Content warning: trauma, flashback, child abuse, transphobia (referenced), vomit, restraint for psychiatric concerns
After their trip to Diagon Alley and the full moon, it felt as if the remainder of August rushed by. All too soon it was the 31st and thus time to leave. Xenophilius took them Euston Station by Side-Along Apparition, using the rope as an extended sort of harness for the job, but rather than simply rushing off as he usually did, he sent Luna and Dudley on ahead and took Rhiannon aside. He glanced around anxiously and shrank from the crowds, drawing his wand to renew the sensory jinxes on his ears as he did so.
“Um – X-xenophilius – what is it?” Rhiannon asked, equal parts curious and worried. Her foster father usually liked to escape public places as quickly as possible, so for him to voluntarily spend more time in this one, he must have something important to discuss.
Xenophilius coughed and straightened his robes, fingers twitching fretfully. “Ah – Rhiannon. No, don’t worry, please – it’s just, I thought it better you know. In here.” he said, and held the door open to what looked like a sort of large phone booth. He settled himself on one of the bench seats, and Rhiannon perched anxiously on the other. Knotting his hands together in his lap, Xenophilius mouthed silently to himself, evidently figuring out what he was going to say.
“It’s about – Sirius, Black. You might have heard the name, or seen posters, or – Arthur told me about what happened in Diagon Alley.” Xenophilius began. Rhiannon looked up, startled. She had barely registered the posters, and they didn’t go out a lot, but she had caught a glimpse of the story in question on the front page of the Daily Prophet before Mr Weasley had whisked it out of her view. Xenophilius coughed, drawing her attention back to him. “Or not – it’s fine, no matter. The short story is that, as far as is known, he committed a terrible crime and was sent to Azkaban without trial. He was imprisoned there for twelve years and he escaped, recently, the first person to do so. That is what you would see if you read his story. But there’s a part they wouldn’t tell you. Sirius Black was – friends – with your parents, and when they went into hiding he helped to protect them. He was their Secret Keeper – the house was under the Fidelius Charm, which I suspect you’ve read about. And to all knowledge, he betrayed them to Voldemort.” he said heavily. His expression was somber, and he shook his head, his lips trembling.
“But – he was their best friend, Rhiannon. They named him your godfather, and he was very outspoken against Voldemort – it estranged him from his family. Something is not right with this story. And I suspect you will be confronted with it this year, be it by reporters or... who knows.” Xenophilius added. His eyes darted about, as if worried he might be overheard, and he wiped his hair away from where it had stuck to his forehead. Then he turned his attention firmly on Rhiannon with renewed strength. “I need you to promise me that you will keep your wits about you, think critically about whatever you hear and, above all else – stay safe. He may come to find you, either to finish what he started or – plead his innocence. Promise me you will put your safety first.” he finished, and reached across to take Rhiannon’s hands in his.
Rhiannon stared at him, mouth agape. From her brief glance – she never liked eye contact – she had seen tears in her foster-father’s eyes, and his hands shook as he held hers. Sirius Black wasn’t just a story, he had meant something to Xenophilius, and maybe he still did, if her foster-father’s dark tone of voice around Sirius’ lack of a trial indicated anything. “I – I – I promise,” she whispered lamely. What else could she say to that? It wasn’t as if she would seek Black out on purpose – she had far too much work to do this year.
Xenophilius smiled wanly and squeezed her hands. “That’s all I need. Have a good year, Rhiannon – that’s what matters most.” he replied. He stood and straightened his robes, and opened the door for Rhiannon who carried Calypso’s crate in one hand and her cane in the other, and together they headed out onto the platform. Rhiannon immediately renewed her own auditory jinxes at the onrush of noise, and hurried along taking two strides for every one her foster-father took as they made their way towards the train. When they reached it, Rhiannon turned to face her foster-father and set the cat crate at her feet to hold him at arms’ length. When he nodded assent, she hugged him tightly. “Thank- thank-you, for telling me,” she whispered as she stepped away.
“You’re almost grown. I can’t protect you by hiding things from you – you have to be informed to make the best decisions for your own safety, and it is my responsibility to make sure you are. Now, best be off – you’ll miss the train.” Xenophilius replied warmly, and let go of Rhiannon’s hands to cover his ears as the train blasted its’ final warning whistle. Rhiannon winced and struggled to cover her own ears as she had retrieved her cat crate and had her hands full. With a last goodbye, she hurried onto the train to search for Luna and Dudley.
They had found compartments directly across from eachother and sat with the doors open chatting across the aisle. Ginny sat across from Dudley in one compartment along with Hayley Callister, while Ron was settled in with Luna and a sleeping man who leaned against the window. Rhiannon peered closer, frowning. “Who- who’s that?” she asked, wrinkling her nose as she spoke.
