Chapter Six

"The wolf changes his coat, but not his disposition." - Proverb.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 16th January 1988

Despite the fact that it was only the first match of the season, the victorious Gryffindor House partied hard. By the time the butterbeer had run dry and the bottles of fire whiskey being surreptiously passed around the older students had been emptied and discarded, the Wizarding wireless had been turned up fifteen times and there had been no less than eighteen false alarms, each unerringly triggered by slightly wobbly first years shrieking 'McGonagall!'

From the relative safety of underneath one of the more spectacularly gaudy red and gold armchairs, Harry alternated between watching the festivities and pressing himself a bit more firmly against the legs he had his back to. Above him, the redheaded star Seeker who had 'adopted' him was absently chatting to a pretty blonde girl as he carefully stroked the wolf cub moulding itself to his calves.

"It's rather strange," he was saying, curling a finger to scratch gently at Harry's skin. "He's really friendly - no way this little guy's wild. See how comfortable he is around me? Definitely used to humans, and he was so close to the Quidditch pitch … but there's something off about it all." His voice fell to a terse hush as he concluded just loud enough to be heard over the thumping music, "I don't think he was treat right at all wherever he came from. He's really skittish, like he thinks I'm going to bite him or something …"

"What are you going to do with him?" The girl asked after a moments pause, "you can't exactly keep him here - McGonagall'll go insane."

When the boy who Harry knew to be called Charlie spoke again, it sounded like he was laughing. "Well, you know what they say: what McGonagall doesn't know … can't hurt us!"

The girl's voice didn't sound nearly as amused, "right, and I suppose that he's going to be staying right here, is he? As some sort of … of unoriginal House mascot? He's a wolf, for crying out loud, Charlie, not a rabbit! Heck, he's so far removed from the generic fluffy animal category that he eats aforementioned fluffy animals for…for breakfast!"

"So do Labradors," Charlie shot back in exasperation, adding, "And poodles. Jeez, Gail, little Chihuahuas'd snack down on Bambi and Thumper if they wouldn't get a hoof to the head."

"Don't call me that," the girl protested, but it sounded like a lot of the fight had gone out of her. "And stop hanging around with my brother so much. There's only one demented Muggle pop culture reject of a talking dictionary that this House can stand. Besides, I was only making a point, there was no need to bring cute little deer into this; you can't hide him from McGonagall forever, y'know. Certainly not in the Common Room - just one unannounced visit slash inspection, Charlie, that'd be all it would take. You know that."

"Maybe I do," the redhead conceded with a stubborn set to his jaw, "And maybe I don't. He's a shy little thing, like I said - he isn't going to go running out to greet her just like that. I'd be willing to bet he's smart, too, it wouldn't be that hard to -"

"Train him? Charlie, you can't be serious…what are you going to do? Give him an electric shock every time you wave a sketch of McGonagall in front of his nose?"

"Now you're the one being stupid," Charlie said tightly, shooting the girl a glare.

" 'Now'? Oh, so you finally admit that every single word out of your mouth so far has been 'stupid', do you? Well. Nice to see you've finally come to your senses! This. Won't. Work!"

The girl's voice echoed sharply around the suddenly silent common room. Harry's wide-eyed green gaze tore away from the arguing Gryffindors and quickly lashed around the room. In the minutes since the rising heat and tension of the conversation above him had drawn his attention, the rest of the partying students had thinned out. Most of the first years had cleared out, along with the vast majority of the second and third years. The upperclassmen had dropped substantially as well, but with everyone staring bewildered at Charlie and the blonde girl, there seemed to be far more people present than there actually were.

The music cut off leaving the boom of a heavy bass hanging in the air.

"…er, Agalia?" A blonde boy with more than a passing resemblance to the arguing girl blinked, breaking the silence. "Far be it for me to act in a fraternal capacity, however I feel I must inquire as to the -"

"Shut up, Yerodin. Charlie's being an arse," The girl - Agalia - cut the studious boy off at the pass so to speak, her challenging gaze never leaving Charlie's.

"I'm being a -?"

"Did I stutter? You heard me."

"Oh, good Lord," Yerodin's frustrated groan seemed to resonate louder than Charlie and Agalia's squabbling and Harry blinked at him, cocking his black head as he almost unwillingly slunk out from underneath the chair. Keeping his belly low to the ground, Harry crept forward. He only stopped when he could swipe at Yerodin's shoelaces without exerting himself. "If I'd known that she was going to be this moody, I never would've bothered coming back this year," the blonde boy was muttering, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Frustrated that he was being ignored, Harry rocked back on his haunches and pounced, landing against Yerodin's left kneecap and digging in his nails - claws - as he went tumbling back down the boy's pant leg. "Holy cra--!"

