Hogwarts Reimagined

Content warning - Risk of outing, panic, self-loathing, self-harm (unintentional), fear of loss of self

The day after Sirius Black’s break-in, Minerva quietly took Rhiannon aside to inquire about her early transformation. “Rhiannon, is this a problem? Are you having any other side effects?” she asked, to which Rhiannon hastily reassured her that no, she was perfectly fine thankyou and capable of continuing her studies at her own pace.

That pace was... hectic, to say the least. Rhiannon got through her classes powered by sheer stubbornness, and somehow still found the energy for Quidditch. Their first game on the final weekend of August was slated to be against Miremark’s house team, and despite Oliver’s insistence on caution the team went into the game more confident than Rhiannon or their captain would have liked. Rhiannon spotted her friend Morag McDougal playing Chaser, and waved a friendly greeting both to her and three others she recognised – Sorcha Cho, her longtime distant crush, Katie Bell, a former teammate, and Chavali O’Dell, a second-year girl who had been in Gryffindor the year before, now playing Seeker opposite Rhiannon herself. “Good luck!” Rhi called, hovering in midair above the pitch.

Chavali smirked and pushed her fringe out of her eyes. “Who needs luck?” she retorted, and both teams laughed. Sorcha blew Rhiannon a kiss and giggled good-naturedly when Rhiannon blushed furiously.

Madam Hooch blew the whistle and released the balls, and Rhiannon set off in hot pursuitof Chavali. In all the disturbance of the game beginning, she had lost track of the Snitch, but it was possible the younger girl had seen something that Rhiannon had missed. That – or the opposing Seeker was trying to tire her out.

To Oliver and Rhiannon’s chagrin, Gryffindor scraped a win by only fifty points after two gruelling hours of play – they’d been dead even when Rhiannon caught the Snitch. She congratulated Chavali on giving her such a tough match, and returned to the team room for Oliver’s inevitable scolding.

“And didn’t I tell you not to underestimate them just because they’re new?” Oliver told them crossly. “Hugo Fowler’s in charge and he’s been on the Ravenclaw team the last three years! His Beaters may be lugs, but they’re big lugs and dead wicked with their shots, even that showoff prat McLaggen. And you all know full well how good Katie is. Have we all learned something?”

Sheepishly, the team agreed that they’d been lax and overconfident, and as both punishment and a measure to ensure it wouldn’t happen again, Oliver scheduled practices twice weekly instead of once for the next month and shooed them away. Rhiannon was happy to notice that Fred seemed to be happier and even looked to be flirting with his partner Bliss Kingsley, though she was more humorous than genuine in her reciprocations. It was still weird to see him without his brother in tow, but maybe a good kind of weird – now she could get to know them as individual people, rather than the single unit they had appeared to be before.

With Quidditch added to her weekly routine, Rhiannon was now squeezing ten or even more extra hours into each day, even on Sundays, and slowly but surely it was beginning to wear on her health and on her body. Her cyclical pain was all out of sync and her vision almost constantly colour-deficient, and she began to miss classes simply by forgetting them. Hermione found her asleep in corners or even outside, against the sides of buildings or under trees, and begged her to go to McGonagall and drop classes, but Rhiannon refused, as stubborn as ever. She had blackouts more regularly, without triggering them by panic attack or dark magic exposure – instead, they were brought on by sheer exhaustion. And she had long since stopped obeying the rules of no time-turning around the lunar cycle, having no other way to keep up with her classes and being so determined to do so.

Things came to a head at the end of the first full week of November, Saturday the eighth. Rhiannon left her first class, Transfiguration, and took the opportunity for a nap, curled up comfortably amongst the exposed roots of a leafless tree in a convenient patch of sunshine, at the edge of the clearing where her next class, Care of Magical Creatures, was held. Now that it was late autumn, the days tended to be chilly and Rhiannon’s joints ached fiercely – she was particularly glad to have her favourite coat – and her winter coat, even in human form, for that matter - back for comfort, even if it did earn her the disapproval of those teachers who didn’t know how badly she was affected by the cold weather. Rhiannon wasn’t cold per se, her internal body temperature ran significantly higher than a human’s, but her bones and connective tissue disapproved of the drop in environmental temperature and ached bitterly. Her sunny spot was well appreciated, but Rhiannon couldn’t quite get comfortable. She idly ran the thin blades of grass that sprouted around her tree-root nest through her fingers, twisting them into loose braids as best as her sore, swollen-knuckled hands could manage and closed her eyes to the sunlight, warm and comfortable but suddenly too bright for her weary eyes to bear. Maybe she was getting a cold, she wondered as she sniffed and curled up to doze.

