The Marauders: Year Seven Part One

Switch the Watch

Garm Tyr stood at the top of the stairs leading to Dumbledore's office, staring at the ornate door. He'd raised his hand to knock and felt a splitting pain in his shoulder. A month old and still the wound was festering and oozing quietly beneath the wrappings that Madam Pomfrey carefully packed it with twice each day. It was foolish, probably, coming here like this, but he'd made a commitment to Dumbledore to protect Fallengunder castle, and most especially Ned Veigler within it, and there was no wound that would keep him from doing so. 

The door swung open before Garm could knock again. "Mr. Tyr," Dumbledore greeted him, smiling all the way to his eyes through his halfmoon glasses, "I'm very surprised to see you tonight. I didn't think that you'd come." He looked meaningfully at Garm's wrappings.

"I wasn't sure I was going to come," Garm admitted, and he shuffled into the office slowly.

Dumbledore closed the door behind him slowly, turning to watch Garm's gait as he walked across the room and sat on the arm of the chair opposite Dumbledore's desk. Fawkes the Phoenix sat on his stand not far off, and Garm looked at the bird for a long moment. "Hullo Fawkes," he muttered, and held out a finger to stroke the bird's head.

"Do be careful," Dumbledore said as Fawkes snapped at Garm's finger rather than coddling, "He bites and you've enough chunks taken out of you as it is." Garm withdrew his finger from the phoenix as Dumbledore went about and sat heavily in his chair. He stared up at Garm, searching him over, as though analyzing his countenance. "None could call you cowardly if you wished to be locked up safely in your office tonight, Mr. Tyr," Dumbledore said at last. "That is, after all, where Mr. Frek believes you to be, isn't it?"

Garm nodded. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

Dumbledore mused, nodding, then asked, "But will it hurt you?"

"I want that son of a bitch dead, Dumbledore," Garm hissed. "And if I don't go, your guy's as good as dead, so I suppose there isn't as much choice as you seem to believe there is."

"There's always a choice," Dumbledore replied.

"There is only ever one right choice," Garm's voice was rough around the edges. 

Dumbledore rubbed his beard thoughtfully.

Garm looked toward the closed glass doors that led out to the balcony of Dumbledore's quarters, the sun was starting to set over the forest and he turned back to the desk. "We're wasting light."

Dumbledore nodded, "Indeed." He paused, "And have you taken your potion?"

"Last dose right here," Garm drew the bottle out of the pocket of his billowing shirt and shook it for Dumbledore to see, then drew the cork and downed every ounce of the silver colored liquid. When it was down, he gasped as though refreshed and put the bottle down on Dumbledore's desk.

"I've heard it tastes best with just a bit of raspberry and mint," Dumbledore commented, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Garm replied, "It'll taste best with revenge."

The moon was high over the castle of Fallengunder, the grounds silent. Distant howls from the castle could be heard, like echoes in the night. Garm was in his wolf form, black and sleek, though missing a bit of the fleshy part of his neck and shoulder. Even in werewolf form the injury was still raw. He walked with a limp, but ever silently, moving through the shadows of the edge of the forest, his paws light as air on the debris of sticks and leaves. Garm came to a stop at the spot where he'd been bitten a month before, and he stood, looking up at the castle, watching shadows pass over windows and listening to long yowling cries...