3,778Chapter 8: Hide and Go Phoenix
A/N: Grey Wren: You've commented twice now, and I feel that I owe you at least an explanation. I do not like to respond to guest entries, usually, because it sort of spams the chapter entry, and I would like to keep it to a minimum.
I feel that super-male characters were played up enough in the canon books, and while I do write a world experienced Hermione, I feel there is a big difference between having the world experience of a thirty year old set in an 11 year old body versus a Hermione who simply blows up everything in her path like the next incumbent Dark Lord. Whether I succeed completely in my portrayal, I do not know, but alas, I happen to find Hermione's character fascinating and horribly underplayed in the canon books. It was Harry Potter's story, after all, and it was through his bias that we viewed his world, for good or bad.
As for James and Sirius. That was day one, and as clever and bright as both James and Sirius are, they are both character that I see need a purpose to hone their skill. They need a reason. The Marauder's map and becoming animagi were all founded in purposes. Remus being the ultimate reason. Even Hermione, while she did make a sharp metal thing that resembled a needle on her first try, did not make a perfect one. I would not expect James and Sirius to do much better. Again. Reason. They both require one.
As for the Apprenticeship, I see a formal one as being something that starts young. As young, perhaps, as humanly possible. Had Minerva met her at the age of 5, I'm sure she'd have snapped her up. Much like the old-school trade apprenticeships, the Master picked their Apprentice the moment they were old enough to hold the tools, and Hermione can hold the tools, so Minerva wants her as soon as possible. You start teaching them before they learn bad habits, and Minerva has no reason at all to think Hermione is anything but a gifted witch with potential to excel as her chosen Apprentice.
I am sorry you have not found enjoyment of the story I have set. It saddens me, but, I am well enough in my own faults to know I cannot please everyone. I wish you well, in whatever other story you move on to.
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Chapter 8: Hide-and-go-Phoenix
My Dearest Sister,
Hermione! Hermione! Where have your letters gone! I have not received a letter in a week! Have you been buried under your coursework? Did you fall off your broom during flying class? Did a potion blow up in your face? Tell me! Please? Is there drama? I so want to know.
I adored the box of winter-berries you sent. I will not even ask how you acquired them. I can only guess, and believe me my guesses can rival the works of the great authors! I sneaked a few to father as you asked and he's been walking around the house with this Kneazle ate the canary look about him ever since.
Did you know that father is secretly fancying an orange ball of fluff Kneazle kitten that keeps showing up on our kitchen window in the mornings? He keeps feeding it scraps from his plate. He's doing it all while Mother is conveniently not around to notice. The kitten seems really smart, has this adorable lion tail, and these overly large almost bat-like ears. It never shows up when Mother is around. I've caught him asleep in Father's lap while he's reading in the library. Can you imagine what will happen if Mother finds out? She wouldn't even let us have familiars until "we are the proper age for such things." Since when is there a proper age to have a familiar? I think she's just making excuses because a cute ball of fluff in her lap would ruin her image. Personally, I think it could only improve her image, but I will deny everything if you tell! (Please don't tell… I still have to live here another year before Hogwarts!)
Mother has left the house for a few days to attend a witches' gathering in Italy. I say few days, but it will probably be a week or more. You know mother. You can't pry her out of the house without her trying to claw the floors to stay, but once she's out, she doesn't want to come back for weeks. I think father is really enjoying the peace and quiet. He's let the little orange blighter have free reign in the house while she's away. I caught Kreacher petting him too!
I miss you and Sirius so much. It's not the same without you both around, even if most of that time was spent with your twin tormenting me at every turn with his teasing.
All my love,
Regulus (his seal, the sickle)
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Hermione was little super-sensitive about her faults and often went into flurries of activities to make her feel better about the things she could do well. One of those things had been and seemingly always would be… flying.
The irony of her trouble with brooms and the fact she was a phoenix animagus was not lost on her in the slightest. As she stood there on the green, the broom finally answering her call for "up!" and in her hand, she felt utterly stupid about what to do next.
Lily, who seemed utterly dubious about the entire concept of riding a broom at all, stared at the broom with thinly veiled suspicion. "I feel like any moment now a tornado is going to suck me up and transport me to Oz!"
