The Song of the Trees

Chapter Ten: A Slytherin, A Gryffindor

The boards creaked sinisterly under Harry's feet as he paced in his living room; the feverish energy boiling in his veins made him unable to sit still for more than two minutes in a row. He had decided against going out for one of his usual strolls after his eventful afternoon at Malfoy Manor, thinking it was best to act as normally as possible for the time being -- especially since Lance now knew something was terribly wrong with him. However, he had not foreseen how difficult it would be for him to stick to that decision. The velvety sky spangled with twinkling stars and the soft breeze brushing against his windows were a real provocation, and he had ended up closing his shutters and his curtains in order to stop himself coming back to the window, again and again, like a thirsty beast drawn by the sound of running water.

Harry was a little alarmed at his own reaction; it evoked nothing less than withdrawal. His hands were shaking and sweat was forming in droplets on his brow. His pacing was getting quicker and jerkier, as if his legs had a mind of their own and were trying to escape his will and run as fast as possible out of the flat and into the open air. He could tell that a little of the power that had run through him in waves when he had transformed, a few hours ago, was still lingering in his limbs... He knew that it was the source of the fever that had been consuming him ever since he had come back to the flat. Urging him to get out. To run. That he was sure of: he needed to run -- but to where? He had to flee -- from what? To search -- for what? He wasn't sure -- he didn't know -- the answers were there, within his reach, but the words leaked between his fingers as soon as he tried to grab them. Those voices, that were both strange and familiar, weren't loud enough... These instincts that prompted him to run, run and never stop, weren't strong enough... He couldn't just give in to them, without knowing first what was what he was looking for, or trying to escape.

He ran a slightly trembling hand through his hair. Merlin, he was going crazy...

"I need to figure it out," he whispered aloud. Yes. It was becoming an absolute necessity. It was no longer a vague curiosity that urged him to discover what he really was: it was indispensable for his sanity. He wouldn't be able to go on like that for very long. One day, he would snap. Abruptly. And given the recent events -- Malfoy's brutal murder -- he could see only two possible outcomes for such an occurrence: his death, or others'. If he had to choose he'd rather survive, but the idea of going insane and killing people left and right, until he was cornered and finished off like a wild animal, didn't hold much appeal to him either.

"Where should I start looking, though?" he murmured to himself, finding oddly reassuring the sound of his own hoarse voice in the heavy silence. "The Hogwarts Library is no good... All information seems to have been erased from the books... The portraits go berserk when I do so much as mention the Forbidden Forest... I guess I'll have to go back into the Forest myself..."

Harry stopped in his pacing, and as the boards groaned under his weight one last time before falling silent, he was able to hear the blood pounding unnaturally fast and loud in his ears. There. He had his answer. He should go back into the Forest. He had been in there a lot of times, so it wouldn't be a problem.

Then why the hell was he so scared?

He was ashamed to admit it, even to himself; he was absolutely terrified at the thought of going back into the Forest. It was ludicrous! After all he didn't have a problem with walking in the shade of even the most hateful trees a few months ago. Had the fear that impregnated the walls of Hogwarts finally influenced him? But no, that was a stupid idea... Hogwarts had not begun to fear the Forest two days ago; it was a very, very old dread, so why would he not have been affected at all as a student? Why the hell would he be scared now, all of sudden?!

"I guess it's something to do with me too," he concluded bitterly, as his tense, nearly frantic state and the many questions swirling around in his mind caused his temper to rise. "The world is perfectly normal, I'm just the freak who does everything wrong. Nothing out of the ordinary, actually!"

With an angry gesture of his left arm, he knocked over a tall candlestick standing on his coffee table, next to a pile of files he was supposed to go through and synthesise for the following day. The candlestick neatly broke into three pieces as it hit the ground with a loud chiming sound. Harry impatiently kicked away one of the pieces and watched it roll across the floor and under a squat sideboard. Dust was rising in clouds as the bronze stick rolled over the spotted floor... When was the last time this place had been cleaned up?

When Hermione came here to do the housework, probably...

Harry turned away, his shoulders slumped as he pushed the picture of Hermione dressed in old maculated clothes with a scarf over her hair out of his mind. Now was not the moment to regret his past friendship with her. This part of his life was over, an arrow with a tail of green feathers had put an abrupt end to it. But even so, he wouldn't have minded her help right now; after all, as an Unspeakable, she might have heard things he would never hear anywhere else...

But then again, Hermione's help was not an option. He would have to solve the mystery of his identity by himself, which meant he would have to go back in the Forest, eventually -- but not now. Not yet. He wasn't ready. He -- he couldn't -- it wasn't even a question of courage, he knew his legs would refuse to carry him further than the edge of the Forest. Maybe next time he would transform...?

Yes! That was it. Under his wolf form, it was likely that he would no longer feel the influence of the castle. Of course he doubted he would be able to voluntarily transform again, since he had no clue how he had done it at Malfoy Manor -- not to mention that it would not be a wise thing to do with Lance as his permanent partner -- so he would have to wait for the next full moon. That was a week from now.

Halting again, Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A great weight seemed to have lifted off his chest; he had a plan. He was no longer walking blindly in the darkness and wondering what on earth was happening to him. He was not passively accepting his condition: he was being active again.

A slight smile grazed his lips as he distractedly reached for the whisky bottle that sat on his coffee table. Only a few drops of the amber liquid remained in the bottom of the bottle; he drained them in one gulp. Glass met wood with a loud chink as he put the empty bottle back on the table, and the clear sound seemed to shake a little the stifling silence that lay over the darkened flat. His spirits rising, Harry grabbed the first file on the high pile and sat on the couch, knowing that at least the tedious task would get him through the night.

"Being a freak has its advantages," he muttered as he opened the file. He took a deep breath, as if preparing to dive into a bottomless precipice, and started to work.

***

It was five in the morning when he finished the synthesis of the last file. The fever of the night had dropped, leaving him calm and oddly refreshed. He gathered the files in a pile again and used his wand to shrink it until it fitted in his pocket; he would carry it at work later. He then went inside his kitchen to chew unenthusiastically on a slice of bread. He needed less food than most men his age, but if he was unfortunate enough to forget to eat, his carcass of a body would not resist very long. Harry thoughtfully contemplated his hands for a little while. From their originally thin form they had gone bony, with long, thin and flexible fingers; the tendons on the back of his hand appeared at the slightest contraction of his fingers, and under the pale skin ran several blue veins, unnaturally visible. It was strange to think those hands belonged to a twenty-one year old.

"Okay, try not to starve to death, that would be a good start," Harry muttered to himself, a grimace of distaste on his face as his eyes swept over his own skinny figure. And after a slight hesitation, he gulped down with some effort the rest of the bread.

At seven, having breakfasted, showered and thrown on his back some fresh clothes, Harry gladly stepped out of his grim flat and double-locked the door. He was not used to coming down the stairs at this hour -- usually he would go to the Ministry straight from wherever he had spent the night -- so he was surprised to meet a few of his neighbours on his way down. A couple of children with schoolbags hanging from their shoulders flattened themselves against the wall to let him through, their eyes wide in apprehension as they eyed that pale and thin stranger wrapped in an immense black raincoat. If Harry was a little startled by their evident fear at the sight of him, he found even less enjoyable the reaction of some old lady on the third floor, who stared him up and down with a frown and answered Harry's cautious "Morning" by a shrill, "Do you youngsters think you'll be more attractive by starving yourselves?"."