“Professor R. J. Lupin,” Luna replied, looking up at the tag on the man’s very battered suitcase. Rhiannon’s frown deepened, and she sniffed the air experimentally. Something about some particular scent had her instincts nudging her insistently. She then sniffed herself to double-check she wasn’t crossing her wires, but no – the scent didn’t match. Her nose still twitching, Rhiannon settled into a seat beside Luna, her brows creased together as she wondered what was unsettling her so much.
“New Defence teacher?” Ron wondered. Rhiannon’s head shot up, she hadn’t been paying attention to the real world as much as she should have, instead musing on the question before her.
Ginny snickered from across the aisle. “Can’t be any worse than the last one!” she replied with a wry laugh, which Rhiannon’s other friends echoed. The sleeping Professor grumbled and turned over in his sleep, wafting a fresh wave of the very familiar, out-of-place scent
All at once, she realised it. Werewolf. It wasn’t her, and it wasn’t Dudley. That left only one possibility, because she would have recognised the scent had one of her friends been turned. Professor R. J. Lupin, whoever he was, was a werewolf.
Rhiannon fidgeted uneasily. Aside from herself and Dudley, her wider experience with werewolves had only been bad. Rationally she knew they weren’t monsters – she herself was proof of that even if sometimes she doubted it, and if she didn’t trust her own goodness then Dudley was even better evidence. And she couldn’t tell her friends why she was so unsettled, because that would mean revealing the new Professor’s secret and, trust him or not, that wasn’t hers to tell. She sighed, and fiddled with her bracelet as she settled into a more comfortable position in her chair. Headmaster McGonagall wouldn’t have hired someone untrustworthy. Rationally she knew that. But irrationally, she could already see fire flickering behind her closed lids and see the eyes of the half-shape werewolves reflecting back at her in the flame-torn, shadowed forest of her memory.
Rhiannon shivered, and huddled closer to Luna – and further away from the Professor. Her prejudice was born of genuine fear and trauma, but it was a prejudice nonetheless. She would have to work through it in her own time. For now, she rested her head on Luna’s shoulder and set her cat crate on the bench seat between herself and the Professor, and settled in to rest for the long trip north.
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Rhiannon was disturbed from her doze about two hours later as the train shrieked to a halt. She peered out of the windows – it wasn’t quite dark outside yet, and she didn’t think it had been long enough. “Wha’s goin’ on?” she asked sleepily of no-one in particular.
“We’re at the border,” Hermione replied quietly. She’d joined them at the stop after Rhiannon’s, and settled into the compartment between the two werewolves. “It’s Neville’s stop, see?”
Rhiannon peered out of the compartment as indeed, it was Neville who clattered down the carriage aisle along with a handful of others. He was grey-faced and shaking as he settled into the compartment with Dudley, Ginny and Hayley, then suddenly he lurched back to his feet and staggered from the compartment, hurrying in the direction of the carriage toilet. Rhiannon expected the train to set off again as it usually did, there were less and less students who traveled by train the further they got from London, but instead it remained still and eerily silent. Neville did not return as she expected him to, and Rhiannon got stiffly to her feet. “I’ll – I’ll go check,” Rhiannon stammered, leaning heavily on her cane as an unseasonal chill set her joints to aching.
Rhiannon hobbled clumsily down the train aisle, leaning on walls as she passed them in search of Neville. The whole train was eerily quiet, the only sign of other students was their grey-tinted faces as they peered anxiously out of their own compartments. Something wasn’t right. Rhiannon finally reached the bathroom, to find the very distinct sound – and smell – of someone, presumably Neville, throwing up. That alone was weird – Neville had only just got on the train, there’d be no chance he was travel-sick. “Neville? Wha’s wrong?” Rhiannon asked, to no reply.
Rhiannon fidgeted anxiously with her ring, and pressed her face against the glass of the window in the nook beside the bathroom as she saw shapes move by outside, obscured by a layer of condensation. No, not condensation, she realised as she pulled her face from the window with a start – frost.
Then, all of a sudden, the lights on the train went out and they were plunged into darkness. Rhiannon blinked, startled, and the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood up. She caught a glance of her own reflection, no more than a tawny oval pierced with the yellow orbs of her reflective eyes in the fog... but there was something else, a shadow against the frost, something behind her... The door of the toilet clattered open, to reveal an ashy-faced Neville, his alderwood wand clutched in a trembling fist. “No... no, ge’ back...” he whispered, wide gray-green eyes fixed horror-struck on something behind Rhiannon.
Rhiannon whirled around to see a black-cloaked figure looming in the aisle of the carriage. Cloaked? No, that wasn’t right... the edges of the ‘cloak’ billowed in a wind that wasn’t there and the whole creature was sort of translucent, hunched as it towered to the ceiling. A harsh rattling breath sounded in the still air, presumably from the creature’s mouth – Rhiannon couldn’t tell, paralysed with fear as she was, and the creature was entirely hidden under its semi-tangible cloak.