Hermione lifted a brow. If she started bursting into song and singing Over the Rainbow, Hermione was going to hide herself in the Dark Forest with the centaurs.
Lily stared at Hermione and Severus, who were giving her identical expressions of lifted eyebrows and pursed lips.
"Come on," Lily whined. "Wizard of Oz?" She sagged her shoulders. "You two are hopeless. I wish I could just drag you home with me and force you to sit and watch classic Muggle movies with me."
Severus made a shuddering motion as Hermione shook her head. It wasn't in denial or even refusal, but she let Lily assume that she had no idea what Muggle anything was.
"It would be nice, for once, to have friends over that Petunia couldn't intimidate," Lily said darkly, her brows furrowing.
Madam Hooch was wandering down the line, assisting students with the subtleties of beginning flying before they could learn "bad habits" had a strange timeless quality about her. She looked very much the same as she did in Hermione's past, her featherlike silver hair and hawkish eyes watched the goings on on the green and missed very little.
Hooch, who had insisted Hermione call her Rolanda once she had started Apprenticing under Minerva the first time around, had a wealth of knowledge to share and wasn't stingy about sharing it. She offered her opinions as nothing more than that, did not judge others for theirs unless they hurt others, and had a glorious smile when she allowed herself to show it. She was, unlike some of the other Professors, truly a neutral party. She weighed character of the person by their deeds, not their house, and she was just as likely to save a Slytherin as a Hufflepuff from falling to their death from astride a broom.
Now, Hermione found the situation slightly awkward. No longer able to call upon her with familiarity, she had to address her professor as Madam Hooch, and it felt as though she had taken strides backwards in regards to their relationship. Still, Hermione respected the elder witch greatly.
"Your turn, Miss Black," Hooch said with a quiet yet stern tone. "Fly over to the goal over there, ring the bell, and come back."
"Yes, Madam Hooch," Hermione said immediately, mounting her broom and kicking off the ground. It still felt odd riding a broom, even now, and she wasn't sure why it never became natural. Harry and Ron rode brooms like it was the most natural thing to do in the world. Hermione, however, preferred apparition if she really had to be somewhere fast. If she wanted to enjoy the scenery, she preferred her own wings. At least she couldn't fall off her own wings. That would be terribly embarrassing.
As she flew towards the far goal, gaining altitude to get to the top, her broom lurched strangely, almost as if it had run into something. It began to buck like a Muggle horse, and Hermione silently panicked as all the reasons she didn't like brooms came rushing to the front of her mind. Then, just as suddenly, the broom evened out and was as compliant as a broom should be. Hermione zoomed to the top of the goal post and rang the bell, turned, and zoomed back to the ground, hopping off. She resisted the impulse to kiss the aforementioned ground and sing its praises in front of the class.
Hooch touched her shoulder. "Are you all right, dear? I saw your broom lurch half way, but it seemed to be okay after a few seconds."
Hermione nodded. "I'm okay. It was scary a moment though."
Hooch nodded. "Let me have your broom then, Miss Black. I'm going to have it looked at for hexes or some sort of prank left over from a previous class."
Hermione shook her head and handed over the broom with relief.
Rolanda, bless her, never failed to be both practical and safety conscious. She tested one of the brooms out to make sure it was safe and had the class share it amongst themselves for the rest of the period.
Rolanda assigned the class a short essay on safety and emergency dismounts, saying that sometimes, despite everything you did being right, accidents did happen. The next class, she said, would be learning the dismounts in practicum.
"What happened mid way?" Severus asked, his brows furrowed in concern.
Hermione shook her head. "The broom just started bucking. Then, after a few seconds, it stopped."
"I grabbed it out of the closet with the others," Severus said. "It wasn't to the side or anything."
Hermione shook her head. "I'm not blaming you, Severus. It was probably some prank, like Madam Hooch said."
Severus still looked guilty. "Still, I'm the one who gave you the broom."
Hermione touched his arm and squeezed it. "I don't blame you, Severus. It could have been me that picked it up and gave it to you just as well."
He nodded after a while.
Lily zoomed up on the broom she was using and hopped down, handing it off to Severus. "That was fun. I want my own broom once we're allowed to have them."
Severus eyed the broom and shook his head. "Madam Hooch created a monster."
Hermione shoved him on the shoulder, shooing him off.