"Way to start a good day," Harry grumbled through clenched teeth as he forcefully pulled on the handle of the heavy door at the bottom of the stairs. Once in the courtyard he shot a quick glance at the cottony fog that hid the sky from him, then, shielded from prying eyes by the gloomy darkness of the November morning, he shut his eyes and prepared to Apparate... If one could call 'Apparition' these moments when he travelled through the skies, weightless and inconsistent, carried by winds and clouds.

Had he kept his eyes open, perhaps he would have seen the figure crouching among the leafless plants of a nearby flower bed, drowned into obscurity, perfectly immobile as it stared intently at him.

But Harry did not notice anything as he concentrated on his destination. As expected, a gust of wind came to envelop him and he dissolved in it, smoothly, naturally...

He appeared in the Atrium, which was already buzzing with life and activity despite the early hour, and for once, his entry wasn't followed by curious eyes. On his way to the lifts, he caught whispered conversations about Malfoy's death and the beast he was keeping in his tower; actually, it seemed to be what everyone was talking about. Malfoy was dead. Some sounded relieved, some shamelessly happy, some worried about what was to become of the family's fortune. Apparently Malfoy had been in debt to quite a few people -- which was the probable consequence of his being cleared of all charges in the various trials he had been involved in.

The conversation was animated in the small room where a dozen Ministry workers were waiting for a lift. A few people even asked Harry his opinion on the matter, knowing that he had been the one to report Malfoy's death; Harry had to suppress a smirk when he answered he wasn't allowed to divulge information. He had not thought of Malfoy's death since the day before, as the deepening mystery surrounding his identity had been his main preoccupation; but now he couldn't help experiencing a kind of fierce joy when he recalled the terror in Malfoy's grey eyes before his throat was ripped open. And judging from what he was hearing around him, he doubted many people would sincerely mourn the little piece of garbage.

As if in answer to that last thought, the murmurs abruptly died away around him and Harry's wandering eyes fell on a thin and haughty figure, dressed in black, who had just entered the room. His eyes met a pair of icy blue ones, set in a pale and pointed face that was framed by a heavy mass of ashen blonde hair, tied back in a severe bun. At once the woman, that he recognised as Narcissa Malfoy, hardened her gaze and her mouth thinned. Lifting her chin even higher than before, Mrs. Malfoy walked up to him, followed by all the guests who had been around her son's table the day before, and who had come into the room right behind her.

People hurried out of the way as Mrs. Malfoy joined the young Auror, her black but elegant clothes swirling slightly in her wake. He noted that her eyes were dry but slightly bloodshot.

"Mr. Potter." She spat his name with all the disgust she could muster without losing her dignified pose.

"Mrs. Malfoy," Harry answered coolly as he locked gazes with the widow. "What can I do for you?"

Narcissa's delicately chiselled features were distorted in an expression of supreme disdain when she replied. "Apparently, you thought fit to take away our wands. And since I have no intention to live like a Muggle just to please a Ministry employee, I have come here to complain to your superior."

She paused, and her last sentence came out as a barely audible murmur; yet the hatred dripping from each of her intonations was oddly perceptible. "You do not know who you are defying."

"I am not defying anybody," Harry said calmly, not bothering to keep his voice down. "Ministry employees have orders, and my orders were to take away your wands; given the circumstances, and the way the situation complicated itself, I clearly couldn't give them back to you without referring to my superior first."

"Why you little--" blurted out Vincent Mastine, the Auror who had been invited at lunch by Malfoy the previous day.

"If you want your wands back," Harry went on loudly, silencing the other Auror, "you'll need to ask them to Gawain Robards. Second floor," he added, mockingly obliging.

Mastine's jaw contracted visibly and he clenched his fists. Harry thought for a minute that Mastine would fling himself at him and, in an almost negligent gesture, his hand came up to draw back the hem of his cloak that masked the wand hanging from his waist. His eyes remained planted in the other Auror's as he did so. Mastine flinched but didn't drop his gaze to the ground -- acknowledging the silent threat but refusing to bend to it.

A cool feminine voice sounded in the room, and its everlasting serenity contrasted so oddly with the ambient tension that, although it wasn't loud, everyone started.

"Atrium."

Both Aurors interrupted their staring contest as everyone rushed to the lifts that had come into view. Harry turned his back on the group without wondering any further and slipped inside a lift that was already half full. Narcissa Malfoy and the ten guests trotting on her heels like a brood of lost chicken followed him inside.

As the lift noisily made its way up, Harry couldn't hold back the amused smirk at seeing the efforts of Mrs. Malfoy's little crowd to ignore him with as much dignity as they could muster, considering they were all pressed against each other in the crowded lift. Blaise Zabini was soon grimacing with disgust as a fat and sweaty man, bearing an impressive moustache, decided to chat him up after jovially apologising for standing on his toes. Millicent Bulstrode towered over everyone, her husband included, by several inches; a fact that seemed to immensely disgruntle said husband. Daphne Greengrass on the other hand, being one of the smallest occupants of the lift, was in constant danger of being crushed -- and by the time they had reached the floor immediately above the Atrium, she looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Oh yes, Draco Malfoy's friends were offering a rather amusing view to Harry. The only one who actually managed to stay calm and composed was his mother... Narcissa Malfoy held her head high, her gaze lost into space and her pale face absolutely expressionless. Harry's smirk faded when he remembered that she was without a husband and without a son now. A nasty little voice muttered in his head, Better be alone than in bad company... However, for the first time since he had finally given Malfoy the death he deserved, he felt a slight pang of guilt.

As if she had felt his gaze on her, Narcissa Malfoy abruptly turned her head and stared right back at him, and Harry experienced a shock as he met two eyes brimming over with a violent, murderous fury. Anyone could have told that she was after whoever had shed her son's blood, and she would not rest until they were dead. Harry had not been scared of another human being for years -- but there, as he stared into Narcissa Malfoy's face, he felt the once familiar feeling of icy dread settle in the pit of his stomach. He knew he could easily overpower her in terms of magic, but he had none of the rage that showed in that woman's blue eyes; and he knew how much the desire to win was important in any magical fight. It often made the difference between victory and defeat.

He had no desire whatsoever to hurt a woman who had already lost everything because of him; he had not sunk that low. She, on the other hand, had nothing to lose. She was dangerous. She should never learn that he was her son's murderer, no matter how much Malfoy deserved the fate he had known. Harry applied himself to ridding his face of all traces of guilt or unease, setting a blank, undecipherable expression against her piercing gaze... Mrs. Malfoy stared unblinkingly at him for a few terribly long minutes, and Harry barely succeeded in restraining himself from looking away -- until the plump moustached man inadvertently pushed him as he tried to extricate his vast body from the still crowded lift, and into the corridor of the third floor. Harry felt a little ashamed to admit to himself that he was glad to have a pretext for finally breaking eye-contact.

He didn't meet Mrs. Malfoy's eyes again until they reached the following floor, where the Aurors Headquarters were situated.

Harry managed to get out of the lift first, and he soon heard the eleven guests of the late Malfoy heir following suit. He did his best to ignore them as he walked up to the Headquarters, but he thought he could still feel Narcissa Malfoy's eyes burning the back of his neck.

He had just entered the Headquarters, where only a few Aurors were gathered -- most of them just recently qualified, since the elder Aurors liked their comfort and working so early was apparently not considered as 'comfortable' -- when Lance's voice called his name from his left.

Inwardly wondering what kind of circumstance could have prompted Lance to get out of bed before eight, Harry turned to his team mate. He quickly noted that the other Auror obviously hadn't got much sleep the previous night. His normally pale skin had an unhealthy yellowish glow, and his wide eyes expressed that feverish activity that often glints in the eyes of people desperately needing rest but not actually feeling sleepy. Lance glanced behind Harry and caught a glimpse of the little group that they had seen the day before, gathered around Malfoy's table.

