The Wolf and the Raven

Ch 14 - The Thing Inside Me

By the time the James, Sirius, and Peter reached the greenhouses, all that remained of Remus and Branwen was two pairs of footprints. The boys followed them until they disappeared in the muddy, root-corrupted ground beneath the Whomping Willow.

"They climbed the tree?" Peter peered up into the bare branches.

"Well do you see them there, dummy?" Sirius smacked the back of his head.

"Are they using the invisibility cloak?"

James pulled it out from his schoolbag.

"I don't get it. Where'd they go? What're they doing?"

"Better not be snogging is all I know," James huffed and crossed his arms.

"James, she's eleven."

"Exactly!"

An awkward silence fell. Sirius rocked back on his heels. "So, uh, what now?"

James squinted into the distance. "The only other thing out this way is Hogsmeade." He flourished the cloak over himself and held out an arm, inviting the others in.

Peter whimpered. "B-but, we're not supposed to go there. Not until next year. With a permission slip."

Sirius joined James under the cloak, then gave Peter a withering glare. "You coming or not?"

Peter scurried under his waiting arm and the three of them vanished from sight.

It was normally a pleasant, half hour's walk to the nearby village, but with three boys huddled under one cloak, shuffling through ankle deep snow, it turned into a slow hour's trek. By the time they reached the outskirts of the town, the early winter night had overtaken them.

"Now where do we go?" Sirius hissed, his breath steaming into the frigid air.

There was a soft glow of lantern light from the village and a few of its wizarding citizens could be seen scurrying home to warmth of their hearths. Outside the cosy limits of the small hamlet, there was no sign of life, no footprints, no noises....until.

A loud, long howl rang through the sharp night air.

"What was that?" Peter yelped.

"It came from over there," James pointed at a derelict building resting past the village's edge, then immediately walked in its direction.

"Woah," Sirius grabbed his sleeve, "we're going to go toward the crazy noise?"

James glared at his friend. "What if Bran's in there?"

There was no further argument and the boys trudged toward the towering shack. The noises grew louder the closer they got. Growls, whines, smashes and cracking of wood on wood.

"Stay here," James shoved Sirius and Peter behind a bush and wrapped the cloak tightly around himself before approaching a low window. He was peering into the drawing room of what looked like a long-abandoned home. Chairs and tables lay splintered across the floor. Two settees had been overturned and their stuffing gouged out and strewn about the room. The wall was covered with what appeared to be dozens of overlapping claw marks. The noises could still be heard, but seemed to be coming from the second story.

James was ready to turn away when an entirely different sound floated through a crack in the window pane. It was the high, soft cry of a young girl sobbing. "Branwen!"

He whipped out his wand and started for the door when a movement on the stairs caught his eye. Coming down from the upper floor was a werewolf. The wolf sniffed the air as James stumbled away from the window and collapsed beside his friends.