"Yer?"

"Whoa, dude…chill."

"You okay there?"

The concerned questions came from all sides, none of them giving indication of having seen Harry as he landed lightly on all four feet - an impressive feat given his canine physiology - and darted away and back under the chair in sudden apprehension.

"I-I'm fine," Yerodin stuttered, "though admittedly mildly worried that it is wholly possible that I may be beginning to find myself as deluded as a fairy sprinkling pixie dust."

As it turned out, only one person had seen Harry's aborted mission. When the second redhead spoke - his hair a few shades darker than Charlie's, and his voice a little more ragged around the edges - Harry felt a sick chill settle in the pit of his stomach.

He'd been seen.

"Relax, Yer, you're not going crazy. Well, crazier than you already are, anyway - Charlie's little pet project got you. Didn't'cha, fella?" The tall redhead asked, and a freckled face was suddenly thrust into Harry's line of vision; the lanky teenager was on his knees, peering underneath the chair. When he spotted Harry, the corners of his mouth turned up and he 'aha'd in triumph. "Hey - Kesler! Give me a hand and move the chair," he said, and the face was pulled back.

There was a sudden yelp and a thud as the background noise of bickering was sharply cut off and Charlie landed on the floor next to the chair.

"Merlin, Bill! Just ask next time."

"Sorry, Charlie. But by the way…you might want to move."

Muttering about Muggle memos and belated warnings, Charlie scrambled to his feet and took in the situation. He blinked, glancing from the trembling wolf cub under the chair to the chair itself and then to his brother.

"Merlin's beard, but you're a moron; you can't be thinking of doing what I think that you're thinking of doing."

Bill snorted impatiently, gesturing for the boy who'd responded to the name of 'Kesler' by darting over to stand by the chair to go ahead and lift. "Of course I'm thinking of doing what you think I'm thinking of doing, Charlie. Maybe he can stay with us and maybe he can't, we'll see, but one thing he most certainly can't do is stay under there - he'll only scare the house elves."

"See?" Agalia crowed triumphantly, smacking Charlie on the shoulder and smirking, "your brother agrees with me."

Something hot flared behind Charlie's eyes and he whirled around to snap a reply back at Agalia. Kesler's amused, "you're a pretty skirt with legs, Agalia, 'course Billy-boy agrees with you," went unnoticed by all but Yerodin, who promptly whacked the Quidditch commentator upside the head with his open palm. And Charlie and Agalia were arguing again.

Rolling his eyes, Bill shot a look at Kesler, "I hope you're not waiting for that chair to lift itself."

"And what if I am?" Kesler asked, quirking a brow even as he took a few steps back and, with a smug look on his face, pulled his wand from his sleeve and drawled the incantation to the levitation charm. The chair floated lazily into the air and stayed there.

Harry's eyes were wide as they followed the chair's progression into the air. Rivalling saucers, he reluctantly lowered them from the ceiling, baring his teeth at the conglomerate of red and gold swathed students surrounding him. He felt exposed, vulnerable.

Bill reached for him tentatively, seemingly oblivious to Charlie's yelped "no!" as his younger brother suddenly tuned back in to the activity surrounding the wolf cub. Growling, Harry snapped his teeth at Bill's hand.

"Merlin's drawers!" The tall boy exclaimed, throwing himself back a few feet, "I felt breeze on that!"

That Harry's body was trembling so hard he felt like his muscles were seizing was the only reason Bill still had all of his fingers.

"McGonagall! McGonagall!" A previously overlooked first year shrieked loudly, largely ignored like the boy who'd cried wolf.

A false alarm it might have been, but it still broke the sudden tension in Harry's body. It uncoiled with a snap and suddenly Harry was running. He landed on Bill's upturned knee - forwards momentum the only thing he'd been able to muster in that split second of instinctive fight or flight - and sprang away before Bill could react to the sudden weight. Harry landed, tail spinning like crazy air resistance, on all four feet some five metres away from the felled redhead, and he was still in motion. He darted underneath an overstuffed sofa and pressed his back up against the wall that it backed onto. The thrumming in his chest turned into a growl turned into a bark and soon the young wolf was snarling and yapping warningly at the humans.

Unfortunately, the humans were in motion, too.