Eventually Rhiannon was disturbed from her semi-restful peace by the arrival of Hagrid, and she realised she had fallen asleep as he stumped into the clearing with several full haynets swung over his shoulder. “Oh, nice t’ see ye early, Rhiannon. Good spot for a nap. Mind helpin’ me set up?” he asked her cheerfully. Rhiannon sat up and groggily rubbed her eyes, then yawned and stretched. She dragged herself upright using a knot of the tree she had been napping under, and fumbled for her cane. Thus armed, she limped over and held out a hand to take a haynet from Hagrid.

“Sure,” Rhiannon agreed, trying to stifle another yawn. “W-what d’you need?”

Hagrid frowned and peered more closely at her. “Ye alright? Ye look – I dunno, peaky.” Rhiannon scowled at him, and he held up his hands defensively. “Fine, fine, none o’ my business. I guess if yeh could help me hang up these haynets , loop ‘em around the low branches or on the pegs if there’s any still up. There’s a flock o’ Aethonan winged horses passin’ through, thought I might entice ‘em into comin’ over so the class can have a look-see.” he explained, and handed two of the haynets to Rhiannon. She grimaced at the weight and immediately set them on the ground, then took off her coat and limped over to set it on the tree-roots she’d been occupying, before returning to the hay-nets. She picked both up by their ropes and swung one over each shoulder, then, holding both ropes in one hand and her cane in the other she limped over to where she could see a notched peg sticking out of the tree about five and a half feet above the ground.

Rhiannon dropped the hay nets on the ground and frowned at the peg. She could reach it, just, but only if she stretched – it was going to hurt, but most things did nowadays. She rolled her shoulders and clicked her elbows so they’d work right, and pulled up her sleeves so as to avoid getting loose hay all down the insides of them. Then she noticed something that made her stop cold. Dense fur, brindled brown-black and white around her scars, covering her arms in a gradually thickening coat where she had pulled back her sleeves. She knew that if she felt around her neck she would feel the same, and already her shoes felt a little too tight. “H-h-h-Hagrid?” she called, her voice cracking with anxiety. Now that she paid attention, she could feel it burning in her blood a full thirty hours or more too early. It wasn’t just the cold, it wasn’t just exhaustion and she wasn’t sick – at least, not a normal kind of sick. “Hagrid?” she asked again, beginning to panic now. Class started in five minutes, it was not quite midday – this couldn’t happen. But at the same time... there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Suddenly feeling sick and constricted, Rhiannon threw off her school jersey and scrabbled at her boot-laces with trembling fingers. She had to get away, get clear – there was no spare Wolfsbane in her bag, and she’d need these clothes to get back to the castle when she turned back, she couldn’t risk ruining them. Hagrid lumbered over, his face creased with concern. “Rhi, what’s goin’ on?” he asked. She shook her head and held out her furry arms, desperately begging him to understand as she stared up at him. “Oh, hell,” he whispered. He snatched up her boots and jersey, and held out his arm for her to lean on. “Yeh don’t have yer potion, do yeh? I can’t leave, not wi’ the whole class comin’... get there, in the bushes, I’ll hide yer stuff for yeh, but we’ll have to sit tight til I can send one o’ your mates for help. It’ll be alright. Remember, it’s not a monster – it’s just a wolf. Yeh won’t hurt anyone – if it comes to it, I can stop yeh.”

Rhiannon lurched out of his grasp and stumbled into the bushes, gasping and choking for breath through a throat that wasn’t shaped right. Hagrid turned away to give her privacy as she threw off the last of her clothes and crawled deeper into the bushes, as deep as she could before her agonised limbs gave out and she pitched face-first into the leaf litter, whining and gasping softly as her limbs convulsed, her head pounded and instincts flooded into her mind – instincts and sensation alike, as she lost control of her sensory jinxes.