"They're here. Good," he said curtly, addressing Harry once more. "I've spoken to Hampton, who referred to Robards, who said you were to give them their wands back. I've checked them -- no illegal spell in the past week. That's all we can do for now."

Harry nodded, a little unsettled by Lance's brisk tone.

"You -- err -- you've already sorted everything out, I see," he noted, somewhat shyly. "Sorry, I should've arrived sooner."

"Don't worry about it," Lance interrupted with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I couldn't sleep anyway..."

"Now that I'm here you can go get some sleep though," Harry suggested.

For a fleeting second, Lance's pallid face seemed to darken with hostility, or fear -- Harry couldn't exactly tell. The shadow was gone in a blink of the eye, though, as if Lance had forcefully pushed to the back of his mind the shocking memories of their adventures in Malfoy's tower, and he merely nodded at Harry's suggestion.

"Common cubicle," he said as he walked past him and towards the exit.

"Okay, thanks," Harry called at Lance's retreating back. To his great surprise, Lance slowed down and looked over his shoulder; and there was a little of the old nonchalance in his voice when he answered, "You're welcome."

Once the door had closed behind Lance, Harry turned to Narcissa Malfoy and her guests again.

"Apparently I'm to give you your wands back," he said, keeping his voice as neutral as possible. "Please follow me."

He wheeled about and, the eleven visitors on his heels, walked up to the cubicle Lance had indicated. Most of the space in the room was taken up by a long table, around which stood a dozen of mismatched chairs; Harry held out a hand and the visitors halted.

"You stay there," he said curtly. "I'll call every one of you in turn."

He walked alone to the end of the table, where the wands had been piled in a messy heap; he quickly scanned the long list waiting next to the pile of wands: it bore the description of each wand and the name of their owner, who was expected to sign in a blank rectangle when their wand was given back to them.

Harry read aloud the first name. "Brandon, Ethan."

One by one, as Harry called their name, the visitors came to sign the parchment and Harry would run a quick test, checking that the wand they asked for was really theirs. Most of them were quiet and docile during the whole process -- signing, suffering the test and taking their wand without a word -- so much so that Harry barely paid attention to who he was talking to.

"Greengrass, Daphne."

The former Slytherin walked up to him, a sullen expression on her face, and grabbed the quill he was handing her to sign the parchment. Their fingers brushed for a quarter of second -- and at once Harry experienced a shock, similar to an electrical wave, that reverberated in his whole body.

He froze, his hand still extended, and stared at the young woman bent over her piece of parchment. As if on cue, Daphne halted in the act of writing her name and looked up, a startled expression on her features. Harry's eyes widened behind his glasses when he saw she looked as shocked as he felt. Had she experienced a similar reaction to the fleeting contact of their skins? But soon his stomach contracted with unease: she was practically devouring him with her eyes. Her whole face was alight with frightening avidity as she stared at him, apparently taking in the smallest details of his face, as if deciphering a fascinating enigma.

Her intense scrutinising was unnerving; it actually felt a little like a brutal Legilimency attack. In fact, Harry suddenly found himself throwing his thoughts and memories to the back of his mind, gathering his rather average skills in Occlumency in order to present a wall of blank indifference to Daphne's eager staring. He had no idea what this woman was after, but he had better be careful...

Daphne's expression quickly turned from excitement to puzzlement, probably from seeing Harry's face go suddenly blank. She opened her mouth to say something, but Harry tore his eyes from hers and caught sight of the quill suspended in mid air, the ink drying at the point.

"You should sign that paper, Greengrass," he said in a voice as even as he could make it. He almost kicked himself when he realised he had called her by her last name, something only Robards took the liberty of doing, but she didn't seem to have noticed. The shock she had visibly felt appeared to have left her confused and even slightly dazed, and she mechanically lowered the quill to the parchment to sign.

Harry cleared his throat and seized the next wand on the pile.

"Nine inches, beech tree, unicorn hair," he read out loud. "Is that correct?"

She mumbled her assent and he handed her the wand with his left hand, all the while drawing his own with his right. She grasped the wand handle just as Harry tightened his grip on it, so that they were both holding one extremity of the thin wooden stick. He touched her wrist with the tip of his own wand and muttered:

"Haberis Daphne Greengrass."

A blue halo shone briefly around Daphne's wand, proving that it was indeed hers. Harry quickly released her wand and sent her off with a slightly hoarse, "You can go now." He still would not look at her; and he felt an incomprehensible relief at the sound of her walking away.

With a slight shake of his head to dissipate his lingering malaise, Harry went back to the task at hand.

***

The following week was rather eventless for Harry. He and Lance had to testify for Malfoy's death, but fortunately they had had the time to think of a decent cover story; and after this single convocation the matter was definitely taken out of their hands. They were still working as team mates, and although Lance was evidently seeing Harry in a different light, he didn't let anything in his behaviour reveal that their friendship had been altered. Harry was grateful for this.

Harry's thoughts were almost constantly haunted by Daphne Greengrass's inquiring face. Why had he felt that weird shock when he had touched her? Most importantly, why had she felt it? What was the nature of this strange bond that had linked them, briefly, before Harry had gathered his Occlumency defences? He had never paid any attention to Greengrass in his school years... She used to be a Slytherin but she was not a close friend of Malfoy's. The only reason he remembered her was that her name was called immediately after Hermione's at the beginning of lessons; and if his memory was good, she wasn't very talented at magic.

A quick research had taught him that Daphne Greengrass lived on her own in a small town, several miles north of London. She was running a day nursery for magical children and apparently had no other activity. Harry somehow found difficult to picture that petite, almost frail girl taking care of babies who were always put in danger by their own magical power. Yet, apart from that, there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about Miss Daphne Greengrass.

However, as the full moon approached, and with it the time when Harry would go back in the Forest at last, the 'Daphne' mystery was pushed into the background. Harry had sent an owl to Professor McGonagall, warning her that he would transform in the Hogwarts grounds that night; she had simply replied that he was expected at breakfast in the Great Hall the following morning.

Harry felt inexplicably, stupidly, ridiculously nervous. The full moon was usually the best night of the month; a stroll in the Forest would not be enough to ruin his pleasure, would it? Of course he had no idea what he was about to discover in there... He might find there all the answers he had been looking for, just as he might find nothing at all except whispering trees and green light, and go back to the castle just as puzzled as he had been when entering the Forest. And oddly enough, he did not know which perspective appealed to him more. He was not sure he wanted to have anything to do with that... that kind -- the forgotten, the beaten, but the hateful kind -- that rejected all that he had thought he belonged to, until very recently... He thought of McGonagall, of the Hogwarts castle; he thought of Quidditch, of the Weasleys, of Dumbledore, of his parents... All things that were or used to be so important to him, and that were part of the wizarding world... Did he really want to throw that away?

His nervousness was such that, the day before the full moon, he barely paid attention to the case he and Lance were working on. They were both in the common cubicle and occupied a corner of the vast table, doing their best to ignore the constant background noise made by other Aurors pacing, discussing, laughing or yelling at clumsy apprentices -- curiously enough, one thing Harry had noticed was that the youngest Aurors always were the most odious to beginners. It usually amused him to see these colleagues of his, who were being bossed around not so long ago by everyone in the Auror Department, take it upon themselves to make the apprentices "get back into line". However, right now he wished those unfortunate novices would go and have their heads ripped off elsewhere.

"Now they are obviously magical animals... No Muggle beast would have such a peculiar behaviour. Problem is, according to the information we've gathered, they don't belong to any known kind of magical beasts. And we have to find a way to drive them away from that village, with the damage they've already caused -- Potter!"

