Professor Moody’s warning did little but stress Rhiannon out, so she did her best to shove it to the back of her mind as she and the other Champions trained for the first task. Flame-Freezing Charms, Shield Charms, stealth and killing spells for a last resort, along with Rhiannon’s private revision of the Summoning charm – slowly but surely they were building a solid foundation from which each one of them could throw together a strategy once they knew which dragon they would be facing.

But try as she might to concentrate on the task at hand, Rhiannon’s attention drifted to her fathers’ return at the end of the week and she struggled to focus on anything but the insistent thought of reuniting with her pack. So as soon as the private Enchanting class Flitwick taught concluded late on Saturday afternoon, Rhiannon shoved her belongings into her backpack, said a hurried goodbye to Neville and the rest of her friends in the class followed by a slightly longer goodbye for Hermione, then rushed off through the castle heedless of her joints that very much didn’t appreciate two-legged running, all the way to the third floor, then across to the east wing where Remus’ office and his suite of rooms were located.

By the time Rhiannon arrived at Remus’ office door she was sore and thoroughly out of breath from her run, and she slumped against the wall to rest before knocking on the door. It swung open after only a few short moments and Rhiannon stumbled inside straight into Remus’ waiting arms. “Hey, pup, you’re trembling like you’ve run a mile, you alright?” Remus asked, nudging the door closed behind them as he half-carried her inside. She just squeezed him more tightly, hanging on like a little limpet as he laughed helplessly and dragged her along with him through his office and into the living room and small kitchen that connected to his bedroom.

Once inside, Remus collapsed in a heap on the rug and Rhiannon cuddled up against his side, eyes tightly closed as she burrowed into his woollen jersey. She could feel the heat of a hearthfire on her back and through her hair, but for once it didn’t bother her – she was comfortable here, she felt safe – and it had been some time since she had felt safe, she hadn’t realised she needed it so desperately.

“Can I get in on the hug?” another familiar voice asked, a little plaintive like a lonely puppy’s might sound. Sirius. Rhiannon could hear him behind her, his clothes rustled as he settled down on the rug, and she untangled herself from Remus and threw herself into her other father’s arms, breathing in his familiar scent until all at once she was overwhelmed by it and to her mortification she began to cry, sobbing helplessly against Sirius’ chest as all the overwhelming fear and exhaustion of the last few weeks flooded over her, a reminder that she was still just a child facing something no child ever should. Sirius rocked her gently, humming deep in his chest as he held her tightly, and Remus joined themso that they formed a sort of warm, safe cave for their worn-out almost-daughter.

“We’ve got you, Rhi, let it out,” Sirius mumbled, his chin resting on top of her head, the two men rocking her gently and humming quietly, providing comfort and reassurance as she bawled out the worst of her fears and pain, the deluge of tears providing a release that, despite the indignity of it all, she had desperately needed. It wasn’t healthy to keep so much pain bottled up, she knew that, but for all these weeks since accepting that she had to compete in the tournament Rhiannon had done her best to project a strength and confidence she did not truly feel – and that was truly exhausting.

Eventually Rhiannon had cried herself out and she curled up on the floor with her head on Sirius’ leg, the three of them – fathers and daughter, two wolves and a dog alike – seated on the rug in front of the fire, Sirius and Remus leaning against the couch while Rhiannon lay curled in a ball between them. Remus stroked Rhiannon’s hair, idly tangling his fingers in it as he scratched at the base of her skull in a soothing manner that brought a low rumbling growl-purr to the back of Rhiannon’s throat. “Guess you needed that, hey?” Remus asked, more of a reassurance than a real question as he leaned sideways so that his head rested on Sirius’s shoulder and the rest of him made a comfortable shelter for the little werewolf.

Rhiannon nodded wordlessly, and Sirius gently brushed the hair from her eyes as she sat up and tucked herself in between them with her arms around her knees. “I should’ve seen it back when we first met... you spend so much time being strong, looking after yourself and the others, but there’s nobody to look after you,” Sirius murmured softly.