Some were yelling (Michael Penn's annoyed "Charlie, you idiot! You brought a wild wolf into our common room! Wild!" and Charlie's distracted "for the last time - I am not an idiot!" echoing above all others), some were running to their dorms in uneasy panic, and yet others were shifting hesitantly towards him. Unhappy, Harry increased the pitch and frequency of his yips.

And the first year was still yelping, "McGonagall! McGonagall!"

Closest to the offending eleven year old, Penn snapped his head around and growled out, "would you shut up already?" in a tense snarl that put Harry's little rumblings to shame. The annoyance bled from his face seconds later as he stared, horrified at the bright red orb that the first year was frantically pointing at. "Aw, crap. Yerodin?"

Agalia's twin answered almost immediately, "much as I would ordinarily find myself delighted to be your choice of conversationalist, Michael, I must confess to wondering if this is precisely the right time for such a discussion."

"Huh uh. That's great, Yer, really. But…what does 'red' on your detection orb mean again?"

"Red? The particular shade of bleeding crimson that makes a scarlet moon pale in comparison to its undeniable strawberry hue? Why that simply means that our most dear, esteemed Head of House is…oh. Oh, bugger."

"Couldn't have put it better myself, Yer," Penn said tightly, cursing under his breath as he watched the black wolf pup respond to Charlie Weasley's attempts to wheedle it out from underneath the sofa by springing away, out from underneath the couch - well, at least they'd managed that - and across the entirety of the room. Barking all the way, the small black blur raced around the room, pouncing and leaping and backtracking across its original route several times before finally skidding to a halt in front of the fireplace.

Suddenly it cocked its head, staring at the entryway into the common room and shrinking down on itself. Obviously, it had sensed McGonagall's approach.

"Well…blow me," Penn muttered, before lifting his fingers to his mouth and wolf-whistling sharply to get his fellow Gryffindors' attention. The common room froze, all eyes snapping towards him as he indicated the glowing red orb. All of the eyes in the room seemed to widen in sync.

It was Bill Weasley who broke the still with a frantically hissed, "darn it - someone get 'im!"

And then the common room was back in motion, everyone throwing themselves desperately at the poor wolf cub.

Harry, for his part, was absolutely terrified. A large body made the ground shake as its owner flung himself forwards to block his path and he yowled, skittering backwards. He sprang to the side seconds later, feeling the pads of his paws graze against the soft carpeting as he threw himself off the ground and away from reaching, groping hands. Momentarily safe, Harry snapped his head around, his green eyes taking in his new viewpoint from where he was balanced precariously on the arm of one of the chairs - his claws digging in with tearing, ripping sounds - with quick, anxious little darting movements.

The red and gold clad teenagers were starting to converge on him again. He could hear their hushed tactical whispers as clearly as if they'd murmured the words into his ear, but the words seemed to wash over him meaninglessly as he focused on his next move.

If he could just get…right there…then he would be…

"Ah, crap - stupefy!"

Azkaban Prison, 18th January 1988

"…pretty little wallflower, all wrapped up ten to the posy. I heard the thunder God and he liked me. Made me squeal and burp rainbows and butterflies and storm clouds from my belly. Legs a' trembling, knees a' spread. Good little girl gives it up to the Lord, but he creases my soul. He creases it! He creases it! Rip, tear, rip, rip, tear. Origami paper thin little white rice has lost his sheep and apple pie crumbles at dawn but it's poison. Like snake fang and buttermilk and lost little worlds. Lost lost lostlostlostlostlostlostlost…"

The voice was little more than a croak as it trailed off into giggles that didn't quite form, but it still tore at his sanity. Maybe the crazies were infectious. Or maybe he just couldn't stand to hear the reminder. And she. Never. Shut. UP; just cackled about mushroom mountains and candy floss lakes in that absent, disconnected wheeze. Didn't even stop when the water didn't come, just gargled around a dry throat and didn't even seem to feel the way her lips cracked and bled.

He tried to shut her out, tune her into nothing more than distracting static, but it wouldn't click in his head and he never knew when her ramblings were just ramblings or if they'd evolved into metaphors and prophecies. The aurors said she had been a seer once - had it in the blood. Then Voldemort had got her and…even Padfoot's ears hadn't been able to pick up their words once they'd past through a thick enough oak door.

But whatever Voldemort had done to her--

"…full throttle roar goes the lamb turned sheep turned raging teeth turned rabbit turned cub turned hot little kettle. Roar. Meep meep. Can you hear the mother? No, me neither. No one can. She keeps her peace - silently dead while the old man weeps and that is the way that the world stops to sleep. Tired insomniac says her piece. Jigsaw slot mockingly rocking the space rocket of…of…oh."