Harry's head snapped up and he found himself looking into Lance Colman's puzzled face.

"You're useless today," Lance commented dryly. "What's on your mind?"

Harry shrugged and dropped his eyes again to the report he was supposed to be reading. "Nothing..."

"...Except tonight's transformation?"

Harry's heart missed a beat. "What?" he said, a little too quickly.

"You'd think I wouldn't notice you disappear every full moon?" Lance asked coldly. When Harry opened his mouth to answer, he added, "Don't worry, I haven't started divulging your little secrets. Be a werewolf, be an illegal Animagus, I don't care."

Harry closed his mouth and gulped down with some difficulty. He didn't try to disabuse Lance; he was rather relieved that his team mate had concluded, from their adventure in Malfoy's tower, that Harry was only an Animagus and not something more dangerous. His sensation of relief quickly disappeared when Lance spoke up again, his voice drawling a little on the words.

"...But you'd better be careful."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked through clenched teeth. "I knew you would figure it out at some point or another, but it doesn't matter as long as you're the only one to know..."

"I am touched by your trust, Harry, I really am," Lance said, and the sarcasm was clearly audible in his voice. "However... Keep in mind that you're still considered as the dangerous weirdo of the Ministry... The last thing you need is--"

Harry abruptly raised one hand and held it up, as if he had stopped himself just in time before hitting his team mate fully in the face, and Lance choked on his last words.

"Don't even think of playing that game with me, Colman," Harry hissed. Blood was pounding at his temples and filling his ears with a thunderous sound that drowned every other noise; no matter how much he had been through, there was one thing that infallibly make him literally shake with sudden fury, and it was betrayal of trust... Lance's insinuations were echoing in his ears and, although he was aware that he was slowly losing control of his emotions, he did not try to calm down. Who the hell did this little bastard think he was?

"Don't -- you -- ever -- threaten me again." Harry's raised hand curled into a fist as he spat out those words in a low voice. His left hand, under the table, was already feeling for his wand in his pocket.

Lance emitted a pitiful little squeak, and Harry distantly noticed that his team mate looked as if he was having trouble breathing. He was slowly reddening, his mouth gaping, and was desperately trying to inhale some air but couldn't seem to manage it; as if there was a hand clenched around his trachea.

"All right there, Colman?" another Auror called in a concerned voice from the other side of the room.

Lance's eyes bulged out with the effort to get some air into his lungs, and he was staring at Harry's raised fist with an expression of absolute terror on his face.

A porcelain cup exploded in an apprentice's hands, drenching her in hot coffee.

The crystal-clear chinking sound startled Harry, who in his anger had almost forgotten that he was sitting in the middle of a crowded room. The apprentice let out a cry of fright to which responded the derisive laughter and a round of applause from the other occupants of the room. In the brouhaha, Harry unclenched his hand and dropped it at his side; and at once Lance's head flew backwards, and he sucked in a sharp breath that hissed past the edge of his teeth. Harry closed his eyes for a few seconds, taking the time to bring his temper back under control as Lance coughed and massaged his throat.

"I'm out of here," Harry said at last in a low voice. Raising to his feet, he pushed the report away from him and grabbed the long coat thrown on the back of his chair. As he walked past Lance, who was rather pale and rigid-backed, he bent over and whispered in his team mate's ear:

"You be careful, Colman. Don't provoke me."

Lance's jaw clenched and his hand curled in his lap at Harry's warning, but he had no other reaction. Straightening again, Harry spun on his heel to find himself face to face with Robards' secretary. She was standing there with a heavy pile of folders in her arms, round-eyed and open-mouthed.

"You're... err... leaving?" she asked timidly.

"Err... yeah, I need to leave a little earlier today, I've got an appointment at St. Mungo's," Harry lied. He wasn't normally supposed to leave the Ministry before a couple of hours at least, and the secretary was bound to know that. Hence the necessity to find a good excuse. "Goodbye."

He hastily walked round her, ignoring her "Hey! Wait!", wrenched the door opened and stepped out of the cubicle. His heart was still beating unnaturally fast. He really needed to get out of the building.

By the time he had reached the Atrium, he had chosen the place where he would wait for his transformation to begin, and he lost no time in Disapparating away.

He materialised again and found himself almost ankle-deep in a liquid mud. It was the first Friday of December and a stormy wind was blowing, carrying with it a harsh, forceful winter rain. The water fell unevenly, following the brutal gusts of wind, and Harry had to squint to distinguish the village of Hogsmeade behind the swinging curtains of rain. Gathering around him the long, shapeless Muggle coat that was flapping wildly in the wailing squalls, he set off towards the houses, his footsteps accompanied by the squelching noises of the mud pooling around his feet.

By the time he had reached the Main Street of the village, Harry was practically running. He hurried along the cobbled street until he found a shelter in the doorframe of the Three Broomsticks. The rain formed an almost solid wall of falling water, and the droplets slapping the cobblestones and the tiles of the roofs sounded like thousands of tiny hands indefatigably hitting drums. The resulting noise was such that Harry couldn't catch the laughter, singing and animated talking usually issuing from the Three Broomsticks. His transformation wouldn't be pleasant in such conditions... With a sigh, Harry turned his back on the storm and pushed the door of the pub open.

He stepped inside, carefully closing the door behind him; and only then did he realise that the absence of noise had not been due to the thunderous rumble of the storm: the room was completely empty, and the lack of lit candles left it drowned in a greyish gloom. Harry took a few steps in the pub, wondering why Rosmerta would have closed down in the middle of the afternoon; but his musings were interrupted by a voice much too young to belong to the middle-aged barmaid.

"We're closed!" rang out the voice.

A girl in her late teens emerged from behind the bar, hastily wiping her hands on a piece of cloth that had probably been white an hour ago. An apron was protecting her black, slightly schoolish-looking robes, and her hair was hidden under a scarf. Harry, confused, stared at her questioningly: he had never heard that Rosmerta had waitresses. And was it just his imagination, or did he remember seeing that girl somewhere...?

"We're closed," repeated the girl, giving him this bright and fake smile most shopkeepers plaster on their face when talking to customers. "The Three Broomsticks opens again tomorrow at eight, and stays open until eleven in the evening."

"Yes, I know," Harry distractedly answered. "Forgive me but I don't remember ever seeing you here," he added, before he could stop himself. "It's been a while since I last came, of course, but... Is Rosmerta...?"

"Oh, she's fine, and she still owns the pub if that's your question," the girl answered immediately, a slightly weary smile on her face. She must have heard the question quite often. "But she decided to take some rest. So I help her during the week, and I run the bar on my own in the weekends. My only time off is Friday afternoon actually."

"I see," said Harry. "Do I know you?"

The girl's eyes widened slightly. She had large honey-coloured eyes lined with thick black lashes, a surprisingly delicate feature in a face that otherwise lacked maturity: the round cheeks and the small nose, covered in freckles, were still those of a little girl. Harry also noted the pointed chin and a black strand of hair that had escaped the scarf; the more he examined her, the more convinced he was that he had already met her.

"I... don't think so," she said hesitantly. "I, hum, I've always stayed in Hogsmeade after I took my NEWTs so..."

Harry instinctively lifted a hand and brushed the strand of hair off her face to have a better look at her. The girl's cheeks turned crimson and she recoiled from his touch, making him suddenly aware of how his gesture could be interpreted. He quickly dropped his hand.

"Sorry," he hastily said. "I just... Weren't we in Hogwarts together or something? I'm pretty sure I've seen you somewhere..."

"I -- I -- oh, this is too stupid. Lumos!"