Rhiannon screwed up her face, a little offended on behalf of her friends. Her throat was all clogged up with snot and her face hurt from crying, she wasn’t going to be able to say much, but she wasn’t going to sit here and not give them the credit they deserved. “H-h-h-h-ey, ‘mione ‘n Luna, N-n-n-nina, Lav’nder, N-n-n-n-eville, even,” she mumbled grumpily,

Remus lightly swatted her hair, the sort of gentle scold a wolf gives their pup and something that might have once startled Rhiannon but now felt more familiar than frightening. “Oi, you know what he meant, grumpy pup. Friends are family for sure, but you’re all kids – you need parents too, and I know Xen does his best but he’s Luna’s dad and I know that keeps you from seeing him as yours, leanin’ on him as you need,”

Rhiannon made a grumpy noise, embarrassed by how transparent she seemed to be, and hugged her knees more tightly to her chest. Sirius chuckled softly and pulled her against his side in a one-armed hug. “Yeah, grumpy pup, you know he’s right,” he teased gently. “And I know we said we’d wait, take it slow on the whole adoption thing but... well, you know we worry, and it just seems like... maybe in a perfect world we could give it years and figure it out as we go but, it seems like maybe you need us right now, and we both want to be here for you, give you that space to be scared, be comforted – to just be a kid, you know?” he explained quietly.

Her heart was too full to put it all into words, all Rhiannon could do was hug Sirius tightly, her eyes squeezed tightly closed, and she wiggled happily as she filled up with feelings she just had to let out somehow. They were both right – her feelings for Luna kept her from seeing Luna’s father Xenophilius as a close parental figure, but with the pressure and danger of the tournament she desperately needed the support of parents. She didn’t know the family situation of the other champions save Cedric, but they were also older – legally, they were adults and while she had looked out for herself most of her life, an adult Rhiannon was not. She couldn’t do this alone, or even with just other children for support – she needed her dads.

“So is that a good wiggle? I’m sorry, I’m new at speaking teenager – or at least, speaking to my own daughter since I’m sort of, new at having one,” Remus asked her, gently teasing as he tickled her under her chin in a fatherly way that made her giggle and slap at them both in playful protest.

Rhiannon grinned and sprawled out across her fathers’ legs, stretching luxuriously as she did so. “I mean, I’m, new at having a dad so, ‘s not like you gotta be p-p-p-perfect, I won’t know th’ difference,” she joked wryly.

Both men sobered, and they shared a solemn glance before turning their attention back to Rhiannon. “Hey, don’t – don’t even joke about that, Rhi. We want to be good dads, not just good by comparison – you deserve so much better than you’ve got out of life so far. But for that to work, you do need to tell us when stuff’s not working – and I know that’s going to be hard and scary, but you can get Dudley to help if you need.” Sirius advised, and for a moment before he shook it away there was a distinctly haunted cast to his still sharp-boned face.

Rhiannon frowned and sat up sharply, so quick she would have caught her head on Remus’ chin had he not lurched back out of the way just in time. “Dudley, that’s – ww-w-w-w-w-w-w-where’s, Dudley? He should, be here for this sort’ve talk, right?” she inquired, suddenly anxious – she couldn’t go making these kinds of decisions on her brother’s behalf, they were a pack and that meant their choices were a package deal.

Again, the two men shared a glance, but this time their expressions were wry rather than haunted and hurt. “I suppose now is a good time to admit that he’s the one who suggested we talk to you about this in the first place – he’s worried about you, we all are, but we didn’t want to overstep and I think that was making us a little less helpful than we wanted to be. He gave us a bit of a hurry up about it, something about ‘aren’t you the adults here’ – with a bit more swearing,” Remus admitted, his lips twisting sideways into a self-deprecating little smile.