Severus gave a lop-sided grin, hopped on the broom, and pushed off, but this time, the broom started bucking the moment he lifted off.
"Madam Hooch!" Lily screeched.
The flying instructor leapt into action, her wand out. She chanted something in rapid succession, and the bucking broomstick settled down, allowing Severus to get off. His eyes were wide and confused. "Lily was just on it…"
"Class, I am going to have to let you go a little early, this afternoon," Madam Hooch said. "Are you okay, Mr. Snape?"
Severus nodded.
Rolanda waved her wand, drawing all the brooms to her in a bundle. "Jinxing brooms. What is this world coming to?" she mumbled. She shooed the rest of the students away, much to their disappointment. Flying class was one of those classes most people wanted to be in class for. It was greatly important, Hooch would argue, that a witch or wizard learning how to fly on a broom and do it well was as important if not a critical lesson as much as learning basic potions, transfiguration, or charms. People could floo to places on the network, apparate if they had a license, but if they wanted a little freedom at all, the broom was the only way to go short of walking or… using Muggle methods of getting there.
"This is my favourite class, mate. This sucks," James complained loudly with the gathered Gryffindor. "Now all we have to go to is Herbology."
Lily sulked. "We were supposed to do relay races today," she pouted. "I was looking forward to it." She looked at Severus with a saddened gaze.
Severus, perhaps slightly guilty for being the one that triggered the chain reaction with Madam Hooch, slumped.
"Hey," Hermione interjected. "It's not like it was anyone's fault, unless someone really did jinx those brooms. We'll have class again soon enough, hopefully with brooms less apt to buck people off."
Lily rolled her shoulders. "I guess."
"Pomfrey is teaching about Devil's Snare today," Severus said.
"That doesn't sound at all nice," Lily said.
"Never know when you might need to know about plants that want to kill you," Hermione said with a half smile.
Lily scoffed and dragged the both of them off the green towards their next class. "Come on," she tutted. "At least now we can be early and get choice seats."
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Devil's Snares, as it turned out, were ornery plants. Not only were they highly offended when anything "invaded" their personal space, but they weren't too keen on being driven back by light either. For each vine that shrunk away from the light, another from the darker areas shot out to make a pest of itself.
Tendrils from the snares extended out and snagged a blond Slytherin witch by the ankle and dragged her in. The witch screamed in fright, and Professor Sprout slung a bright orb of light at the snare to drive it back, but another tendril whipped out of nowhere and snatched Sprout's wand. Sprout let out a chain of curses fit for a row with the Venomous Tentacula and flung a radiant solar orb into the air with wandless magic.
The snares relinquished their hold upon the student, Sprout's wand, and a bookbag it had apparently taken an interest in, and a quiet peace settled upon the greenhouse.
Hermione and Severus pulled the frightened witch out of harm's way by her robe, dragging her back towards the safety of of the light.
In the meantime, the snare was tearing apart the book bag for something, making a mess and a great cacophony of noises doing so.
"Miss Shafiq," Professor Sprout huffed, putting her wand in her pocket. "Are you okay?"
"I think so, Professor," the blond witch said after a while. Her eyes were still wide.
Hermione and Severus stared at their hands. A dark red liquid was dripping from their hands.
"Oh dear, are you bleeding?" Sprout said with concern.
Severus sniffed his fingers. "No, Ma'am," he said softly. "There was something on her robes."
Hermione sniffed her fingers as well and frowned as the sticky red fluid dripped off her hands. "It's all over your back, Jaysanna," Hermione said, pointing at the damp spot on Shafiq's back.
Sprout summoned a brighter light over to look at Jaysann's back. "Oh dear, Oh dear, it… smells like… red palm oil. Some of the plants here love the stuff. It's chalk full of vitamins and nutrients which makes the Devil's Snare extremely eager to get it's vines into it." Sprout took her wand out and muttered a cleaning spell, cleaning the red oil off the witch's back with a tutting noise.
"You two, go run your hands on the stalk of that plant over there, dears. The plant will love you for it. It will probably try to lick it off you, Don't be alarmed now. It's not like the Devil's Snare at all," Sprout said, shooing Hermione and Severus off to transfer the oil off their hands onto the nearby foliage.