Then the memories began. Rhiannon was only dimly aware of the pain as her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor, fire flashing behind closed eyelids. Fire, torn by ragged howls, she’d started it, she was defenseless, Dudley was dead... and then voices began to echo, carrying somehow over the howls and the hungry crackle of the forest fire. Horribly familiar voices. Her aunt Petunia shrieking for her to get up, Uncle Vernon the day Hagrid took her away, the day she and Dudley escaped – exact moments blended together into a melting pot comprised of her twelve years’ worth of trauma, the low-pitched growling snap of Aunt Marge’s dog blurred into a werewolf lunging through the flames towards her, Uncle Vernon was swapped for Albus Dumbledore telling her she had failed her parents, that she had to give up her playacting as a girl; the awful scratching, crawling, burning sensation and complete sensory input overwhelm of her first change... And the fire, too, was mixed up in other memories. Orange flames licking at dry trees one moment, green flames devouring an indistinct room as a man called for his wife and a high, chilling laugh cut off a woman’s screams in a blaze of green light...
Someone threw themself between Rhiannon and the creature, blocking its’ direct attack from her. Rhiannon’s awareness returned dimly and as if from a distance she realised it wasn’t just a woman screaming, it was her as well. She fell quiet, sobbing quietly, then all at once was overcome with the need to be sick. She crawled blindly for the toilet, just in time to throw up everything she’d eaten that day into the metal bowl, as her unseen rescuer shouted something and the carriage shook. Gradually the retching heaves turned to broken sobs, and Rhiannon slipped from her half-kneeling position to curl up on the floor hugging her knees to her chest. Too much, it was too much – she couldn’t keep track of it all, as even recent memories tangled in with the mess of it all. Ginny lying on the Chamber floor, Hermione and Dudley frozen in the hospital wing – even with the creature gone, it had to be gone, she could feel its presence fading, but the effect did not vanish as quickly as the creature had. It was as if the creature, whatever it had been, left a heavy fog over those it’s presence had touched – and it had touched her, Rhiannon realised, as she wiped away the stinking sweat of its grip from her wrist. She shuddered and fought her gag reflex, knowing she had nothing left to throw up but bile, as her skin still crawled with the physical memory of that horrific first change and she fought the urge to claw at her ears and face.
“Come now, kid, sit up – no, don’t hit me, I won’t hurt you,” an unfamiliar voice said, gently coaxing and endlessly patient. Rhiannon tried to open her eyes, but there was nothing – not only did they not work, she still felt sort of distant from her body, the extremities numb and cold. Her hands were stiff and curled into claws, her skin raw – she felt sick again as she realised she’d had no control of her body at all. Had she hurt someone? It would have been all too easy, thinking they were the figures of her nightmarish memories.
“Wh-wh-who?” Rhiannon croaked, as the stranger pressed something into her hands. Rhiannon sniffed it and recoiled, thrusting it back at the stranger and wiping her hands hastily on her clothes. Chocolate. She’d been very lucky that lycanthropy had only partially set in, the last time she tried to eat any. It had only given her a wretched sore stomach. If she ate it now it could have much more serious effects – she could experience heart difficulty, seizures or even death. At best it would make her sick again, though worse than last time. And that was the last thing she needed now. “N-nnn-nuh- can’t,” she mumbled, as the stranger tried to get her to take the chocolate again.
“Well, if you’re sure,” the stranger replied dubiously. “You’re her friends, yes?” they asked, obviously addressing someone else. There was a quiet chorus of agreement, in which Rhiannon dimly recognised Ron and Hermione’s voices. Luna wasn’t present, which worried Rhiannon, and she struggled to sit up. “No, easy now – let your friends help, you’ll be weak after that. I’m going to go and speak with the driver, now – it’s not right, subjecting you kids to all that. You rest, we’ve still a few hours before we reach Hogwarts, and I’ll make sure the teachers get you on the trip up so you can be looked after in the Hospital Wing. You too, Neville,” they said, as evidently the boy was still somewhere in the cramped nook of the bathroom area.
