Evasions

Severus Snape could think of very few times in which his logic failed him. Most of those times had involved complex charms beyond his realm of study, and so it was not logic but the knowledge on which to base it that had failed.

This though, was outside his ability to reason. He's seen the boy cast a shield, not to mention balls of energy and an invisibility charm—and that strange color-reversal and glowing. That was magic. It had to be. And yet the boy was denying it.

"Then how, precisely, did you do those things in the graveyard?" he asked, a trace of sardonic disbelief in his voice.

The boy winced a bit, "That's, uh… classified?"

"So is the fact that I'm a spy, but that hasn't prevented me from informing you."

Eyes flashed green, and Snape felt a chill in his soul. His sarcasm evaporated as he shifted minutely back, away from those glowing orbs.

A blink and eyes were back to a calm sky-blue. "Sorry. My powers are still a bit out of whack from that second Killing Curse. I'm gonna have to find a place to practice for a while…"

"There are many unused rooms in this… house," Snape said the last word with a distinct air of distaste, deliberately ignoring the part of his mind that was still boggling over 'second Killing Curse'.

"Uh, no. I mean, sure, for the basics—invisibility, intangibility, maybe flight if I'm careful—but, well… I don't think they'd like it if I brought the house down."

Brought the house down? Just what kind of powers did the boy have? Those blasts of energy hadn't seemed that destructive…

"I should probably test out the Wail, but the only place to try that is in that forest outside that crazy school, and even then it might be too dangerous… Hey, maybe Clockwork would know somewhere in the Ghost Zone."

Severus was getting confused. Though the boy was talking, it seemed as though he were merely thinking aloud rather than actually speaking to anyone.

"I think my ice powers are OK, but I could always see Frostbite about that, anyway, and Wulf can help me with the portal-thing…" finally the boy's voice trailed off into a mutter that Snape had trouble deciphering, even if it had made any sense to begin with.

Before he could formulate a question, the fire flared green and Lupin tumbled out, looking sooty and harried.

xxxx

Danny had spun on instinct when there was a flare of heat in the part of him he usually associated with his ghost sense –but the heat died as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a green flame and a disheveled… something. The man looked human, but…

"What are you?"

"Pardon?" the man's tired brown eyes widened as his head swiveled around to meet Danny's green-flecked gaze.

"Sorry," Danny rubbed the back of his head, tugging the swirl of power deeper inside, feeling the green leave his eyes. "I just—you feel—different. Not like most people." There was something in that man, something angry and out-of-control. Caged, but there.

"Anyway, I'm Danny Fenton."

"Er… Remus Lupin."

"Cool. Hey, I've gotta go make sure my doxies aren't causing any trouble…"

For a moment, Snape was irritated with how they boy slipped away before explaining anything. Then he registered the comment as Lupin repeated it aloud.

"His doxies?"

xxxx

Danny spent the rest of the week avoiding Snape on general principal. It actually became a bit of a game for him, as his entertainment options were few and far between with only Sirius actually living in the house and occasionally one other member of this 'Order of the Phoenix' staying for a few hours.

Tonks was by far his favorite. She was fun, if a bit of a klutz, and reminded him a bit of Tucker in her sense of humor. (Well, that and lack of grace.) Not to mention that she'd started helping him train his doxies. Still, creepy as the house was, it was getting very boring with so little to do—Danny had even gotten acquainted with the joys of reading,and spent most of his time holed up in 'his' dusty upstairs sitting room, reading various Wizard tomes.

Then the redheads came.

Danny was oblivious to the initial influx, as he was curled up on a no-longer-dusty couch, completely engrossed in a book of Wizard fairy-tales. His doxies were happily settled around him as he read stories to them and occasionally had to shoo them off the pages so he could continue on.

It wasn't until his yellow-eyed doxy, Squeak, tugged at his sleeve and made its 'hungry sound' that he even thought to go downstairs.

Fuzzy and Zip (the purple-eyed doxy), both began clamoring as well, so Danny grinned and slipped a bookmark between the pages of the old leather-bound volume. "All right, all right, guys. Food it is."

He stood, the doxies happily buzzing ahead before darting back again, trying to get him to speed up.

Danny laughed and followed, opening the door to the hall and trailing after the three as they zipped towards the stairs.

It wasn't until he was nearly at the ground floor that the three came back from one of their little races cheeping in alarm, scrambling into their usual hiding places (hair, shoulder, and pocket), with a jet of purplish light splashing against the corner in their wake.