Severus and Hermione stared at each other a moment and shrugged, rubbing their hands over the dry stalk of a nearby potted plant, and just as Sprout predicted, the flower bulb opened and rubbed itself over their hands and very thoroughly took their hands into it's "mouth" and licked them clean.
Slightly unnerved, the pair of them slowly pulled their hands back once it was done, and were surprised to note that their hands now smelled a bit like citrus and weren't sticky at all.
"I'm afraid whose ever bag that is, is going to have to get a replacement," Sprout said with a shake of her head. She eyed the scraps of what remained of someone's unfortunate book bag. "Let this be a reminder to those of you using red palm oil in any projects in potions or in herbology, students. It is a marvellous fertiliser, but you need to be very careful where you use it if you happen to be in the greenhouse. Mr. Potter, I highly recommend you not poke the fanged geraniums. They are quite cranky near the full moon, and I'm sure you don't want to lose a finger."
James stopped jabbing the plant near him, and Sirius was shaking his head at him.
"All right then, class," Sprout said cheerfully. "Now that we have learned first hand a little about our friend the Devil's Snare, who can tell me about the Moly plant?"
The class settled into a dull roar of activity, hand waving, and discussions over random plants, but Severus and Hermione eyed the remains of the book bag torn to pieces by the Devil's snare.
A scrap of gold and crimson trimming lay on the tile of the greenhouse, flickering every so slightly in the wind.
The pair exchanged glances and then returned to the lesson at hand and attempting to beat Lily to the answers over Herbology.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A few days later, Hermione flew over the canopy of the Dark Forest with interest, spinning in the air as wind blew through her primary wing feathers. She flung herself into the thermals, allowing them to drive her upwards and then she slowly glided down, allowing her wings to barely touch the top of the forest trees. She had sneaked away from the social politics of the Slytherin House, and left Severus and Lily to bond over a large tome on the history of magic.
Thestrals moaned their whale-like sounds as they flew above the trees then dived back into the dark of the forest. Young thestral colts and fillies nipped at her tail feathers as she passed, curious as to her activity in the Dark Forest.
Hermione did lazy loops around the thestral youngsters before darting through the canopy, diving under it for a time, then popping back up.
Fall was in high gear, turning the leaves brilliant ranges of red, orange, yellow, and chartreuse. It was the season of flames. Each tree and bush seemed to be on fire with colour, and the rustling of each leaf seemed to rattle like an instrument against each other.
This was the season of plenty in the forest, and almost every tree and bush within the depths of the forest had some sort of bounty that was just waiting to be harvested.
There were copses of trees within the forest that bore more exotic fruits, hidden within the depths of the centaurs' territory. And there was one copse in particular that was of interest to a certain hungry phoenix.
Hermione landed in the huge tree she was looking for and let out a string of melodious notes, knowing that her four legged allies would hear her call and know what it meant.
Hundreds and hundreds of seed pods hung from the trees' branches, clinging tightly to the branches in their stubbornness not to fall. Hermione examined the one nearest her, tapping it firmly with her beak, making a hollow clunking noise. Perfect.
She set herself to flames, and clasped the large pod with her talons, wrapping her wings around surface so her fire hugged the precious pod. The surface of the pod crackled, hundreds of tiny razor spines melted in the heat and the outer shell of the seed pod cracked open, exposing the bright red fruit pulp and heavy seeds within.
Hermione dug her beak into the cracks of the pod, seeking the tasty plump and seeds with gusto, her beak making short work of the edible loot within.
There was stirring down below, and the centaur herd stirred below her. Meliton lifted his arm silently, and Hermione grasped the nearby fruit in her talons, plucking it, and flew downward, dropping the prize into the centaur's waiting hand.
Meliton lifted his arm after tossing the fruit into Solon's hands. Hermione landed on it, carefully curving her talons around his arm.
"We normally must let those we cannot reach rot, herd sister," Meliton said. "Thousands of pods go to waste, unable to be harvested by even the most ingenious squirrel. I see you have different ideas."
Hermione let out a string of happy notes.
Theron trotted up with a load of tarps strapped to his back. The young colts and fillies galloped up, tugging the tarps off him, and helped plaster the ground under the tree with them. Their dams walked up with large baskets lashed to their withers.
Hermione smiled birdishly. Centaurs were amazingly prepared for spontaneous acts of foraging, and Hermione found it very admirable.
