CW: Food, involuntary transformation, pain, possible minor body horror, spider

After the rocky start, Quidditch practice evened out. They had practices scheduled Thursday afternoons and whenever they could get on Sundays until the season started in October. Rhiannon was determined not to miss practices, but the next Sunday was directly in the midst of the full-moon cycle and she’d not be at her best for it.

Given how bad the last full moon had been, Rhiannon was incredibly nervous for the one approaching. She received a letter at breakfast on the Friday morning that did something to relieve her nerves, being as it was from Hagrid.
Rhiannon, it read, her name misspelled and crossed out a few times.
The first night of the you-know-what starts tomorrow. Since it’s your first time here, wondered if you might like to take tea with me before, I sent another of these to Dudley too. We can figure out the system of how we’re gonna do it with a bit of time, rather than rush you out the castle when you’re hurting, yeah? If you’d rather stick with your friends I can come get you after tea but figured I’d give you the option. I have spare blankets, bring a dressing gown to make it easy on you.
See you tomorrow,
Hagrid

Rhiannon had smiled tiredly and folded it into her pocket. Leaving the castle early would be a lot easier than sneaking out closer to the time, so she had agreed and scrawled back a response, and now late on the Saturday evening she was just pulling on her boots, her blue-to-pink dressing gown shoved into her backpack along with her dose of Wolfsbane for the night and her usual glasses replaced with the false ones. Leaning heavily on her cane with her knees clicking uncomfortably, she limped out of the dormitory and down the stairs to the common room. In the main common area she found Hermione, Ron and Neville seated in armchairs tucked away to one side of the door, sheltered by a bookcase. They looked up as Rhiannon approached, and she felt a twinge of unease. Not like this. They shouldn’t see her like this.

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, Rhiannon shook her head. “I-i-iii-I know you know. Don’t come. Just, go to tea, to bed. P-lease.” she said quietly. Ron frowned, and hugged himself tightly. “Can – can we walk you down, at least? Just to the hall. We’re going for tea anyways,” he asked, rationalising his argument quickly as Rhiannon opened her mouth to refuse him. She deflated and shrugged, seeing no chance to dissuade the three of them.

Neville stood first and reached out to squeeze her hand, she flinched away at first – oversensitive on the full-moon night – but allowed the contact after a brief moment of uncertainty. It wasn’t as if she wanted to leave them. If anything she wanted to hold them all closer, keep them safe – but tonight the risk to their safety, in her mind, was her. And she couldn’t allow that risk.

They didn’t speak all the way down through the castle, Rhiannon’s three friends forming a silent barricade between her and any other students asking questions – a welcome thing, as she realised that the faint hum that wore at her concentration every waking moment had fallen still, indicating she had lost control of the glamour charms and they had faded. She winced and covered her left ear with her free hand, squishing the other onto her shoulder – the glamour charms weren’t the only ones she’d misplaced, and this close to the full moon she doubted she’d have the concentration to maintain them long even if she stopped to reapply them. So head down and shielded by her friends, Rhiannon hobbled painfully down far too many flights of stairs from the seventh floor to a corridor just outside the Great Hall.

There they found Hagrid, along with an already pyjama-clad Dudley. He fidgeted stiffly in the chill evening air, and Rhiannon shifted from foot to foot when they finally reached him and Hagrid. Dudley turned and his eyes met hers, she let out a bark of laughter and darted forward to wrap him in as much of a hug as she could manage given their size difference. She smushed her face into his green-and-yellow tartan flannel-covered arm and squeezed him tightly, comforted when he returned the embrace though he staggered at first as she caught him off-balance.

Hagrid coughed and shuffled his feet awkwardly, a dry sound on the cold stone. “Alright. ‘s gettin’ late. Thanks for seein’ her off, kids – I’ll bring her back safe, I promise.” he said to Rhiannon’s friends. Rhiannon wiggled her way out of the hug and turned to face them, tightening her grip on her cane and steadying herself.