-- hadn't been…his eyes widened from behind the caked on dirt and dried sweat. She had stopped. She only stopped when…

The door at the far end of the stone hall was flung open and he froze, shaking his head a little like it would stop them from coming. They came anyway, storming down the centre pathway between prison cells like tangible, angry Gods and…and…James!

"I-it's the Potters! Oh, Merlin save us all but it's over! Young Harry, yes, James and Lily's young son, he…he did it! He's vanquished he-who-must-not-be-named! He's gone! Gone forever! We're free!"

Lost in the crowd of witches and wizards that suddenly swarmed the other man, desperate for information, he stood back, wrapped in the shadows at the back of the pub. His brain was numb, unwilling to process the information. Harry had…? His little pup had…but how? Unless James had finally gone insane and just thrown the pup's bassinet at Voldemort's feet, then how could he have…Peter. Oh, Merlin…Peter!

"And what of Lily and James?"

The voice was tentative, but it caught his attention like a bear trap. As did the man's answer.

"I…their house was…it was levelled. There was nothing left of --"

He didn't stay to here the rest, already halfway out of the door. He had to…he had to…Peter

"Well, well. Sirius Black."

He looked up and out of the memory, forcing a cheery grin onto his lips as he staggered to his feet - had he fallen? When had…oh, no, sitting. He remembered sitting - and, bracing himself weakly against the bars, nodded in acknowledgement. "Millicent Bagnold, it's an absolute pleasure. You're looking simply wondrous this evening, Minister; a ray of light in this dreadful pit of squalor, if I do say so. Any chance of a full pardon being on the cards today?"

Minister Bagnold's eyes narrowed and she sniffed, a thick mucous-filled sound. "I would not say so, Mr. Black," she answered, voice level and diplomatic, the woman as always aware of the company that she kept in the swarm of politicians and lawyers around her. It was a small mercy that the Dementors had gone on ahead. But then, Sirius highly doubted that the Minister would have enjoyed their company. He knew he didn't. "For services to the Dark Lord and your role in the deaths of James Harold Potter and Lily Marie Evans, it was decided that you would serve four consecutive life terms imprisoned in this very prison, was it not?"

If the Minister had been expecting a reply then she was sorely mistaken.

She continued anyway, drawing herself up to her full height, "as of this very moment, you have only served six and a half years of your sentence," Sirius stared. Six and a half years…? "And being that it is law that no reprieve or consideration of probation shall be given to those sentenced to life terms, I do believe that no, there shall not be a pardon on the cards today."

Bagnold's entourage of blood-sucking lawyers twittered and Sirius kept staring. His gaze ticked almost unbidden to the rag of paper clenched in her hand and he glanced back up to her face, smiling his most charming smile in the face of her undisguised disgust.

"Your newspaper, then, if not a pardon? I really miss doing the crossword. Not the sudoku puzzle, though, you can keep that part if you like. Surprising really, though, isn't it? I don't much miss clean air, but I'd give my left foot for a good crossword. What do you say?"

For a moment he thought she was going to refuse just out of spite. He could practically see the machinations whirring in his head as her gaze blinked at him to the corner of her peripheral vision, where the small contingent stood, watching the interaction with obvious interest. What would be the best thing for her to do, he wondered. Where was the political edge?

"Sneezing buttercups achoo achoo. Rockabye lullaby bless you when the wind blows and the scouring pot falls from the sky, spilling soup, spilling broth, spilling haggis in clumps of red, red meat and the sky is blue, blue, blue. Can you hear the cawcaw cawcaw of bird song? The whispered wind of shouted willow in the stream a' gargling a' growling and hush. Hush. Hush. You can not scream because the wind knows. Wind blows. Your chimney's crooked. It knows that, too."

Her fevered ramblings seemed to make Bagnold's mind up for her. The Minister had shoved the newspaper through the bars and marched her way down the entirety of the corridor before Sirius had even really realised that she'd moved, too busy staring at the ragged women, her hair tangled, her hands working furiously on her upper arms, trying to heat the muscle.

Once he was sure that her lackeys had followed after her, he reached trembling fingers out to the newspaper and plucked it from the bars. It felt grainy and smooth against his skin, the cleanest thing that he had touched in as long as he could remember. The ink stains it left on his index finger were nothing against the dirt and grime that had already encased the digit.