At that, all Rhiannon could do was laugh helplessly, falling back into her fathers’ arms. Of course Dudley knew – as if any of them could have got something so important past him, he had a better grip on his lupine instincts than any of them and knew each of their needs better than they did themselves – of all Rhiannon’s friends and peers, Dudley had changed most of all in the last two years. Being turned had come at exactly the right moment in his life and he had embraced lycanthropy with a joy that had eventually taught Rhiannon herself to love their shared wolfish nature, though he was still better at interpreting his new instincts better than she.

Just as she had needed to cry, Rhiannon found a weight lifted from her weary frame and soul alike by the shared laughter, and she felt spent – in the right way this time – as she flopped back against her dads’ shoulders. “Sorry, just – pfffffffffff­, of course Dudley noticed before us, ‘s – how he does, isn’t it, I sh’ld stop bein’ surprised by now,” she explained as her fathers looked between eachother and then back at her, clearly baffled by the outburst.

“It’s no worry, really – it’s just like Remus said earlier, we’re new at all this, and this is a situation that would stump anyone, you be however you need,” Sirius assured her quickly. “But if you’re feeling better, do you want to sit up on the couch, brainstorm out how you’re going to tackle the task if you need someone to bounce ideas off? Whatever you need.”

Rhiannon took a deep, steadying breath and stood, trembling a little but determined, then held out her hands and helped her da Remus up off the floor and onto the couch while Sirius sorted himself out. She retrieved her school backpack from where it had been discarded on the floor and rifled through it for the notes she had been making in preparation for the task, then flopped down on the couch between her dads with a weary huff and a slap of papers against her legs.

“Planning t’ fly it,” Rhiannon explained, spreading the papers out across their three laps so that her dads could see her notes in better detail. “Th’t way, the pain’s not ‘n issue. There’s four dragons, kinda loose strategies for each, see – Hebridean Blacks’re reactive, they can lunge any direction so, low ‘n fast; Swedish Shortsnouts’re agile, light, it’d probably fly after me, uh... Chinese f-f-f-f-f-f-f-Fireball, spellcasters so, brushin’ up on shields ‘n camouflage, I’d have t’ out-think that rather’n outfly it; an’ Horntails are big, solid ‘n mean, but not very agile so, I’d need t’ annoy it enough t’ get off the nest n’ grab whate’er they’re making the task object before it turns around. Um – Dudley’s already brewin’ Fireproofing p-p-p-p-p-p-p-Potions, don’t wanna risk damage t’ my broom an’ we’ll soak my robes ‘n stuff in it too – if-f-f-f-f-f- - if I catch fire, i’s-s-s- ‘s all over, I’ll lose my head, so, planning.”

Remus reached an arm across Rhiannon’s back and squeezed her shoulder affectionately. “Good thinking, all of it, really solid strategies and I’m so proud so see you tackling that kind of traumatic trigger head on, you’re exactly on track. I’ve got some advanced training equipment the older students use for the practical segments of their exams – dummies that react and spit out a few spells depending on what you code it for, there’s a few knobs ‘n stuff to tell it which spells you want it to do, moving targets, that kinda crap. If you like, I’ll get some keys made for the four of you so you can use the training course, it’s out by the forest and could be useful to you,” he offered, and had he been his wolfish form Rhiannon suspected her da’s tailtip might have been wagging in his earnest eagerness to help any way he could.

Rhiannon made an anxious little moue and hummed worriedly. “Thanks, th-h-h-h-h—hhhhh- that, I think it’d really help, like... I’ve got all these plans b-b-b-but, I’m just s-s-sss-so worried it’ll come to it and, I’ll freeze, forget what to cast again, I just... I d-d-d-don’t, think I’ll ever feel ready,” she admitted, her nails digging into her palms as she tried to settle her nerves.

Sirius raised an eyebrow and ruffled Rhiannon’s hair affectionately. “Didn’t you get a werewolf with the Pumpkinhead Jinx once you figured out direct affect spells didn’t work? Because that was pretty bloody clever – give yourself some credit, kid, you’ve kicked ass so far,” he replied with a wry grin.