A ray of light flooded out of the girl's wand, which she had snatched from where it was tucked in her apron pocket. Harry blinked as the beam of white, crude light hit him fully in the eyes; but just as he opened his mouth to ask the waitress to put the wand down, a piercing shriek made him jump.

"Oh my God! Harry Potter?" the girl asked in a shrill voice.

"Ah -- yeah it's me -- err, if you'd be so kind to lower that thing, please --", Harry muttered as he raised his hand to shield his eyes; he was now resigned to being stared at, yet again, as if he was a two-headed chimera, but he had rather not be blinded in the process.

"Oh -- oh dear, I'm sorry--" The girl was practically stammering as she extinguished her wand and stuffed it back in the pocket of her apron. "Would you like something to drink?"

"No I -- what?"

This really was the last thing Harry expected her to say.

"A drink," the girl repeated. "I've been terribly rude to you and--"

"But you're closed," Harry pointed out, now fairly confused at the turn of events.

"Oh, but I won't ask you to pay!" the girl protested. "I'm offering you that drink. Please? I'd be honoured. Really."

Harry stared blankly at the young face, shining with hope... no morbid excitement, wariness or barely controlled fear; just hope. He swallowed hard -- he was finding difficult to say no, all of sudden.

That's how he found himself sitting at a small table, a glass of Madam Rosmerta's best Firewhisky in front of him, while the young waitress sat opposite him and warmed her hands to her large cup of tea. A single candle burning on the table enclosed them in a pool of golden light, creating a strangely intimate atmosphere.

"So," she began cheerfully, as if they were seeing each other every day, "it's been a while, hasn't it? I don't think I've seen you ever since your accident in the woods, last year."

Something clicked in the back of Harry's mind.

"Wait. You're... Romilda, is that it?" he asked uncertainly. "The girl with the Chocolate Cauldrons..."

"Full of love potion, yes," the girl mumbled, her smile a little strained all of sudden. "I guess that's what you'll always remember of me, isn't it?"

"Well, it was quite memorable," Harry replied, grinning at the memory. "So you're living here?"

Romilda nodded from behind her cup of tea.

"I've been living at a friend's house for the past year," she explained. "But he died recently... He was an old man, you know... So I found a job here."

"Isn't it a bit dull to never leave Hogsmeade?" Harry enquired. "You don't want to, I don't know... Travel a bit? Or meet new people? S'not as if the village was crowded with people your age after all..."

"Yes, I get a bit lonely sometimes," she agreed. "But I'm too damn sentimental... Waking up and seeing Hogwarts in the distance when I look out the window... I don't think I could go without it." She smiled and tilted her head sideways. "I need my castle in the background."

Harry smiled back, amused at the girl's candour.

"And you don't think I'm a complete freak?" he asked, a little brusque.

Her smile faded and, for a second, a shadow altered her juvenile features. It went as quickly as it had come, though not before Harry had the time to notice it; and it was with a joyous smile that Romilda raised her cup at him.

"Nope," she replied gaily. "Once a fan, always a fan. I haven't changed much since the Chocolate Cauldrons, Harry. And to my knowledge, you haven't changed much from the man who defeated You-Know-Who."

"Who knows?" said Harry quietly.

Silence fell between them. Romilda was shooting furtive glances at him, as if she didn't want to be caught looking; her features expressed an admiration such that Harry had only ever seen it in Remus' eyes during their transformations. It was slightly unnerving -- Harry had forgotten how it felt to be looked up to... The dull grey light filtering through the thick glass of the windowpanes had gradually decreased, allowing obscurity to creep in the room. Night was falling. Soon he would have to leave.

Romilda started talking. She had a rather pleasant voice, clear and fresh, that sounded a bit out of place in the grey, sticky silence of the dying November day. Harry wasn't really listening; the whisky was good and the girl's voice was an agreeable background sound, and he soon found himself slipping in a state of pleasant drowsiness. He vaguely registered that she was talking about the odd people she met as a waitress, how life was in Hogsmeade village, and what memories she had of her old friend, Bernard Olibrius, who had apparently died a few months ago.

"...It was a werewolf attack. Bernard had strayed outside on a night of full moon and they got him. Werewolves often come to ravage the valley," she explained matter-of-factly. "They have ever since the end of the war. I don't know what drives them here."

Harry instantly snapped out of his trance, his body tensing automatically at Romilda's words.

"Werewolves?" he repeated abruptly. "Hang on. You're saying there's a werewolf pack wandering every so often in Hogsmeade?"

"Well, yes--"

"How often do they come here?" Harry interrupted. His brain seemed to have sprung from a completely relaxed state into a frenzied activity. Werewolves regularly haunting a village of wizards? In the twenty-first century? That was impossible; he had misunderstood her...

"Lately, every month," Romilda answered, looking at him curiously. "They're crazy. They roam about, howling at the moon, and biting people isn't enough... Now they're killing them."

"They're... what?"

Harry straightened up in his chair and leant his forearms on the table, his hands flat against the wooden surface, and applied himself to take slow and deep breaths in an attempt to control his nerves; he felt as if he was about to start stammering any minute. How Romilda could stay so calm and composed when talking about such a stupefying thing was beyond him.

"And you've not warned the Ministry?" he asked disbelievingly. "You've not told them that a werewolf pack is invading the village every single month and killing inhabitants?"

"We have told them!" Romilda said, her eyes widening in indignation. "They said that they were sending someone to investigate, but no one ever came! Then our Mayor received an owl telling him that it couldn't be helped at the moment, that the werewolves would go away in time and that they, Aurors, weren't entitled to drive them away. We were also advised not to spread the word, in order not to provoke murders of werewolves all over the country. We've been living with ever since."

Harry let out an exclamation of furious incredulity. "Not entitled to drive them away?" he blurted out, his temper flaring up again. "What the hell? Merlin knows I'm not a werewolf-hunter--" And for good reasons too, he almost added. "--but leaving a whole village without any protection against them? That's -- that's--"

"We live with it," Romilda hastily repeated; she had started at his outburst, and she sounded a little alarmed by his reaction. "Please don't get me in trouble for telling you. I'm not supposed to, really I'm not. I should never have told you."

Harry abruptly rose to his feet, ignoring the plaintive screech of the legs of his chair against the tiled floor as it was pushed backwards, and started pacing nervously in the deserted pub.

"No, you did the right thing," he said shortly. "I would have found out anyway... How could I have spend all these nights in Hogwarts and McGonagall never said..."

"I guess she has orders, too," Romilda suggested. "The students themselves don't know. The Hogsmeade weekends were cancelled without any reason given."

"Holy..." Harry whispered. He ran a hand in his hair, gripping it tightly at the back of his head. "That's completely mental."

Romilda stood up, as well, and drew closer to him. The flickering flame of the candle threw in sharp relief the angles of her face, rubbing out the youthful roundness and emphasising the grave expression on her features; and she looked much older, all of sudden.

"Can you do something about it?" she asked in a barely audible murmur; one would have thought she hardly dared speak her mind.

Harry nodded thoughtfully, his eyes attached to the tiled floor. "I can talk to my superior about it," he said in a low voice, speaking more to himself than to her. "See why he wouldn't budge his ass for Hogsmeade... And if he still refuses to do anything..."

He stopped talking mid-sentence when he caught sight of Romilda's face, which was alight with hope. It was... as if she had in front of her the hero that would rid her of all the tragedies in her life. Harry was almost frightened. That girl must be still stuck in a time when I'm the world's saviour.

"I'll see what I can do," he finished lamely, clearing his throat to hide his malaise.

"Then I'm no longer worried," she said cheerfully. "Thank you."

And it was so heartfelt that a lump came up in Harry's throat. Romilda's candid trust was touching.

