Fic: Warring As For Spouse And Child
Jan. 8th, 2006 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaFandom: Harry Potter (book continuity; if you're writing movie continuity, I don't want to hear about it)
Rating: PG for violence
Spoilers: This takes place after book 6; assume spoilers for all books
Disclaimer: They're Rowling's, not mine
First draft.
The scent would have been impossible to track had the ground not been so familiar. Dozens of feet had raced across the damp patch of ground between the place with the stands and towers and the giant's hut in the past few hours, as the wizards in hoods and masks had charged up from the village to the north and assaulted the castle, then been driven back by its handful of defenders. Both groups, the masked ones and the faculty, were madly dashing back and forth, flinging bolts of red, green, silver-blue, and sickly yellow between each other.
Her pet human had flung no such bolts, no. He'd never had enough magic for a wand; he barely had enough magic to hear her when she called him. When the hooded ones had appeared at the village gate and come silently up the field, he'd met them before the doors with a poker from the fire in the Great Hall and a sword he'd borrowed from one of the suits of armor, and he'd distracted them while the other faculty rained spells from the upper towers. He'd managed to knock two of them out himself, her human had, until the silver-handed one with the familiar, familiar smell had struck him with a green bolt and he'd crumpled like a tapestry fallen off its hooks.
And now she tracked that one across the grass and mud, dodging the feet of hooded ones and familiar companions alike. Somewhere off to her left and back towards the castle, the tall one who wore whiskers, tail, and fur herself on occasion was shouting something about a diversion, that such an open assault must be a distraction from the true attack, demanding that the faculty fall back to the castle. In front, the giant who liked animals and the short one with the fast wand were standing back-to-back, holding off a group of five masked ones. She could hear the hippogriff far off on the right, screaming, but not in fear - pain, probably. The centaur's smell was coming from the same direction; she could hear his bowstring humming in the night.
Distractions. She lowered her nose to the ground, put her ears back, and kept tracking the smell of the silver-handed one.
A knot of combatants suddenly came undone. The one who was both faculty and hooded one jumped over a fallen body and dashed silently back towards the Hogsmeade gates, his damp, stony smell rushing past and away from her. Two female faculty members, the one from the highest tower and one from the third floor, stumbled back, wands in hand. The one who smelled like a wolf, who wasn't faculty any more but who was around a lot all the same, held up his wand; thick, sticky strands that smelled of tar and fish scales curled from its tip and bound two of the hooded ones, but the third one jumped sideways, landed on his side, and suddenly doubled up into his clothes, shrinking.
"Oh, no, you don't, not this time," shouted the wolf, but he couldn't let go of the two he was holding.
Don't worry. This one is my rightful prey.
The rat would head for the woods as soon as he made it out of the pile of robes; she slunk eastward, low to the ground, keeping upwind of his path. Sure enough, he shot out of the rumpled cloth, one silver paw glinting against the light of the bolts flying past.
Too easy. She thought of the warm, gnarled hand that had stroked her behind the ears, the rough voice that had talked to her in dark corridors when no one else had time for her, the callused fingers that had fed her scraps from the Great Hall's table. Her pet. Her poor, magic-less pet, dead now on the steps of the castle.
She darted forward, soundlessly. One paw swung out and landed in the middle of the rat's back, claws digging into its skin. Someone - the wolf, she thought - was shouting incoherently. If she'd been thinking, she would have been reminding herself to hurry, to finish before he changed back, but at the moment, she was not so much a wizarding guardian of the castle as she was just a cat. This was instinctive, timeless, played out a hundred thousand times a night between feline and rodent.
She sunk her teeth into the back of its neck, lifted it from the ground, and shook. The part of her mind that was still rational was gratified to feel the snap that told her it wouldn't run anymore.
The wolf-teacher's shadow fell over her as she flipped the rat's carcass over and ripped its throat out. He and his two captives made incoherent noises as she settled down on her belly in the mud to enjoy her meal.
Rating: PG for violence
Spoilers: This takes place after book 6; assume spoilers for all books
Disclaimer: They're Rowling's, not mine
First draft.
The scent would have been impossible to track had the ground not been so familiar. Dozens of feet had raced across the damp patch of ground between the place with the stands and towers and the giant's hut in the past few hours, as the wizards in hoods and masks had charged up from the village to the north and assaulted the castle, then been driven back by its handful of defenders. Both groups, the masked ones and the faculty, were madly dashing back and forth, flinging bolts of red, green, silver-blue, and sickly yellow between each other.
Her pet human had flung no such bolts, no. He'd never had enough magic for a wand; he barely had enough magic to hear her when she called him. When the hooded ones had appeared at the village gate and come silently up the field, he'd met them before the doors with a poker from the fire in the Great Hall and a sword he'd borrowed from one of the suits of armor, and he'd distracted them while the other faculty rained spells from the upper towers. He'd managed to knock two of them out himself, her human had, until the silver-handed one with the familiar, familiar smell had struck him with a green bolt and he'd crumpled like a tapestry fallen off its hooks.
And now she tracked that one across the grass and mud, dodging the feet of hooded ones and familiar companions alike. Somewhere off to her left and back towards the castle, the tall one who wore whiskers, tail, and fur herself on occasion was shouting something about a diversion, that such an open assault must be a distraction from the true attack, demanding that the faculty fall back to the castle. In front, the giant who liked animals and the short one with the fast wand were standing back-to-back, holding off a group of five masked ones. She could hear the hippogriff far off on the right, screaming, but not in fear - pain, probably. The centaur's smell was coming from the same direction; she could hear his bowstring humming in the night.
Distractions. She lowered her nose to the ground, put her ears back, and kept tracking the smell of the silver-handed one.
A knot of combatants suddenly came undone. The one who was both faculty and hooded one jumped over a fallen body and dashed silently back towards the Hogsmeade gates, his damp, stony smell rushing past and away from her. Two female faculty members, the one from the highest tower and one from the third floor, stumbled back, wands in hand. The one who smelled like a wolf, who wasn't faculty any more but who was around a lot all the same, held up his wand; thick, sticky strands that smelled of tar and fish scales curled from its tip and bound two of the hooded ones, but the third one jumped sideways, landed on his side, and suddenly doubled up into his clothes, shrinking.
"Oh, no, you don't, not this time," shouted the wolf, but he couldn't let go of the two he was holding.
Don't worry. This one is my rightful prey.
The rat would head for the woods as soon as he made it out of the pile of robes; she slunk eastward, low to the ground, keeping upwind of his path. Sure enough, he shot out of the rumpled cloth, one silver paw glinting against the light of the bolts flying past.
Too easy. She thought of the warm, gnarled hand that had stroked her behind the ears, the rough voice that had talked to her in dark corridors when no one else had time for her, the callused fingers that had fed her scraps from the Great Hall's table. Her pet. Her poor, magic-less pet, dead now on the steps of the castle.
She darted forward, soundlessly. One paw swung out and landed in the middle of the rat's back, claws digging into its skin. Someone - the wolf, she thought - was shouting incoherently. If she'd been thinking, she would have been reminding herself to hurry, to finish before he changed back, but at the moment, she was not so much a wizarding guardian of the castle as she was just a cat. This was instinctive, timeless, played out a hundred thousand times a night between feline and rodent.
She sunk her teeth into the back of its neck, lifted it from the ground, and shook. The part of her mind that was still rational was gratified to feel the snap that told her it wouldn't run anymore.
The wolf-teacher's shadow fell over her as she flipped the rat's carcass over and ripped its throat out. He and his two captives made incoherent noises as she settled down on her belly in the mud to enjoy her meal.