This was just like the bathroom all over again, and Rhiannon’s breaths came in painful wheezing gasps as she fought to keep from screaming. Hagrid had reassured Rhiannon she’d be safe, that he’d stop her if she tried to hurt anyone... but he’d never had to deal with her fully transformed and without Wolfsbane before. Already she could smell her distant classmates, already Nyx clamoured in her head. Rhiannon and the wolf alike hated being trapped in among the roots and thin branches, stifling and constricting as they were... but if she got clear, she’d hurt someone, she knew she would. Ginny had forgiven her, had made light of being knocked down by a panicked half-wolf creature, but Rhiannon could never forgive herself. Hermione, Ron, they had seen her transformed but never wild – would they run? Worse, would Nyx chase them if they did, hunt them like prey? Or would she play with them, run them ragged until they fell into her paws already half-dead with exhaustion?

All the violence people believed of werewolves crowded Rhiannon’s mind and she clutched at her head with misshapen paws, a soft groan turning into a strangled shriek as finally her skull and her spine cracked and shifted, her ribs dislocated themselves and her shoulders realigned as the frightened girl writhed among the dirt and branches, clawing at her ears and nose in desperate panic. It was as if with the progression of the transformation she lost herself, worse even than the first time she had transformed because this time, when it was over, she would no longer be consciously herself. She would have no memory of it, no control of what could happen – it was what she had feared most since that awful morning at the end of June 2002, when she had realised what had been done to her. Maybe in time she had begun to reconcile with that wolf, but right now she was losing herself to it and that was the essence of what the Boggart had found to be her worst fear, and she clawed desperately with the last vestiges of her consciousness for a way to slow it, halt it, anything...

Nyx shakily dragged herself to her paws, and with a low growl of frustration fought her way clear of the bushes. She stood about four feet two inches tall at the shoulder, her eyes a fierce yellow-and-green not unlike Rhiannon’s human eyes but sharper, more golden, fierce – at least at first, as Nyx flattened her ears and whirled in place looking for anything, anything familiar as the scent of blood, her own blood, drowned out almost everything else.

But only almost. Even blood couldn’t drown the scent of pack. The big-heart-man was here somewhere, he could help her – and Nyx knew she needed help, as blood trickled into her eyes and she shook her head sharply to clear it away. More dripped down her neck and chest, the white hair on her legs was stained red with it, it trickled down her hips and dripped from her belly, squelched between her legs, and she limped doggedly into the clearing in search of the big-heart-man and his mossy-sharp-smelling medicine.

The big-heart-man was not alone in the clearing, and all at once Nyx found herself surrounded with countless staring faces, a forest of legs and rustling fabric, suddenly people were screaming and crowding her. There was no way out, she could feel them behind her. Nyx flattened her ears and curled her tail between her legs defensively, pressing herself into the dusty grass as best she could with a snarl curling her lips. Too much, too many, and she was alone... why was she alone? Wolves didn’t run alone, they died alone... where was the big-heart-man? She dragged breath into her aching lungs, bringing with it the scents of the forest and the crowd... but it wasn’t just crowd. The faces meant nothing, as she flattened herself into the dust with her fur spiked along her spine and a growl rumbling in her chest, but faces and bodies weren’t all a person could be identified by. Somewhere in this many-faced mass that frightened her so badly, somewhere there was pack-scent – more than just the big-heart-man, if only she could find them.

A loud voice rang out over the raucous clamour of the crowd, and suddenly they were all backing away to reveal the big-heart man approaching cautiously, his shoulders hunched and knees bent to make his massive form as small as possible. It was a losing battle, but the frightened she-wolf appreciated the effort, flicking her tail against her leg in the tiniest of grateful gestures. “You’ve made a fair mess of yourself, girl,” the big-heart-man murmured, holding out his hand close-fisted for her inspection. She licked it affectionately. The words meant nothing to her, but she could read his tone and his body language, and she knew him by now – it didn’t matter what he was shaped like, to Nyx he was as good as another wolf. “I’ll just sort this rabble out, then I’ll clean yeh up, yes? Stay here, I know ye smell ‘em.” he told her, his tone reassuring but stern, and she bowed her head obediently.