“I- I meant it,” she said quietly, her words running together. She sniffed and took off her decoy glasses, scrubbing at her eyes before trying to speak again. “D-don’t wait up for me. Please. I’ll be okay but... I won’t want to talk, after, please don’t wait up.” she finished, meeting each of her friends’ gazes for a brief moment before looking away in shame.

Hagrid squeezed her good shoulder gently, and shooed Rhiannon’s well-meaning friends away. “C’mon, food should be done by now,” he said to her and Dudley. They headed on out of the castle and across the grounds to his cabin, Hagrid keeping to a slow pace so as to not wear the two of them down.

When they reached the cabin, Hagrid strode forward a few paces so as to open the door for the two preteens. As he fiddled with the handle, a cacophony of barking started up inside and sent Rhiannon stumbling backwards, shaking and wide-eyed with fear. Throughout the year before she had been getting better with Hagrid’s boarhound Fang, but she was hardly comfortable with dogs and since the werewolf attack that fear had returned manifold. Dudley rushed to catch her as she stumbled and fell, and Hagrid took one look at the both of them and covered his face with his free hand.

“Shit,” he muttered as he hurried inside and slammed the door behind him, leaving the two students on the front step. “Sorry! I left ‘im with Kettleburn o’er the summer so as to not scare ye, should’ve remembered to stow him for the night too... lemme go shove ‘im in his kennel, be right back!” Hagrid yelled from inside the house. Rhiannon breathed out a shaky sigh and leaned over on her cane.

A series of muffled clatters and a pathetic whine sounded from inside the house, and another door slammed somewhere inside as Hagrid put the dog in his kennel out in the garden. Heavy boots sounded on the wooden floor inside as Hagrid returned, and he opened the door to let them in with a sigh. “I’m really sorry, Rhiannon,” he said as the two kids traipsed inside. They each sank into an armchair, leaving the third for Hagrid who busied himself with the old-fashioned pot that hung over the fireplace.

“Do wizards really still cook with fires?” asked Dudley curiously. Hagrid laughed and shook his head. “Nah – we just like the look. Traditional, you know. The fire is just the energy source for the charms I’m usin’ to cook, they’re laid into the pot-” he rapped a wooden ladle lightly against the cast iron stew-pot, drawing their attention to the symbols carved into the surface “- and they’re what does the work, they just need an energy source to do it.” he explained. Having judged dinner to be done, he stopped stirring it and left the ladle to stand while he rummaged in a drawer for bowls and cutlery. Finding them, he then carefully ladled out some kind of stew for the three of them and handed a bowl each to Rhiannon and Dudley where they sat curled up in the armchairs.

“Sorry, it’s not got a whole lot o’ taste. This close to full moon, didn’t want t’ risk it with onions,” Hagrid apologised as they began to eat. Rhiannon shook her head, intent on eating. “’s fine,” she mumbled through a mouthful of food. True, Hagrid wasn’t the world’s best cook but it was just a little bland, perfectly serviceable food and given the state of unsettlement the full moon had her in, a little bland was probably better.

“Now, we don’t need t’ do this every night, just didn’ want t’ have it all a big rush,” Hagrid explained. “Yeh can have tea with the others t’morrow and the rest o’ the cycle, like normal. Just wanted t’ make it easy this time.” he added, and both Rhiannon and Dudley nodded but offered little response That made sense, but they were hungry, surely he didn’t expect a response? And it seemed Hagrid didn’t, because he laughed and waved a hand at them both. “Ah, finish up then, don’t mind me natterin’,” he reassured them and returned his attention to his own food.

They finished their meal quickly with little chatter and then the two young werewolves took their Wolfsbane, as both Rhiannon and Dudley began to feel the first pricklings in their skin and bones that told them the change wasn’t far off. “Ye’s can change in the bathroom, ‘s a bit small but it’ll do the job,” Hagrid said awkwardly, nodding to the small adjoining room. They did so, one at a time, and then with Hagrid’s help they limped outside barefoot and clad in dressing gowns, around the back of the house where they couldn’t be seen from the school.

