Harry Potter : Chapter 26: Moonlit Dinner III

There wasn't a shield in my wards because there was nothing to protect.

While I knew that something existed, just beyond the shadows and under the green leaves, it was something unimportant, something that didn't need defense, and something that didn't deserve anyone's attention.

Once I was done, I used the sequence of painfully tedious charms to set up a small bathroom inside of the shack, made use of it, and set myself to sleep on a hammock that stretched just aside from the firepit.

...

The howling was what woke me from my slumber.

I rolled immediately off the hammock, my eyes wide open and wand in hand, only to hear another furious howl cut through the night. There was something to it... a shiver went down my back.

Werewolves? I wondered while I quickly dressed myself, ready to bolt and abandon my little shack. Would my concealing ward keep he werewolves away? If indeed they are werewolves and I'm not simply paranoid.

Anotehr howl cut through the night, it was almost fainter, but it still carried with it the weight of magic.

It wasn't something easy to define, but the impression that it was directed at me, even while I was reasonably sure of my safety, was undoubtedly magic in nature. And maybe I was simply ignorant, but there weren't that many creatures taht howled with the full moon.

Another howl, this time it was clearly closer to my position, and then I heard a gunshot that rang like thunder in the night. Muggles too, because why the fuck not.

"Just my luck." ready to bolt, I quietly made my way out of my shack after killing the flames with a jab of my wand.

I opened the door and quickly cast 'Silencio' on myself, there was no need to attract whatever was roaming the woods during the night. The trees were way too thin to support my weight uness I charmed them unbreakable, so they didn't represent a safe place to wait out the night: any escape route would include Apparition.

Howling and gunshots echoed in my ears once more, and I grimaced. Besides, this is wartime, and everyone is triggerhappy.

Another faint gunshot echoed through the night, and I froze in the act of Apparating away.

Unless I was greatly mistaken, if muggles could kill werewolves with simple guns, they wouldn't be as fucking problematic as they were. There was only so much fear that a creature could inflict in the psyche of wizardkind when it could be stopped by a simple piece of stone launched like a bullet.

Was I going to let whoever it was to the mercy of a random magical-howling-whatever? Knowing perfectly well that the chances of a firearm to stop the creature were basically nil?

Was it my business? No. And yet, I didn't move.

Should I simply walk away? Yes.

Did I want to? Yes, I wasn't even remotely equipped to tangle with what I suspected was a werewolf, staying was the pinnacle of stupidity.

Could I simply leave, when my very first decision in this life had been to change the world for the better?

I could do and become anything I wanted: there were potions to distil liquid luck, spells to call forth storms and create secret passages between walls, Faeries and Cerberi, secrets nobody knew anything about, and the future of the world to shape if a single man was in the position of doing something about it.

And I could. Given the longevity that Hagrid had shown in the books, I had a lot of time to become everything I could be.

To change the world for the better.

Would it matter if I let this random muggle being torn to shreds? It likely wouldn't, a single person was less than a blip on the radar of History.

But it would matter to me.

Abandoning my half thoughts of Apparating away, I turned towards the gunshots, whose frequence had drastically lowered, and I cast 'Lumos'.

Bright and uncaring of the night around me, I remembered when I had first captured dawnbreak, and just like the dawn, golden light issued forth from the tip of my wand while I started to run, my demi-giant legs crunching the uneven ground like I was born for it.

"Here!" I thundered, whipping my wand forth like the handle of a whip, producing a sharp *crack* that spread in the night, interrupting the last howl that came from my front, "I'm here you fuckers!"

While I ran, my eyes devoured the surroundings, and another gesture of my wand landed a rough branch in my free hand. Matchstick-to-needle had been my first lesson: 'You'll learn that once-living materials such as wood don't like to be turned into dead metal'

Dead metal? Who could say that metal was truly dead? Why would dead wood cling to life so fiercely as to oppose a transfiguration? Didn't electrons move around all the atoms? Was life dependant on the complexity of proteins and cells? Why would magic care about that? Wasn't life about fighting? About elbowing the world so that there was a place in the sun for you too?

High on adrenaline, I pointed my wand on the sturdy branch on my left hand. My first needle didn't come out alright because I lacked 'will', if I were to listen to Dumbledore.

But now that I understood a little better the mechanisms of magic, I could infer that I had lacked another important piece of the puzzle: back then, I knew that the needle that I wanted didn't serve any purpose, the transfiguration itself had been my focus.

Now, I needed a final result.

I was going to save the people trying to gun down the magical creature, and with 'Lignoverto' I crafted myself some help. The wood rippled and flattened as if made of water, its colour turning steely grey while it slipped out of my fingers, only to remain floating at my side as I barreled through the trees.

