Howl

I wake up the next morning in a round room with five four-poster beds draped in silver and green. Looking around, I see that I’m the first one up. With distaste, I dress in the appropriate school robes after showering and drying and then make my way downstairs.

I’m greeted with a familiar blond head poking up from the back of the couch. I smile and sit beside him silently – he doesn’t notice I’m there until I reach out and tap his arm gently. Draco snaps his head round so quickly that I wonder if he hurt his neck. He looks so tired I wonder if he’s had any sleep at all. “Lyall,” he still smiles at me. “You move so quietly.”

I make a mental note to make my footfalls heavier. I hesitantly reach out to touch his face but drop my hand and let it clatter to my lap. I see a tinge of disappointment in his ice blue eyes. I press my lips together and look at the fire. “Are you okay?”

“I didn’t sleep very well.” He pushes his messy hair back from his face. “I’m a little tired.”

I excuse myself from the chilly common room and make my way to the Great Hall where I find my other new friends. With a long sigh, I sit down next to Harry who smiles in greeting. “Hey, Lyall… Are you okay?”

I sit up straight realizing I was acting as Draco just had despite getting a comfortable night full of sleep. My brain kept going back to the moment I had reached for him and stopped myself short and the look in his eyes. Should I tell Harry that my mood was directly related to Draco’s at this moment? I didn’t know what it was. “Yeah,” I pause and search his warm eyes, so unlike Draco’s. “Something’s bothering Draco.”

His warm eyes harden and steel as though a wrought iron gate had closed off my access to his emotions. I sigh. I wonder why they really hated each other so much; I couldn’t really find a reason.

“Why do you care about him?”

“We’re friends.”
“How could you be friends—?”

I felt my fingers tingling and my face twitching. I stand and take a deep breath before spinning on my heel and moving away from Harry. I had to gain more control over myself. I couldn’t allow myself to get riled up over such petty hatred. I slip next to God knows who at the Slytherin table and spot Snape making his way around the table. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s giving out the timetables.” I glance to the left to see a boy around my age with a bright smile and smoldering brown eyes. This boy was positively one of the most handsome boys I had ever met and he drew me into him like a moth to a flame. “I’m Thanatos Aeron. You’re Lyall, aren’t you? Lyall Molviola.”

“Yes.” I breath. Suddenly, I was racking my brain with comparisons between Thanatos and Draco. To summarise, I prefer Draco but there was just something about Thanatos that drew me in more than I care to admit.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he says and I nod. Staring into a lump of butter in front of me, I feel someone take a seat by my other side. I don’t look up but I know who it is almost immediately. “Hello, Malfoy.”

“Aeron.” Draco takes a sharp tone with Thanatos. I wonder idly if they have some sort of history together. I drag my eyes up from the cube of butter and meet Draco’s icy blue orbs. He leans closer to me and drops his voice an octave or two. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Earlier?” I cock an eyebrow despite knowing exactly what he was talking about.

“You know what I’m talking about,” he smirks at me and leans back, scraping his eyes over Thanatos smugly. “I only—”

“Oh.” I glance back at Thanatos, overly aware of how close together Draco and I had ducked towards each other until our pale noses were almost skimming each other. Draco looks annoyed that he had interrupted us as I pulled away, blinking. “Are you and Malfoy dating?”

“We just met.” I say it blandly, without feeling. What kind of person did he think I was to date someone when I hadn’t even know them for a full day?

“Well?”

“No.”

I turn my body away from him. Honestly, it hadn’t escaped my notice that Draco had some reputation of being a player but he and I are only talking! There shouldn’t be any assumptions about the two of us like that considering that nobody here really knows me. I sigh and rest my head on my balled fist. I don’t want that kind of reputation.

I eye Draco curiously – I wonder what kind of reputation I was already gaining from the Gryffindor table for wondering about Draco. My thoughts drift back to when Draco had mentioned that Harry couldn’t talk his eyes off me and frown. Hadn’t Harry reacted especially sharply to my ponderings on Draco? I know that there is a feud between the houses – especially Harry and Draco – but I wasn’t aware of the extent of it.

I sat staring off into space for a while until Draco nudged e out of my reverie and gestured” to the doors. “Are you coming?” he says, offering me a hand. “We’re going to be late.”

“Late to what exactly?” I accept his hand and he pulls me to my feet. Draco doesn’t let go of my hand and I don’t particularly mind (all remains of my previous worrying disperses at the feel of his smooth fingers against my skin).

“Transfiguration.”

I smile brightly. I had always been rather talented with transfiguration and always quite enjoyed it. I inquired as to who the teacher was. I didn’t even know many of the teachers here, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“McGonagall.” He says resentfully. “She’s the head of Gryffindor. Snape is the head of Slytherin, oddly enough; he was the one who sorted you.”