Rhiannon nodded, not seeing anything else to do, and Ron and Hermione crowded closer in a rustle of fabric. “C’mon Rhi,” Ron said, more to let her know he was there than anything else, she guessed. Rhiannon snorted, though it was a wan sort of humour. Still, really – did he think she couldn’t hear him moving? It wasn’t as if he was particularly light-footed, and Hermione’s breathing got hoarse in a particular way when she was anxious. Even if she hadn’t heard them – and sometimes she couldn’t – their smells were as instantly recognisable as her own, now. With the help of her friends Rhiannon stood and they awkwardly made their way back down the corridor, half-carrying Rhiannon as she staggered and swayed in place. She fell clumsily into her seat, bumping against Luna as she did so, and her other friends settled in around her. But Rhiannon’s attention was on Luna. They’d not come to find her with Ron and Hermione, and that could only mean something was wrong. Rhiannon shivered, then grimaced, as she leaned against her friend. Sweat soaked through his clothing, permeating the whole air with the sour reek of fear, and zir skin was clammy as Rhiannon reached for faer hand. When she found it, Luna gripped her hand tightly, trembling in her seat. Rhiannon leaned her head against xir shoulder with a miserable sigh and looped her free arm around Luna’s waist, too worn out from the sudden terror and flashbacks to say anything that might comfort her friend. And somehow, she doubted Luna had much to say either, as their breath rasped hollowly in the still air.
“Wh-wh-hhhh-who was ‘at?” Rhiannon slurred, her teeth chattering. She was too tired, too cold – she was cold inside at her very core, extremities long since left numb and trembling.
“Professor R. J. Lupin,” Ron replied. He sounded awed, but it was muted, his tone almost colourless – a far cry from his usual enthusiasm. “He chased the Dementor off yous – that’s what it was, a Dementor. They guard Azkaban. They were searching the train for – Black, Sirius Black, the escaped convict. Other people got hit bad too – Dudley’s looking after Ginny now and ‘Mione went all quiet – but you’re the only one it really went for.”
Rhiannon went to reply, but her lips felt like wax, her skull a leaden weight. All she managed was a mumbling tangle as her head rolled off Luna’s shoulder and she slid down their chest into vir lap, blessedly unconscious.
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When Rhiannon awoke next, it was to the familiar sharp, clean smells that indicated the Hospital Wing. She wrinkled her nose and winced at the sour, dry feeling that coated her mouth, then reached out for where she expected there to be a glass of water on the bed-side table. Instead, she was stopped short. She jiggled her wrist experimentally and growled, finding it restrained with what felt like a leather cuff. She tried the other one, and then her legs, to the same result. Panic rose like a freezing tide in her stomach and she fought to keep her breathing steady, as she found she could not even turn over or lift her head.
“Sorry, dear,” a familiar voice said from beside her. Soft-soled shoes clopped softly on the stone floor, and Rhiannon tried to relax as she recognised the comforting presence of Madam Pomfrey. “We had to restrain you, you were lashing out and scratching at yourself while you were half-unconscious – caught up in the memories, no doubt. You’re not the only one, we had to take a fair few students in, including young Miss Weasley and Master Longbottom. Lucky Remus was here – thank God we’ve a teacher this year who cares about student safety! If you’ll hold tight just a moment, I can let you out. Can you see?” she asked, her voice as patient and gentle as Rhiannon remembered it.
It was a force of will to settle down and stay calm as Madam Pomfrey unbuckled the restraints, and Rhiannon was only able to respond once she had been freed. “N-n-n-n-nuh-nnnnuhhh-no,” she stammered, frustrated and uneasy in equal measure. She shook out her hands and legs and sat up, her back against the wall, as she took deep breaths in an effort to calm herself.
Madam Pomfrey sighed. “That does sound right – it’s a neurological problem, and so is the effect Dementors have, it must have conflicted. Putting them in a school – what was the Minister thinking? So many students affected, you poor things... You’ll have to miss the feast to recover, I don’t think so much noise and other people would be good for any of you, but you can head back to your common room in the morning if you’re alright, and I’ll have some food brought over for you in just a bit. Rhiannon, dear, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to give you a Draught of Dreamless Sleep with your meal. It’s common after a Dementor encounter to experience nightmares, and I know you already have them. It’ll just put you right off to sleep after you’ve finished eating.” she explained.
Rhiannon frowned. She didn’t like taking things that took control away from her, least of all sedatives... but presumably it was the potion or the restraints again. She didn’t want to hurt herself or worse, somebody else, because she mistook them for a figure in her nightmares. Slowly she nodded, and she heard Madam Pomfrey let out a sigh of relief in response. “Very good, very good. Alright, I’ll send for something to eat for you and the rest. You’ll be alright, dear – I’m sorry you had to experience that at all.” Madam Pomfrey said. She muttered and incantation and made her request for food to whoever was listening on the other end. Ordinarily Rhiannon would have been curious about a communication spell like that, but she was just too tired and too shaken. She rested back against the bed-head and fiddled half-heartedly with her ring, chewing on her necklace as well for some measure of comfort. When her dinner arrived she downed the potion with barely a shudder and picked at her meal – soup and plain bread – and only finished it under Madam Pomfrey’s stern encouragement. The effects of the potion, combined with her existing fatigue, dragged at her insistently until she gave in and curled up on her side in bed. Someone had let her cat out, and she ignored the creature’s half-hearted protests to pull her closer and snuggle as gradually she was pulled into blessedly dreamless sleep.