Knowing her duty, Hermione flew up into the canopy and set herself to flames, snapping the pods free of the branches and embracing each pod until they cracked then released it down to the ground with a crash.
Young centaurs whooped in glee, gathering the shattered pods and seeds. The males gathered the stubborn pods that refused to crack, moving them into a fire they had built until they burst and then moved the shells aside for the others to clean the pulp and seeds out.
Every few piles of pods, Hermione could come down to visit, and the young centaurs would take turns "feeding the hungry phoenix." Hermione play nipped at their fingers as they extended the seeds to her, and she bobbed her head in amusement as she crunched them to bits with her strong beak.
Meliton taught the young ones how to dig holes and plant seeds around the copse and on the outer fringes, directing them to cushion the hole with leaf litter to protect the seeds for their long winter dormancy before the spring triggered their germination.
"Now, when you have foals of your own," Milton said knowingly, "Your children will have even more trees to gift your winters with food."
The youth patted down the planted seeds in so many holes that even if an army of hungry creatures came to sniff out the hidden caches, there would many more saplings to survive in the spring.
Hermione went back to her duty and sent pod after pod falling down to the ground to be gathered. By the time Meliton signalled that they had a full haul to bring back, Hermione didn't complain when one of the young centaurs wrapped his arms around her and pinned her panting bird body against him.
It was Firenze—a younger, thinner, and innocent in the face Firenze, but she could recognise him as she recognised her younger self. He laughed as her head feathers rose up with her curiosity, and she laid her head over his shoulder as he carried her with along the trail back to their main camp.
His herdmates, however, wanted in on the game of carry the phoenix, and by the time they arrived back at the camp, Hermione had been carried head up, head down, wings out, wings pressed, and helter-skelter until Meliton rescued her by letting her perch on his arm like a hunter's hawk.
By the time Hermione parted ways with the centaurs, the sun was just starting to sink below the horizon, and she spotted movement of two figures making their way to the infamous whomping willow.
Borrowing a measure of stealth from her familiar's own habits, she banked silently in the air, curiosity demanding to be sated.
Poppy was escorting a young boy wizard with light brown hair over the rocky path to the willow, which made Hermione even more curious. Poppy wasn't the type to go on long strolls in the moonlight on any given day. It was hard enough to envision her being outside of Hogwarts.
Hermione's head feathers poofed out almost straight up as she looked up above the darkening horizon. Tonight was the full moon. That boy was Remus Lupin.
Pity stung in Hermione's heart. There would be no Marauders to watch over him this early at Hogwarts. There would be no company to keep him from clawing and biting himself for lack of human victims to bite… and the wolfsbane potion was yet to be perfected by Damocles. Her kind, future DADA instructor was doomed to suffer it alone for five more years before the other Marauders would perfect their animagus forms to keep their werewolf friend company.
Hermione remembered the multiple self-inflicted scars on the elder Lupin's body… places where he had scratched, bitten, and otherwise tortured himself in his youth. The irony was, other wounds he healed quite quickly, he had told her once, but his own marks upon himself did not.
Hermione felt a trickle of tears trail down her beak from her eyes. Lupin had deserved a long and happy life with Nymphadora Tonks and his son, Teddy, but it wasn't to be. She could only hope, in her minds eye, that he had gained some semblance of peace fighting for a world his son could live, grow up, and prosper in.
Hermione watched Poppy Pomfrey take her leave of the young wizard, activating the whomping willow by the switch to keep guard over Remus' exiled hiding place. She eyed the small tunnel, hidden amongst the willow's large roots. The willow swayed, as if anticipating her thoughts.
Very well, she thought to herself. I'm not as slow as I used to be the first time I tangled with you, you overgrown tentacula.
Hermione zoomed forward, setting herself on fire as she flew. Branches swing over and under her, aiming for her body but hitting the empty air instead. When it did come eerily close, however, her flames seemed to give the dangerous tree pause, and she dove down the tunnel like a spirit attempting to escape Hades with Cerberus right on her heels.
Hermione made her way down the tunnel to a hatch above her, and she shifted into human form in order to manipulate the hatch. Her phoenix form was natural to her and even useful more often than not, but trapdoors were not a phoenix speciality, unless she wanted to burn a hole thought it, which would completely defeat the purpose of having it there.