Pushing her voice to the back of his head with as much will power as he could, Sirius Black flipped the newspaper open and turned the thick sheaf of parchment to the front cover. He stared, eyelids not so much wrenching wide as locking in place, lacking the energy for any big expressive movements. His jaw slackened, and the tiniest breath escaped his open lips.

The headline was jumping out at him:

HARRY POTTER: THE BOY-WHO-DISAPPEARED?

or the boy-who-was-wolf?

Malfoy Manor, 18th January 1988

Harry Potter: The Boy-Who-Disappeared? How…nauseatingly cute. Lucius Malfoy's upper lip curled into a sneer as his slate grey eyes tracked downwards, across the image of the waiflike orphan, and down to the text beneath the picture.

The headline was reiterated twice in the first sentence, the author obviously quite proud of their literary imagination. Who, he wondered, had…ah, Rita Skeeter. That explained everything, he thought, scrunching up one side of his nose in almost dainty disgust as he smoothed the newspaper out across his agarwood desk. The quality of writing and of material was appalling, not worthy of being in the same room as himself, never mind in his grasp. But…still…such a juicy, potentially saturated nugget of information on the Brat-Who-Wouldn't-Die (far more fitting a moniker) could not be ignored.

And if the Potter boy was a werewolf…oh, yes, but this needed to be acted on immediately.

"Huntsmen Halls," Lucius commanded the small house elf stood by his fireplace. The creature hurried to comply, throwing twice a fistful of floo powder into the flames and squeaking the address. By the time Lucius had knelt on the black satin pillow in front of his fire, the flames had flared into brilliance and hawk eyes were blinking sharply back at him through the embers.

"Lucius Malfoy, Sir. To what do I owe this?" The man's voice was as razor-like as his features, and that was a feat; the planes of his face looked like you could cut yourself open with just a graze and his eyebrows angled acutely towards the heavens. The man was bald but, though it didn't come across over floo well, Lucius knew that the stubble there was like shark skin.

"Have you seen the news today, Raeger?" Lucius asked, choosing to skip by the pleasantries completely. This was not a courtroom - diplomatic niceties would do him no favours in this ring.

"As a matter of fact, I have, Sir. Was most educational," Flinted eyes hardened suddenly, though seconds ago it wouldn't have seemed possible, and a cold smirk twisted the man's features. "Would I be correct in imagining that you would be contacting me in order to…seek the services of me and mine on this matter?"

Lucius raised a single brow, "If you are assuming that I wish to employ the Huntsmen to track, locate and slay the now known werewolf, Harry James Potter then, yes, Raeger, you would be correct to assume."

Raeger nodded slowly, considering. When he grinned seconds later it was almost grotesque. "Payment?"

"The usual charge plus fifteen percent for the…celebrity of it all. Fifteen more if you provide the agreed upon evidence."

"The agreed upon…?" Raeger was fishing, Lucius knew, keen eyes seeing right through the other man's ploy.

His gaze sharpened. "Innocence does not suit you well, Raeger."

The man called Raeger smiled again then, showing off a row of neat, jagged teeth. "Aye, you're probably right there, lad," Lucius suppressed his annoyance, "the contract is sealed; you'll have your Harry Potter's head on a pike by the end of the week."

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 19th January 1988

"What are you doing? It's meant to be cyan, not pink!" Agalia's hissed voice was almost lost in the strained silence of the classroom and the sudden fury of bubbles rising from the cauldron in front of her.

Bill Weasley, her assigned partner, shot an exasperated look at Yerodin, the only other Gryffindor to have made it into Professor Snape's NEWT Potions class. Seeing that he was getting no sympathy from that corner - Yerodin was studiously chopping up his liverwort at an exact 32 degree angle - he instead rolled his eyes expressively at his backpack.

For a long second, the backpack didn't respond either - not much of a surprise there - but then it twitched and a black snout poked out from the open zipper. The snout seemed to grin for a moment before disappearing back into the red and gold book bag.

"Stop turning Stormy against me," Agalia pouted, flicking a piece of 35 degree liverwort at Bill's head.

Snorting indignantly, Bill caught the liverwort neatly out of the air, "someone should," he said dryly, ignoring the unhappy slant to Agalia's face.

And I can't believe we're calling the poor thing 'Stormy' now, either, he added silently, shooting the backpack an apologetic look.