Rhiannon grimaced. “Yeah, an’ if Hagrid hadn’ shown up with th’ Ministry I’d be dead, I just – panicked and forgot everythin’, the p-p-p-p-p-p-p-Pumpkin was, the one thing th’t worked,” she groused worriedly, now fiddling with her bracelet so as to keep from drawing blood from her palms.

Remus sighed and leaned forward, clearly having come to some internal decision. “Rhiannon, you’re one of the best students in your year, practical assessments and all. You are achieving at a level beyond most fifth-years, and I don’t know how to help you see how capable the rest of us know you to be,” he told her firmly. Then something in his eyes lit up, a grin spread across his face and he leapt to his feet too quickly for his worn-out werewolf knees. He would have gone sprawling entirely had Rhiannon not lunged forward to catch him. Her da didn’t seem fazed by his near tumble and laughed aloud, then fumbled to retrieve his wand from the holster on his belt and indicated Rhiannon should fetch her own.

“Here, see – you practically had this last year, stand like that, yes – and think of your happiest moment, the strongest feelings of joy and love, focus everything on them. You know the incantation for the Patronus Charm – have another go at it. If anything can prove your skill to you, it’s that,” Remus directed her eagerly, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.

It heartened Rhiannon to see Remus so much healthier and expressive than he had been the year before, and she tamped down the frisson of nerves that fizzed through her veins at his suggestion she retry the charm she hadn’t quite been able to master the year before. Her first instinct was to deny it, she couldn’t fail if she didn’t try – but that wasn’t an attitude she could survive with any longer. She gathered up her strongest memories and feelings of love, joy and protection, the certainty and safety her new parents brought her, and focused intently upon them for a solid minute or so before she adjusted her grip on her wand, then ran the incantation over in her head before she spoke.

“Expecto Patronum.”

From Rhiannon’s outstretched wand sprang a shape formed of blue-silver mist, and she gasped aloud in wonder as she recognised it at once. Shaped by Rhiannon’s own magic, Nyx stood sure-pawed and powerful before the living room fire and Rhiannon fell to her knees, tears of mixed, overwhelming relief and joy and pride streaming down her face as she watched her own wolf-shape trot around the room, every inch achingly and intimatingly familiar from the paler patches of hair that hid her scars to the distinct limp as Nyx favoured her bad shoulder - a much more visible disability on four legs than on two. Her da had been exactly right – she had needed this, needed to prove her own skill to herself – even her Patronus’ shape was a reminder she had desperately needed, that her werewolf nature was a source of strength and protection.

Dimly Rhiannon felt one of her dads rest his hand on her shoulder but she wasn’t paying attention to which, her attention was totally absorbed by her Patronus until Nyx lost interest in inspecting Remus’ living room and padded slowly forward to greet Rhiannon instead, drawing nearer and nearer until they were nose to nose. The brilliant magic was pleasantly cool to the touch and pulsed faintly beneath her cautious fingers, and as Nyx bent her head and touched her forehead to Rhiannon’s it felt as if she received a great transfusion of health, energy and pure refreshment straight into her weary soul.

“I knew you could do it,” Remus whispered as he knelt on the floor beside Rhiannon, the last sparks of blue-white magic glimmering on his face as Nyx’s shape faded back into Rhiannon’s own body. “But I never... I’ve never seen a werewolf whose Patronus is...”

“Whose Patronus is themself,” Rhiannon finished for him, her voice soft and taut, filled to the brim with the depth of emotion the experience had left her feeling. Of course he hadn’t – the idea of accepting his own lycanthropy was so new a concept to him, let alone learning to love it and embrace it the way Rhiannon had.

Remus nodded silently and pulled Rhiannon into a wordless hug, his thin frame trembling with suppressed emotion. “I am... so very glad I met you and your brother, Rhiannon Black,” he murmured into her hair. “I never thought I’d have kids, I don’t know if werewolves can even... that’s not important – what I mean is, of any kids I could’ve had, I’m glad it’s you.”