As soon as she went through and pulled herself up into the floor above her, she shut the trapdoor and shifted again. The trapdoor was designed ingeniously to be impossible for a werewolf to open in their animal form from the opposite side, but there were magical handholds embedded into them for when Remus woke in the morning. Remus had once said that Dumbledore himself had commissioned the place in order to give the lonely werewolf a safe place to endure his transformations, and the little things he had made sure were there, such as the trapdoor, spoke of a type of foresight that was no small measure of consideration.
"Who's there?" A scared male voice said from the other room. "Poppy did you forget something? You shouldn't be here…" Lupin made a pained sound. The change was approaching already.
Hermione talon-walked towards the door, letting out a string of musical notes, and silence greeted her. She walked into the next room, where Lupin was waiting in his skivvies. He shoved his clothes into the nearby heavy wardrobe so he could retrieve them later when all was said and done. At first the boy looked embarrassed that someone might see him like that, but as he saw her bird form, he visible relaxed.
"Fawkes?" Remus said with wonder. "What are you doing here? Did Professor Dumbledore send you?" The scrawny wizard sat on the nearby four poster bed pulling his legs to him. He was scared, she could tell. Scared and lonely above all. His mates didn't know of his affliction just yet, and even if they did, it would be years before they would be there to ease their friend's years of built up loneliness.
Hermione fluttered up to the edge of the bed and chirped.
Remus stared at her, extending a shaking hand to her.
Hermione, watching his hand hesitate, pressed her head against his hand and sang brightly. Hermione watched the song affect him. His hand soothed her feathers in a pet as his eyes watered.
"You're not Fawkes," he said in confusion. "Your wings are black, but the tips are read and orange. Your body is earthy. Your head crest is vibrant though. Like flames… and your tail. Maybe Professor Dumbledore brought you in to keep Fawkes company? Why are you here?"
Hermione rubbed up against his hand and hopped into his lap. The lonely werewolf wrapped his arms around her plump body. He'd said more to her in the last 30 seconds than he had to her since they'd met. She smiled smugly to herself that it was he doing the talking instead of her. A part of her had wanted to get Remus away from the the other Gryffindor in order to get to know him, but the opportunity had never presented itself.
Fate, if you were one to believe in such things, seemed to have its own mind of how things were work out.
Remus cried out, falling to his side as his body was wracked in spasms. He cried out in pain as his teeth clacked, bones reforming, jaw protruding, teeth reshaping inside his mouth. Blood dripped from his gums where his sharper teeth grew out the gums that were not quite accommodating his change fast enough. His nostrils flared as his face reshaped into a muzzle. Dark grey fur, very unlike his light brown hair, sprouted all over his skin. Tears ran down his face as the pain of his change took him mercilessly into its own twisted embrace.
Remus' gentle green eyes bled into the amber of the wolf, but Remus's arms wrapped around Hermione's phoenix body, refusing to let her go. His arms trembled, bones reshaped, and his hands and feet twisted into over-sized paws. Huge lupine foot pads swelled on his fingers as his digits shrank. Dark claws sprouted from the tips of his fingers, and those too were soon covered in dark grey fur.
Remus howled. His human voice twisted into something both animal and alien. It was almost as if there was a human note to the howl that was distictly not the pureness of a natural wolf. Foam flicked his mouth as his tongue lolled and his teeth clacked. His spine bowed, cracked, realigned, and locked in a different position as a tail sprouted from the base of his spine and formed into the furred one of a wolf. His ears made an odd stretching sound as they reformed near the top of his head. It resembled the sound of sand running down an hourglass and became louder as hairs sprouted everywhere he had skin. Hairs moved over his ears as they formed into triangle points.
After a few minutes of agony, however, Remus Lupin wasn't home anymore. He had become the werewolf, and his whines of pain faded into the heaviness of his breathing. Other than being quite large for a wolf, his snout was shorter and thinner. His tail was tufted, and while it was quite normal for a wolf to have a fluffy tail, perhaps, the tuft on the end was a distinctive feature.
Remus whined, his forelegs still wrapped around Hermione's body, but he hadn't hurt her. As if in apology, the werewolf began to lick her over, his raspy tongue moving her feathers one direction, another, and a few ways in between. His human shaped, but wolf coloured eyes stared at her as his nose worked to identify his newly acquired bird friend.
