Inevitable 74/80: Human Nature (HP/AB)
*cough* Uh, yeah. Here it is.
Inevitable 74/80: Human Nature
A Harry Potter/Anita Blake crossover
by mhalachaiswords
Summary: A late-night run-in with werewolves in the woods outside St. Louis dumps Harry Potter into a whole new world of trouble. Now Anita Blake has to deal with a new charge as well as Death-Eaters come to town.
Fandoms: Anita Blake and Harry Potter
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. J.K. Rowling owns all things Harry Potter. Only the story is my own.
Rating: PG-15 this part, because Jason gets some lovin'.
Words: 10,055
Spoilers: Spoilers for Half-Blood Prince, Incubus Dreams. Nothing for Deathly Hallows. At least not yet.
Note: Still Oct. 31, the longest day in Harry's life. Thanks to all my readers for sticking around. That Jason/Anita smut I was writing has been toned down and shoved into this chapter because I say so.
Previous parts here.
~~~~~~~
Harry hurried through the Hogwarts corridors, lost so deep in his own thoughts that he wasn't sure if he passed anyone. He had to find Remus, he knew that much, but then what?
What on earth had possessed Remus to attack Jason? It didn't make any sense! When Remus had been at Hogwarts as a professor, he had always been so careful with the students, never putting anyone in danger.
Except when he almost ate us on the night of the last full moon in third year? Harry's traitorous mind pointed out.
Harry brushed that thought away. Remus had been in full werewolf form at the time, and if there was one thing Harry had learned from his time in St. Louis, that werewolves didn't act with restraint under a full moon.
But still, what had happened that day didn't make any sense! Jason hadn't been alone in the hall for more than a few minutes, not long enough for him to make Remus angry. Remus didn't get angry, not like that, no matter what.
Even though Jason had said Remus thought Jason the one who had attacked Harry. Harry's steps slowed. Why had led Remus to think such a thing?
The mental reminder of Jason brought back the moment of the attack in a rush, all blood and screaming and panic. Harry put his hand against the wall. Both Jason and Remus almost died, and Harry hadn't been able to protect them. Anita saved them. She always saved everyone, riding in and saving the day, even if her bullets were the reason Remus almost died in the first place.
A little Hufflepuff girl ran past Harry, robes streaming out behind her. Her hair was the same colour as Elsa's. The sight pulled Harry back to himself with a jolt. He had bigger problems right now than falling apart over things that were over. There were dangerous people in the school, and Harry had to remember that. It was Halloween, after all.
He continued down the corridor to the solitary room where McGonagall had sent Remus. He lifted his hand, hesitated for a moment, then knocked. He still didn't know what he was going to say to Remus.
Tonks pulled the door open, her dark purple hair falling in her eyes. "Harry," she said, clearly startled to see him. "Hullo."
"I need to talk to Remus," Harry blurted out. He tried to look over Tonks's shoulder, but she held the door fast and he couldn't see Remus. "Is he here?"
"I don't think--" Tonks started to say, but at the same moment another voice sounded.
"What could you possibly have to say to me?"
Harry slipped into the room through the narrow space between Tonks and the door. Remus sat slouched in a chair by the window. His ragged clothing was still covered in drying red stains. Harry drew in a deep breath, hoping to calm himself, but the very air was tinged with the coppery taste of blood. Deep in Harry's chest, his wolf stirred.
"What could I have to say to you?" Harry echoed. "Oh, I don't know, how about asking you what on earth you were thinking?" His voice rose on every word, until he was shouting. "You attacked Jason! You almost killed him!"
Remus didn't move. "I thought he was the one who attacked you."
"What?" Harry demanded. "How could you possibly think that? I wasn't attacked by a werewolf at all! Did you think it didn't matter if you attacked some muggle werewolf? Damn it, Remus, he's not my enemy, he's my friend! He's part of my pack!"
He hadn't really meant to say the last part out loud, but the admission hung in the horrified silence. Remus jerked his head up, starring at Harry for a moment, then he was out of the chair and across the room before Harry could move.
Remus grabbed Harry's shirt with both hands and pulled the boy off balance. Not sure if he was being attacked, Harry tried to shove Remus away and go for his wand, but everything was a confusion of hands and pulling and a woman's raised voice shouting Remus's name.
Then, just as suddenly, Remus shoved Harry away so hard he hit the wall. "Who did this to you?" Remus demanded, looming over Harry. "Who did this?"
"Who did this to me doesn't matter!" Harry shouted. "You tried to kill a friend of mine! What if Reece had been there instead of Jason?" He straightened up. "He probably smelled like my blood too, what if he had been--"
A loud bang, accompanied by a miniature explosion of purple sparks, made Harry jump. He whipped his head around to see Tonks holding her wand aloft. "That's better," she said into the resultant silence. Her voice sounded mildly strangled. "Why don't we all sit down?"
Harry stared at Tonks. "Sit down?" he demanded indignantly. "What are you talking about? I was--"
"Sit down, Harry," Tonks interrupted. She edged closer to him until she was within arms'-length, then she grabbed his sleeve and yanked him across the room into a chair. "Stay."
Still wound up from the interrupted fight with Remus, Harry let out a faint growl. He looked past Tonks to where Remus still faced the wall.
In this light, Harry could see the bloodstains and the bullet holes on the back of his shirt. Harry swallowed, suddenly queasy. Jason had almost died, and so had Remus. Harry knew Anita too well to think she'd had anything but silver bullets in her gun.
Everyone I care about keeps getting hurt, Harry thought. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, cradling his head in his hands. I'm really sick of this.
"Are you all right?" he asked without looking up, his voice muffled by his hands. "I don't know exactly what Anita did to save Jason, but it worked on me too, and you. Right?"
Remus didn't answer. Harry raised his head to see that Remus still hadn't moved.
"Remus?" Harry rose to his feet. "Are you okay?"
Finally, the man turned around. "I should be asking you that question," he said, voice low. "Tonks told me--" He didn't look at Harry as he walked back to the chair by the window and sank into it.
Confused, Harry turned to Tonks. "What is he talking about? Wait, why is he here?" He looked back at Remus. "Did Dumbledore get you like he did Anita?"
Tonks tapped her wand against her leg absently, sending a cloud of pink bubbles across the room. "Hagrid ran into the entrance hall with you all bleeding," she said. "Only a few of us saw it, before he got you up the stairs to the infirmary." She took a deep breath and tossed back her head. "You were badly hurt," she continued briskly. "I knew Dumbledore went to get someone he thought could help you, but I thought that someone should let Remus know. And here he is."
"I got here as soon as I could get away, but what good did it do?" Remus asked, speaking in the general direction of the carpet.
"Get away from where?" Harry slid forward in his chair. "And are you okay? I know Anita shot you, but..." He let his voice trail off uncertainly. Harry had been hit with a lot of curses in his life, but he had never been shot. He had no idea what it felt like. "Are you going to be okay?" He sounded like a hesitant child and he hated it, but he didn't know what else to say.
Remus picked at the loose stuffing on the chair's arm. "I should be asking you that question, Harry. Tonks sent me a message that you had been attacked, but she didn't know who had done it, if it was Voldemort or someone else. When I got here, I didn't know anything, didn't know if you were going to live, and the first person I came across was this werewolf covered in your blood." He let out a short, barking laugh. "Werewolves. Now I find that you..."
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "It's not like that," he said. "Ask Tonks, I didn't change into a werewolf last full moon! Ask McGonagall, ask Ron and Hermione! It's complicated, it is, but--"
"You called him part of your pack." Remus's eyes were suddenly on Harry. "There are some things in life that are complicated, Harry and some things that are not. This is not complicated."
"Yes, it is!" Harry glared back at Remus. "Look, I was clawed up by a werewolf in St. Louis this summer, by someone in Jason's pack, but I didn't change into a werewolf at the full moon! Even after Reece scratched me in September, I didn't change this past full moon, either!"
"If you're not a werewolf, then how can you call that-- that dog part of your pack?" Remus demanded.
Harry narrowed his eyes. He was getting angry, anger at Remus for not believing him tinged with lingering fear at what had happened in the hallways. "Don't call him that!" he exclaimed. "Maybe he's not as dominant as I am, but he's loyal and he's protective and he's my friend!"
"And that woman?" Remus pressed. "What is she? Werewolf or muggle?"
"She's not a werewolf, not really," Harry said quickly. "But she's Jason's Lupa and the pack's Bolverk. She had to protect him!" Even as he spoke, Harry felt his stomach twist. Here he was, trying to defend Anita to the man she had shot.
On the other side of the room, something changed in Remus's eyes. He slowly sat up in his chair. "You said St. Louis," he said.
"What?" Harry asked, puzzled by the apparent change in topic. "What about St. Louis?"
"This woman, you said she was from St. Louis," Remus pressed. "Lupa and Bolverk."
"Yeah, so?"
The unease in Remus's expression was fast changing to fear. "What is her name?"
"Who, Anita?" Harry frowned. "What about Anita?"
Remus paled under his scars. "That was Anita Blake?"
Tonks stopped fidgeting.
"What about her?" Harry asked, looking between them.
Remus passed a hand over his face. "Anita Blake," he repeated weakly, then sat forward. "Harry, how long have you known her?"
"No," Harry said, shooting to his feet. "That's not right. Whatever you've heard about her--"
"She's a necromancer!" Remus exclaimed. "She's one of the most powerful necromancers who has ever lived! Tied to vampire and wolf, she is more powerful than almost any that have come before her!"
"Where did you hear this?" Harry demanded. "She's not--"
"She's a necromancer?"
"Yes, but--"
"Tied to vampire and werewolf?"
"Yes, but you don't understand--"
"Feared by the Vampire Council for how many vampires she has killed? For the dead she can raise with a thought alone?"
Unbidden, Elsa's anger at Anita flashed in Harry's mind. "That's not it!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "You don't understand! You stand there thinking she's all evil, but she's not! She saved my life this summer, she protected me when she didn't have to! Ask Dumbledore! She's not evil, I don't care whatever wizards think about necromancers!"
Harry wasn't sure if he could stop yelling. Remus stared at him, and Harry found himself going on.
"Even after Bellatrix Lestrange almost tortured her to death, Anita didn't kick me out! She protected me, her and Richard and everyone! She almost went insane, but it was Jean-Claude and Richard and Damian and Nathanial that made her better and she didn't blame me, even if she should have! She came with me to London even though she hates to fly and helped me with Christoff and she didn't have to! So don't say she's bad!"
His breath caught in his throat, almost a sob. Remus still stared at him.
Harry pushed his hair out of his eyes. "And she shouldn't have shot you, but she was trying to protect Jason," he finished weakly. "I should have gotten there first, I could have stopped you and explained, but she's always been faster than I am and I'm sorry I didn't tell you what happened but things were just so messed up!"
That last part came out as more of a plea than Harry intended. Heat rose in his cheeks. He hated sounding like a child, but part of him was tired of being an adult all the time.
Then Remus was on his feet moving towards Harry. He gently gripped Harry's shoulders. "You do not need to apologize for what has happened today, nor this summer. Being attacked by a werewolf was not your fault."
A lump stuck in Harry's throat. He swallowed hard. "I would have told you if you'd been around," he said. "But you were on some mission, Tonks said, and I didn't want to bother you."
Remus smiled faintly. "Always the same, Harry." He let Harry go. "Now. We would best be served by having a cup of tea and talk this over." He pulled out his wand and gave it a wave, and a tea set appeared on the table. Another wave and a kettle settled on the fire. "There, that will be ready soon enough." He returned to his seat.
Harry reluctantly went back to his own chair. "Are you okay?" he asked again.
Remus nodded. "Although I will admit, I never again wish to experience being 'shot'." He shifted a teacup on the tray. "Does she always carry that weapon with her?" he asked.
Harry shrugged, not sure if he should tell Remus about Anita's second gun. "She usually does, back home. Silver bullets work on both vampires and lycanthropes."
"And she does not use magic in defense?"
Harry didn't understand the cautious way in which Remus spoke. "What kind of magic would she use? She's not a muggle, not really, but she can't do our kind of magic any more than I-- I mean, she can't." He had been on the brink of admitting that he had tried to raise zombies in St. Louis, but had remembered in time how horrified Hermione had been by that admission.