Hagrid chuckled softly and sighed, then turned partway to address the class. “Alright, consider this an object lesson – one that you all just failed. That is not how you approach a wild animal, and it could have gotten you killed. It could have gotten her killed. Wild animals are not inherently vicious, they are wild – they don’t think like you, and they don’t understand you, so you need to treat ‘em with care and respect. Clear?” he told the class sternly. Nyx yipped softly, even without knowledge of his words she could see the effect on the cluster of two-leggers. They looked shamed, and shuffled together without meeting the big-heart-man’s gaze. He himself snorted and shook his head, then gestured with a hand to Nyx herself.

“Now, some o’ yeh might’ve heard rumours about werewolves in the forest, so I think it’s time to clear that up. Werewolves are just people like you or me, an’ most o’ them live in houses jus’ like we do – those that don’t, well, some humans don’ either, do they? Werewolves don’ live in our forest, in any case.” the big-heart man told the class, adjusting his position so now he sat comfortably cross-legged on the ground with his side turned to Nyx.

“However, sometimes, when they, yeh know, on a full moon – sometimes they can ‘ave puppies rather than regular kids. It’s dangerous and painful on a lot o’ levels for everyone involved, and wolves have bin extinct in Britain for the las’ four hundred years so they can’t get seen. The Ministry o’ Magic places as many as they can ‘ere, in our Forest, ‘cos it’s the largest stretch of land suitable for ‘em. They’re smart, and most can understand human speech just fine. If you mess with ‘em, they will mess with yeh right back, so don’t get any stupid ideas. Now, this one’s hurt, so I need yeh to stay right back o’er there. In fact, why don’t yeh take out your books? I know there’s a section on ‘em in there, read it. Ndiaye-Granger, fetch me some bandages an’ dittany out my kit at the side o’ the clearin’ there, Weasley, there’s a bucket by me cabin, fill it with water from the outside tap. Approach carefully. Brown, you’re not a total bleat-brain either, c’mere an’ help me part ‘er fur so I can see where she’s injured.” Hagrid continued, beckoning students over. Nyx’s ears pricked up as three she recognised separated themselves from the two-legger mass, and she whined as the greenish one, careful-worry-one, trotted out of sight. The pale one who smelled like funny soft chemicals, flowers and fruit and felt bright, kind like sunlight, drew closer on the big-heart-man’s orders and bent down so as not to tower over Nyx.

“Hey, Rhi,” she murmured, holding out a hand for the wolf to sniff. Nyx wrinkled her nose and whuffed softly, the sound turning into a piteous whine as she stretched a wound on her throat.

The big-heart man sighed and shook his head. “Tha’ was a pretense. Stick ‘ere til Hermione an’ Ron get back, then skedaddle and go for Madam Pomfrey. Couldn’a ask yeh to get Wolfsbane in front o’ the class, since a real wild one wouldn’ need it.” he told the sunlight-flowers-girl, who nodded and then gestured to Nyx herself, keeping her movements slow and steady so as not to startle the wolf.

“I’ll still help you check her over, though. Mum’s a nurse, I’ve got steady hands and yours are kind of big for this.” the sunlight-flowers-girl replied. Nyx pricked up her ears and whined softly as the sunlight-girl looked to her for permission. Wearily, Nyx flopped over limp on her side in the dusty grass and closed her eyes against the bright heat of the midday sun. It was much too early for this, much too... daytime. She lay still, breathing shallowly as the steady-hands-sunlight-girl and the big-heart-man carefully parted her fur and murmured amongst themselves, taking stock of her wounds.

At last, the pack-people returned from their errands. The careful-worry-one hung back shifting from foot to foot, and the other... if the flowers-and-fruits-and-smoke one was sunlight, she was the deep night. Her colour had nothing to do with it, it was her familiarity – the night was Nyx’s environment, her home. This one felt like home. She wasn’t the only one, Nyx realised... she knew other night-home-people, and it felt fundamentally wrong to Nyx that she herself was here and the rest of them were not. The one with the hair like the moon reflected in the loch and a laugh like birds at sunset felt the same, dark and comfortable and warm to the senses. And the boy, the warm, soft, funny boy who smelled like chemicals and home and always protected her – her family, all three of them, albeit in different ways. Even the careful-worry-one with the long curtain of moss-fur had the night in him, warm shadows in his smile and scent and the soft, careful way he moved so as not to frighten her.

