Hiding Bruises

Hiding Bruises- Chapter 9- Animal Antics

My school holidays were good, really good. Don’t worry; I’m not going to bore you with uninteresting tales of my average life. I love being at home though, with my family. I can just relax because I always know exactly what they’re going to do. Christmas is the same every year.

The best bit is seeing my little sister, she’s six now and the cutest six year old I’ve ever seen. She has brown hair and beautiful green eyes; she’s gorgeous, absolutely perfect. She loves opening her presents on Christmas day; she sits on my lap, even though she’s getting a bit big for that now. This year I got her a fairy outfit, it’s great because when she puts it on it actually makes her hover of the floor by about 30cm! She loved it and spent all her time zooming around the kitchen until mum had to tell her to take it off and Auntie – oh sorry, I’m rambling, I said I wouldn’t.

So, anyway, I got the station all right by myself. Mum and dad had to take Liza to the nursery. I had my bags with me and managed to carry them onto the train Ok. I found an empty carriage and sat down. After a while a few more people came in but didn’t talk to me. I’d seen them all before and we quite often sat together as we had no one else to go with. None of us ever talked to each other though- it was sort of like an unsaid rule; we were all unpopular but we weren’t going to join together to form a band of losers or anything.

That day was pretty boring, once we got to Hogwarts we had time for a welcome home feast and the head said a few words. During the speech I did feel a few eyes on me, which was a lot more then normal. When I turned to look at them the boys quickly looked around in other directions.

I went up to my dorm alone and wasn’t expecting company but Lily and Emmeline came in, “Hi,” Lily said friendlily, she seemed to have decided that she felt bad for never talking to me.

“Hi,” I said back.

“How were your holidays?” she asked. Apparently she had decided that she was going to be my friend.

“They were good,” I said vaguely, I don’t like talking about myself. “What about you?” I like Lily, and she seemed to want to get to know me, so why should I stop her. I was nice talking to people, sometimes I felt like I might loose my voice.

“They were Ok, my parents are muggles so they don’t really get magic much though. My sister…” she seemed to be searching for something to say, “has a new boyfriend, Vernon.” I was sure she was going to say something else but didn’t want to ask again, after all she was being nice enough to start a conversation with me, it would be rude to pry.

I didn’t really know if I was meant to reply so I stayed silent.

“Me and Lil were wondering if you wanted to come see the quidditch game with us, it’s in two days time.” Emmenline said.

Lily smiled at me and nodded happily.

“Ok,” I said, “sounds fun.” I smiled at Lily and her face spilt into an even wider grin.

She squealed and hugged me, “We’re going to be best friends Tina, I can just tell.” We spent the rest of that evening chatting companionably to each other.

Lily has a way of making everyone feel special; she’s just such a nice person. I found myself thinking that I might actually enjoy the rest of this year.

That night, I couldn’t get to sleep for ages. When I finally drift of I was woken by a howling sound from outside, it sounded like some sort of wolf. I got of my bed and looked out the window, the sky was beautiful. It was a full moon and millions of stars were out. I couldn’t remember which one Sirius had said he was named after, he had said it was the brightest though.

I was hot and tired and I hadn’t changed for a while, I missed my other form. So I decided to go outside and stretch my legs a bit.

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3rd Person

As the huge white moon rose higher into the sky Lupin started to writhe about on the floor, when they had first seen this transformation the others had been shocked, terrified. Now they were used to it, but they were still careful; they weren’t stupid.

“Step back,” said James, and they all moved away from the morphing shape on the grass before them. Once they were a safe distance from their friend, though he didn’t look anything like the everyday Lupin, they looked at each other, nodded and changed.

After a minute their were no longer four boys standing on the lawn, instead their was a huge grey wolf with matted fur, a big black dog, a majestic stag and a rat, squealing on the ground.

The wolf howled, long, loud and clear into the night and bounded away into the trees. The dog barked and followed it into the woods, the stag bounded along behind. The rat, which couldn’t run nearly as fast, stayed on the grass, waiting for them to re-emerge from the woods.

After a while they did and the rat ran over and crawled up the thin leg of the stag and then up onto its back. As the strange group disappeared back into the wood the dog heard something. It stopped at the edge of the wood and stared out at the school entrance.

The trees obscured its vision but it thought it saw a person step out of the great doors. It stopped and watched from the shadows, the figure stood still for a second. There was a howl from deeper in the woods and the dog span around to look; when it stared back the person was gone. There was a large shape going into the woods across from where the dog was watching. The dog had a urge to go over and investigate but there was another howl from deeper in the woods; its friends needed help.

The dog turned on its heel and ran deeper into the dark woods. It soon reached the other animals; they ran through the woods together, the wolf in between the other two large beasts. When it tries to veer of in a direction they didn’t like they’d snap at it, this was how James and Sirius controlled their friend on nights like this; nights of the full moon.

Everything was going well, well normal anyway and no one had got their throats ripped out, which was good. Then, the wolf caught the scent of something, something unusual, intriguing. It was like cinnamon, pears and a strange musky smell. It was different, though strangely familiar. The wolf howled and headed in left, the stag poked at him with his antlers but the wolf pushed back harder. The stag backed away and moved to the side, the dog grabbed at the wolf back legs but the wolf kicked hard. The dog yelped as it flew backwards, whacking into a huge tree trunk.

The wolf ran off and the stag went over the dog, it pushed it back up with its huge antlers. The dog moaned and whimpered but managed to stay upright. They ran off together after the wolf, it was easy to find and they soon caught the scent that had drawn the wolf away.

When they found the wolf it was in a clearing, sniffing around, howling at the moon. Their was movement at the side of the clearing, all three turned to look as a black panther sneaked out of the trees. It stared at each of them in turn, they stared into its brown speckled eyes; eyes the dog had seen before.

There was silence for a second, then the wolf growled, it was a low grating sound and all the animals knew what it meant; he was about to attack. The panther turned just in time, the wolf snapped at its leg, and met with flesh. The panther screeched and the dog and stag jumped on the wolf, catching it unawares. The wolf yelped and released its grip on the panther, which ran off, though limping slightly and leaving a trail of blood behind it.

By the time the animals had managed to get the wolf under control, the rat had pressed the small knob by the womping willow and the two larger animals had forced the wolf down the passageway, the panther was gone. They searched the grounds for it but found no trace apart from a small spattering of blood on the school steps, which they rubbed away.