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Black Phoenix	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21568 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 18
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Nineteen—Dancing With Werewolves
            “Harry!”
            The shout jerked Harry out of a sound sleep, and he sat up, rubbing his eyes. For a second he thought Persephone had escaped his control and resumed her marauding ways, but she was starting to life on the perch beside his bed, flapping her wings and looking nearly as shocked as he was by the noise. Harry shook his head at her, silently promising mayhem but relieved if this was something she had done—it would mean she had gone back to normal—and stood up, reaching for his dressing robe.
            “Coming, Hermione!” he called again, while her pounding on the door grew more frantic.
            It still took him a few more minutes to get dressed and make sure that Persephone had really gone back to sleep, head beneath her wing, instead of trying to join in the excitement, and then poke Persephone in the back with one finger. When she reacted only with a sleepy chirp, Harry went to the door, shaking his head. Yes, something was wrong, but so far, he had found no sign of the actual means of control that Gorenson was exerting over her.
            Hermione was pacing up and down in the corridor by the time Harry got the door open. He expected her to be at least a little embarrassed by his rumpled hair and dressing robe, but she grabbed his arm and towed him down the corridor towards the stairs without seeming to notice at all.
            “Wait a minute,” Harry complained, stumbling, and glad that there was no one around to grin at him and find this amusing, the Dark Lord of Hogwarts being manhandled by his friend. “What is this about?”
            “It’s the full moon,” Hermione said. “And Ombershade refused his Wolfsbane.”
            Harry hissed between his teeth and immediately quickened his pace. Ombershade was Greenbush’s partner in the werewolf Order, but Harry had never thought he was the brains behind it. On the other hand, that might easily lead to him doing something stupider than Greenbush would do.
            “Did he tell you why?” he asked, scanning the stones of Hogwarts. A golden clock popped out of them, telling him that it wasn’t yet full moonrise. He had thought it was much later than that, but then, he’d gone to bed early, exhausted by reassuring people in Hogwarts and worry about Persephone.
            “No,” said Hermione, and hauled him harder than ever. Hogwarts tried to catch her foot between a couple of stones, but Harry shook his head, and they clipped back together with a disappointed little sound. “I just went past his door a while ago and found that his goblet of Wolfsbane was sitting outside it, full.”
            Harry frowned. “Well, then maybe he didn’t intend to refuse it. Maybe he got caught up in something else and forgot to take it.” Not that that would make so much difference, if they now had a dangerous werewolf on the loose.
            Hermione shook her head. “I made sure to cast a Knocking Charm on his door when I put it there. The same one that I used on your door just now. It would have startled him out of whatever he was doing. And I heard him say that he knew the Wolfsbane had arrived.”
            Harry gave a single sharp nod. Then something else had happened, something that might threaten most of them. But he wondered how it could have happened if he had full control of Hogwarts.
            A quick push of his magic into the stones that formed the floor of the corridor showed that he had the full support of this part of the castle, at least. Trails of gold curled around in front of him, shimmering light that grew brighter the nearer they got to Ombershade’s door. Hermione looked a little reassured.
            Harry glanced down at the untouched cup of Wolfsbane, then abruptly knelt and looked at it again. “Hermione,” he said. “Are you sure this is the right potion?”
            “What? Of course it is!” Then Hermione sniffed and crouched down beside him, reaching out with one hand to touch the side of the goblet.
            Harry caught her wrist before she could do it. He didn’t know for sure if the poison he could sense in the goblet would react through skin as well as by being ingested, but he didn’t want to take the chance. Besides, the goblet had some condensation near the edge of the rim, dark purple bubbles like the kind that might have come off wine. Harry knew that didn’t happen with Wolfsbane.
            “I made this myself,” Hermione whispered. “How could this have happened?”
            “I don’t know,” Harry said, although he had an idea. Hermione had purchased the ingredients for the Wolfsbane outside the castle, although she had made the potion with her own hands. That meant someone could have slipped them poisoned ingredients—and that was the kind of sabotage that the wards and even Harry’s full control of Hogwarts wouldn’t catch. Ill intent in someone who was actually here, that they could perceive, but not ill intent from elsewhere. “But it would explain why Ombershade didn’t take it.”
            Hermione glanced up at Harry with what might have been actual tears in her eyes. “He—he probably smelled it and thought we were trying to kill him. And by that time, it was too late for him to go anywhere.”
            “Or he stayed in his rooms when the transformation began because he knew what would happen if he came out of them.” Harry stood up. “I’m going in there.”
            “Harry, without the Wolfsbane, he’s a killing machine.” Hermione stood up with her hand on her wand, as if she actually thought it was her duty to prevent him, or that she could. “You can’t let him out, but we can’t hurt him, either. We’ll just have to replace whatever he does rip up in his werewolf form.”
            Ignoring her, Harry closed his eyes and listened as hard as he could through the door. The stones inside the room rippled, and then opened eyes and ears of their own. Harry was cautious; he thought Ombershade might attack any strange movement.