At the prospect of company, Fang started barking raucously again. This time Rhiannon was a little more prepared, but Hagrid still decided he’d put the dog back in the house. “Best not have any extra stress through the change, yeah? Don’t want yeh to wig out and do a runner. I’ll be just over here when ye’re done, privacy an’ all,” he explained, ruffling her hair teasingly as he strode past to move Fang.

Rhiannon shivered in the cool, damp air of the late evening as she stared upwards, through the canopy of trees to where she could see the first stars in the deep indigo sky. Her first full moon had been muggy, oppressive and cloudy while this felt... free. Dudley squeezed her hand and she grinned at him, vibrating with nerves. She shook her head mutely and, leaving her cane leaning against the side of Hagrid’s cabin, she wandered a few paces away from Dudley to where she could get a clearer view of the sky. She leaned heavily on the rickety fence that ringed Hagrid’s garden then remembered how she thrashed during the change and hastily stepped away. Too hastily, as she fell to her knees, but she felt no pain from the fall as she stared up, up, past the stars at the great luminous orb that hung in the sky. The moon.

The first wave of the change washed over her, burning in her veins like liquid nitrogen and she gasped, steadying herself against the ground as still she gazed transfixed at the moon. She didn’t understand why but the stories weren’t entirely wrong... the change could certainly happen without sight of the moon as it had the month before but it did make it easier, a catalyst of sorts rather than having to wait out the pain as her body figured it out on its own. And it held her attention so completely, distracting her thoroughly from the intense pain and sensory wrongness flooding throughout her body as joints cracked and dislocated and then shifted, bones cracked and tendons groaned under the strain. But that didn't mean it wasn't among the worst pains she'd ever felt, and so she let out a ragged scream at the sensation of hair sprouting from her raw, bruised skin, a scream that broke off as her internal organs changed in shape though she stayed rooted in place. There wasn’t enough air, her lungs were the wrong shape, her throat too weak and she almost broke the moon’s hold on her as she scrabbled desperately at the ground before her trying to push herself upright in the hope that might bring breath back to her body.

Rhiannon’s head spun and she coughed, then wheezed and breathed deeply once she realised she could again. She pushed herself up off the ground and stood, her head hanging limply and eyes closed as slowly she adjusted to the change in her senses and shape. She spread her toes, grimacing at the feeling of the dirt even as it grounded her. She accustomed herself to the feeling of her changed weight distribution, forcing herself to breathe evenly and calmly. No panic. No blood. Not this time.

With Rhiannon’s senses unburdened by blood or fear, every deep breath brought in the smells of the forest. Many tangled and half-familiar animal smells, layered over the heavy undercurrents of moss and fungus and leaf-litter odours that made up the base of the general feel that was forest. Carried on the light breeze were the many varied sounds of that same forest, skittering claws and high-pitched shrieks, the soft sounds of hooves and the dry rustle of shifting leaves and branches and further out the soft lap-lap-lap of waves against the rocky lakeshore.

Rhiannon was roused from her wondering stupor by a damp nudging nose against her left shoulder, and she turned her head to see Dudley standing tall beside her. Just as in human form he towered over her in height, his fur creamy fading to white underneath and darker like the roots of his regular hair along his shoulders and spine. She grinned and very hesitantly wagged her new tail. Over the last full moon she had gradually become more accustomed to the change of shape and the limits within it, but she was hardly the steadiest on her paws and appreciated his silent support.

“Alright, come on – it’s yer first time here at Hogwarts so let’s get a move on yeah? Stick with me – don’t want yeh scarin’ my animals, or rilin’ the centaurs now, they’ve been forgivin’ of wolf kids so far but we don’t want t’ test ‘em.” said Hagrid, striding up past them now carrying his lamp-topped staff as he forged ahead of them into the forest.

Eagerly the two wolf-children followed, Rhiannon as ever a little slow to get the feel of her balance and tripping over her paws occasionally as she took in the sheer wealth of sensory input the forest had to offer. This wasn’t her first time in the forest, but now on a clear night free of snow or cloud the forest was more an intriguing mystery waiting to be explored with her new senses than the looming source of fear it had been in in early January. Dudley trailed behind Hagrid at Rhiannon’s side, keeping an uneven but steady pace. She hadn’t noticed on their first turn, but his right hip was a little deformed and stiff, a carryover from the crushing damage of the bite wound that had turned him. No wonder he always walked more stiffly than she did. Immediately she felt a little embarrassed that she’d been so self-absorbed she hadn’t noticed that even after the first blood night, the four others had been comparatively peaceful – she should have noticed.