The kettle let out a loud whistle, making Harry jump. Remus busied himself pouring the water into the pot. While he was busy, Harry snuck a peek at Tonks. The Auror was uncharacteristically silent, watching Remus with wide eyes. She noticed Harry looking at her.
"What really happened to Bellatrix?" Tonks asked abruptly. "You said she wasn't coming back. What happened to her?"
Harry swallowed. Remus was now pouring tea into the cups, but Harry could tell he was listening to every word. "She, um..."
"You said she tortured that-- that woman." The anger in Tonks's voice was apparent, and Harry wasn't sure he understood. "What happened?"
Harry sat up straight. "We were in the woods and Bellatrix just showed up!" he said. "She thought it'd be fun to play tricks on the werewolves, see? She hit Anita with the Crucio Eternum curse and left!"
"No," Tonks said immediately. "That curse kills people, there's no counter-curse!"
"I didn't use a counter-curse to stop it," Harry said. "Didn't Dumbledore tell you? I told him, Richard was there and he's got that connection to her and the curse just... stopped."
Tonks opened her mouth to speak, but Remus laid a hand on her arm. "We should hear this story from the beginning," he said.
Tonks glowered at him for a movement, then sat down.
Remus handed Harry a cup of tea. "Now, Harry, please start from the beginning."
Harry took a sip of the hot liquid. "It's a bit of a long story," he cautioned, setting his cup into the saucer with a clatter.
"That's all right," Remus said. Tonks looked mutinous. "Please tell us."
Being as brief as possible, Harry spoke of being abandoned in the Missouri forest on the night of the full moon, of being chased by werewolves, how Richard saved his life from the attack. He mentioned going to Anita's house, then deciding to leave the Durselys on the following day.
He then jumped right to the story of Nigel Spencer's murder. He may have told his friends and Dumbledore about Damian, but emotions were running so high with Remus and Tonks that Harry didn't want to explain. Remus may have been a werewolf, but he was also a wizard. Harry wasn't sure he could deal with it if Remus held the Wizarding world's prejudices against vampire children.
As Harry explained what had occurred on the night's of Bellatrix's death, he took pains to paint the pack's actions in the best light. He thought Remus would understand more than Tonks, but there wasn't anything he could think to say to Tonks on the matter.
Remus listened to the story with silent concentration, his attention never wavering from Harry's face.
Harry took another gulp of his cooling tea, and launched back into the story. He tried to not sound too disappointed at not changing into a werewolf on the full moon, but from the expression on Remus's face, he wasn't sure he succeeded.
Harry glossed over most of the trip to England, mentioning the dinner at Christoff's briefly and omitting Elsa altogether. He still wasn't sure of the real reason Elsa was at Hogwarts. As much as he wanted to believe that Elsa had traveled all the way across the country, deep into an enemy vampire's territory, just to save him, he wasn't that much of an egoist.
"And then Anita went home and I hadn't seen her until today," Harry finished. "That's about it."
Tonks made a sound deep in her throat. "What he didn't tell you," she said to Remus, "Is that on the full moon in September, someone let the little Hufflepuff werewolf loose and that Harry stopped him from eating Snape."
"That's not what happened!" Harry interrupted. "Reece wasn't set loose to attack Snape, he was set loose to go after Dumbledore!" He leaned forward. "Someone in the castle is trying to kill Dumbledore! They almost got Tonks when she was pretending to be Dumbledore, but he won't tell me who it is!"
"I thought Dumbledore told you to stop trying to find out who that was," Tonks said.
Harry looked sharply at her, but she seemed to be serious. "Are you out of your mind?" he asked. "It's one thing to go after a wizard who can defend himself, or even you, you're an Auror! But what about a first-year muggle-born? Do you really think Snape would have just tied a collar around Reece's neck and led him back to the infirmary? Snape hates werewolves!"
"According to him, he was trying to protect you." Tonks's eyes sparkled, but Harry wasn't having anything to do with her mischief.
"Why are you taking his side?" Harry demanded. "It was the first time Reece changed away from his pack! He didn't have anyone, he was all alone, and the Wolfsbane potion made him sick! Add to that the silver barb someone stuck in him-- Hell, he's only eleven! He's a pup and he should have had someone to protect him!"
"Harry, please calm down," Remus said.
"I will not calm down!" Harry shot back. "He's all alone here, changes on his own for the first time and all this happens! He knows exactly what happened! Then last night? How is it protection when Moroven can call him out of the castle and into the forest? She said she was going to keep him as a pet! If I hadn't seen him when I did, who knows what she would have done with him!"
Remus set down his teacup. "Did you say Moroven was at fault for your injuries?" he asked.
"She was in the Forbidden Forest last night," Harry said. "I followed Reece and found her toying with him. She broke his arm and then said she'd come to find me and, well, things sort of got bad from there. I killed two of her minions and wouldn't let her have Reece, so she's probably not too pleased with me right now." Harry thought of how scary Moroven had been, how she had hurt Reece for fun. He wasn't sorry he'd stopped those vampires the way he had.
"Find you?" Remus echoed. "Why would the vampire master Moroven seek you out?"
"Maybe she'd in league with You-Know-Who?" Tonks suggested.
"She hates him as much as we do, all the vampires do," Harry replied before thinking. "The old Master of London was none too pleased with Voldemort back when I was a baby, and the new Master hates all wizards. Moroven's probably the same, she likes to be the scariest vampire in town."
"Did she tell you that?" Tonks asked.
Harry stopped. He could have kicked himself. How stupid was he being, talking without thinking again? He twisted his teacup round on the saucer. "Not really," he admitted. "I heard about her while I was in London."
Harry could tell from the expression on Remus's face that the man wasn't vying the story.
"In St. Louis, there was this vampire, Damian. He used to be one of Moroven's vampires, and now he's in St. Louis and he mentioned her a few times. And Anita said that Moroven's really ruthless and always gets what she wants, so she can't have wanted to kill me, right?"
Remus folded his hands in his lap. "Moroven is one of the most terrifying dark creatures on these shores," he said. "Her main prey is muggles, so the Ministry tends to leave her alone." His lips twisted up into an unhappy smile. "The only wizards she tends to deal with are the werewolves."
"Wolves are her animal to call, that's how she got Reece out of the castle last night." Harry shoved his cup and saucer onto a space in the bookcase. "She let me and Reece get away from her, but if she'd wanted to keep us, I don't know if we'd been able to escape."
"Did this vampire in St. Louis tell you this?" Remus asked. "You said he was once part of Moroven's pack, is he trustworthy?"
"Of course he is!" Harry said, wishing he could defend Damian more. "And it's not just him who told me, it's Anita and Jean-Claude and the London vampires and Damian and all that. Damian's always told me the truth."
Remus gave a little nod. "I have never heard of Moroven working with Voldemort, but I had to ask." He sank back into the chair. "Is there anything else that you haven't told me?"
Harry thought about the Horcruxes, about becoming an Animagus like his father and Sirius, about all the crazy things in his life over the past few months, and he suddenly didn't want to explain a single part of it to Remus. "Nothing important," he said. "Just minor stuff, like being Quidditch captain." He tried to smile, but it felt false. "Where have you been?"
Remus sighed. "With the Wizarding world's werewolves," he said finally. "I cannot tell say much about it. I have been trying to discover with whom they stand, but I still am not certain which with side they will fight, our side or Voldemort."
"Probably not ours," Tonks said darkly.
"Not all werewolves are the same," Remus said, but it sounded automatic and not entirely convincing. "Some may--"
"And some may not! How many are like Fenrir Greyback?"
"Who's Fenrir Greyback?" Harry asked, seizing on the name. "What's he like?"
Remus did not appear happy. "Fenrir Greyback is a werewolf, a Death Eater." He looked Harry directly in the eye. "He is the werewolf who attacked me when I was a child. My father had angered him and so he attacked me as retribution. Fenrir Greyback is, perhaps, the most savage werewolf alive in England today. I suspect, although I do not know, that he was this way before he was contaminated." Remus transferred his gaze to Tonks. "Not the other way around. Others of our kind may see the light before it is too late."
"Remus--"
"Werewolves will not use logic like you do," Remus interrupted. "You have no idea what it is like to live amongst werewolves, Nymphadora. They do not think as humans do, they do not use the same logic. Everything is much simpler. If you are attacked, you fight back. If your pack is threatened, you eliminate the threat. A werewolf cannot live for so long amongst such animal logic and not be affected."
Although Remus's voice had been calm and clear, Harry's heart was beating hard by the time the man finished speaking. Was that why Remus had attacked Jason without provocation? What had these wizard werewolves been like? How could they be so different from Richard's pack in St. Louis?
"I cannot speak further on what I have been doing." Remus shifted in his chair. "Harry..."
"What?"
Remus attempted to smile. "You certainly do have your father's penchant for getting into messes," he said. "Are you certain you are going to be all right?"
"Of course!" Harry pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "I should be getting back. Are you... are you leaving right away?"
"Not right away," Remus said. "I need to speak with the headmaster."
"So we can talk some more, later, just us?"
Remus nodded. "I would like that."
"Good." Harry rose to his feet, looking between Tonks and Remus. "Just... I'm sorry things got so messed up."
"As am I, Harry," Remus said. "As am I."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I stood staring at the door after Harry left. I hadn't wanted to let him leave, not with a crazy werewolf in the school and Elsa running around. And yet, with all of that, I hadn't been able to find the words to keep him here.
Behind me, Jason let out a long sigh. It was such an un-Jason-like sound that I turned. He was sitting on the bed, hunched in on himself, staring at the stains on his pants; dark red drying to brown on the pale fabric.
Jason's skin was whole and smooth under the drying blood on his chest, and every time I looked at him I saw the ruin of his body, flesh ripped apart on the cold stone floor. He'd been dying and there was nothing I could do about it.
The air was too thin to breathe. I kept trying to say something, anything to break that horrible silence, but no words would come out of my mouth.
Abruptly, Jason stood up. "I'm going to shower," he muttered, not looking at me. "I feel--" He broke off, swallowing hard, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "I've got to get this crap off me."
He hesitated for the briefest of moments, then his head fell a little lower and he vanished into the small bathroom attached to the suite. I stared after him, wishing I knew what do to, wishing that I could get the image of his slashed body out of my head. Images of seeing Nathaniel the same way, his beautiful body slashed to a bloody ruin on the carpet, pushed at me around the more recent memory of Jason.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe deeply. I would not do this, I told myself fiercely. I did not have time to fall apart. Harry was in danger, we were all in danger in this insane place. I'd come to England to save Harry, and that was what I was going to do. Come hell or high water, I was going to protect him, even if it meant knocking him over the head and dragging him back to St. Louis with us.
I wasn't going to let anyone else get hurt. Not Harry, not Jason, no one. No more of my boys lying on the ground, bleeding to death, bodies slashed to ruin--
I put my hand over my mouth. A scream was bubbling beneath the surface, but I knew that if I started screaming, I'd never be able to stop. I had to be strong. Everyone needed me to be strong and that meant I couldn't fall apart. I had to get us home in one piece.
The faint sounds of the shower pulled me back to myself. I opened my eyes and blinked hard, taking in the cold stone walls, the ancient-looking tapestries, the bright sunlight pouring through the high window. As strange as everything looked, this was real, right now. Jason was in the shower and he was alive, safe, for now. I wasn't going to let anything happen to him again.
A faint brushing at my mind made me frown. "Jean-Claude?" I whispered. "Why are you up? It's only been an hour since sunrise."
The light touch in my mind turned to a sigh. "We are awash in power, ma petite," Jean-Claude told me softly. "Nathaniel has arrived here, and he holds some of your power in him. With his touch, I find myself growing stronger, almost as if you are here with me."
"Oh." I stared at the bright window, knowing that Jean-Claude could see the light through my eyes, the closest he would he ever come to walking in the sun. "Does he know about Jason?"