"Hey!" Danny snapped, thinking it was just another member of the Order-thingy taking potshots at his doxies—though Snape had used a pale blue light that had rendered Zip temporarily immobile. "Leave them alone!" he stormed into the hall, eyes snapping with green sparks, and stopped dead, baffled.

Redheads. Lots of redheads. All in the living room with the fireplace, one half bent-over picking up a large suitcase and the others in various stages of retrieving luggage, save for one woman who was still holding her wand.

Zip ducked back behind Danny's shoulder at the sight of her and Fuzzy chittered angrily from his hair, Squeak peeping from his pocket.

It was the woman who broke the semi-stunned silence. "Oh, my. You must be Danny. I'm sorry—they said that you had doxies, but I completely forgot."

Danny blinked, eyes still glowing, "Um. Hi. And you are…?"

xxxx

Danny tried to pay attention for the introductions, he really did, but all he could think about was getting out of the room. He'd gotten used to the varying 'hums' of the other occasional visiting wizards' (and witches') magic, though it had taken him several days to realize what he was feeling. But he'd never been around so many at once—there were six of the redheads in a relatively small space.

It was like… like listening to someone hitting a piano keyboard, a discordant 'clang' on his senses.

Only continuous.

Danny shook his head, refocusing on the twins—Fred and George—as the father introduced them, wariness in his stance.

Wariness?

Oh. Danny tried to reign in his powers as he realized his eyes were glowing again. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, "Wasn't paying attention. My eyes do that, sometimes."

"The glowey thing?" a familiar voice asked from behind him, and Danny blinked, surprised that he hadn't noticed Sirius' aura coming up behind him.

Now that he thought about it, the 'clang' was a tiny bit different, and if he concentrated, he could pick out the man's 'hum'.

So maybe it wouldn't be as nice an ability as he'd first thought. It was already starting to give him a headache.

"Yeah," Danny said in a belated response to Sirius' question. "I'm still a bit out-of-whack."

"Err… right. I'll just get the Weasleys settled, then…"

Danny breathed a silent sigh of relief before all but bolting, wanting to get away from the discordance against his senses. He'd have to see Clockwork about it.

xxxx

Danny got back from seeing the Master of Time and collapsed into bed with a groan. While Clockwork had explained what was causing the discomfort—something about sensing auras and being too 'open'—his instructions on how to stop the unpleasant sensation involved forcibly waking up another power.

Then learning to control it. While Danny had, with Clockwork's help, unlocked the Mental Shielding or whatever it was called, he hadn't come close to controlling it.

And he was exhausted. Within moments of closing his eyes, Danny was asleep, blissfully unaware of the chaos his several hour long disappearance had wrought.

xxxx

Danny woke to barking—familiar barking. Deep and more than a little threatening, it sounded like Cujo… in his big and hostile mode.

He was downstairs in the time it took to blink, throwing up a shield even as he teleported in front of the ghost dog—currently resembling a large Rottweiler, except for the 'green' and 'glowing' parts. "Cujo, sit!" he said firmly even as several jets of light splatted harmlessly against the absorbent shield.

The giant dog did as he was told without hesitation, wagging his tail.

Wands were lowered as Mr. Weasely and Sirius stared at the shield and Danny set about calming Cujo all the way.

"It's OK, boy, they just didn't expect you. What've you got, there?" Danny asked, eyeing the spiked ghost-leather-and-steel collar that had a cylindrical container clipped to it. Which explained why Cujo was in his adult mode—that thing would have been nearly as big as puppy-Cujo.

Cujo barked, wagging his tail.

Danny blinked and unclipped it, a slightly disbelieving look on his face, "Jazz's having you bring me homework?" he asked incredulously, unscrewing the cap and dumping rolled papers into his hand.

"Um… are there books that go with this?"

Cujo barked happily and Danny sighed, "Well, that's good. I guess I'll see you again tomorrow, huh? Bring your squeaky and we'll play fetch."

The dog shrank down into a puppy, barking happily, before turning and 'digging' back to the Ghost Zone.

It was only then that Danny registered that the two adults were still staring.

"Um, sorry. That was Cujo. He's a ghost—he used to be a guard dog. He's a good dog, really."

The stares merely continued after the babbled explanation and Danny knew he wasn't getting off quite that easily.

xxxx