Rhi opened her mouth to speak, to apologise, but all that came out was a bizarre mixture of whines and strangled whuff sounds. Dudley and Hagrid stopped, Rhiannon winced away from the sudden lamplight in her eyes as Hagrid peered down at her. “You alright, lass?” he asked. Dudley cocked his head sharply, staring at Rhi. She wilted under their attention and coughed, a low hoarse sound from deep in her newly-expanded lungs. She would have replied with a ‘yes’, but obviously that wasn’t an option. So she raised her head to look at them both – not quite meeting their eyes, she never liked long eye contact and tended to look at foreheads or noses instead – and pricked up her tail and wagged it stiffly. That seemed to get the message across, even if it didn’t look quite as natural as if say Dudley had been the one to do it.

Hagrid stared a moment longer, then burst out laughing. “Of all the things! None o’ the others tried to speak. You’re getting your wolf-brain wires all crossed up in there, overthinking and the like.” he said, still chortling merrily. Rhiannon spluttered and sneezed, embarrassed, and Dudley bumped his shoulder lightly against hers. Fine, message received, she thought wryly, and set off again with them deeper into the forest.

Rhiannon raised her head and developed a distinct spring in her previously-hesitant step as Hagrid led the two of them along a foot-track through the undergrowth. She would have asked where they were going but instead had to wait, relying on her nose and ears in the low light. She recognised this part of the forest, the undergrowth thinned out to reveal exposed roots and smooth, twisted tree-trunks. It was darker than it had been that night as the trees had more leaf cover, but Rhiannon imagined she could smell the choking mercury-thick blood that had spilled out across the frozen leaves on that midwinter night. She slowed and let out a quiet whine, tilting her head back to gaze up at the stars as her rescuer that night had.

In doing so, she fell a little behind and Hagrid turned back to look. He must have read the sorrow in her body language, for his voice was softer than usual – such a topic wasn’t one to bellow about. “Buried the poor lad, ol’ Firenze helped. Barely fourteen he was – a cryin’ shame, not even half his life lived. No wonder you feel it.” he said quietly. Rhiannon whined and nosed in the leaf-litter, but the scents were in her memory not in the world around her and so there was nothing to find.

Dudley yipped from somewhere far over to their right and Rhiannon pricked up her ears – that sounded urgent. She set off at a brisk trot just behind Hagrid as they went to see what had Dudley so concerned. Hagrid stopped suddenly and put out his staff, Rhiannon skidded to a halt to avoid colliding with it. “Dudley, back here, now,” Hagrid hissed. Dudley’s fur bristled along his shoulders and spine and his tail was curled in underneath him. At Hagrid’s hushed command he backed away, growling softly.

Deep within the shade of the entwined trees ahead, something very large and heavy moved arrhythmically in a way Rhiannon couldn’t quite place. A stray moonbeam glanced off something hairy, then lit briefly upon what could only be a very large, very pale eye. It smelled like what Rhiannon imagined the depths of a cave might – dry, musty, alien; and its’ footfalls were uneven on the leaf litter. There was no sound of breath, only of its’ movement through the light undergrowth and twisted trees towards them, the fall of too many feet pattering upon rotting leaves.

“Rubeus...” A voice dry as summer shadows whispered, hanging in the still air before them. Rhiannon squinted, then recoiled as the unseen creature moved and lumbered forward into the scant moonlight. She whimpered and scrabbled further backwards with hackles raised and tail tucked while Dudley did very much the same although in her opinion a little less pathetically as before them was revealed the many-eyed head of some huge creature, very much an arthropod of some kind by the prickly husk of its’ head and the count of its’ cloudy grey-pale eyes. Its mouth was hidden behind enormous keratinous pincers that twitched discomfortingly, and Rhiannon fought the urge to run.