Remus groomed her over until the disgruntled, yet strangely tolerant phoenix looked like puffskein rather than a phoenix. He panted, relaxed, and nosed her with his cold wet nose. He made the motion to gnaw upon her, but the grip was gentle and playful, almost as if the werewolf seemed to realise that hurting one's only company made for bad manners and lack of repeat visits.
Hermione attempted to preen her feathers back into place, but her feathered crest was half slicked down with werewolf drool, giving her a punk rocker mohawk look. Hermione's eyes darted over to look at herself in the large mirror over the mantle. Fashion phoenix she was decidedly not.
Hermione hopped up, stretched, and fluttered to the nearby chair, getting her bearings, and Remus followed her like a tracking hound, tail wagging with interest. The tufted end to his tail made her grin birdishly. Moonie be damned. Remus Lupin's werewolf form was entered into her head as Tuft forever more.
Hermione eyed the werewolf following her and then quickly flew out the door to land on the banister of the stairs.
Tuft, having no desire at all to let his playmate out of his sight, followed. Hermione went up the stairs, he followed. Hermione explored the closets, he did too. Hermione tried to turn the upstairs faucet on to get a drink, and the werewolf stuck his muzzle under the running water to lap the underside of the faucet with his long tongue.
Hermione stuck her foot in between the faucet and and his face, causing the water to spray him between the eyes, and the werewolf sputtered, barked, and shook, getting water droplets everywhere. A few minutes later, as her feathers poofed out like a half soaked lint ball, she decided water games with an attentive werewolf was probably not the driest game she could have come up with. She set herself on fire to dry herself off, causing the werewolf to yelp and stumble backwards, staring at her suspiciously.
Hermione looked in the bathroom mirror and sighed. Now she looked like a dry overly fluffy puffskein. There was not a palm she could face hard enough.
Shaking her feathers into order, or at least, more order than looking like an giant overgrown cotton ball, she stared at Remus.
The werewolf looked back at her with interest, tail wagging, nose working hard to imprint her scent upon his memory.
Hermione flew out the door in a flash of coloured feathers, attempting to lose him in the rush. She dove into the next room, burying herself in a pile of old quilts.
A few minutes later, a cold nose stuck itself under the piled quilts, and long lupine tongue slurped her beak.
Tuft's tail beat against the floor loudly as he panted with interest. Hermione snaked her head out of the quilts and nailed him on the rump.
The werewolf yelped, whirled around to snarl at his own arse, and seemed confused when it didn't present itself as the proper interloper it should have.
Hermione used the distraction to hide herself somewhere else in the shack, and sure enough, a few minutes later, his nose would find her. Sometimes she darted out. Sometimes he carried her by wrapping his mouth around her wings and toting her around like a favourite toy.
Despite the fact he was, undoubtedly, a werewolf, he had the soft mouth of a hunter's dog, and never once did he pierce her wings or even bend a feather out of place. After he tired of carrying her around, he leapt up onto the forgotten four poster bed and laid down, laying her down between his legs and setting his head over her. His tail continued to thump against the mattress as he did it, even when his eyes came to a close.
When Hermione tried to leave, Remus would give out a horribly mournful howl, and he stared at her with his amber, yet oddly human eyes.
Finally, Hermione decided that it wasn't doing her heart any good trying to leave the lonely werewolf, and she tucked her head under her wing as Remus laid his head over her body like a guard dog as the both of them closed their eyes and fell asleep.
When Hermione arrived at the breakfast table the next morning with her hair looking like she was trying for a mohawk, Severus and Lily were giving her odd stares. Others were too, but they were at least doing her the courtesy of attempting not to gain her notorious morning ire.
"I had a long night," Hermione said as she drank her juice.
"Obviously," Severus said, passing her the crumpets.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A/N: Anyone know, in canon, what "time" Lupin was forced to transform? Not just on the full moon, I mean… time like… 11pm? Sunset? The moment the full moon actually moved over the horizon? I cannot remember if it was at a certain time or only when the full moon could be seen or some combination in between. For the purpose of "now," I'm going to imagine it being when the full moon actually graces the skies in it's glory, but once the transformation is triggered, he's stuck like that until dawn. This might make cloudy nights on full moons both a blessing and a curse…