            He could see a huge brindled wolf pacing around the center of the room. He had already ripped apart pillows and what looked like a large amount of parchment, as well as rags that had probably been the clothes he was wearing when he changed. Harry nodded grimly. That fit his hypothesis that Ombershade had been sufficiently distracted not to try and drink his Wolfsbane until right before the transformation, and by then, it had been too late for him to even call for help.
            Harry shut the eyes and withdrew to his own body, putting his hand on the door. “I’m going in there.”
            “Harry.” Hermione sounded like she might faint.
            “I’ll be all right,” Harry said, and winked at her a little, which made her mouth drop open in surprise. “I promise. I have control of Hogwarts, remember? And he’s still inside Hogwarts.” Although that might have to change in a minute.
            He pushed the door open, and commanded the stones to soften beneath Ombershade’s paws at the same time. He promptly heard the frustrated snap and snarl that he had been using the stones to spy on before, and shook his head to scold the werewolf. From the way Ombershade looked up at him with foaming jaws, he didn’t exactly take notice of it, but Harry used it to steady himself, and that was more important, at the moment, than doing exactly what Ombershade wanted.
            “Someone tried to poison you,” he told Ombershade quietly. “I just wish you were human right now, so you could tell us who it probably was. What kind of enemies do you have in the Ministry? Has this sort of thing happened before, that you knew who to suspect?”
            Ombershade turned his head to track Harry. The stone clasped around his legs trembled a little as he made an attempt to lunge, but they were as good as so many traps and kept him still. Ombershade snarled promptly, his tail tucking down between his legs for a second.
            Harry chose to take that as a good sign. He knew that Remus had told him sometimes he seemed to have a scrap of self-restraint left even when he wasn’t under the Wolfsbane, and while in this case, Ombershade was probably just wishing he had the self-restraint to lure Harry closer, Harry would take what he could get.
            “On the other hand, it doesn’t take much to trigger a werewolf’s nose,” Harry went on in a musing voice. He had moved around to the side again, taking care to get no closer to Ombershade. “Whoever sent this had to have at least known there was the possibility that you would smell it.” He cocked his head at Ombershade. “You’d think that would encourage them to send something subtler.”
            Ombershade lunged at him again, and then tilted his head back and loosed the most ear-splitting howl Harry had ever heard. Then he turned and began to bite at his own flank.
            Harry frowned. Yes, that was the other problem with werewolves not under the potion, wasn’t it? The reason it was risky to keep them shut up in their rooms the way that Ombershade had been planning to do with himself once he realized that he had no Wolfsbane to take. They would start ripping at their own fur and bodies the way that Ombershade had ripped at the room.
            So either Harry watched one of his allies injure himself, or he watched him injure Hogwarts. Neither choice was acceptable, and that meant Harry had a different one in mind.
            “Hermione,” he said, raising his voice, in case Ombershade howled again. There was no sign that he would, right now, but having his mouth full of his own hair and flesh wasn’t any better. “Get away from the door.”
            There was a choked whimpering noise, but Harry opened eyes in the wall, and saw that she was doing it. Her hands were clasped to her mouth, and she was pale and sick and shaking. Harry winced. He hadn’t meant to hit her that hard with this command.
            Harry turned back to Ombershade. As though the werewolf sensed the change in the air, perhaps from his smell, he had let go of his flank. He was watching Harry with eyes that were far more golden and dangerous than his memory of Remus’s eyes, even when Remus had turned into a wolf and attacked them.
            “Come on,” Harry whispered. “You need room to run and something to hunt, don’t you? Well, you’ll have it.”
            He backed up to the door, aware that Ombershade literally didn’t twitch a hair, but simply watched him, tongue lolling out of his jaws now. Harry stepped out into the corridor and made sure that Hermione was on the other side of it. Then he turned back and snapped his fingers.
            The stones of the floor released Ombershade’s paws.
            He bolted forwards, silently, which made it worse. Harry had thought he would howl the way he had when he’d realized he couldn’t get free, but that didn’t happen. He simply aimed and hurtled at Harry, his leaps carrying him clear of the floor. He seemed to have reasoned out that the stones could trap him if he touched that for very long.
            But he still had to pass between the walls, and Harry still had complete control of Hogwarts.
            Harry snapped his fingers again, and a tunnel opened in the wall, like the kind that he used to let messenger owls fly to the Owlery, the stones shooting out and changing form as they flew. They ended up coiled in a linked chain around Ombershade’s throat. Ombershade hit the ground again the moment he felt them and began to roll back and forth, rubbing his back against the floor he’d been so anxious to avoid.
            “What is he doing?” Hermione whispered, from closer than Harry still wanted her to be. “Is it hurting him?”
            Harry rolled his eyes, but that was Hermione. She would want to make sure any magical creature was all right, even one that had been on the verge of hurting her. And she had taken responsibility for these particular magical creatures, and brewed the poisonous potion with her own hands. No wonder she wanted to stay and see.
            “No,” Harry said. “Only marking him, and making sure that he won’t be as much of a danger tonight as he could be. It can freeze him at any time.”