“Hey, Nyxie,” the night-home-one murmured, kneeling beside the big-heart-man with an armful of cloth and mossy-sharp smelling things – the big-heart-man’s medicine. Words didn’t mean much to Nyx, but that name did – that was her name, she knew it, the night-home-one knew it. Nyx whined and sniffed the night-home-one’s outstretched palm, then licked it affectionately and nuzzled into the exploring touch.

The big-heart-man made a frowning sort of noise low in his throat. “Nyx? Well, it works. Simpler to remember for her like this than Rhiannon. Nyx, no. No licking, no nipping – none.” he told her sternly. Nyx whined and flattened her ears, looking as piteous as a wolf possibly could. She’d just been saying hello – the night-home-one was pack, why couldn’t she greet them? Resigned, she flopped over on her side again with a soft huff of disappointment, letting the Pack-people inspect her injuries and care for them. She wanted to lick her own wounds clean, sniff her pack and nibble them affectionately and help them like she was supposed to, but she wasn’t allowed to.

The gentle touch of the night-home-one told Nyx to turn over, and she obliged with a grumpy whuff, though she nuzzled into the touch and closed her eyes. The pain was just pain – she could handle it, though she did curl her lip as the big-heart-man splashed too much of his mossy-hiss-smoke medicine onto her shoulder. That stung. But the night-home-one stroked her ears and murmured gentle comforting things as the careful-steady-worry-one and the big-heart-man worked over her with the medicine and the cloths, and she relaxed into the touch and the warmth of the sunlight.

All too soon, it was over and the big-heart-man was instructing the two pack-people to move away. Nyx whined and sat up, her tail flicking disconsolately, but the big-heart-man was insistent. “No, Nyx, you stay here.” he told her firmly, then he relented. “Fine – Hermione, Ron, you can stay with ‘er. Ron, come for me if anythin’ changes. You, pup, no lickin’, no nippin’.” he said, with a warning glare at Nyx. She flattened her ears and shook her head – by context, she understood what he was telling her. None of what he’d made clear wasn’t allowed.

“Alright, class,” the big-heart-man addressed the rest of the students. “The rest of us are takin’ a hike. We’ll ‘ave no chance with the Aethonans here now there’s wolf-scent, so we’ll be takin’ a wander out to the highlands to meet them – should find ‘em down by the lake.”

“But what about Weasley and Granger, why do they get to stay?” a dark-haired boy who smelled like stress piped up sullenly. “I want to meet a real wolf.”

The big-heart man shook his head firmly. “You’ve been righ’ sensible in lessons lately, Nott, it’s a nice change from las’ year. But Ron and ‘mione help me out sometimes with feedin’ my critters, and they’ve met young Nyx ‘ere that way before. Bes’ we don’ crowd ‘er, not while she’s hurt – you remember how frightened she was when she found us all ‘ere? Just leave her be with what she knows, an’ maybe she or another one might come back another time. Now, c’mon.” he told the class, and beckoned them to follow him as he strode away out of the forest. Reluctantly the two-leggers followed him, and Nyx breathed a heavy sigh of relief as finally she and her pack-people were left alone in the warm, sunlit clearing. She felt sleepy, comfortable now her wounds had been cleaned and treated, but weary. She was a nocturnal creature, so though the warmth was pleasant, it dragged heavily at her consciousness. She would have liked to walk with her pack, run and find the members of it who were missing... the moon-hair-night-heart-one, the laughing-sharp-smells-boy, the girl-who-had-carried-death... the want was there, but the urge was not, and she was content enough with the careful-worry-secrets-one and the night-heart-home-one as she stretched out in the sun and let her eyes close peacefully as they stroked her rumpled fur and scratched around her ears and under her chin, though gently so as to not reopen her half-healed wounds.

“Hey, Nyxie,” the night-heart-home-one murmured, smoothing Nyx’s fur around her face with gentle hands. “You made a bit of a mess... I told you something was wrong...”

Nyx whined and nuzzled her way into the night-heart-home-one’s lap, aware from the tone that she was being chided gently and wishing to escape it. The careful-secrets-worry one laughed and scritched around her shoulders and spine, and Nyx let her tongue loll out in innocent pleasure at the sensation. “You really are a puppy,” he teased her. Nyx whuffed softly, but she was too sleepy to protest or to return the playfulness, and gradually her aches and stinging pains faded into the background as she drifted off to sleep in the care of her pack.