"Oui." Jean-Claude's voice grew sorrowful. "Jason is his friend, as Harry is his friend. He fears for all of you." In my mind's eye, I saw Nathaniel, lying beside Jean-Claude on Jean-Claude's bed. His shortened hair fell in his eyes as he stared off into space, worry in his beautiful eyes.
I ached to touch Nathaniel, to draw comfort from him. Instead, I wrapped my arms around my chest. I felt so alone. "Did Richard leave?"
"He did." Although Jean-Claude hadn't wanted for me to see the memory, we were too closely connected for him to keep me out of his mind. Nathaniel had explained when Jean-Claude awoke that Richard had stormed out when Nathaniel arrived at the Circus and stripped down to enter Jean-Claude's bed, to offer the power of that triumvirate in any way that he could.
I let out another breath, more annoyed than anything. "Is he trying to be a dick?" I demanded. "Nathaniel was just trying to help!"
"I know." Jean-Claude's mental caress was soft, almost like an embrace. "Ma petite, where is Jason?"
"In the shower," I mumbled. "He's fine, just getting clean."
The ensuing pause was a little too long. "He is alone?"
"He's safe," I said defensively. "There's no way into that room except through me."
"That is not what I meant," Jean-Claude told me. A world away, he stroked Nathaniel's hair. I watched, more than a little envious, as Nathaniel closed his eyes and the stress lines around his mouth began to smooth away. "Jason has been through so much, and he is not an alpha wolf."
"I know that." What was Jean-Claude getting at?
Jean-Claude's tone turned slightly exasperated. "For all his bravado, ma petite, Jason is very much a pack animal. He seeks comfort from others of his kind."
Unintentionally, I turned to look at the closed bathroom door. "Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?" I demanded, incredulity growing.
"Anita!" It took me a moment to realize that he had said my name out loud; Nathaniel looked up at Jean-Claude, frowning, then cuddled closer to the vampire. As he did so, I realized that both men were naked. Any other time, I'd have asked what the hell was going on, but I was still stuck on what Jean-Claude had suggested I do. "Jason is my wolf, as you are my human servant. He is my responsibility as much as--"
"Don't you dare say as much as I am! I'm responsible for myself!" I had no idea how we'd gotten into this argument, and no clue on how to make it go away. But it was easier for me to cling to any shred of anger than to deal with the panic and worry that lurked in the background.
"I was going to remind you that Jason's welfare is my responsibility as much as it is yours," Jean-Claude told me. He settled back onto the bed and drew Nathaniel with him, stroking Nathaniel's shoulders until my wereleopard relaxed against the sheets. "You are his Lupa, and that responsibility does not end with healing his physical wounds."
I kicked at the worn rug, my anger evaporating in the face of what felt like guilt. "He didn't seem to want company," I said softly.
"That is not what he said," Jean-Claude reminded me. "Ma petite, I will speak frankly. I know you are upset and worried, and rightly so." He let out a soft sigh. "In our lives, true comfort for comfort's sake is rare. I do not suggest this for any reason other than for Jason's sake, and your own."
I wanted to argue, about how crazy it would be to let my guard down in this place, about going to Jason when the man was still upset. But I was cold and scared, and even though I knew Jean-Claude was probably manipulating me, I was too tired to argue.
"Only if Jason wants it," I warned Jean-Claude. "If he wants to be alone, I'm going to sit on that bed until he's done."
"Of course, ma petite." Jean-Claude drew back in my mind, taking away the images of him stroking Nathaniel's hair. I felt oddly bereft, alone without the two of them. It was ridiculous. Jason was less than twenty feet away from me in the shower. I didn't have to be alone.
I didn't go in right away. I first turned the metal key in the hall door lock, and shoved a chair under the handle. It may not stand up to magic, but at least I'd hear someone trying to get into the room.
The wood of the bathroom door was hard and echoing under my knuckles. After a moment, I heard Jason's voice rise up over the patter of the water in the shower. "What?"
I cracked the door open a crack, steam billowing out around me. "Can I come in?" I asked, hoping he didn't hear the waver in my voice.
"What's wrong?" he asked. He poked his head out of the shower to stare at me. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened." I slipped into the room and closed the door behind me. "I just... I mean, I wanted to make sure you were okay."
He blinked at me. "I'm fine."
"Good." I crossed my arms over my chest, wishing with all my might that Jean-Claude had never interfered, that I'd just stayed out in the room. "Good," I repeated.
He gave me a wan smile, hardly a Jason smile at all. "But I wouldn't say no to some company," he said. It was exactly what I'd expect Jason to say in this situation, but it sounded forced. Like he was also trying to act normally, but couldn't quite get the motions down.
"Really?"
His smile vanished, leaving him looking very young. "Yes, really," he said after a minute.
I breathed in the steamy air, scented with the smell of soap. "As long as there's room for the two of us."
Jason grinned suddenly. "We'll make room." He ducked back into the shower before I could think of a response.
I stripped out of my clothes, leaving them on a pile on the floor. The gun I left on a towel on the edge to the sink near the shower, where I could grab it easily. Before I stepped into the shower, I pulled an elastic band out of my jeans and tied my hair back, in what I was sure would be a futile attempt to keep it dry.
Naked and more than a little uncertain, I stepped into the rather large shower stall. There was no curtain, just a little stone step to keep the water from spilling out across the floor. Jason stood under the water spray coming from the old-fashioned shower head. His skin was already slightly pink from the water's heat. "Hey," I said, unreasonably nervous. Jason watched me very carefully. "There's soap in here, right?"
Jason nodded. "The water's fine, too." He held out his hands to me.
Feeling awkward, I took his hands and let him draw me into the water's spray. The water hit my skin, warm and soft, but Jason kept backing up, pulling me with him, until I was directly under the spray.
Jason's eyes were wide as he stared at me, silent for once in his life. I let out a shaky breath. We were so close, but not touching. Not yet.
"Do you want some soap?" he asked.
This close to Jason, wet and naked, I wasn't thinking about soap. "I'm fine," I murmured, closing the distance between us. I put my hands on his waist and kissed him.
We had been lovers in the past, but not enough for kissing him to feel familiar. The water from the shower poured over us, giving the illusion of safety in the steam. Jason slid his hands around my waist, pulling me against him as he kissed me back, softly at first but with increasing intensity. I shifted in his arms and a shiver ran down my spine, in spite of the shower's heat.
Jason pulled back from the kiss, never letting go of me. "What?" he asked, his eyes searching my face. "Is everything okay? Harry's okay?"
I nodded. "He's probably not going to be back for a while." I tightened my arms around Jason's back. "I bolted the door in the other room. We're going to be fine."
Jason looked down. In another man, I'd have thought he didn't want to meet my eyes, but in Jason, I took it as an excuse for him to stare at my breasts. "I know we're going to be fine," he whispered, nipping the side of my neck. I bit back a moan. "You're here."
"I never took you for an optimist," I said, but the throaty quality of my voice took away the annoyance.
"I'm not an optimist," Jason breathed. "I'm a realist." His lips traveled down my shoulder while he slid his hands down my waist. His lips moved back to my throat and I wasn't sure what to do. Yes, I'd come into the bathroom with all the intentions in the world of doing this, but we were going too fast. I couldn't think about the things I should have been, about Harry and us staying safe. All that came to mind were memories: The first time I had sex with Micah in the shower of the lycanthrope hospital in St. Louis; Jason huddled in the shower after rotting vampires had oozed all over him; of Jason slashed up, bleeding, on the cold stone floor.
"Shh, ma petite," Jean-Claude breathed in my mind. "It is all going to be all right, you and Jason are safe."
My hands clutched at Jason's shoulders. He pulled back slightly, holding me in the cradle of his arms, secure under the pounding spray of the water.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, voice low and rough and edged with the rumble of a wolf's growl. I couldn't say yes, because nothing was wrong, but I also couldn't say no.
"Stop thinking, ma petite." I felt Jean-Claude's voice slip over me like a soothing hand on my skin. My eyes closed involuntarily. "Start feeling."
The panic subsided a bit, but not enough.
"Feel Jason, ma petite." Jean-Claude guided my hands down Jason's muscular arms. The soap and the water made his skin slick under my touch. "Feel the life within him." Jason moved his arms, drawing me close once again.
I rested my head on Jason's shoulder and tried to relax. Unsurprisingly, it didn't seem to work.
"Feel his heartbeat, ma petite," Jean-Claude whispered. "Feel the warmth of his body against yours, the rush of the blood in his veins."
I moved my lips to Jason's throat. The steam and the water had warmed his skin above the lycanthropic almost-fever. Any normal person would be over-heating. But I wasn't normal. The closeness to Jason, his animal heat, spoke to something deep inside me, something not so different than Jason.
My senses heightened, I brushed the faint pulse in Jason's with my lips, then my tongue. He shuddered against me. I had brief urge to bite down, to follow that pulse deeper.
Something fluttered in my head, and belatedly I realized that the impulse wasn't mine, but Jean-Claude's. Jean-Claude moved back, but the shift was reluctant.
I kissed up Jason's neck to his jaw, his cheek, at the same time as I slid my arms around Jason's shoulders. He took it as invitation and pressed his body against mine.
As Jason kissed me, and I kissed him back, the noise in my head went away. Across distant oceans, Jean-Claude was with me, as was Nathaniel, but I didn't push them away. I couldn't push them away. They were a part of me, tied to me by bonds of power and blood. If they were with me as I was with Jason, they would embrace it, as would Jason.
Today, I pushed away all the years of solitude and the way things should have been, and let myself sink into what I did have.
And what I did have, I would do anything to protect.
Anything.
~*~
"Stop it."
Jason lounged on the bed, grinning at me. "Stop what?"
I yanked the comb through yet another tangled knot in my hair. "Stop looking at me like that."
"I'm not looking at you like anything." Jason folded his hands under his head and let out a contented sigh. "Not like anything at all."
My comb hit another snag and I swore. "Where the hell is Harry?" I demanded. "He should have been back ages ago!"
"We weren't in the shower for that long," Jason reminded me.
"You want to be bragging about that?" Finally, the comb ran through my hair without hitting a single knot. I'd packed about six pairs of socks but no hair product, and I knew that when my hair dried, it was going to be a chaotic mess. With a sigh, I sat on the edge of the bed and began to braid my hair.
Jason moved across the bed to lay his head on my thigh. "Don't I have something to brag about?" he asked, all wide-eyed innocence.
I sighed and shook my head. "Stop it," I told him.
Jason pouted. "Not even a little bragging?" His lower lip seemed to tremble.
I tied off my braid with an elastic and gave Jason a shove. He rolled back on the bad, laughing.
"Knock it off!" Even so, I smiled. Although I had no plans to admit it, Jason had every right to brag about his conduct in the shower.
A sudden knock on the door made me jump. I was on my feet in an instant, gun in my hand. "Is that Harry?" I asked around the pounding of my heart.
Jason slid off the bed. "Why would he knock?"
The knock sounded again. "Harry?" a young female voice came muffled through the wood. "Harry, are you in there?"
I glanced at Jason. "Should we open the door?"
Before he could answer, the girl knocked again. Jason shrugged. "May as well, before they break the door down, or magic it open, or whatever they do."
"You get it," I said, stepping back so I could have a clear line of fire. Just in case. I lowered the gun so it was at my side, however. I didn't want to go waving a gun around in case the girl at the door was as young as she sounded.
Jason turned the big black key in the door lock. He swung open the door and was almost punched in the nose by a teenage girl.
"Oh!" the girl cried, springing back. I relaxed my grip on the gun. She had been trying to knock again, not to hurt Jason. I swallowed hard. I needed to stop being so jumpy, especially around all these children. "Is Harry here? Madame Pomfrey said he was here!"
"He left to go talk to someone," Jason said with an easy smile. "He should be back soon, or else Anita's going to go storming the castle to get him back."
"Would you need to storm the castle if you're already in it?" came another girl's voice, low and dreamy.
"Probably not," Jason said. "Do you want to come in and wait for him?"
The girl in the door glanced over her shoulder, then nodded. "Thank you," she said stiffly. As Jason held the door open for her to enter, I got my first good look at her. Slightly taller than me, she had blazing red hair and a spattering of freckles across her cheeks. She looked me over carefully, and I suspected that very little escaped her attention.