I didn’t see anything odd about this. “Was he the guy with the black hair?”

“Crooked nose?” Draco squints. I nod. “That’s the one.”

I nod my head and imprint his face and mind to my memory. I figure I was going to have to know that man in particular – he was the head of my house after all.

Draco leads me through the ever-changing halls and staircases until we reach the class in mind. We file through the door and I allow him to lead me to a double desk at the back of the class. I sit next to him and inspect McGonagall. She was a sharp boned, terse old with a pointed eyes and clear, alert eyes. I figure she was the kind of woman you’d like to have on your side.

“Now, class.” She clasps her hands in front of her happily and begins her lesson. “I would like to know the difference, please, between… let’s say… Anamagi and a Werewolf.”

Hermione – who is sitting much closer to the front of the room than I – raises her hand quickly. McGonagall looks hopefully around the room before accepting Hermione’s raised hand. “Miss. Granger?”

“An Anamagus is a wizard who elects to turn into an animal – a werewolf has no choice.”

I hear Draco scoff next to me and mutter under his breath. “Well,” he snorts indignantly. “I don’t know why anyone would want to turn into an animal.”

Fight or flight. I feel smothered in this room and I fight the urge to pounce from my seat. Instead, I shift uncomfortably, visibly twitching. McGonagall continues with her lesson. “Precisely.” She says and offers Gryffindor 5 points. “I, myself, am an animagus. Now, becoming an animagus is something you must learn to do yourself – not kind of potion will help you.”

I shrink against my chair, hoping I wasn’t drawing too much attention to myself. Stop cowering, Lyall, stop it.

“Due to the act of becoming – or electing, as Miss Granger says – to become an Animagi, you have to be registered.” She leans on the edge of her desk and scrapes her eyes over the class. They land on me and I stay stock-still. “Isn’t that right, Miss Molviola?”

“Yes, miss.” I say the words as calmly as possible. With a breath of relief from me, she turns away.

“Now, class!” McGonagall claps her hands together and pushes herself from the wood of her desk and walking the length of the classroom as she spoke. “I can neither encourage nor discourage you to become an animagus but however, I can show you the transformation.”

I idly, in the back of my mind, wonder what she transformed into—

“Miss Molviola, would you are to help me?”

“Paska.” I mutter and raise an eyebrow at her. “Excuse me?”

“Will you come here and help me demonstrate?”

Draco gives me a light shove and I find myself walking towards her with my breath held. All eyes are on me now. I remind myself that it’s the first day and there are most likely worst things to come. I wonder if McGonagall did this, as she, like so many others, is active in the house rivalries.

“Lyall here.” McGonagall gestures towards me and I beg her not to say any more. “Is on the registered animagi list—” I close my ears to the babble of astonishment and hushed whispers. “—however, due to her being underage, her name is not readily available to anyone outside the staff and the ministry.”

“The whole school will know soon enough.”

I don’t know who said it and I don’t care but the full weight of the comment bears down heavily to me. I recall Draco’s words at the mere mention of Animagi and bit the inside of my cheek to stop from crying. I wasn’t ashamed. I wasn’t. I choose this didn’t, I? Maybe that was it. I had little to no control in my life and the one thing I had full control over had been peeled from my fingertips like a meagre secret.

I don’t dare look at any of my friends.

“Well?” a stout, chubby boy in Slytherin robes calls to me in annoyance. I hadn’t moved an inch. “Change.”

I quickly weigh up my options. I change and then there’s no going back. I don’t change and everyone was going to be whispering about me tenfold than if I do change. They would spread that I was lying, that I was a coward. Changing, unfortunately, seemed to be the lesser of two evils (I think that was the phrase)

With a deep breath, I square my shoulders and turn to face the class, focusing on an indiscrete part of the classroom wall and ignoring the choir of eyes on me. I close my eyes and slow my breathing down when I start to feel my body snapping and bending into place as it contorts and sprouts fangs, claws and fur. It all took place in about two seconds but I could hear the gasps throughout the classroom.

“A wolf!” Hermione exclaims and looks ashamed of herself as she presses a hand to her forehead and smiles at me in awe. “I should have guessed!”

“As you can see,” McGonagall gestures for me to do as I please. “Lyall is in complete control – again, unlike a werewolf – you could ask her to do anything within a Wolf’s boundaries and she could do it for you if she pleased.”

“That’s wicked.” Ron breaths as I trot by him. I tilt my furry head in his direction and smile, my tongue lolling out of my mouth.

I make my way by Malfoy, my bushy tail brushes against his skin and I peek at him to gauge his reaction – he didn’t look as disgusted as I had though… He actually looked impressed. To ease the throbbing in my little chest, I wink at him.

Draco smiles and I don’t feel so bad about it.