"It's full moon tonight," he pointed out at last, eager for a change of subject. "You're spending the night here?"

She shook her head. "Bernard gave me his house," she explained. "It's safer... Werewolves are sometimes drawn by the smell of alcohol. Several times they broke into the Three Broomsticks' back yard. We used to keep the barrels here, and the smell persists..."

"I'm walking you to your house then," Harry briskly concluded. "The moon will raise any minute now. I'd rather see you safely indoors."

She obediently nodded and started untying the ribbons of her apron. Taking it off, she folded it over one of her forearms and carried it to a large wardrobe that stood tall and grim-looking in a corner of the vast room.

"I'm usually home much sooner, but I wasn't expecting a visit," she explained, speaking over her shoulder as she hung the apron in the wardrobe. "I'm not imprudent."

She tore off the scarf tied over her head, freeing a cascade of thick black hair that fell haphazardly over her shoulders, and negligently threw it inside the wardrobe. Harry picked up his coat on the back of a chair and shrugged it on, while Romilda wrapped herself in a cloak.

"Let's go now."

They walked silently side by side in the deserted street. Harry now noticed that the houses were protected by grillages that most certainly hadn't been present in his school days, and that all the shutters were tightly closed. A silence heavy with fear and expectation lay over the village, broken only by the sharp clatter of Romilda's heels on the wet cobblestones. The wind had fallen and a slight drizzle persisted, slowly but efficiently drenching Harry's hair and scattering the lenses of his glasses with sparkly droplets. He briefly took them off and renewed the Water-Repelling spell.

Romilda's house was one of the last ones on the northern edge of the village. Harry remembered that he had once followed Professor McGonagall one summer night, when he still wandered around under his Invisibility Cloak; they had both been following an old man and a young girl to this very house. Now that he thought of it, it was doubtless that they had been Romilda and her old friend.

On the doorstep, she turned to him to say goodbye.

"Come back to pay me a visit from time to time," she said.

Harry nodded. "Take care of yourself," he replied automatically, his thoughts already elsewhere.

"You too."

The door closed behind her and Harry heard the key turning twice in the lock. Wheeling around, he quickly walked down the three steps leading to the front door and set off again towards the distant gates of Hogwarts castle. His first intention had been to get inside the grounds via the passageway of the Shrieking Shack, but the derelict house that had shielded his first transformation was even further from Romilda's house than the entry of Hogwarts. And he could not afford to lose anymore time.

Harry glanced at his watch and hastened his pace, his legs becoming stiff with the effort to walk as fast as possible. He had no idea of the time when the full moon would rise, and the heavy grey clouds were forming a thick blanket overhead, completely hiding the sky from view. He could be seconds away from transformation for all he knew, and the gates were still at a good distance... The impossibility to run on the wet and slippery paving stones was making him edgy. He knew he already was in the Anti-Apparition area.

The cobbled street gave way to a muddy road, and Harry could no longer resist the temptation: he broke into a run, ignoring the wet sounds that the soaked earth emitted every time his feet would collide with it, and only vaguely aware that he sent mud flying everywhere at each stride. The gates were near. His running already was becoming more coordinated, more powerful too, as he felt a new strength flow inside his veins -- as it did before every transformation. He caught himself grinning, the feeling of urgency slowly dissolving into the pleasure of the race...

By the time he reached the gates, his whole body was shivering with the waves of raw, ancient power running over him, again and again, stronger and more frequent by the second. He had to throw all his willpower into refraining from transforming right now and there; he needed to keep his human shape long enough for him to perform the spell that would unlock the gates and let him through.

His hand was practically shaking when he drew his wand from his belt, resulting in him failing twice to unlock the gigantic padlock. On the third attempt it clicked open, and the heavy chain slowly uncoiled itself from the huge bars it was wrapped around. Harry forcefully pushed the gates open and dashed inside the grounds of Hogwarts. As soon as he had released the heavy iron gates, they lazily pivoted on their massive hinges again and shut themselves with a sharp clatter, causing the chains to writhe back around the bars like huge metallic snakes.

Harry halted then, and stopped struggling.

Less than ten seconds later, he had smoothly changed into his wolf form. He experimentally shook his head, trying to get rid of the slight dizziness that was probably a consequence of his resisting the spell for so long. He stood in the middle of the wide, gravel-covered road that drew a broad curve around the lake, which lay black and smooth as a mirror under the cloudy sky. The road would then wind its way up the stocky mound that stood in the centre of the valley, and die at the threshold of the castle, leaving the greenhouses on its right side. The Forest grew on the western edge of the lake, right across from where he was standing.

Harry set off towards the lake, breathing softly in the rich smell of damp earth and rotting wood that rose from the ground; the quickest way to the old core of the Forest was around the southern border of the lake. There grew a wild mess of brambles and old heather, little inviting to students who liked wandering in the grounds at night. The only time Harry had ventured in this part of the grounds was when he had been wrestling with Tom Riddle, three years ago.

Just as Harry tentatively pawed a thick thorny branch that blocked his way, a werewolf howled.

The white hair on his back bristled up and he looked wildly around for the source of the long, high-pitched, fierce cry. It was close -- somewhere on his left, just beyond the huge iron railings that ran along the southern border of the grounds. Other werewolves joined their voices to the first one, and the lights of the distant castle seemed to flicker in fear as the moist air filled up with the scream of beasts in hunting. Harry himself couldn't repress a shudder.

He tore his eyes off the railings, hardly distinguishable in the rainy night, and took a few careful steps into the thick bushes of brambles. His eyes were fixed on the distant Forest. He had to go back in. He had to. He needed to.

The howling, that had slowly decreased into barely audible growls, started up yet again -- more violent and desperate than the first time. Harry shook his head, a growl rolling deep inside his throat. They had smelled human blood; it was obvious. And judging from the intensity of the screaming, they were many... Probably even more than the pack he had met, the night he had been bitten. He thought of the village, of the inhabitants quivering in terror behind their closed shutters and pitiful defensive wards. Not much could stop a hunting pack, and the wards that could required a specialist to install them; and he doubted anyone living in Hogsmeade could afford such a thing. He thought of Romilda Vane; her house was the first on the way of the pack, and he had not seen any grillage around it.

Don't start thinking of that. Not now. There's nothing you can do about it anyway.

Harry crouched and crawled under an arcade of dark-leaved branches knotted together in an inextricable net. A few thorns bit at his fur and broke with a sharp noise, entangled in the thick hair. He decided to edge closer to the lake, where the brambles were likely to be less abundant.

The plaintive howl broke into a series of fierce, greedy yaps, almost like a peal of raucous laughter. Harry started growling again, his frustration at being helpless in front of Hogsmeade's agony mingling with his anger at the Ministry's indifference. People were getting killed, for Merlin's sake. Their throats were being ripped open, their stomach ravaged, their entrails dragged out of them and eaten on the spot, their members torn off their bodies... Harry had seen before what was left of a human being when they encountered a werewolf pack, and he had sincerely hope he would never have to see that again. And in the meantime, here he was, fighting his way through brambles and heather in order to get inside a Forest and listen to trees.

A shrill, ear-splitting sound, reminiscent of a foghorn, rang in the symphony of yaps and howls like a wrong note. Harry stopped advancing completely, his heart racing. That was an alarm ward going off. The werewolves had broken inside a house.

Before he knew it, Harry had wheeled about and was running through the path he had created in the midst of the wild vegetation. Every bark coming from the werewolf pack was fuelling his rage, and soon another emotion grew in him, urging him to run faster still: the thirst of blood. The desire to kill. To punish these creatures who dared soil his territory with their hunting, and who were too cowardly to go on their own. Tufts of white hair flew as the thorns ripped them off his back, branches whipped his face and limbs, but he hardly paid any attention as he sped up his run.