The other girl had on the same black robes and she also had that painful slenderness of adolescence, but that was where the similarities ended. She had long blonde hair tied up into a messy bun, pale blue eyes, and she was shorter than me and Jason. They were both quite pretty.
"Are you Anita?" the red-head asked, drawing my attention again. "You are, aren't you? Why are you here? Did Dumbledore get you? We didn't know if Harry was going to live and then he was just gone from the infirmary and there are all these rumors and all the teachers are walking around like someone's let a chimera loose in the school!"
I twitched slightly at the mental image of the Chimera I knew in a school full of children. "Harry's fine," I said as I put up my gun. "He went to go see his former teacher, Remus What's-His-Name."
"Oh." The girl's worried tirade lost some steam. "But why are you here?"
"Because his grandfather cannot come out in the daylight, right?" The other girl drifted closer to Jason. "They're all like family, Ginny, that's what Harry said."
"You're Ginny?" Jason interrupted. "Harry told us all about you this summer."
The girl shot him an uncertain glance. "He did?"
"Of course he did." Jason smiled his heart-throb smile, the one he used on stage at the strip club. Ginny seemed to relax slightly.
"You're Jason," the other girl said. "Harry showed us your picture."
Jason turned his smile on the girl. "And who might you be?" he asked.
"I'm Luna." She held out her hand to Jason. Instead of shaking it, he took her hand in both of his and bowed over it.
"Enchanté, mademoiselle," he said with a hint of horrid French accent.
Colour rushed into Luna's cheeks, but she didn't giggle or pull away like other teenage girls. "Are you the one that Professor Lupin attacked?" she asked.
Jason gave Luna's hand a squeeze, then let her go. "A misunderstanding," he said airily. "All water under the bridge."
His near-death by lycanthropic evisceration was the result of a misunderstanding? I opened my mouth to demand to know what the hell was wrong with him, when finally the obvious occurred to me.
Jason was flirting with this girl. Why, she couldn't have been any older than sixteen, sand he was twenty-two. That just wasn't right.
"That's not what the portraits said," Luna was saying, staring at Jason curiously. "They said you were hurt very badly, but that Harry saved you."
"Not just Harry," Jason corrected. "Harry and Anita, both of them."
Luna looked at me brightly. "Are you really a necromancer?" she asked. "I've never met one before. You don't look like any of the pictures in the books."
"What books?" I demanded. At my left, I heard Ginny give out a strangled sigh. "What am I supposed to look like?"
"The old books on death magic in the library's Restricted Section," Luna said, ignoring Ginny. "They are not very pleasant, but then Harry said that the books on vampires aren't accurate either. The Ministry does tend to censor reading material on certain subjects, I can imagine they would start in the schools."
"You guys have banned books too?" Jason asked. "Sounds just like home."
"Oh, the Ministry is quite willing to prevent knowledge from reaching the average witch or wizard," Luna told him. "They have been denying the existence of the Mome Raths for years now."
"Luna," Ginny said sharply. "Can we find out if Harry's going to be okay before we start on this?"
"Of course Harry will be fine," Luna told her. "If he wasn't, Madame Pomfrey wouldn't have let him leave the infirmary and she wouldn't have told us where he is, would she?"
Something in the blonde girl's voice made me look at her sharply. She was so very young, both in appearance and in her manner, but in that very moment, she reminded me so strongly of Nathaniel that for a moment my breath caught in my throat.
Luna continued. "Harry tells us that there's a real lamia in St. Louis, is that right?"
"What, Melanie?" Jason leaned against the wall. "Yeah, she works at the Circus of the Damned, too."
"Do you work there as well?" Luna asked.
Jason blushed. Jason Schuyler, werewolf stripper, smartass and all-around jaded man of the world, blushed from an innocent question by a teenage girl. I wondered if pigs had started to fly around outside the window. Although, in this weird place, I supposed anything was possible.
"I, well, I live at the Circus," he finally stammered out.
Luna's eyes lit up. "That must be fascinating," she beamed. "Do vampires live there too? Other werewolves?"
The odd conversation was halted in its tracks as Harry blew back into the room in a whirl of robes. "I don't understand that man!" Harry stormed. He had been watching his feet as he came through the door. Once he was inside, he glanced up and stopped abruptly. "What are you two doing here?" he asked the girls.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jason step away from Luna at the same time as Ginny whirled on Harry, crossing her arms over her chest. "What are we doing here?" she echoed. "You run out on us at the dance and then we hear you were attacked in the Forbidden Forest and you're suddenly healed but Professor Lupin attacked a werewolf in the school and you ask us what we are doing here?"
"We were worried about you," Luna said when Ginny paused for air. "No one would tell us anything, so we came looking for you. The portraits are in rather a tizzy after what they saw."
"What they--" Harry broke off. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Damn it! Now this is going to be all over the school!"
"What are you talking about?" I interrupted. "What is this about 'portraits'?"
Harry ran his hand through his hair. "Wizarding portraits aren't just moving pictures like my photographs, they can talk and share information with each other," he explained, gesturing with his glasses. "Which means that since there were portraits in the hallway where Remus attacked Jason, all the paintings will soon know, and so will the ghosts, and soon everyone in the whole school will know!"
Luna edged closer to Harry. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Oh, just great!" Harry said sarcastically.
Luna just looked at him.
The wind seemed to go out of Harry, and he kicked at the carpet. "I'm fine," he said, more subdued. "Remus is fine, he's with Tonks. And Reece is... he's safe, anyway."
"What happened?" Luna asked. She took Harry's hand and linked her fingers with his. "Why did you leave the dance last night?"
"I just needed some air, you know?" Harry said quietly. "And I went outside and I saw Reece being pulled into the forest and I had to go after him. It was Reece, you know?"
Luna nodded. Ginny had been listening to Harry's story without moving a muscle. I glanced over at Jason, who raised his eyebrows at me.
"And it was Moroven who got him," Harry continued. "Did I ever tell you about her?" Luna shook her head. "She's a real scary vampire, she used to be Damian's master. She had the Hufflepuff cup Horcrux and she wanted me to pick one."
"Pick one what?" Ginny asked.
Harry took a deep breath. "She said I could have one or the other, Reece or the cup."
"And you picked Reece." Ginny hesitated. "Right?"
Harry lifted his head. "Of course I picked Reece!" he exclaimed. Luna squeaked, and Harry quickly let go of her hand. "Sorry, sorry!" he said quickly.
"I'm fine, I am," Luna said. She laid her hand on Harry's arm, then she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
It took a minute, but Harry finally returned the hug. Then, confusing me even more, Ginny went over to them and hugged them both. They all looked comfortable. Very comfortable.
Harry was the first to pull back. He touched Ginny's cheek, then squeezed Luna's shoulder before backing up to put some distance between him and the girls. "Sorry about last night," he mumbled.
Luna gave a philosophical shrug. "These things tend to happen to you," she said. "We shouldn't be surprised."
"I was surprised," Ginny interjected. "I usually am, even though I'm not sure why anymore."
Harry smiled sheepishly. "Yeah."
At that moment, a short figure in the ubiquitous black robes careened into the doorway. "Headmaster Dumbledore wants to see you," the little boy said breathlessly. His face was red with exertion. "Mr. Potter and Miss Blake!"
Harry took a step towards the boy. "Did he say why?"
The boy shook his head. "He just wants to see you now!" With that, the boy ran off again.
"Don't you people have phones or a PA system like normal schools?" Jason asked. "They come in really handy."
"Yeah, but then you can't send the underclassmen on errands," Harry shot back.
"There's errands and there's sadistic torment. Didn't you ever watch any boarding school movies as a child?"
I grabbed my jacket and pulled it on to hide the shoulder rig and gun. "Can it, Jason," I ordered. "You can bug Harry on the way to see Dumbledore. I assume he's got an office somewhere in this school?"
"I'm not sure if Jason's supposed to come," Harry said. "Dumbledore didn't ask for him to go with us."
I flipped my braid over my shoulder with more force than was necessary and faced Harry. "Your point?" I bit out.
"Just that Dumbledore didn't say he was supposed to come with us," Harry repeated, some of that normal energy coming back to him. As good as it was to see his spirit returning, it was also really annoying.
"Jason can come with us," Luna piped up.
"He can?" said Ginny.
"We can show him the castle and the grounds and the preparations for the Halloween banquet," Luna explained. "If he wants to come with us."
"Sounds good," Jason said before I could protest. "When do we leave?"
I grabbed Jason's arm and pulled him towards the bathroom. "Don't go anywhere," I called over my shoulder to Harry. I shoved Jason into the room and pulled the door closed behind me. "She's sixteen."
"What are you talking about?" Jason asked, rubbing his arm.
He wouldn't meet my eyes, which told me all I needed to know. He knew exactly what I meant. "She's sixteen years old and she's probably Harry's girlfriend," I said, trying to keep from yelling.
Jason fidgeted, but he lifted his chin and stared at me. Coming from a werewolf of his status to me, his Lupa, it was very close to a challenge. "I know she's a kid, Anita. I am also very aware that she's Harry's girlfriend. He may have been covered in enough blood to mask it, but her robes and her hair smell like him. Both of them do."
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
Jason threw up his hands. "How many men are you involved with, and you ask me that?"
"That is not what's happening!" I exclaimed. "Harry's just a kid! He wouldn't--"
"So 'do as I say, don't do as I do'?" Jason interrupted. "And it's not that intense, just like they've been spending a lot of time together. With their clothes on."
"They're teenagers! They shouldn't be doing stuff like... like..." I stopped, at a loss for a simile that didn't involve invoking me or any of my relationships.
"Can we please stop the after-school special?" Jason asked. "There's also another good reason for me to go with Luna and Ginny. I can see what life is really like here for Harry. Just in case he's not telling us everything."
"If?" I slumped against the door. I wanted to fight it, but Jason had a point. I wasn't sure I believed Harry when he told me things were fine.
Scratch that. I didn't believe him at all. His stories of soul magic and insane vampires and rampaging werewolves did nothing to ease my mind about leaving him in this deathtrap masquerading as a high school.
Through the bathroom door, I could hear Harry's voice. Most of the words were muffled, but I did hear him say, "Ron or Hermione?" His other friends, I recalled. Then he lowered his voice and I couldn't make out anything else.
"You were attacked once," I finally said to Jason. "I couldn't-- I can't deal with..."
"Nothing will happen to me again, promise," Jason said. He leaned in and kissed my cheek. "I'll be on my guard. If anything could happen, Harry would have said so."
"Harry also said that he would be perfectly safe at school. What Harry thinks and what really ends up happening never quite matches in the middle, does it?"
Jason sighed. "You know I'm right and you're just trying to come up with ridiculous reasons to not leave here without me."
I gave him a little shove. "You're not supposed to know me that well."
"I pay a lot of attention to you," Jason reminded me. "And not all of is me staring at your--"
I walked out of the bathroom before he could finish. Really, I didn't want to know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Have fun storming the castle!" Jason called back before Luna dragged him around a corner. Ginny followed, frowning.
Harry watched his friends go. He was glad Jason was going to get to see Hogwarts, but part of him was uncomfortable with Jason being alone with Ginny and Luna, and he couldn't figure out why.
He shook his head. They didn't have time for any of this. "Come on," he said to Anita. "We should go. Dumbledore's office is in another wing."
"Hold on a minute."
Harry frowned. "But you heard John, Dumbledore wants to talk to us."
Anita grabbed his arm and hauled him into a stony alcove by the window. "Do I seriously look as if I care?" she demanded, dark eyes flashing in anger. "I don't care if Dumbledore has to wait five minutes or five days. You and I are going to have a little talk."
"About what?" Harry asked nervously.
Anita narrowed her eyes. "About what you haven't told me."
"I've told you everything!" Harry protested. "I told you about the--" He broke off and glanced down the empty hall. "About the Horcruxes," he said in a low voice. "That's all that matters."
"Like hell it is." Anita crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him. She looked seriously annoyed. "I want you to tell me what's been happening here since we dropped you off two months ago!"