Not that he or any of the other boys would be able to do anything about it, anyway, he amended wryly; they'd been quickly outvoted the very second a suddenly protective Agalia (who was still feeling guilty for her stunner and the ton of lies they'd all had to tell McGonagall, apparently, if Stormy's permanent home in the girl's dorms was any indication) had noticed the crimson lightning bolt on the wolf cub's head. It might have been a salvageable situation…until all of the other girl's immediately agreed that it was simply adorable. Merlin's knickers, the little wolf was just lucky that Charlie had managed to distract the girls from their campaign to call him Harry.

Honestly, one neatly shaped lightning bolt scar and a newspaper article about Harry Potter and the whole world goes barmy. Bill snorted and flipped another page in his Potion text, eyes searching frantically for some clue as to how to turn a pink potion cyan.

He was blissfully unaware of the black ball of fur sneaking its way out of his open book bag.

This may have been because Harry was trying to be as sneaky as possible. Harry, or Stormy as he was now known among the Gryffindors, was starting to get used to the concept of having four legs and four very sensitive paws to take care of. His tail tucked securely between his legs, he crept forwards, daintily picking up his black-socked paws in turn and settling them back down on the stone floor a few inches along.

This was too weird, he thought, shoulders shivering involuntarily at the feel of the cold through the skin of his feet. First there was the wolf thing, easily bizarre enough on its own, but then there was the giant spiders, the half-horse men, the flying game of Quidditch and now…and now this!

'This' was, of course, magic. Over the last couple of days, Harry had seen a lot of magic, from teapots into hamsters to sleeping draughts and how to ward off an inferi. It was…it was spectacular, but he needed to leave - Uncle Vernon would never approve of him spending time in such a place. Not the same Uncle Vernon who had once clipped his own precious son around the ear because he'd wanted a magician to perform at his fifth birthday party.

It was the only time in Dudley's history on the planet that he hadn't gotten things exactly his own way and it spoke volumes; ones which only really said one thing to Harry: if he didn't get out of here soon he was going to be washing windows until he was too old and feeble to stand safely on the ladder. And then probably a little while longer after then.

Not that Uncle Vernon was an unreasonable man at all, Harry corrected himself dutifully as he crept along on his stomach, making steady time across the room. He broke out of his quick, darting backseat thoughts to slip safely around a yellow and black covered ankle and to duck under and around a blue and bronze back pack in motion as a girl scooped it up from the floor, her eyes still locked on the book in front of her. Dancing easily out of danger and detection, his thoughts returned to Uncle Vernon. No, he wasn't a bad man, not really. He was realistic, not evil. He knew about the world, that was all, just like Aunt Petunia said, and he was doing him a favour, really. How was he meant to grow up decent if he had his heads in clouds of flying motorcycles all the time? He'd never get a wife or have a good job as a Grunning's accountant - Harry's desperate dream, overshadowed only by a desire to have Aunt Petunia bake him cookies just for him. None for Dudley because these were his cookies - if he didn't work hard and keep his head down.

Head down and don't be seen. It was a motto standing Harry in good stead as he made his way out from underneath one of the desks, still virtually silent in the quiet, focused classroom. All of the students were too busy being terrified - he could smell their nerves mixed in with the nausea-inducing mesh of pungent, stinging scents already permeating the air - and diligent and the teacher was too busy bei--

--Harry crashed headfirst into a stationary ankle.

Mortified with himself, but bravely fighting back the stirrings of anxious fear rising in his gut, Harry peeked upwards from where he'd gone sprawling back onto his tailbone. Surprised, black eyes stared back down at him, a hard, unfriendly glint to them.

"Well, well, well," Professor Snape said, finding his voice after only a second's hesitation. He tore his eyes from Harry's, though still keeping the wolf cub in his peripheral vision as he lifted his head to scan his classroom. All of the faces staring back at him looked equally as guilty…but only a few didn't also look totally blank, "what do we have here?"

Harry was unable to reply with anything other than a small, frustrated whimper - lacking in both vocal chords and the teenaged exposure necessary for the mind to automatically jump to a swear word in such a position - but when the time came for him to look back on this moment, he would agree that Bill Weasley summed the situation up very nicely.

"…Shit."

TBC…

Well, there it is. It's shorter than I'd have liked when I started this chapter, and events are moving along a bit faster than I'd first imagined they would, but the characters seem fine with it and well, it's not ruining the story so who am I to argue with my stars?

A lot's happened in this chapter - Sirius, Lucius and Raeger, Harry getting busted…hopefully that'll make it worth the wait. Also, don't worry - the OCs are gonna get toned down next chapter if it kills me.

Anyway, thanks to all who reviewed. And until next time