Rhiannon’s lip trembled and she hugged Remus more tightly. “I’ve, n-n-nev-v-v-v-v-er had parents eith-th-th-th-ther, but, ‘m glad it’s you too.” she stammered. The name, Rhiannon Black – it felt right when her da called her that. She wanted to share a family name with Dudley, but she hadn’t been a Potter for a long time and it didn’t feel as if it were her name to give away, but Black – that could be hers, and hers to share. And just like when she had found the name Rhiannon to begin with, that felt right, and a brilliant grin spread across her face.

“I th-h-h-h- I think, if I’m t-t-t-t-t-to properly bes-s-s-s-s-ssmirch the name of the House of Black in the next task.... I’m going to want those keys, please,” Rhiannon quipped, wryly echoing back the favoured complaint that Sirius’ mother’s portrait had shrieked at them all the last time Rhiannon and Dudley had visited Sirius’ house.

Sirius cackled and seized both his partner and daughter in a fierce hug. “Oh, you’re right, she’d hate it – the House of Black getting attention and it’s from someone who’s not even blood, let alone queer and a nonhuman, that’s bloody beautiful,” he crowed.

Still laughing amongst themselves, the three of them got up and set about putting together an improvised dinner, all three of them laughing, joking and comfortable in eachothers’ presence as they chattered and ate. Rhiannon felt comfortable, safe, protected – all things that she had so badly needed with just over two weeks left until she had to fight a dragon. Now, she felt certain she could make it through – if she fell in the competition she doubted anyone could keep Sirius from fighting his way in to her side.

After dinner, the three of them curled up on the couch to listen to a book Sirius had found wandering London’s bookstores – Inkheart, a story in which worlds could be read to life. Rhiannon was so totally absorbed, she didn’t notice how late it had gotten until suddenly Remus was shaking her into awareness and the clock on the far wall read ten o’clock. “Hey, c’mon, I know there’s no classes tomorrow but you can’t crash here, we’d get in trouble and you’ll be all crackly when you wake up if you sleep on the couch,” he warned her sleepily.

Rhiannon groaned and disentangled herself from her comfy nest in Sirius’ arms, waking her dad as she did so. “Ah, fff- no, it’s ok, don’ worry, don’ get up,” she slurred clumsily, though she stumbled as she stood and would have fallen had her da Remus not caught her by the shoulders.

“No, no, I’m gonna, I got you, a thing,” Sirius grumbled blearily, and he stretched out in all directions just like a sleepy dog before shaking his head to clear it and hauling himself off the couch. Rhiannon blinked, more than a little confused as she watched him stumble off into the bedroom, and her curiosity was not sated any as she heard him fumbling with something that clanked metallically, the dry rustling of a heavy cloth and was that – animal smell? Rhiannon rubbed her eyes and frowned, squinting as her dad limped back into the room carrying what was unmistakeably a very large bird cage in one hand. He set it down on the dining table and Rhiannon hobbled over to peer at it, more curious about why he’d brought such a thing than what was in it – she already had a pet.

“Ah – I know, you’ve got already got pets and that, we can say she’s Remus’ or something and she can stay here if it’s easier, but... I thought it might help, t’ have your own owl – no waiting for a school one to be free or bothering with that cranky Scottish beastie, just send her back to me whenever you need,” Sirius explained, still sounding distinctly fuzzy with sleep. “And she just looked so fed up in the corner of the Menagerie, I couldn’t just leave her there... she’s much too big for being stuck inside, here, have a look,”

With that, Sirius carefully uncovered the bird cage, revealing a truly enormous gingery-brown owl looking distinctly disgruntled at being stuck in a cage – Sirius was right, she really did need more space to stretch her wings. Her back was a deep auburn barred with a darker brown, that barring fading to more of a ginger over the top of her creamier chest feathers, and she peered down at Rhiannon with very large, round black eyes. Unlike most other owls Rhiannon had seen she had no ear tufts as such, she was more generally tufty all over – though that might have been an unfortunate side effect of her lack of space.