The gravels of the road crunched and flew everywhere under his paws. The gates were closed and would not open before him until he would be human again; that left him only one way out. Without the slightest hesitation, Harry turned left and followed the road circling the eastern edge of the lake.

He was running, harder than he had run in his whole life. His endurance seemed endless, the steely muscles rolling in perfect harmony under the damaged fur, the sound of his own breathing and his quick, but astonishingly regular heartbeat filling his ears. The castle was steadily approaching. In a matter of minutes he had covered the distance separating him from the mound on which Hogwarts was perched. He didn't climb, running round it instead and staying close to the lake. There, at a little distance, isolated from the Forest, stood the Whomping Willow.

Harry was at the foot of the tree before the branches could start moving. He didn't even need to press the knot of wood that would freeze the Willow -- already he had dived into the passageway. His progression was much quicker on the dry earth of the underground tunnel, without obstacles to stand on his way. Reaching the top of the staircase that ended the tunnel, Harry rose on his hind legs and managed to lift the trapdoor using his head. With a growl of effort, he dragged his whole body into the Shack, the trapdoor weighing heavy on his back. It slammed shut as soon as he was able to stand on the boarded floor of the Shack.

There, Harry halted again to catch his breath. His body was shivering with the effort he had just given, as well as with his unaltered rage and thirst for blood. The howling of the werewolves was terribly close now.

Harry soundlessly crept to the window and, standing on his hind legs again, he pushed it open with his front paws. He sneaked outside, as silent and swift as a snake, and quietly crossed the neglected garden to the old fence. Soon he was out.

The bawling and yapping expressed a fierce, ruthless joy. Fury boiled again in Harry's veins but he forced himself to trot at a steady rate. He would need all his strength for what was to come.

He was now among the houses. No light was on, and he could almost feel the fear oozing from every crack of the closed shutters. The werewolves were near... In one, two minutes he would see them. He quickened his pace a little, his tension growing, his soft paws making absolutely no sound on the wet cobblestones.

All of sudden, a shadow sprang from behind a house and started galloping wildly, emitting small yelps of excitement. Harry froze, watching the skinny, shabby figure, his thirst for blood suddenly overwhelming. He was almost panting with anticipation himself.

The werewolf caught sight of him, a white, immobile silhouette in the shadow of a house, and stopped in full run. Harry didn't give it the time to turn around: in three leaps he was on it. Both beasts rolled on the cobbled streets, but Harry was far bigger and stronger than the other. The werewolf struggled desperately, and without any success, against Harry's crushing weight. It smelled like dirt, mud, sweat and blood, and for a few seconds this mixture filled Harry's nostrils, before he slammed his opponent to the ground and sunk his teeth into its throat. Then the odour of blood covered all others.

The scream of terror died in a sickening gurgle and the werewolf's body shook with violent, jerky spasms. Harry jumped off it, watching the blood spurting from the wound and coating the dark and shiny cobblestones. Then he turned his back on the mutilated corpse. This was small meat. He wanted more.

Without pausing to think, Harry engulfed himself in the dark alleyway the werewolf had emerged from. He had only just started to pick up speed again when two other werewolves walked round a corner and found themselves face to face with him. Harry couldn't help it: the growl rolling in his throat rose to a hateful howl, to which answered the werewolves' cry of fright. They turned tail, fleeing before he had the time to reach them, and dived back in the shadows they had come from.

Harry followed them, now at full speed, until he emerged into a backyard -- and then he froze again, the spectacle meeting his eyes too horribly hypnotising for him to do anything but stand here, transfixed, and stare.

The backyard was full of werewolves -- grey ones, brown ones, huge ones and skinny ones; werewolves yapping, snapping jaws at each other, running here and there, savagely destroying everything they could reach, and stopping now and again to raise their snout to the skies and let a plaintive howl escape their throats. The back door of the nearby house had been violently broken down, and only fragments of it still hung from the hinges. A couple of werewolves were still biting and clawing at a shapeless mass of bloody flesh lying on the ground; there was blood everywhere: it maculated the fur on the werewolves' snouts and front legs, it was splattered on the walls of the house and on the paving stones, and it pooled under the body, soaking the reminders of the person's clothes. A nearby streetlamp threw an orange glow upon this hellish scene.

The two werewolves who had met Harry in the alleyway seemed to have regained a considerable amount of courage, now that they were surrounded by the rest of the pack. Holding their heads high, they growled threateningly in Harry's direction, occasionally licking their chops with a wide and blood-red tongue. One after the other, the werewolves abandoned whatever they were wrecking, and turned their yellow eyes to the white wolf standing immobile at the edge of the pool of orange light. Only one werewolf remained bent over the bloody heap that had been a human being, licking the blood with evident delight.

Harry couldn't look away from the mutilated corpse. If he had been human, the sight of these sad, torn up remains of a man would have made him sick; but even under his wolf form disgust was leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. Upon noticing the circle of werewolves closing around him, he started growling, too -- his throat vibrating with a low-pitched note, his chops curling over white fangs still bloodied from his first kill, and his moves slow, purposeful, revealing the powerful muscles rolling under the skin. The werewolves closer to him flinched when he met their eyes and the circle gradually widened around him.

Harry wasn't attacking yet. He was looking for the leader of the pack, and was puzzled when he couldn't seem to find it in the werewolves threatening him. Then his gaze travelled back to the half-devoured corpse and the huge beast bent over it.

There it is...

Harry, ignoring the other werewolves, stopped growling completely and headed straight for the eating werewolf. The circle reluctantly opened to let him through, his size and strength commanding respect even though he was no longer threatening them, and so Harry got his first real glance at the victim.

However, he only saw one thing: the mop of long thick black hair, now drenched in blood, that was still attached to the maimed, unrecognisable face. He stopped dead in his tracks as an image suddenly flashed in his mind -- a young black-haired waitress drinking from a large cup, her wide innocent eyes, her childlike features, her annoying but somehow touching candour -- and something snapped.

Harry distantly heard an ear-splitting scream -- a scream so hateful, so incensed that it did not sound as if it could possibly come from a creature of this world -- and he did not realise that it was flooding out of his own throat. He did not think much anymore: he had leapt forward, wanting nothing more than to tear the flesh off the bones of the monster that, still now, was plunging with grunts of delight its snout in its victim's entrails.

The werewolf turned about at the last moment, and for a split-second Harry glimpsed at a wide and scarred face, in which a single yellow eye glinted with the savage drunkenness of the werewolf in hunting. Then the leader jumped aside.

Harry landed catlike on the blood-drenched paving stones and wheeled around instantly, but not quickly enough for his opponent: the beast, while slightly smaller than he was, had obviously much more experience in werewolves fights and it had not lost a second before launching itself at Harry. The monster's shoulder collided violently with Harry's and the frightful jaws clapped loudly, missing his throat by an inch; a reflexive jerk of the head had undoubtedly saved his life. Harry disengaged, stumbling a little as he stepped backwards, and tried to recover his balance altered by the forceful impact. But the werewolf was not going to give him the time needed and it rushed to him again -- and all Harry had the time to see before the second shock was a solitary yellow eye and a set of sharp, bloodied bare fangs.

Harry didn't jump out of the way this time: the monster violently crashed into him and they both rolled on the paved ground. Then it was all hair, blood, dirt, for long minutes, a confused mess of snapping jaws, angry growls and paws sweeping the air and tearing up the most tender skin; both tirelessly struggling for the upper hand -- it was all about never letting the enemy pin him down to the ground, leaving the soft skin of his belly and throat exposed to the beast's sharp fangs. The sound of their heavy breathings and the ferocious barks echoing all around them filled his ears.