"Anita--"
Anita held up her hand. "Don't 'Anita' me! What the hell has been going on with you?"
to be continued
Inevitable 74/80: Human Nature
A Harry Potter/Anita Blake crossover
by mhalachaiswords
Summary: A late-night run-in with werewolves in the woods outside St. Louis dumps Harry Potter into a whole new world of trouble. Now Anita Blake has to deal with a new charge as well as Death-Eaters come to town.
Fandoms: Anita Blake and Harry Potter
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. J.K. Rowling owns all things Harry Potter. Only the story is my own.
Rating: PG-15 this part, because Jason gets some lovin'.
Words: 10,055
Spoilers: Spoilers for Half-Blood Prince, Incubus Dreams. Nothing for Deathly Hallows. At least not yet.
Note: Still Oct. 31, the longest day in Harry's life. Thanks to all my readers for sticking around. That Jason/Anita smut I was writing has been toned down and shoved into this chapter because I say so.
Previous parts here.
~~~~~~~
Harry hurried through the Hogwarts corridors, lost so deep in his own thoughts that he wasn't sure if he passed anyone. He had to find Remus, he knew that much, but then what?
What on earth had possessed Remus to attack Jason? It didn't make any sense! When Remus had been at Hogwarts as a professor, he had always been so careful with the students, never putting anyone in danger.
Except when he almost ate us on the night of the last full moon in third year? Harry's traitorous mind pointed out.
Harry brushed that thought away. Remus had been in full werewolf form at the time, and if there was one thing Harry had learned from his time in St. Louis, that werewolves didn't act with restraint under a full moon.
But still, what had happened that day didn't make any sense! Jason hadn't been alone in the hall for more than a few minutes, not long enough for him to make Remus angry. Remus didn't get angry, not like that, no matter what.
Even though Jason had said Remus thought Jason the one who had attacked Harry. Harry's steps slowed. Why had led Remus to think such a thing?
The mental reminder of Jason brought back the moment of the attack in a rush, all blood and screaming and panic. Harry put his hand against the wall. Both Jason and Remus almost died, and Harry hadn't been able to protect them. Anita saved them. She always saved everyone, riding in and saving the day, even if her bullets were the reason Remus almost died in the first place.
A little Hufflepuff girl ran past Harry, robes streaming out behind her. Her hair was the same colour as Elsa's. The sight pulled Harry back to himself with a jolt. He had bigger problems right now than falling apart over things that were over. There were dangerous people in the school, and Harry had to remember that. It was Halloween, after all.
He continued down the corridor to the solitary room where McGonagall had sent Remus. He lifted his hand, hesitated for a moment, then knocked. He still didn't know what he was going to say to Remus.
Tonks pulled the door open, her dark purple hair falling in her eyes. "Harry," she said, clearly startled to see him. "Hullo."
"I need to talk to Remus," Harry blurted out. He tried to look over Tonks's shoulder, but she held the door fast and he couldn't see Remus. "Is he here?"
"I don't think--" Tonks started to say, but at the same moment another voice sounded.
"What could you possibly have to say to me?"
Harry slipped into the room through the narrow space between Tonks and the door. Remus sat slouched in a chair by the window. His ragged clothing was still covered in drying red stains. Harry drew in a deep breath, hoping to calm himself, but the very air was tinged with the coppery taste of blood. Deep in Harry's chest, his wolf stirred.
"What could I have to say to you?" Harry echoed. "Oh, I don't know, how about asking you what on earth you were thinking?" His voice rose on every word, until he was shouting. "You attacked Jason! You almost killed him!"
Remus didn't move. "I thought he was the one who attacked you."
"What?" Harry demanded. "How could you possibly think that? I wasn't attacked by a werewolf at all! Did you think it didn't matter if you attacked some muggle werewolf? Damn it, Remus, he's not my enemy, he's my friend! He's part of my pack!"
He hadn't really meant to say the last part out loud, but the admission hung in the horrified silence. Remus jerked his head up, starring at Harry for a moment, then he was out of the chair and across the room before Harry could move.
Remus grabbed Harry's shirt with both hands and pulled the boy off balance. Not sure if he was being attacked, Harry tried to shove Remus away and go for his wand, but everything was a confusion of hands and pulling and a woman's raised voice shouting Remus's name.
Then, just as suddenly, Remus shoved Harry away so hard he hit the wall. "Who did this to you?" Remus demanded, looming over Harry. "Who did this?"
"Who did this to me doesn't matter!" Harry shouted. "You tried to kill a friend of mine! What if Reece had been there instead of Jason?" He straightened up. "He probably smelled like my blood too, what if he had been--"
A loud bang, accompanied by a miniature explosion of purple sparks, made Harry jump. He whipped his head around to see Tonks holding her wand aloft. "That's better," she said into the resultant silence. Her voice sounded mildly strangled. "Why don't we all sit down?"
Harry stared at Tonks. "Sit down?" he demanded indignantly. "What are you talking about? I was--"
"Sit down, Harry," Tonks interrupted. She edged closer to him until she was within arms'-length, then she grabbed his sleeve and yanked him across the room into a chair. "Stay."
Still wound up from the interrupted fight with Remus, Harry let out a faint growl. He looked past Tonks to where Remus still faced the wall.
In this light, Harry could see the bloodstains and the bullet holes on the back of his shirt. Harry swallowed, suddenly queasy. Jason had almost died, and so had Remus. Harry knew Anita too well to think she'd had anything but silver bullets in her gun.
Everyone I care about keeps getting hurt, Harry thought. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, cradling his head in his hands. I'm really sick of this.
"Are you all right?" he asked without looking up, his voice muffled by his hands. "I don't know exactly what Anita did to save Jason, but it worked on me too, and you. Right?"
Remus didn't answer. Harry raised his head to see that Remus still hadn't moved.
"Remus?" Harry rose to his feet. "Are you okay?"
Finally, the man turned around. "I should be asking you that question," he said, voice low. "Tonks told me--" He didn't look at Harry as he walked back to the chair by the window and sank into it.
Confused, Harry turned to Tonks. "What is he talking about? Wait, why is he here?" He looked back at Remus. "Did Dumbledore get you like he did Anita?"
Tonks tapped her wand against her leg absently, sending a cloud of pink bubbles across the room. "Hagrid ran into the entrance hall with you all bleeding," she said. "Only a few of us saw it, before he got you up the stairs to the infirmary." She took a deep breath and tossed back her head. "You were badly hurt," she continued briskly. "I knew Dumbledore went to get someone he thought could help you, but I thought that someone should let Remus know. And here he is."
"I got here as soon as I could get away, but what good did it do?" Remus asked, speaking in the general direction of the carpet.
"Get away from where?" Harry slid forward in his chair. "And are you okay? I know Anita shot you, but..." He let his voice trail off uncertainly. Harry had been hit with a lot of curses in his life, but he had never been shot. He had no idea what it felt like. "Are you going to be okay?" He sounded like a hesitant child and he hated it, but he didn't know what else to say.
Remus picked at the loose stuffing on the chair's arm. "I should be asking you that question, Harry. Tonks sent me a message that you had been attacked, but she didn't know who had done it, if it was Voldemort or someone else. When I got here, I didn't know anything, didn't know if you were going to live, and the first person I came across was this werewolf covered in your blood." He let out a short, barking laugh. "Werewolves. Now I find that you..."
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "It's not like that," he said. "Ask Tonks, I didn't change into a werewolf last full moon! Ask McGonagall, ask Ron and Hermione! It's complicated, it is, but--"
"You called him part of your pack." Remus's eyes were suddenly on Harry. "There are some things in life that are complicated, Harry and some things that are not. This is not complicated."
"Yes, it is!" Harry glared back at Remus. "Look, I was clawed up by a werewolf in St. Louis this summer, by someone in Jason's pack, but I didn't change into a werewolf at the full moon! Even after Reece scratched me in September, I didn't change this past full moon, either!"
"If you're not a werewolf, then how can you call that-- that dog part of your pack?" Remus demanded.
Harry narrowed his eyes. He was getting angry, anger at Remus for not believing him tinged with lingering fear at what had happened in the hallways. "Don't call him that!" he exclaimed. "Maybe he's not as dominant as I am, but he's loyal and he's protective and he's my friend!"
"And that woman?" Remus pressed. "What is she? Werewolf or muggle?"
"She's not a werewolf, not really," Harry said quickly. "But she's Jason's Lupa and the pack's Bolverk. She had to protect him!" Even as he spoke, Harry felt his stomach twist. Here he was, trying to defend Anita to the man she had shot.
On the other side of the room, something changed in Remus's eyes. He slowly sat up in his chair. "You said St. Louis," he said.
"What?" Harry asked, puzzled by the apparent change in topic. "What about St. Louis?"
"This woman, you said she was from St. Louis," Remus pressed. "Lupa and Bolverk."
"Yeah, so?"
The unease in Remus's expression was fast changing to fear. "What is her name?"
"Who, Anita?" Harry frowned. "What about Anita?"
Remus paled under his scars. "That was Anita Blake?"
Tonks stopped fidgeting.
"What about her?" Harry asked, looking between them.
Remus passed a hand over his face. "Anita Blake," he repeated weakly, then sat forward. "Harry, how long have you known her?"
"No," Harry said, shooting to his feet. "That's not right. Whatever you've heard about her--"
"She's a necromancer!" Remus exclaimed. "She's one of the most powerful necromancers who has ever lived! Tied to vampire and wolf, she is more powerful than almost any that have come before her!"
"Where did you hear this?" Harry demanded. "She's not--"
"She's a necromancer?"
"Yes, but--"
"Tied to vampire and werewolf?"
"Yes, but you don't understand--"
"Feared by the Vampire Council for how many vampires she has killed? For the dead she can raise with a thought alone?"
Unbidden, Elsa's anger at Anita flashed in Harry's mind. "That's not it!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "You don't understand! You stand there thinking she's all evil, but she's not! She saved my life this summer, she protected me when she didn't have to! Ask Dumbledore! She's not evil, I don't care whatever wizards think about necromancers!"
Harry wasn't sure if he could stop yelling. Remus stared at him, and Harry found himself going on.
"Even after Bellatrix Lestrange almost tortured her to death, Anita didn't kick me out! She protected me, her and Richard and everyone! She almost went insane, but it was Jean-Claude and Richard and Damian and Nathanial that made her better and she didn't blame me, even if she should have! She came with me to London even though she hates to fly and helped me with Christoff and she didn't have to! So don't say she's bad!"
His breath caught in his throat, almost a sob. Remus still stared at him.
Harry pushed his hair out of his eyes. "And she shouldn't have shot you, but she was trying to protect Jason," he finished weakly. "I should have gotten there first, I could have stopped you and explained, but she's always been faster than I am and I'm sorry I didn't tell you what happened but things were just so messed up!"
That last part came out as more of a plea than Harry intended. Heat rose in his cheeks. He hated sounding like a child, but part of him was tired of being an adult all the time.
Then Remus was on his feet moving towards Harry. He gently gripped Harry's shoulders. "You do not need to apologize for what has happened today, nor this summer. Being attacked by a werewolf was not your fault."
A lump stuck in Harry's throat. He swallowed hard. "I would have told you if you'd been around," he said. "But you were on some mission, Tonks said, and I didn't want to bother you."
Remus smiled faintly. "Always the same, Harry." He let Harry go. "Now. We would best be served by having a cup of tea and talk this over." He pulled out his wand and gave it a wave, and a tea set appeared on the table. Another wave and a kettle settled on the fire. "There, that will be ready soon enough." He returned to his seat.
Harry reluctantly went back to his own chair. "Are you okay?" he asked again.
Remus nodded. "Although I will admit, I never again wish to experience being 'shot'." He shifted a teacup on the tray. "Does she always carry that weapon with her?" he asked.
Harry shrugged, not sure if he should tell Remus about Anita's second gun. "She usually does, back home. Silver bullets work on both vampires and lycanthropes."
"And she does not use magic in defense?"
Harry didn't understand the cautious way in which Remus spoke. "What kind of magic would she use? She's not a muggle, not really, but she can't do our kind of magic any more than I-- I mean, she can't." He had been on the brink of admitting that he had tried to raise zombies in St. Louis, but had remembered in time how horrified Hermione had been by that admission.
