Under Her Spell

Book Three

Edward Masen in The Animal In Us

Written by Bubbleybear, Cleaned up by Pienuniek, Beta'd by Sally Hopkinson

Prelude

I felt the familiar rush as I dropped into another of Isa's precognitive dreams. It seemed that with the start of a new school year would come a new dream we had to pay attention to.

I landed in a room that was dark and covered with dust. I could hear the wind howling around the shabby building and through the many holes I could see in the walls. The room I was in, at one point, looked to have been a family room. The furniture, though, was in no way usable. It was shabby to the point of falling apart.

This building hadn't been used in quite some time.

I was distracted from my perusal by the sound of squeaking, then a growl, from what sounded like a large dog. What startled me, though, was that it sounded like it was coming from below me. I tracked the sounds before picking up the movement of feet. I figured out the direction they were heading, so I spun, only to find myself facing a trap door.

I only had to wait a second before the source of the squeaking became clear: a large brown garden rat, one that seemed familiar, bounded out of the trap door and scooted up the stairs nearby. It was closely followed by a large, black, mangy dog. This one was Sirius. He was growling and trying to catch the rat even as it managed to get a head start on him.

I was about to follow when I picked up the sound of more feet coming up from underneath me. These were different from what the dog's had been; the sound was muted like they were lighter, or more padded, than Sirius's, so I froze, waiting to see who or what these feet could possibly belong to. But it wasn't just the animals' feet I heard; there were also several people following it. It was confusing.

A few seconds later, a large white cat slinked out of the trap door. It was really stunning. It was the size of a tiger but had the markings of a snow leopard. What was it doing here in Europe?

It, too, flew up the stairs after the dog and rat before being followed by another smaller snow leopard and then by none other than Hermione and Harry. Where the hell were Isa and I?

Before those questions could be answered, I was pulled back out of Isa's dream and into the real world because Isa had woken up.

"Where was that?" she said.

"Where was I?" we asked at the same time.

Isa flopped back down onto the bed. "Here we go again …"