Instead she flattened herself to the forest floor, keeping up a continuing piteous whine as she pleaded with both Hagrid and Dudley in the only way left to her – please let me go. But Hagrid didn’t run. His stance had been tense and he had held the lamp-staff like a weapon, now he relaxed and stretched out a gloved hand to touch the creature in what Rhiannon presumed to be the centre of its head, between two of its’ eight milky eyes.

“Aragog,” Hagrid greeted the creature, and though they could not relax fully his friendly tone did reassure the two kids somewhat. Hagrid knew this thing. Hagrid was safe. “Ye’re pretty far from your regular haunts – yeh know the centaurs won’t like that you crossed their land to get all the way here. Wha’s goin’ on?” he continued, retracting his hand and leaning on his staff.

The creature – Aragog, evidently - shifted, rustling the undergrowth around it. “Dark happenings at Hogwarts... We can’t know, but we suspect... The young ones, they are hasty creatures. This forest is not safe for you and your wolf-pups. I know you as friend but they... with this threat, they chafe against me. It is their nature to run wild – as is that of your pups, I suspect. You should stay to lighter parts of the forest, old friend.” it said, in that same ages-old voice of dust and caverns that sounded in the air with barely an echo.

Hagrid shook his head and pushed some of his bushy hair out of his face. “You know I’m no good with mysteries, Aragog,” he complained. “Rhiannon, Dudley, this is Aragog. He’s an Acromantula – very old, very magical species, his is the only colony of ‘em in Britain that I know of. Aragog, these ‘re Rhiannon and Dudley, friends o’ mine.” he added. The great creature’s eyes bobbed and its legs creaked unseen, Rhiannon got the strange impression that it had bowed to them. Slowly she stood, though she hung close to Dudley’s shoulder for reassurance.

“You always did take on strays,” whispered Aragog. His voice held very little intonation, but Rhiannon got the distinct impression he teased Hagrid in saying so. “This forest is not safe for your young ones, old friend. Go back to the edges. They will not hunt you... but for your pups, they will make no such exception.”

Hagrid’s grip on his staff tightened, as did his shoulders. “They’re not the first werewolf kids I’ve brought in here – what’s so different now yours’d cross centaur territory right into mine t’ hassle us?” he replied, his tone growing angry.

The great arthropod sighed and blinked its’ many sightless eyes. “You should remember it... though I was much smaller then. My kind fear it most, above all. If it is truly back, as the young suspect... they will overrun all the forest and out into the highlands seeking to strengthen themselves against their fear.” Aragog murmured, a quaver in his thin voice now. Again he blinked his clouded eyes, a discomforting sight as they did not close in unison.

Hagrid sighed with frustration, and he stepped back from the creature. “Thanks for yer warning. I’ll talk t’ Bane next I see him, pass on the warning... If ye can’t say it out loud and I have t’ guess then... Maybe... There’s no-one I can warn as can do anything about it, there’s been no sign... but if you’re right... No, it can’t be, it’s been fifty years,” he trailed off, musing to himself. Then he shook himself and shifted his grip on his staff. “Only one part I can do anythin’ about. C’mon kids, we’ll head out to the edges, it’s got t’ be gettin’ near moonhigh and the loch’s a real sight. Be seein’ you, Aragog.” he finished decisively, turning to usher Rhiannon and Dudley away, on an angle out towards a different edge of the forest than the one they had entered from.

“Don’t be seeing me, Rubeus – not until this is over...” said Aragog as they left, and Rhiannon shivered. She couldn’t quite recall why, the exact events of the last few months were a blur – but somehow Aragog’s warning seemed familiar, and all the more chilling for his whispering manner of speech. She was all too happy to follow after Hagrid at a brisk trot, in step with Dudley as the three of them forged a path through the undergrowth and close-standing trees out towards the edges of the forest. Underfoot the ground became sandy and pebbled where it had been leafy before. The change was evident in the air too, the heavy forest scents thinning out to be replaced by a chill lake-breeze carrying with it the smells of water and lakeside weeds and stranger animal smells tangled all in with it. The steady lap-lap-lap sound was stronger now, a persistent rhythm carried to them on that same lakeshore breeze. Rhiannon and Dudley looked at Hagrid, then at eachother; something about the combination of scents and sounds set their muscles to itching.