The kettle let out a loud whistle, making Harry jump. Remus busied himself pouring the water into the pot. While he was busy, Harry snuck a peek at Tonks. The Auror was uncharacteristically silent, watching Remus with wide eyes. She noticed Harry looking at her.
"What really happened to Bellatrix?" Tonks asked abruptly. "You said she wasn't coming back. What happened to her?"
Harry swallowed. Remus was now pouring tea into the cups, but Harry could tell he was listening to every word. "She, um..."
"You said she tortured that-- that woman." The anger in Tonks's voice was apparent, and Harry wasn't sure he understood. "What happened?"
Harry sat up straight. "We were in the woods and Bellatrix just showed up!" he said. "She thought it'd be fun to play tricks on the werewolves, see? She hit Anita with the Crucio Eternum curse and left!"
"No," Tonks said immediately. "That curse kills people, there's no counter-curse!"
"I didn't use a counter-curse to stop it," Harry said. "Didn't Dumbledore tell you? I told him, Richard was there and he's got that connection to her and the curse just... stopped."
Tonks opened her mouth to speak, but Remus laid a hand on her arm. "We should hear this story from the beginning," he said.
Tonks glowered at him for a movement, then sat down.
Remus handed Harry a cup of tea. "Now, Harry, please start from the beginning."
Harry took a sip of the hot liquid. "It's a bit of a long story," he cautioned, setting his cup into the saucer with a clatter.
"That's all right," Remus said. Tonks looked mutinous. "Please tell us."
Being as brief as possible, Harry spoke of being abandoned in the Missouri forest on the night of the full moon, of being chased by werewolves, how Richard saved his life from the attack. He mentioned going to Anita's house, then deciding to leave the Durselys on the following day.
He then jumped right to the story of Nigel Spencer's murder. He may have told his friends and Dumbledore about Damian, but emotions were running so high with Remus and Tonks that Harry didn't want to explain. Remus may have been a werewolf, but he was also a wizard. Harry wasn't sure he could deal with it if Remus held the Wizarding world's prejudices against vampire children.
As Harry explained what had occurred on the night's of Bellatrix's death, he took pains to paint the pack's actions in the best light. He thought Remus would understand more than Tonks, but there wasn't anything he could think to say to Tonks on the matter.
Remus listened to the story with silent concentration, his attention never wavering from Harry's face.
Harry took another gulp of his cooling tea, and launched back into the story. He tried to not sound too disappointed at not changing into a werewolf on the full moon, but from the expression on Remus's face, he wasn't sure he succeeded.
Harry glossed over most of the trip to England, mentioning the dinner at Christoff's briefly and omitting Elsa altogether. He still wasn't sure of the real reason Elsa was at Hogwarts. As much as he wanted to believe that Elsa had traveled all the way across the country, deep into an enemy vampire's territory, just to save him, he wasn't that much of an egoist.
"And then Anita went home and I hadn't seen her until today," Harry finished. "That's about it."
Tonks made a sound deep in her throat. "What he didn't tell you," she said to Remus, "Is that on the full moon in September, someone let the little Hufflepuff werewolf loose and that Harry stopped him from eating Snape."
"That's not what happened!" Harry interrupted. "Reece wasn't set loose to attack Snape, he was set loose to go after Dumbledore!" He leaned forward. "Someone in the castle is trying to kill Dumbledore! They almost got Tonks when she was pretending to be Dumbledore, but he won't tell me who it is!"
"I thought Dumbledore told you to stop trying to find out who that was," Tonks said.
Harry looked sharply at her, but she seemed to be serious. "Are you out of your mind?" he asked. "It's one thing to go after a wizard who can defend himself, or even you, you're an Auror! But what about a first-year muggle-born? Do you really think Snape would have just tied a collar around Reece's neck and led him back to the infirmary? Snape hates werewolves!"
"According to him, he was trying to protect you." Tonks's eyes sparkled, but Harry wasn't having anything to do with her mischief.
"Why are you taking his side?" Harry demanded. "It was the first time Reece changed away from his pack! He didn't have anyone, he was all alone, and the Wolfsbane potion made him sick! Add to that the silver barb someone stuck in him-- Hell, he's only eleven! He's a pup and he should have had someone to protect him!"
"Harry, please calm down," Remus said.
"I will not calm down!" Harry shot back. "He's all alone here, changes on his own for the first time and all this happens! He knows exactly what happened! Then last night? How is it protection when Moroven can call him out of the castle and into the forest? She said she was going to keep him as a pet! If I hadn't seen him when I did, who knows what she would have done with him!"
Remus set down his teacup. "Did you say Moroven was at fault for your injuries?" he asked.
"She was in the Forbidden Forest last night," Harry said. "I followed Reece and found her toying with him. She broke his arm and then said she'd come to find me and, well, things sort of got bad from there. I killed two of her minions and wouldn't let her have Reece, so she's probably not too pleased with me right now." Harry thought of how scary Moroven had been, how she had hurt Reece for fun. He wasn't sorry he'd stopped those vampires the way he had.
"Find you?" Remus echoed. "Why would the vampire master Moroven seek you out?"
"Maybe she'd in league with You-Know-Who?" Tonks suggested.
"She hates him as much as we do, all the vampires do," Harry replied before thinking. "The old Master of London was none too pleased with Voldemort back when I was a baby, and the new Master hates all wizards. Moroven's probably the same, she likes to be the scariest vampire in town."
"Did she tell you that?" Tonks asked.
Harry stopped. He could have kicked himself. How stupid was he being, talking without thinking again? He twisted his teacup round on the saucer. "Not really," he admitted. "I heard about her while I was in London."
Harry could tell from the expression on Remus's face that the man wasn't vying the story.
"In St. Louis, there was this vampire, Damian. He used to be one of Moroven's vampires, and now he's in St. Louis and he mentioned her a few times. And Anita said that Moroven's really ruthless and always gets what she wants, so she can't have wanted to kill me, right?"
Remus folded his hands in his lap. "Moroven is one of the most terrifying dark creatures on these shores," he said. "Her main prey is muggles, so the Ministry tends to leave her alone." His lips twisted up into an unhappy smile. "The only wizards she tends to deal with are the werewolves."
"Wolves are her animal to call, that's how she got Reece out of the castle last night." Harry shoved his cup and saucer onto a space in the bookcase. "She let me and Reece get away from her, but if she'd wanted to keep us, I don't know if we'd been able to escape."
"Did this vampire in St. Louis tell you this?" Remus asked. "You said he was once part of Moroven's pack, is he trustworthy?"
"Of course he is!" Harry said, wishing he could defend Damian more. "And it's not just him who told me, it's Anita and Jean-Claude and the London vampires and Damian and all that. Damian's always told me the truth."
Remus gave a little nod. "I have never heard of Moroven working with Voldemort, but I had to ask." He sank back into the chair. "Is there anything else that you haven't told me?"
Harry thought about the Horcruxes, about becoming an Animagus like his father and Sirius, about all the crazy things in his life over the past few months, and he suddenly didn't want to explain a single part of it to Remus. "Nothing important," he said. "Just minor stuff, like being Quidditch captain." He tried to smile, but it felt false. "Where have you been?"
Remus sighed. "With the Wizarding world's werewolves," he said finally. "I cannot tell say much about it. I have been trying to discover with whom they stand, but I still am not certain which with side they will fight, our side or Voldemort."
"Probably not ours," Tonks said darkly.
"Not all werewolves are the same," Remus said, but it sounded automatic and not entirely convincing. "Some may--"
"And some may not! How many are like Fenrir Greyback?"
"Who's Fenrir Greyback?" Harry asked, seizing on the name. "What's he like?"
Remus did not appear happy. "Fenrir Greyback is a werewolf, a Death Eater." He looked Harry directly in the eye. "He is the werewolf who attacked me when I was a child. My father had angered him and so he attacked me as retribution. Fenrir Greyback is, perhaps, the most savage werewolf alive in England today. I suspect, although I do not know, that he was this way before he was contaminated." Remus transferred his gaze to Tonks. "Not the other way around. Others of our kind may see the light before it is too late."
"Remus--"
"Werewolves will not use logic like you do," Remus interrupted. "You have no idea what it is like to live amongst werewolves, Nymphadora. They do not think as humans do, they do not use the same logic. Everything is much simpler. If you are attacked, you fight back. If your pack is threatened, you eliminate the threat. A werewolf cannot live for so long amongst such animal logic and not be affected."
Although Remus's voice had been calm and clear, Harry's heart was beating hard by the time the man finished speaking. Was that why Remus had attacked Jason without provocation? What had these wizard werewolves been like? How could they be so different from Richard's pack in St. Louis?
"I cannot speak further on what I have been doing." Remus shifted in his chair. "Harry..."
"What?"
Remus attempted to smile. "You certainly do have your father's penchant for getting into messes," he said. "Are you certain you are going to be all right?"
"Of course!" Harry pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "I should be getting back. Are you... are you leaving right away?"
"Not right away," Remus said. "I need to speak with the headmaster."
"So we can talk some more, later, just us?"
Remus nodded. "I would like that."
"Good." Harry rose to his feet, looking between Tonks and Remus. "Just... I'm sorry things got so messed up."
"As am I, Harry," Remus said. "As am I."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I stood staring at the door after Harry left. I hadn't wanted to let him leave, not with a crazy werewolf in the school and Elsa running around. And yet, with all of that, I hadn't been able to find the words to keep him here.
Behind me, Jason let out a long sigh. It was such an un-Jason-like sound that I turned. He was sitting on the bed, hunched in on himself, staring at the stains on his pants; dark red drying to brown on the pale fabric.
Jason's skin was whole and smooth under the drying blood on his chest, and every time I looked at him I saw the ruin of his body, flesh ripped apart on the cold stone floor. He'd been dying and there was nothing I could do about it.
The air was too thin to breathe. I kept trying to say something, anything to break that horrible silence, but no words would come out of my mouth.
Abruptly, Jason stood up. "I'm going to shower," he muttered, not looking at me. "I feel--" He broke off, swallowing hard, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "I've got to get this crap off me."
He hesitated for the briefest of moments, then his head fell a little lower and he vanished into the small bathroom attached to the suite. I stared after him, wishing I knew what do to, wishing that I could get the image of his slashed body out of my head. Images of seeing Nathaniel the same way, his beautiful body slashed to a bloody ruin on the carpet, pushed at me around the more recent memory of Jason.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe deeply. I would not do this, I told myself fiercely. I did not have time to fall apart. Harry was in danger, we were all in danger in this insane place. I'd come to England to save Harry, and that was what I was going to do. Come hell or high water, I was going to protect him, even if it meant knocking him over the head and dragging him back to St. Louis with us.
I wasn't going to let anyone else get hurt. Not Harry, not Jason, no one. No more of my boys lying on the ground, bleeding to death, bodies slashed to ruin--
I put my hand over my mouth. A scream was bubbling beneath the surface, but I knew that if I started screaming, I'd never be able to stop. I had to be strong. Everyone needed me to be strong and that meant I couldn't fall apart. I had to get us home in one piece.
The faint sounds of the shower pulled me back to myself. I opened my eyes and blinked hard, taking in the cold stone walls, the ancient-looking tapestries, the bright sunlight pouring through the high window. As strange as everything looked, this was real, right now. Jason was in the shower and he was alive, safe, for now. I wasn't going to let anything happen to him again.
A faint brushing at my mind made me frown. "Jean-Claude?" I whispered. "Why are you up? It's only been an hour since sunrise."
The light touch in my mind turned to a sigh. "We are awash in power, ma petite," Jean-Claude told me softly. "Nathaniel has arrived here, and he holds some of your power in him. With his touch, I find myself growing stronger, almost as if you are here with me."
"Oh." I stared at the bright window, knowing that Jean-Claude could see the light through my eyes, the closest he would he ever come to walking in the sun. "Does he know about Jason?"
"Oui." Jean-Claude's voice grew sorrowful. "Jason is his friend, as Harry is his friend. He fears for all of you." In my mind's eye, I saw Nathaniel, lying beside Jean-Claude on Jean-Claude's bed. His shortened hair fell in his eyes as he stared off into space, worry in his beautiful eyes.