And it was while I ran, somewhat still focused on the transfiguration that I had just completed, that a gray blur almost barreled into me.

I reacted as fast as I could, turning on a dime while I summoned myself towards a tree that I had just bypassed, neatly avoiding the humunguous beast that would have ripped away a limb had its attack been successful.

Surely enough, I stumbled on the scene of a carnage, under the golden blazing of my wand, I counted six immobile bodies scattered along a country road that led to a small village far on my right.

I turned sharply, a brilliant gout of flame forcing an incoming werewolf into a hasty retreat, even if it appeared unarmed from the scalding heat, only to almost fall to my knees when a weight fell in the middle of my back. My wand, still held aloft over my head reacted to the panic that fueled my will: "Away!"

The air ruptured under the sudden pressure that drove me to the ground, dislodging the werewolf before it could sink its fangs into me, even if I felt a claw rip through my clotes and cut open the skin over my shoulder.

I rolled back to my feet, adrenaline keeping me going and fire once more blossoming from the tip of my wand while I directed it to cover my back, almost like an hungry curtain that crackled in the air. Because of course there would be two werewolves instead of one.

Another gunshot broke into the night, and my eyes found the origin: slumped against a birch's trunk, with a rail thin woman was held protectively within his bloodied arms, a man was frantically looking into the night, his eyes half squinted to ward off the bright light that I was so freely giving off.

Hastly, I directed the steely kite-like shield I had created between the two muggles and the incoming werewolf, briefly splitting my attention to the other creature that had circumvented the wall of flame that was still standing behind me.

The first werewolf tore through the improvised shield like it wasn't even there, reducing it to splinters of wood that immediately lost their steely purpose. Fuck.

The second rounded on the still shooting muggle, whose eyes were wide with mad fear and almost unfocused with panic.

And in a single istant, I knew what I had to do.

Dancig teapots meant little, teapots weren't alive in any sense of the term. But the trees were, if slumbering because of the winter.

Almost faster than conscious thought, I pushed the same intense will to FIGHT into the birch against which were slumped the two muggles, there was no transfiguration involved, the enchantment was simple, if tricky, and not something that I had ever attempted before.

The symbol was ready to channel the meaning that rang so clearly in my head. Fire. So versatile and elegant. Flame of Life, Burning of Battle, Brightness to Defend against the dark.

The fire that I had used to keep off one werewolf coalesced istantaneously in the leafless canopy of the birch tree, almost as a crown of righteous anger, and two branches snapped sideways, hurling the werewolves away from the muggles with a strenght and a speed that were impossible for any living being, even more for a tree.

I almost took a step forward to charge at the still flailing werewolves, when I stopped.

Which was my purpose? To fight werewolves that for all I knew were unaware of their condition, or to save the muggles?

The flames on the tree died down as soon as the burst of life was spent in the defence of the man and the woman, a second later, I reached the muggles, and Apparated away.

...

In the non-space that was apparition, I clung to the two muggles with all of my strenght whilt I pushed myself against the tight confines that pressed against us, just enough to not break them apart, just enough to not allow them to crush me.

We landed with a sharp *crack* in a clearing I had prepared in the north of France the day before, in sight of one of the shacks I was so proud of, and under a full moon only partially hiddn by the occasional cloud. I hadn't dared apparate to my last abode, fearing it too close to the werewolves.

My attention swiftly returned to the muggles, who were shaking in pain even if they were uncounscious. A couple of swipes of my wand secured them with ropes so that they wouldn't hurt each other or themselves.

They were a mess. I gagged at the sight: the man had a chunk of meat torn away from his left shoulder which was bleedig profusely on the ground, while the woman missed a couple of fingers from one hand.

I couldn't heal them. Oh, I had Dittany, sure, but without silver...

The memory of sacrificing Hagrid's father came prepotently to my mind. If they are to die anyway...

I immediately grimaced in self-recrimination.

Do I actually need to ritualize their death? Even if I had a clearcut way of doing so... would I want to? Still high on adrenaline, I had no idea what possessed me to actually seek out the origin of the gunshot, or at least, I was... conflicted, about what I had just done, about what I had risked myself for.

In for a knut...

Setting my shoulders, I decided to try and save them: "This will fucking hurt, people." I warned the strangers even if I knew he couldn't hear me.

I sat down next to the bitten muggles that were trashing horribly in their bonds while the curse ran its course, slowly but surely spreading within their blood. I started dropping dittany on their open wounds, knowing that I needed silver to completely close them. Silver that I didn't have.

And the man, in particular, was bleeding massively.

I need to grant properties to counter the werewolf curse to something in order to close the wound. I thought with a grimace, feeling the mental tiredness of the fight and Apparition slam into me like a tidal wave, almost causing me to fall uncounscious.

And I need it fast.

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