Hagrid slowed, and looked back at them both. “Ah, there’s no point keepin’ ya, go on,” he relented at last as they both fidgeted from foot to foot before him.

Rhiannon looked at Dudley again, then the both of them took off past Hagrid yipping joyfully. “Hey, don’t go too deep! An’ be careful!” Hagrid hollered behind them, but he was laughing and they paid him little heed as they bounded through the sandy leaf-litter out onto the little moonlit meadow of loose rocks and tufty grass that led down to the lakeshore itself. And the lake... Rhiannon had seen it at night only twice, and both those nights had been storm-tossed and wretched. Tonight was clear, cold with a touch of frost on the autumn wind, and the lake itself was as a great black mirror, the surface pierced in several places by rock formations. Something splashed across the lake and Rhiannon’s ears pricked up, a night-bird’s call echoed across the almost-still surface and she longed to find it, chase it.

Dudley bounced in place beside her, kept in check only by his instincts’ insistence that they stay together. He cocked his head and his tongue lolled out, Rhiannon tried to laugh and it came out as a strangled yelp. Dudley snorted and nudged her, as if to say come on, don’t be silly! She grinned and shook herself, and with him leading they raced off towards the lake. The myriad seed-heads of the overlong grass slapped at their faces and caught in their fur as they ran, and they skittered and slid in the pebbles of the lakeshore as they leaped down to it, and then all at once there was water and Rhiannon’s senses were flooded by it as they splashed and frolicked in the shallows, kicking up spray and disturbing tiny leggy fish-creatures from among the reeds.

Hagrid finally reached them and sat down on the grassy bank where it dropped down to pebbles. “Havin’ fun?” he teased them. Dudley yipped a response while Rhiannon hadn’t totally mastered communicating and running, skidding on a patch of slimy lake-weed and bailing up against Dudley’s side in her moment of brief distraction. Dudley yelped in surprise and slid in the loose stone, then planted his legs in a wide stance to prevent them both falling. Hagrid threw back his head and laughed, slapping one hand on his thigh as he did. “Ah, ye silly pair, don’t look at me like that,” Hagrid said through his laughter, his tone mock-admonishing. “Next thing I know you’ll be beggin’ for me t’ throw ye’s a stick.”

At that, both Rhiannon and Dudley stood up straighter and faced him directly, ears pricked and tails alert. They liked to run. They’d like to chase even more. Hagrid blinked back at them, then fell over laughing again. “Oh ye do!” he wheezed, chortling helplessly. Using his staff he pushed himself up off the ground and strode back over to the treeline, where he rummaged among the undergrowth for something suitable with the two eager werewolves in tow. He found a sturdy fallen branch and swatted the loose twigs off it, shooing Rhiannon and Dudley off ahead of him as he headed back to the lakeshore with it. “Not my stick, Dudley,” he grumbled and shoved the leggy brown, cream and white werewolf near-teenager off from where he had been chewing the end of Hagrid’s walking staff. Rhiannon scampered away from them both back to the lakeshore, where she stood and waited.

Hagrid’s pace was slower than hers as he fended off Dudley who was intent on grabbing the branch from him, leaving Rhiannon alone ankle-deep in the lake’s shallows. She breathed deeply, letting her heart rate slow and the excitement fade from her veins, taking a moment for calm for the first time that night. The great full moon was reflected in the lake’s glassy surface, the image unbroken as the breeze died and while the fixation was not so strong as it had been during the change itself Rhiannon was still drawn to the image of it. She looked up from the reflection to the real thing, and more by instinct than intent a howl was drawn from her. It wasn’t even for communication – it just felt like the thing she should do. And once the moment had passed, she felt more than a little silly and returned her attention to lake-gazing, taking in something she had neglected to notice before. Aside from the moon and the rocks that broke the lake’s surface, reflected in the inky water was something she hadn’t been able to bring herself to consider yet: her own form.