I ached to touch Nathaniel, to draw comfort from him. Instead, I wrapped my arms around my chest. I felt so alone. "Did Richard leave?"
"He did." Although Jean-Claude hadn't wanted for me to see the memory, we were too closely connected for him to keep me out of his mind. Nathaniel had explained when Jean-Claude awoke that Richard had stormed out when Nathaniel arrived at the Circus and stripped down to enter Jean-Claude's bed, to offer the power of that triumvirate in any way that he could.
I let out another breath, more annoyed than anything. "Is he trying to be a dick?" I demanded. "Nathaniel was just trying to help!"
"I know." Jean-Claude's mental caress was soft, almost like an embrace. "Ma petite, where is Jason?"
"In the shower," I mumbled. "He's fine, just getting clean."
The ensuing pause was a little too long. "He is alone?"
"He's safe," I said defensively. "There's no way into that room except through me."
"That is not what I meant," Jean-Claude told me. A world away, he stroked Nathaniel's hair. I watched, more than a little envious, as Nathaniel closed his eyes and the stress lines around his mouth began to smooth away. "Jason has been through so much, and he is not an alpha wolf."
"I know that." What was Jean-Claude getting at?
Jean-Claude's tone turned slightly exasperated. "For all his bravado, ma petite, Jason is very much a pack animal. He seeks comfort from others of his kind."
Unintentionally, I turned to look at the closed bathroom door. "Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?" I demanded, incredulity growing.
"Anita!" It took me a moment to realize that he had said my name out loud; Nathaniel looked up at Jean-Claude, frowning, then cuddled closer to the vampire. As he did so, I realized that both men were naked. Any other time, I'd have asked what the hell was going on, but I was still stuck on what Jean-Claude had suggested I do. "Jason is my wolf, as you are my human servant. He is my responsibility as much as--"
"Don't you dare say as much as I am! I'm responsible for myself!" I had no idea how we'd gotten into this argument, and no clue on how to make it go away. But it was easier for me to cling to any shred of anger than to deal with the panic and worry that lurked in the background.
"I was going to remind you that Jason's welfare is my responsibility as much as it is yours," Jean-Claude told me. He settled back onto the bed and drew Nathaniel with him, stroking Nathaniel's shoulders until my wereleopard relaxed against the sheets. "You are his Lupa, and that responsibility does not end with healing his physical wounds."
I kicked at the worn rug, my anger evaporating in the face of what felt like guilt. "He didn't seem to want company," I said softly.
"That is not what he said," Jean-Claude reminded me. "Ma petite, I will speak frankly. I know you are upset and worried, and rightly so." He let out a soft sigh. "In our lives, true comfort for comfort's sake is rare. I do not suggest this for any reason other than for Jason's sake, and your own."
I wanted to argue, about how crazy it would be to let my guard down in this place, about going to Jason when the man was still upset. But I was cold and scared, and even though I knew Jean-Claude was probably manipulating me, I was too tired to argue.
"Only if Jason wants it," I warned Jean-Claude. "If he wants to be alone, I'm going to sit on that bed until he's done."
"Of course, ma petite." Jean-Claude drew back in my mind, taking away the images of him stroking Nathaniel's hair. I felt oddly bereft, alone without the two of them. It was ridiculous. Jason was less than twenty feet away from me in the shower. I didn't have to be alone.
I didn't go in right away. I first turned the metal key in the hall door lock, and shoved a chair under the handle. It may not stand up to magic, but at least I'd hear someone trying to get into the room.
The wood of the bathroom door was hard and echoing under my knuckles. After a moment, I heard Jason's voice rise up over the patter of the water in the shower. "What?"
I cracked the door open a crack, steam billowing out around me. "Can I come in?" I asked, hoping he didn't hear the waver in my voice.
"What's wrong?" he asked. He poked his head out of the shower to stare at me. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened." I slipped into the room and closed the door behind me. "I just... I mean, I wanted to make sure you were okay."
He blinked at me. "I'm fine."
"Good." I crossed my arms over my chest, wishing with all my might that Jean-Claude had never interfered, that I'd just stayed out in the room. "Good," I repeated.
He gave me a wan smile, hardly a Jason smile at all. "But I wouldn't say no to some company," he said. It was exactly what I'd expect Jason to say in this situation, but it sounded forced. Like he was also trying to act normally, but couldn't quite get the motions down.
"Really?"
His smile vanished, leaving him looking very young. "Yes, really," he said after a minute.
I breathed in the steamy air, scented with the smell of soap. "As long as there's room for the two of us."
Jason grinned suddenly. "We'll make room." He ducked back into the shower before I could think of a response.
I stripped out of my clothes, leaving them on a pile on the floor. The gun I left on a towel on the edge to the sink near the shower, where I could grab it easily. Before I stepped into the shower, I pulled an elastic band out of my jeans and tied my hair back, in what I was sure would be a futile attempt to keep it dry.
Naked and more than a little uncertain, I stepped into the rather large shower stall. There was no curtain, just a little stone step to keep the water from spilling out across the floor. Jason stood under the water spray coming from the old-fashioned shower head. His skin was already slightly pink from the water's heat. "Hey," I said, unreasonably nervous. Jason watched me very carefully. "There's soap in here, right?"
Jason nodded. "The water's fine, too." He held out his hands to me.
Feeling awkward, I took his hands and let him draw me into the water's spray. The water hit my skin, warm and soft, but Jason kept backing up, pulling me with him, until I was directly under the spray.
Jason's eyes were wide as he stared at me, silent for once in his life. I let out a shaky breath. We were so close, but not touching. Not yet.
"Do you want some soap?" he asked.
This close to Jason, wet and naked, I wasn't thinking about soap. "I'm fine," I murmured, closing the distance between us. I put my hands on his waist and kissed him.
We had been lovers in the past, but not enough for kissing him to feel familiar. The water from the shower poured over us, giving the illusion of safety in the steam. Jason slid his hands around my waist, pulling me against him as he kissed me back, softly at first but with increasing intensity. I shifted in his arms and a shiver ran down my spine, in spite of the shower's heat.
Jason pulled back from the kiss, never letting go of me. "What?" he asked, his eyes searching my face. "Is everything okay? Harry's okay?"
I nodded. "He's probably not going to be back for a while." I tightened my arms around Jason's back. "I bolted the door in the other room. We're going to be fine."
Jason looked down. In another man, I'd have thought he didn't want to meet my eyes, but in Jason, I took it as an excuse for him to stare at my breasts. "I know we're going to be fine," he whispered, nipping the side of my neck. I bit back a moan. "You're here."
"I never took you for an optimist," I said, but the throaty quality of my voice took away the annoyance.
"I'm not an optimist," Jason breathed. "I'm a realist." His lips traveled down my shoulder while he slid his hands down my waist. His lips moved back to my throat and I wasn't sure what to do. Yes, I'd come into the bathroom with all the intentions in the world of doing this, but we were going too fast. I couldn't think about the things I should have been, about Harry and us staying safe. All that came to mind were memories: The first time I had sex with Micah in the shower of the lycanthrope hospital in St. Louis; Jason huddled in the shower after rotting vampires had oozed all over him; of Jason slashed up, bleeding, on the cold stone floor.
"Shh, ma petite," Jean-Claude breathed in my mind. "It is all going to be all right, you and Jason are safe."
My hands clutched at Jason's shoulders. He pulled back slightly, holding me in the cradle of his arms, secure under the pounding spray of the water.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, voice low and rough and edged with the rumble of a wolf's growl. I couldn't say yes, because nothing was wrong, but I also couldn't say no.
"Stop thinking, ma petite." I felt Jean-Claude's voice slip over me like a soothing hand on my skin. My eyes closed involuntarily. "Start feeling."
The panic subsided a bit, but not enough.
"Feel Jason, ma petite." Jean-Claude guided my hands down Jason's muscular arms. The soap and the water made his skin slick under my touch. "Feel the life within him." Jason moved his arms, drawing me close once again.
I rested my head on Jason's shoulder and tried to relax. Unsurprisingly, it didn't seem to work.
"Feel his heartbeat, ma petite," Jean-Claude whispered. "Feel the warmth of his body against yours, the rush of the blood in his veins."
I moved my lips to Jason's throat. The steam and the water had warmed his skin above the lycanthropic almost-fever. Any normal person would be over-heating. But I wasn't normal. The closeness to Jason, his animal heat, spoke to something deep inside me, something not so different than Jason.
My senses heightened, I brushed the faint pulse in Jason's with my lips, then my tongue. He shuddered against me. I had brief urge to bite down, to follow that pulse deeper.
Something fluttered in my head, and belatedly I realized that the impulse wasn't mine, but Jean-Claude's. Jean-Claude moved back, but the shift was reluctant.
I kissed up Jason's neck to his jaw, his cheek, at the same time as I slid my arms around Jason's shoulders. He took it as invitation and pressed his body against mine.
As Jason kissed me, and I kissed him back, the noise in my head went away. Across distant oceans, Jean-Claude was with me, as was Nathaniel, but I didn't push them away. I couldn't push them away. They were a part of me, tied to me by bonds of power and blood. If they were with me as I was with Jason, they would embrace it, as would Jason.
Today, I pushed away all the years of solitude and the way things should have been, and let myself sink into what I did have.
And what I did have, I would do anything to protect.
Anything.
~*~
"Stop it."
Jason lounged on the bed, grinning at me. "Stop what?"
I yanked the comb through yet another tangled knot in my hair. "Stop looking at me like that."
"I'm not looking at you like anything." Jason folded his hands under his head and let out a contented sigh. "Not like anything at all."
My comb hit another snag and I swore. "Where the hell is Harry?" I demanded. "He should have been back ages ago!"
"We weren't in the shower for that long," Jason reminded me.
"You want to be bragging about that?" Finally, the comb ran through my hair without hitting a single knot. I'd packed about six pairs of socks but no hair product, and I knew that when my hair dried, it was going to be a chaotic mess. With a sigh, I sat on the edge of the bed and began to braid my hair.
Jason moved across the bed to lay his head on my thigh. "Don't I have something to brag about?" he asked, all wide-eyed innocence.
I sighed and shook my head. "Stop it," I told him.
Jason pouted. "Not even a little bragging?" His lower lip seemed to tremble.
I tied off my braid with an elastic and gave Jason a shove. He rolled back on the bad, laughing.
"Knock it off!" Even so, I smiled. Although I had no plans to admit it, Jason had every right to brag about his conduct in the shower.
A sudden knock on the door made me jump. I was on my feet in an instant, gun in my hand. "Is that Harry?" I asked around the pounding of my heart.
Jason slid off the bed. "Why would he knock?"
The knock sounded again. "Harry?" a young female voice came muffled through the wood. "Harry, are you in there?"
I glanced at Jason. "Should we open the door?"
Before he could answer, the girl knocked again. Jason shrugged. "May as well, before they break the door down, or magic it open, or whatever they do."
"You get it," I said, stepping back so I could have a clear line of fire. Just in case. I lowered the gun so it was at my side, however. I didn't want to go waving a gun around in case the girl at the door was as young as she sounded.
Jason turned the big black key in the door lock. He swung open the door and was almost punched in the nose by a teenage girl.
"Oh!" the girl cried, springing back. I relaxed my grip on the gun. She had been trying to knock again, not to hurt Jason. I swallowed hard. I needed to stop being so jumpy, especially around all these children. "Is Harry here? Madame Pomfrey said he was here!"
"He left to go talk to someone," Jason said with an easy smile. "He should be back soon, or else Anita's going to go storming the castle to get him back."
"Would you need to storm the castle if you're already in it?" came another girl's voice, low and dreamy.
"Probably not," Jason said. "Do you want to come in and wait for him?"
The girl in the door glanced over her shoulder, then nodded. "Thank you," she said stiffly. As Jason held the door open for her to enter, I got my first good look at her. Slightly taller than me, she had blazing red hair and a spattering of freckles across her cheeks. She looked me over carefully, and I suspected that very little escaped her attention.