Harry's rage was still burning him; he didn't care how much he got hurt in the process, as long as he inflicted as much damage as possible to the leader of this pack of murderers. His attacks were swift and brutal, and several times his fangs grazed the fur of the beast -- which would invariably dodge the blow at the last second. Harry was infuriated, and he also grew a little desperate as he began to realise he wasn't getting the upper hand at all. He wasn't winning. He wasted his strength on angry blows and unsuccessful attacks, while his enemy seemed to be holding back...

Harry stumbled again, imprudently exposing his right side, and once more the leader took advantage of his momentary weakness. Harry found himself knocked over as his opponent ran headfirst into his side, and he rolled over on his back, paws beating the air wildly.

It lasted a second maybe, before Harry managed to get up again -- but the leader had already clenched its vice-like jaws in the thick fur at the base of his neck, at the junction with the shoulder. Fresh blood poured down the wound, soaking Harry's chest, but the injury was only superficial; however, the leader's hold on Harry was incredibly solid, and if he gave it the opportunity he was sure the jaws would be tightening until flesh and bones gave way, abandoning access to his throat.

Harry's whole body jerked and he jumped in the air, dragging the werewolf hanging from his shoulder off the ground but failing at making him let go. Panic was causing Harry's flanks to quiver; he bent his long neck at a terrifying angle, barely managing to tear into pieces his opponent's ear before giving it a deep gash in the flesh of its cheek. The werewolf grunted in pain but held even more tightly to Harry's flesh, ignoring the blood flooding into its blind, blackened eye...

Harry now found it difficult to breathe: the skin covering his chest and throat was being stretched and drawn into the werewolf's mouth. As Harry stopped moving for a second, trying desperately to suck in more air, he felt with an icy sensation of horror his opponent draw even more fur into its mouth, with a movement of its steely jaws close to mastication. Panting, Harry swirled about, dragging the werewolf in his wake and making it lose its balance for a brief instant. The werewolf gave a muffled groan of surprise, apparently not expecting Harry to still be able to struggle; the beast's breathing was slow and steady, its single eye dull, as if it had already lost interest in the fight -- eventually Harry would collapse to the ground and it would let go of its prey, just to dive back a moment later and sever the artery that pulsated under the soft white fur. And it would be over.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving...

They both moved together in a strange ballet, each trying to knock over the other, but Harry's increasingly difficult breathing didn't seem to leave any doubt about the victor's identity. Harry's sight was dimming already, and he couldn't help emitting small plaintive moans every time he exhaled. The werewolves walking in circle around the pair of them were panting with greed, their chops curled up in a horrible caricature of a smirk. They seemed to be many more than when he had first entered the backyard...

Harry blinked. There were more of them. Behind the two ranks of shabby, dirty, blood-covered beasts, stood a few bigger werewolves whose fur was perfectly immaculate... His eyes widened in stupefaction. They were not werewolves. They were wolves. All about as big as he was, although their fur shimmered in various shades of grey in the feeble light of the streetlamp. They kept their eyes fixed upon the pair of fighters. Silent. Expecting. The beauty of them was startling, otherworldly, like an apparition in the middle of hell...

Harry blinked again and looked away. His limbs were now trembling with exhaustion. He was seconds away from collapsing, and as his opponent realised it, it pushed him into the wall of the house until he was completely cornered. Now all it had to do was wait until Harry was strangled to death, or until he let himself fall to the ground at last... Harry felt it, and despair constricted his tortured chest. With a grunt of effort, he turned his head the other way, the underside of his jaw momentarily pressing against the bowed cranium of the monster suffocating him; he thought his neck would snap in the process -- and he did hear a quite nasty cracking sound at the base of it -- but in the end he managed to lift a little the increasing pressure on his windpipe. And his snout was now pressed against the werewolf's head, just at the junction of the neck and jaw, below the bloodied ear.

The werewolf leader's fangs had slightly slipped when Harry had turned his head; interpreting his gesture as a last start of survival instinct rather than an attempt to continue the fight, it completely released the fur for a split second in order to go for the throat at last -- but as soon as Harry felt the lethal grip loosening he threw his head forward, his jaws parting.

A horrible yell filled the backyard as the werewolf leader stumbled backwards, the thick tendon on the side of its neck severed by Harry's teeth. The wound, too small and too far from the vital veins, wasn't lethal in itself; but blood was flowing freely out of it, drenching the torso covered in sparse and dirt-matted fur. Harry didn't think or plan his next move: in one leap he was on the werewolf again. The thin skin of the throat yielded under his fangs and blood flooded in Harry's mouth yet again, filling his nostrils with its heavy, intoxicating odour. And out of the severed throat poured out the werewolf's life.

Harry released the body of the one-eyed werewolf and stepped backwards, panting. Then, the howling started again.

He lifted his head, and there they were, the grey wolves that had gathered to watch the fight -- sitting on their rear, their necks extended to the sky, the open jaws letting out a high-pitched, incredibly pure note. The shabby werewolves that had been under the one-eyed beast's command had all fled, and for some reason Harry was not surprised. Imagining their grotesquely disproportionate bodies covered in dirty fur next to those beautiful creatures was laughable.

One of the wolves lowered its head and met Harry's gaze. It had deep-blue eyes, which shone with such intelligence and knowledge that Harry felt as if he had in front of him a creature that had seen the beginnings of the world. He staggered forward, very aware that he was covered in cuts, blood, dirt and saliva, but the wolves didn't give him the time to reach them. Without warning, they wheeled about and soundlessly vanished into the dark alleyway, leaving him to stand alone in the devastated backyard.

Harry turned his head and carefully licked his wound. The cloudy sky was now paling, and he shuddered as he felt his strengths slowly abandoning him. He limped to a paving stone that wasn't soiled with blood and lay down, breathing in and out noisily, his head resting on his extended front paws. As he watched the dull light of a gloomy day creep in the ravaged backyard, his eyes fell onto the broken corpse of the huge werewolf leader.

The corpse was transforming. The broad paws were turning into large square human hands, the fur gathering to form black robes stretched over the powerful body, the snout retracting into a human face. Harry stared, transfixed, as the monster slowly turned into an exceptionally large man. Then when he looked down again he saw, without surprise, his own bony hands where his white paws had been. He was human again.

Harry sat up, drawing his wand from his belt with his left hand, and performed a spell that healed the wound of his shoulder in a mere few seconds. Staggering to his feet, he walked towards the body of his defeated enemy and turned it over with his foot.

"Fenrir Greyback," he murmured, his voice hoarse. A strange smirk came to stretch his lips.

Greyback's brutal face was frozen in an expression of incomprehension, his yellow eye and the gaping, blackened hole that had been his right eye more frightening than the multiple scars that disfigured him. Harry held out a hand and lightly traced with a pale finger the underside of the empty eye socket.

"It was my wand, wasn't it?" he whispered in the silence. "My wand that drove right through your eye, the night I was bitten... Wasn't it, Greyback?"

Harry's eyes detached themselves from Greyback's maimed figure and travelled up to the mass of bloody flesh, with its mop of long dark hair, thrown on the stone steps leading to the broken door.

"She was a nice girl, Greyback," Harry said thoughtfully. "She was a really nice girl. You shouldn't have angered me twice... You should have realised it always got you into trouble..."

Harry turned his back on the two bodies and stared at the alleyway, now drowned in the semi darkness of the dawn, where the mysterious wolves had disappeared.

"If you will excuse me now," he said at the empty courtyard, "I must go and have breakfast with Professor McGonagall."

And Harry left.