Slowly, Rhiannon’s gaze tracked down from where the moon was reflected far out across the lake to her own image just before her and she stared at it, mesmerised. She had taken this shape six times now, but never really taken the time to stop and consider what it looked like. Despite having seen Dudley who was little different from a regular adolescent wolf, she had held a persistent secret fear that she would be different, she would be a monster. That when she looked at herself she would see reflected back the image of what had hunted her on the full moon of July.

Instead, before her was shown almost an ordinary wolf. She wasn’t even a lot bigger than an ordinary wolf given her usual short stature, though long-legged and gangly like a yearling would be and thin, very thin, just like her usual shape. Her fur was similar in colour to her own hair, mostly black fading to ruddy patches around her belly and legs that showed greyish in the moonlight, and around her ears and cheeks in a way that formed a sort of black mask over her eyes and muzzle. She stared at the image, barely able to comprehend that this was her own body – even less able than usual. But the patches of white hair from scarring, those were familiar. They crossed her muzzle and her cheek, down either side of her neck and to the great white splash of scarring on her left shoulder. More still ran under her belly and across her chest, more memories of the first bloody full moon, and her branching lightning scar was the same too though blurred by her fur. All four of her legs were criss-crossed with white lines and splotches, the reminders of Aunt Marge’s dogs. Every physical mark the world had ever left on her was carried to this shape and so despite its unfamiliarity she was forced to acknowledge it as her own.

In the lake, the wolf-face stared back at Rhiannon, green-hazel eyes a little greyer and the gold ring brighter than her human shape’s. But they were the same eyes, the same window into the same person. And in her quiet staring she found a sort of weary acceptance of it all. This was who she was now. She just had to live with it.

Rhiannon’s introspection was interrupted with a terrific splash as Hagrid reached the lakeshore and threw the branch for Dudley, who leapt right off the bank and raced after it into the shallows of the water yipping as if it was going to run away from him unless he told it every second to stay still. Rhiannon’s reflection was broken by ripples and she retreated from it, then loped over to where Dudley struggled with the tree-branch in the chest-deep water. I want a go! She thought, and kicked up water splashing towards him. She seized the other end of the branch that he carried and they tussled over it playfully, thoroughly soaking eachother and Hagrid too as they wrestled back and forth with it in and out of the water.

Rhiannon lost track of the time she played with her cousin under Hagrid’s supervision, and she was almost disappointed when Hagrid called an end to it. “C’mon you two, dawn’s half an hour off,” he called out to them where they splashed in deeper water. Dawn meant the turn back, they needed to get back to the cabin, and so they begrudgingly traipsed out of the water and dropped the branch on the lakeshore. Hagrid laughed at the sight of them both soaking wet and bedecked with lake-weed, and they shook water everywhere in an attempt to remove it. Rhiannon overthought the motion as usual and tangled up her paws, crashing down on the grass with a winded huff and a groan. She spat out grass seeds and picked herself up again, then shot off in pursuit of Dudley whose bushy cream tail was just vanishing into the treeline ahead.

“Of course yeh know the way back...” Hagrid grumbled as he stumbled along far behind them. “Chase the chooks and I’ll have ye’s both in detention all month!” he yelled after them, as Rhiannon and Dudley crashed through brush and trees in their single-minded will to go home. Ten minutes or so later they collapsed on the grass outside the cabin where they had left their dressing gowns, and another ten minutes later Hagrid joined them. He snorted with amusement to see them lying deflated on the grass, and went to rummage in the little garden lean-to against the wall, returning with two heavy animal blankets which he laid over each of them both for warmth and privacy, and to make waiting out the last of the change a little more bearable. Then he left them, returning inside with a quiet reminder that he’d take them back when they were ready.

