to swim and just wanting to sleep.

We talked for a long time about healing; I found a scratch on one of her knuckles and applied a minor healing charm to it: she was fascinated and delighted. I think it all soaked in somehow. Moody was worried about what might happen in a dangerous situation, and there’s no way to really check this out—I don’t intend to let her break another bone to test her reaction, as she suggested—but I know she understands. She asked about Moody’s wooden leg, and the scar on your forehead; I think it’s all coming together somehow.

It was great to see you today. What with all the excitement I didn’t have the chance to tell you so, or hear your news. How’s your tutoring going? Can you do all that and keep up with your O.W.L. work? I worry that Dumbledore and the rest are piling things on you. Don’t get me wrong: I’m enormously proud of you, but I hope you’re not too busy to have some fun.

Say hullo to Hermione and Ron for me.

Love.

He watched as the letter flamed briefly and disintegrated, and the ashes sank through the bottom of the cup.

“Sirius?” He turned.

Gwen was awake.  “Are you writing to Harry?”

“I am; I’m telling him you’re all right. He was worried when you went into your… panic mode, whatever it was.”

“I know he was; I know you all were. And I was worried when I saw your fear. I wanted to help you.” She lay silent for a few moments.

Sirius leaned over the bed and stroked her hair. “I know you did; I think it means you’re human. I imagine seals worry for each other, but there’s really no way they can heal each other’s wounds, is there.”

Gwen shook her head, sadly. “I think I’d be afraid to be a seal now. Humans carry so much in their heads…. I like knowing things, and playing all the games we play. I like watching all the different people we know. I like knowing how to…. Humans should never have to be frightened, I think. We can fix things, can’t we?”

Sirius sighed. “Oh, yes, we can fix things. We’re enormously clever. But we can’t fix everything. And so many people use their cleverness to hurt each other…. Humans have to be afraid of each other; that’s something seals don’t have to worry about.”

He looked so unhappy that she sat up in the big bed and put her arms around him. She wasn’t sure exactly why she did this, but she knew it was the right thing to do.