had conjured. Lupin watched, feeling apprehension curdling in the pit of his stomach. It was simply a fact that he had grown to accept, that animals loathed him. After he had been bitten, his family had had to get rid of all their pets, their cats and dogs, even the rabbits in the outside hutch would wince and huddle away from him when he passed by.
There had always been werewolf clans in the woods near where he had lived as a child, which was how he came to be bitten in the first place. He remembered one of the elders telling him when he was a child, You are outside the world now, not of it. Animals will shun you, knowing what you are, and silver, the blood of the earth, will reject you. Wherever you go the earth will try to heave you off its face, for you are an unnatural thing and the earth hates that which is outside its nature.
'We could just Summon our broomsticks,' he pointed out, speaking very quietly, although he knew it was no use, as it never was any use when Sirius got a bee in his bonnet about something.
'Buckbeak…is…faster,' panted Sirius, still holding the hippogriffs leash tightly. He reached out and firmly stroked the plumage at the side of the animals neck, and chucked Buckbeak under the chin.
Very slowly, after repeated cajoling and stroking, Buckbeak had calmed down enough to rest his head on Siriusshoulder, although his tail still lashed from side to side.
Sirius turned around, his black hair pasted to his forehead with rain, and held out a hand to Lupin. 'Come on, Remus,' he said.
Lupin approached slowly, remembering suddenly and not without amusement the bandages Draco had worn on his arm for a ridiculously long time during third year, after Buckbeak had injured him. Well, any animal willing to bite Draco the way he had been back then couldn?t be all bad. He reached out and laid a hand against Buckbeaks flank. The hippogriff flinched, his skin rippling under Lupins touch, but he did not move away.
Lupin raised his eyes and saw Sirius, looking done in but grinning at him all the same, his eyes sparking. 'See?' he said, catching his breath. 'Easy.'
Lupin didn?t say anything. He let Sirius help him up on Buckbeaks back and sat still while his friends clambered up behind him. He could feel the hippogriffs skin writhing and twitching where he touched it and knew that Buckbeak suffered him as a rider only out of love for Sirius. Which wasn?t the worst reason, he supposed, to suffer anything.
'Harry?'
'Yes?'
'Are you going to wear that Charm, or not? Its not safe, just holding it like that.'
Harry was silent. Hermione gazed at him, full of anxious curiosity.
Still chained to the wall, Harry had managed to wriggle around so that his bound wrists were in front of him, rather than in back. He still looked uncomfortable, but slightly less so. She looked down at her hand where it was wound together with his, resting on his knee.
His other hand held the Epicyclical Charm, the charm gripped in his fist, the gold chain threaded through his fingers. As if he neither wanted to let go of it, nor knew what to do with it.
She glanced over and looked at Ron, who was leaning against the wall near the entrance to the cell, flipping through a book he?d found tucked between the cushions of one of the sofas pressed against the wall. It looked like it was entitled How To Be Evil, by Steve The Third. That can?t be much of a distraction from his anxiety about Ginny, she thought. She would have liked to go over and offer him consolation or company, but she could tell that he wanted to be left alone, and anyway Harry needed her more at the moment.
She fought down her feelings of panicky anger. What was Ginny thinking, she thought in despair. She tried to be charitable. Well, if it had been Harry, she would have gone after him without thinking, wouldn?t she? Of course, Ginny couldn?t possibly love Draco as much as Hermione loved Harry. She barely knew him. She didn?t even know him as well as Hermione did, didn?t love him like…well that was an unproductive line of reasoning. And wouldn?t bring Ginny back, either.
'I don?t know,' said Harry finally.
'You do believe me that he was just acting, don?t you?'
Harry expelled a very weary-sounding breath. 'Yes. I believe you. I believe you that he didn?t knife me on purpose, either, although I do think he probably got a bigger kick out of it than you?re willing to admit.'
'Why?' said Hermione, sharply. 'Would you get a kick out of it, if your situations were reversed?'
Harry leaned his head back against the wall, half-closing his eyes.
'Don?t start.'
She scrambled around on her knees until she faced him. 'Harry, I know this has something to do with whatever it was he told you to get you angry enough to break down that door. Doesn?t it?'
'Maybe.' Harry didn?t open his eyes.
'Would you please tell me what he said?'
A short silence. 'I?d really rather not,' said Harry.
Hermione fought down the urge to shake him. She wanted to protest that he shouldn?t hide this from her, that they always told each other everything, but then she knew that wasn?t true. It was Ron who always told her everything; while she could read Harrys expressions well enough, Harry was much more likely to try to keep from speaking about his feelings to either of them, and the more something tore him up inside, the harder he worked to hide it.
'It wasn?t about you,' Harry added, as an afterthought.
A short wave of guilty relief passed over her. 'I didn?t think it would have been,' she lied.
Another short silence.
'Harry, please,' she said.
His eyelids lifted slowly, and he looked at her, his irises darkening.
'I?ll just tell you that it was something really, really terrible,' he said. 'Something I won?t forget. Ever. Something unforgivable.'