______________________________________________________

Rhiannon was never what one might call at ease in her own skin and a return to roughly-human shape only intensified that. She groaned and clawed around for the dressing gown that lay on the grass, struggling to remember how to work human hands to do it up around herself. She had trouble in throwing off the heavy horse-smelling blanket, and was forced to crawl back to the wall of the cabin where she had left her cane as her joints shrieked protest about the shapes they had been forced to take on. She clutched her head and used the wall to pull herself upright, then leaned on it heavily as she swayed on her feet. Dudley had been smarter and left his own cane with his pyjamas on the grass, so he was able to stand and limp over to her a little better.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said quietly, a grin picking up the corners of his mouth and turned wry as ever by the scar that tugged at his upper lip. Rhiannon shook her head and laughed weakly, still leaning heavily on the wall. “N-n-not, so bad at all,” she agreed tiredly.

Hagrid presumably overheard their whispered conversation or at least the whispers themselves, as the cabin door creaked open and he peered out in search of Dudley and Rhiannon. Seeing them standing and free of blood his face brightened with a relieved smile and he stepped outside, then let the door swing closed behind him. He held Rhiannon’s backpack in one hand, she made to take it from him and shook her head. “Nah, ye can barely stand, don’t be silly,” he admonished her softly. Rhiannon scowled, but Hagrid left no room to argue and she was in no position to do so anyway; so the three of them began their slow lamp-lit journey up the hill as the first rays of dawn sunlight began to creep over the edges of the Forbidden Forest behind them, chasing them faster towards the castle.

Both Rhiannon and Dudley were exhausted and leaning on Hagrid by the time they reached it, and the darkened stone hallways seemed crowding and oppressive after their night by the Black Lake. The air inside was too still this early in the morning, and Rhiannon could swear she heard whispering in the walls.

“Hufflepuffs are downstairs, we’ll head there first so only one of ye’s has to hike upstairs,” said Hagrid quietly, but Rhiannon wasn’t listening to him and just nodded absently, straining her hearing. Maybe she was looking for sounds where there weren’t any, there was so little sensory input to be found in the castle as compared to the forest. But no – beside her Dudley was tilting his head this way and that too, peering curiously at the walls. Kill, kill, kill... she thought she heard and she shuddered, looking to Dudley to see if he’d heard it too. But he was still scrutinising the brickwork. Then another voice, higher, colder; No! Now is not the time!

Again, Rhiannon looked to her companions to see if they had heard, but Hagrid was oblivious and Dudley didn’t seem to have heard anything specific. Rhiannon rubbed at her ears, but there were no more voices – just rustling and sliding. She must have imagined it. It was a very old castle, she was just hearing castle noises – or maybe Peeves playing a prank.

“Alright, lad, here’s you,” Hagrid said, interrupting Rhiannon’s worrying. They stood before a still life painting of a fruit bowl, and Dudley nodded wearily. He reached out and tickled the pear that stood atop the rest of the fruits and the painting giggled and swung open, revealing a round doorway much like the one in Gryffindor Tower. Dudley squeezed Rhiannon’s hand, and nodded tiredly to Hagrid. “See ye’s tomorrow night, now you’ve got the way of it,” Hagrid said to him and Dudley waved a hand at them by way of affirmation, without even turning back. Hagrid stepped back to let the painting swing closed. “Alright, Rhi, let’s get you upstairs,” he said, and she leaned on his right arm as well as her cane all the way up through the stairs, ignoring Peeves shrieking gleefully as he slid down a bannister, a sound that echoed throughout the cavernous castle halls.

The painting that guarded Gryffindor Tower was asleep when Rhiannon and Hagrid reached it. Hagrid knocked on it politely, and the pink-dressed woman in it opened an eye and scowled at him. “Oh, for heavens’ sake,” she grumbled, and didn’t even bother to ask for a password as she let her painting swing open. Hagrid squeezed Rhiannon’s good shoulder, and she nodded tiredly. “T-t-t-omorrow night,” she affirmed quietly. His smile was gentle. “Good thing it’s the weekend. Go on, rest, I’ll see yeh tomorrow,” he said, and with that he helped a very stiff and weary Rhiannon through the portrait door into the Gryffindor common-room where she headed directly for the staircase and paid her wet lake-smelling hair no mind as she collapsed directly into bed beside a very disgruntled Calypso, and soon her breathing slowed and once again the common room fell quiet as she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.