The other girl had on the same black robes and she also had that painful slenderness of adolescence, but that was where the similarities ended. She had long blonde hair tied up into a messy bun, pale blue eyes, and she was shorter than me and Jason. They were both quite pretty.
"Are you Anita?" the red-head asked, drawing my attention again. "You are, aren't you? Why are you here? Did Dumbledore get you? We didn't know if Harry was going to live and then he was just gone from the infirmary and there are all these rumors and all the teachers are walking around like someone's let a chimera loose in the school!"
I twitched slightly at the mental image of the Chimera I knew in a school full of children. "Harry's fine," I said as I put up my gun. "He went to go see his former teacher, Remus What's-His-Name."
"Oh." The girl's worried tirade lost some steam. "But why are you here?"
"Because his grandfather cannot come out in the daylight, right?" The other girl drifted closer to Jason. "They're all like family, Ginny, that's what Harry said."
"You're Ginny?" Jason interrupted. "Harry told us all about you this summer."
The girl shot him an uncertain glance. "He did?"
"Of course he did." Jason smiled his heart-throb smile, the one he used on stage at the strip club. Ginny seemed to relax slightly.
"You're Jason," the other girl said. "Harry showed us your picture."
Jason turned his smile on the girl. "And who might you be?" he asked.
"I'm Luna." She held out her hand to Jason. Instead of shaking it, he took her hand in both of his and bowed over it.
"Enchanté, mademoiselle," he said with a hint of horrid French accent.
Colour rushed into Luna's cheeks, but she didn't giggle or pull away like other teenage girls. "Are you the one that Professor Lupin attacked?" she asked.
Jason gave Luna's hand a squeeze, then let her go. "A misunderstanding," he said airily. "All water under the bridge."
His near-death by lycanthropic evisceration was the result of a misunderstanding? I opened my mouth to demand to know what the hell was wrong with him, when finally the obvious occurred to me.
Jason was flirting with this girl. Why, she couldn't have been any older than sixteen, sand he was twenty-two. That just wasn't right.
"That's not what the portraits said," Luna was saying, staring at Jason curiously. "They said you were hurt very badly, but that Harry saved you."
"Not just Harry," Jason corrected. "Harry and Anita, both of them."
Luna looked at me brightly. "Are you really a necromancer?" she asked. "I've never met one before. You don't look like any of the pictures in the books."
"What books?" I demanded. At my left, I heard Ginny give out a strangled sigh. "What am I supposed to look like?"
"The old books on death magic in the library's Restricted Section," Luna said, ignoring Ginny. "They are not very pleasant, but then Harry said that the books on vampires aren't accurate either. The Ministry does tend to censor reading material on certain subjects, I can imagine they would start in the schools."
"You guys have banned books too?" Jason asked. "Sounds just like home."
"Oh, the Ministry is quite willing to prevent knowledge from reaching the average witch or wizard," Luna told him. "They have been denying the existence of the Mome Raths for years now."
"Luna," Ginny said sharply. "Can we find out if Harry's going to be okay before we start on this?"
"Of course Harry will be fine," Luna told her. "If he wasn't, Madame Pomfrey wouldn't have let him leave the infirmary and she wouldn't have told us where he is, would she?"
Something in the blonde girl's voice made me look at her sharply. She was so very young, both in appearance and in her manner, but in that very moment, she reminded me so strongly of Nathaniel that for a moment my breath caught in my throat.
Luna continued. "Harry tells us that there's a real lamia in St. Louis, is that right?"
"What, Melanie?" Jason leaned against the wall. "Yeah, she works at the Circus of the Damned, too."
"Do you work there as well?" Luna asked.
Jason blushed. Jason Schuyler, werewolf stripper, smartass and all-around jaded man of the world, blushed from an innocent question by a teenage girl. I wondered if pigs had started to fly around outside the window. Although, in this weird place, I supposed anything was possible.
"I, well, I live at the Circus," he finally stammered out.
Luna's eyes lit up. "That must be fascinating," she beamed. "Do vampires live there too? Other werewolves?"
The odd conversation was halted in its tracks as Harry blew back into the room in a whirl of robes. "I don't understand that man!" Harry stormed. He had been watching his feet as he came through the door. Once he was inside, he glanced up and stopped abruptly. "What are you two doing here?" he asked the girls.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jason step away from Luna at the same time as Ginny whirled on Harry, crossing her arms over her chest. "What are we doing here?" she echoed. "You run out on us at the dance and then we hear you were attacked in the Forbidden Forest and you're suddenly healed but Professor Lupin attacked a werewolf in the school and you ask us what we are doing here?"
"We were worried about you," Luna said when Ginny paused for air. "No one would tell us anything, so we came looking for you. The portraits are in rather a tizzy after what they saw."
"What they--" Harry broke off. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Damn it! Now this is going to be all over the school!"
"What are you talking about?" I interrupted. "What is this about 'portraits'?"
Harry ran his hand through his hair. "Wizarding portraits aren't just moving pictures like my photographs, they can talk and share information with each other," he explained, gesturing with his glasses. "Which means that since there were portraits in the hallway where Remus attacked Jason, all the paintings will soon know, and so will the ghosts, and soon everyone in the whole school will know!"
Luna edged closer to Harry. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Oh, just great!" Harry said sarcastically.
Luna just looked at him.
The wind seemed to go out of Harry, and he kicked at the carpet. "I'm fine," he said, more subdued. "Remus is fine, he's with Tonks. And Reece is... he's safe, anyway."
"What happened?" Luna asked. She took Harry's hand and linked her fingers with his. "Why did you leave the dance last night?"
"I just needed some air, you know?" Harry said quietly. "And I went outside and I saw Reece being pulled into the forest and I had to go after him. It was Reece, you know?"
Luna nodded. Ginny had been listening to Harry's story without moving a muscle. I glanced over at Jason, who raised his eyebrows at me.
"And it was Moroven who got him," Harry continued. "Did I ever tell you about her?" Luna shook her head. "She's a real scary vampire, she used to be Damian's master. She had the Hufflepuff cup Horcrux and she wanted me to pick one."
"Pick one what?" Ginny asked.
Harry took a deep breath. "She said I could have one or the other, Reece or the cup."
"And you picked Reece." Ginny hesitated. "Right?"
Harry lifted his head. "Of course I picked Reece!" he exclaimed. Luna squeaked, and Harry quickly let go of her hand. "Sorry, sorry!" he said quickly.
"I'm fine, I am," Luna said. She laid her hand on Harry's arm, then she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
It took a minute, but Harry finally returned the hug. Then, confusing me even more, Ginny went over to them and hugged them both. They all looked comfortable. Very comfortable.
Harry was the first to pull back. He touched Ginny's cheek, then squeezed Luna's shoulder before backing up to put some distance between him and the girls. "Sorry about last night," he mumbled.
Luna gave a philosophical shrug. "These things tend to happen to you," she said. "We shouldn't be surprised."
"I was surprised," Ginny interjected. "I usually am, even though I'm not sure why anymore."
Harry smiled sheepishly. "Yeah."
At that moment, a short figure in the ubiquitous black robes careened into the doorway. "Headmaster Dumbledore wants to see you," the little boy said breathlessly. His face was red with exertion. "Mr. Potter and Miss Blake!"
Harry took a step towards the boy. "Did he say why?"
The boy shook his head. "He just wants to see you now!" With that, the boy ran off again.
"Don't you people have phones or a PA system like normal schools?" Jason asked. "They come in really handy."
"Yeah, but then you can't send the underclassmen on errands," Harry shot back.
"There's errands and there's sadistic torment. Didn't you ever watch any boarding school movies as a child?"
I grabbed my jacket and pulled it on to hide the shoulder rig and gun. "Can it, Jason," I ordered. "You can bug Harry on the way to see Dumbledore. I assume he's got an office somewhere in this school?"
"I'm not sure if Jason's supposed to come," Harry said. "Dumbledore didn't ask for him to go with us."
I flipped my braid over my shoulder with more force than was necessary and faced Harry. "Your point?" I bit out.
"Just that Dumbledore didn't say he was supposed to come with us," Harry repeated, some of that normal energy coming back to him. As good as it was to see his spirit returning, it was also really annoying.
"Jason can come with us," Luna piped up.
"He can?" said Ginny.
"We can show him the castle and the grounds and the preparations for the Halloween banquet," Luna explained. "If he wants to come with us."
"Sounds good," Jason said before I could protest. "When do we leave?"
I grabbed Jason's arm and pulled him towards the bathroom. "Don't go anywhere," I called over my shoulder to Harry. I shoved Jason into the room and pulled the door closed behind me. "She's sixteen."
"What are you talking about?" Jason asked, rubbing his arm.
He wouldn't meet my eyes, which told me all I needed to know. He knew exactly what I meant. "She's sixteen years old and she's probably Harry's girlfriend," I said, trying to keep from yelling.
Jason fidgeted, but he lifted his chin and stared at me. Coming from a werewolf of his status to me, his Lupa, it was very close to a challenge. "I know she's a kid, Anita. I am also very aware that she's Harry's girlfriend. He may have been covered in enough blood to mask it, but her robes and her hair smell like him. Both of them do."
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
Jason threw up his hands. "How many men are you involved with, and you ask me that?"
"That is not what's happening!" I exclaimed. "Harry's just a kid! He wouldn't--"
"So 'do as I say, don't do as I do'?" Jason interrupted. "And it's not that intense, just like they've been spending a lot of time together. With their clothes on."
"They're teenagers! They shouldn't be doing stuff like... like..." I stopped, at a loss for a simile that didn't involve invoking me or any of my relationships.
"Can we please stop the after-school special?" Jason asked. "There's also another good reason for me to go with Luna and Ginny. I can see what life is really like here for Harry. Just in case he's not telling us everything."
"If?" I slumped against the door. I wanted to fight it, but Jason had a point. I wasn't sure I believed Harry when he told me things were fine.
Scratch that. I didn't believe him at all. His stories of soul magic and insane vampires and rampaging werewolves did nothing to ease my mind about leaving him in this deathtrap masquerading as a high school.
Through the bathroom door, I could hear Harry's voice. Most of the words were muffled, but I did hear him say, "Ron or Hermione?" His other friends, I recalled. Then he lowered his voice and I couldn't make out anything else.
"You were attacked once," I finally said to Jason. "I couldn't-- I can't deal with..."
"Nothing will happen to me again, promise," Jason said. He leaned in and kissed my cheek. "I'll be on my guard. If anything could happen, Harry would have said so."
"Harry also said that he would be perfectly safe at school. What Harry thinks and what really ends up happening never quite matches in the middle, does it?"
Jason sighed. "You know I'm right and you're just trying to come up with ridiculous reasons to not leave here without me."
I gave him a little shove. "You're not supposed to know me that well."
"I pay a lot of attention to you," Jason reminded me. "And not all of is me staring at your--"
I walked out of the bathroom before he could finish. Really, I didn't want to know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Have fun storming the castle!" Jason called back before Luna dragged him around a corner. Ginny followed, frowning.
Harry watched his friends go. He was glad Jason was going to get to see Hogwarts, but part of him was uncomfortable with Jason being alone with Ginny and Luna, and he couldn't figure out why.
He shook his head. They didn't have time for any of this. "Come on," he said to Anita. "We should go. Dumbledore's office is in another wing."
"Hold on a minute."
Harry frowned. "But you heard John, Dumbledore wants to talk to us."
Anita grabbed his arm and hauled him into a stony alcove by the window. "Do I seriously look as if I care?" she demanded, dark eyes flashing in anger. "I don't care if Dumbledore has to wait five minutes or five days. You and I are going to have a little talk."
"About what?" Harry asked nervously.
Anita narrowed her eyes. "About what you haven't told me."
"I've told you everything!" Harry protested. "I told you about the--" He broke off and glanced down the empty hall. "About the Horcruxes," he said in a low voice. "That's all that matters."
"Like hell it is." Anita crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him. She looked seriously annoyed. "I want you to tell me what's been happening here since we dropped you off two months ago!"
"Anita--"
Anita held up her hand. "Don't 'Anita' me! What the hell has been going on with you?"
to be continued