“She’s beautiful,” Rhiannon breathed, though she didn’t reach into the cage – birds didn’t appreciate being poked, especially when they’d just been woken up. “Wha- what is she, I’ve nev-v-v-v-v-v-v-er seen anything like her,”

Sirius shrugged, and Rhiannon got the distinct impression that he had seen the owl’s discomfort in the pet shop and not asked any further questions about her attributes. “Dunno, to be honest... Think there was a little card that said she was from somewhere in Africa, but I don’t remember where, they had this dinky little picture and I can’t be fucked squinting at all that,” he groused. “Meant to do this all earlier ‘n let her out for the night, but we sorta crashed out... sorry girl, here, let me get you out of there,” he added, his grumbly voice turning soft and gentle as he took apart the owl’s cage so that she could step out onto his arm. The great gingery creature really was magnificent, especially now that she had space to straighten up and settle her wings more comfortably, and Rhiannon felt a certain admiration and respect for the dignified owl – a fellow hunter, and one who had clearly put up with a whole lot of human nonsense to get here.

“Well, uh – she’s not, a cat so, I won’t hug her, um... I don’t know, I’ve never-r-r-r a-actually handled such a big owl, b-b-b-ut, um... I guess w-w-w-we can see ‘bout finding her some perches an’ she can pick where she wants to stay? No way is she goin’ back in that box,” Rhiannon decided. Cautiously, she reached out with her good arm – she guessed the owl would be far too heavy for the bad one – and held it as steady as she could manage to see if the owl would like to step on.

As it happened, the oversized ginger owl did want to step onto her new mistress’ arm, thankyou very much, and once she had found a place on Rhiannon’s forearm she used her beak and claws to very carefully climb up onto the little werewolf’s shoulder, where she now had a comical height advantage – at least in so far as eye level – over Rhiannon. The large owl nibbled Rhiannon’s hair and clacked her beak impatiently as if to say, you promised out, c’mon, let’s go! Rhiannon giggled and gently tickled the owl’s silky chest, then shrugged, careful not to disturb her new charge.

“Guess that settles it,” Rhiannon said decisively, amused by the owl’s persnickety sort of manner. She wondered idly how the owl would get on in a room with cats and considered perhaps warding the perch she intended to find, then took another sideways glance and realised that the only cats large enough to consider tangling with such an owl were part-Kneazle, and thus too smart to try. “Hey, girl? Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll ask Luna what’chu are, we’ll figure out a name for you,” she murmured, and accepted her cane from Remus while he took charge of her school backpack. They made an awkward group, two tall men, a very short girl and an oversized owl, but they managed to make their way out of the room without disturbing Rhiannon’s crotchety orange charge and out into the castle halls, heading for the ground floor so that they might release the owl for a night flight before carrying on to the dungeons so that Rhiannon might go to bed.

Rhiannon leaned back against the castle wall before they set off again, taking deep breaths of the cool night air as she watched her great auburn owl wing her way up into the night sky. Something to do with the sun, she mused sleepily to herself. For the first time in a long time, the mental image of fire in the night was simply beautiful, and not a source of fear. She had her very own grumpy message-delivering companion, now, which meant that even when he was not at Hogwarts Sirius – her dad - was hardly far out of reach, and she had keys to the training ground so that she might face her fear of fire head on. She had cast a Patronus, a difficult feat even for N.E.W.T. students let alone a fourteen year old... tonight had been exactly what she needed and she felt cautiously confident in her prospects for the first task. Some day, when she could put it into words better, she would thank her dads for that, Rhiannon vowed to herself – and Dudley, for seeing that it was exactly what she needed. The Triwizard Tournament did its’ best to isolate the Champions but she wasn’t alone, and it didn’t have to be a death sentence. And that was a reassuring thought.