            Ombershade, meanwhile, was back on his paws. Either the nearness of his prey or the fact that the stone collar didn’t shift an inch seemed to have made him determine that he couldn’t get it off. And in the meantime, he had better things to do.
            Like rip, and tear, and kill, Harry finished in his mind, seeing those glittering eyes fixed on him.
            Ombershade howled again. Harry could imagine how the howl would panic most people and animals who heard it, driving them mad and making them run without thought, until they headed straight into a werewolf’s jaws.
            But Harry wasn’t most people. He was the Lord of Hogwarts, in his court. He just waited with folded arms, until Ombershade gave up the howl as a bad business and ran towards him again.
            Harry stepped backwards, almost dancing, the floor of Hogwarts turning soft and fluid under him, the stones grasping him and moving him, faster than even a werewolf could turn. Ombershade missed his strike, and tried to turn and come at him from the side. Harry grinned as he slid out of the way again. On his own, he might misjudge the werewolf’s speed, but Hogwarts wouldn’t, and Hogwarts was there primarily to take care of him.
            “You’re playing with him?” Hermione whispered from the side.
            Until then, Ombershade had been too focused on Harry to notice her, but not now. He whirled around, and all four feet left the ground at the same time.
            Harry raised his fingers and crooked them. The stone collar clicked into action around Ombershade’s neck, and it was the frozen statue of a werewolf that hit the floor and wobbled there, on its side.
            “I’m playing with him,” Harry said, and fastened his eyes on hers. “I’ll make sure that he gets the exercise he needs, so that he doesn’t damage himself or anyone else. No one else can do it. But in the meantime, Hermione, get the fuck out of here.”
            For once, she listened. Harry heard her running all the way down the corridor, and after that, he used the flickering awareness of her that he had through Hogwarts’s wards, connected to the beat of her heart, to track her. Only when he was sure that he heard a heavy door slam in the distance did he release the collar’s hold on Ombershade.
            Ombershade didn’t even seem to roll as he left the floor and leaped at Harry’s throat.
            Harry melted back through the wall, and Ombershade bruised his noise and nothing else on the stones. Harry heard him clawing and howling with frustration; Harry was just beneath the surface of the wall, and it was like being sealed inside a thick, heavy, warm second skin. One that couldn’t be infected by any blow of a werewolf.
            But Ombershade was digging at the wall now, determined, and small silvers of it were raining down. Harry had Hogwarts move him to the far edge of the nearest window, and then he stepped out again and sat there, waving his hand and whistling.
            Ombershade flattened himself to the floor this time, and began a slower stalk.
            Harry knew how it would end, with the same burst of speed and the same digging, and he climbed out onto the sill of the window instead. Ombershade tracked his movements, eyes shining almost orange.
            He needed to get him out here, Harry thought, into the grounds, empty at night, where Ombershade could run and work off some of that energy. He had thought of the Forbidden Forest at first, but there was too great a chance that he could lose track of Ombershade there and he could hurt a centaur or another of Harry’s allies.
            “Come on, then,” he said. Ombershade’s ears swiveled towards him. He was probably aware of Harry in all sorts of ways that Harry couldn’t even think of, Harry decided. Nose and ears and other werewolf magical senses working together. “Unless you think that you can’t jump on me through the window.” He stuck his hand back through the window and wriggled it.
            Ombershade had started growling, perhaps at the taunting tone in his voice, which he might still be able to interpret despite not having his human mind, but he focused on Harry’s hand then and jumped. Harry hadn’t known how powerful those hind legs were, how close Ombershade’s jaws would actually snap this time.
            How close he would come to losing a hand.
            Harry managed to pull his hand back with something that he hoped looked like composure, and lean back away from the window that the werewolf was struggling to get out of. The stones of Hogwarts weren’t making it easy for him, closing in around the sides as if they assumed that they would be called on to crush his neck instead of simply collar it.
            “Poor baby,” Harry whispered, and clucked his tongue. “I think that you could come after me if you wanted.”
            And he jumped, sliding fast down the walls, knowing that the stones would catch him and support him. He got scrapes and bruises doing it, that was true, but if those were the only wounds that he carried out of this night of teasing a werewolf, he would be lucky.
            Harry landed easily on the grass, and glanced up at the window. Ombershade still crouched there, staring at him.
            “Well,” Harry said, and wriggled his hand at him again, at the same time as he commanded the window to widen and let Ombershade go.
            The werewolf wasted no time springing out and downwards, landing in front of Harry on silent feet that tore up the grass. He raced forwards again, and Harry began to dance and spin, the earth moving around him, acting as wolf-traps when he needed it to, and the collar of stones freezing Ombershade if he got too close.
            And Harry led him a merry chase, and he bit no one, and didn’t harm the grounds of Hogwarts, and didn’t bite himself, either. And that meant it was worth it.
            Some people might disagree. But their opinions weren’t exactly important.
*
SP777: I think that there will be one more story after this one.
- 18
- 19
- 20
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Black Phoenix