After the Christmas break was over, everyone returned to Hogwarts and classes resumed. Things settled back into place into the normal routine. Ginny focused on tests, spending time with her friends, and they returned to their exercise in the mornings with Alexa pushing them onwards eagerly. Ginny avoided Eric, and he avoided her. No one else was hit by the mad potioner, even if there were more than the usual amount of hexes and stinkbombs deployed than had been before. Ginny knew that it was probably Eric, but the pranks actually seemed harmless this time so she tried to ignore them.
The only odd note was Lupin had begun acting oddly around Ginny. Ever since christmas break, he hadn’t called on her in class once. Most of the time he seemed to forget she was even there, staring into space when she asked a question before moving on to the next person as if nothing had happened.
He never gave her a detention or punished her, but everyone wondered about what she had done to upset him. Ginny was unsure herself of why he was acting that way.
It was nearly time for finals, and Ginny took a deep breath as she closed her eyes and was sent to Teregatt.
She opened her eyes in her black mud body and looked at Balthazar whose mouth was half open.
“-A fast cycle,” Balthazar said to continue what he had said last night, “We will have to do our best and hope that it will pass soo-”
Ginny’s soul was ripped from her muddy form again and sent back into her body. She opened her eyes and froze as she saw that her room was dark. Her three roommates were asleep, their chests rising and falling slowly as they lay there in their beds. Ginny carefully sat up and looked around. What had happened? The light of the full moon shone through the window and lit up the room in silver beams.
There was a click and the door to the room began to slowly creak open. Ginny fumbled at her dresser and picked up her wand even as she sprouted over fifteen thick magic tendrils out of her body ready to strike whoever it was coming in. Ginny felt her fingers trembling as she prepared to cast. The door opened slightly and Ginny flinched and aborted, striking with the fifteen magic tendrils that had darted forward and closed half of the distance between Ginny and the door in a flash. She pulled them back as she saw Olivia’s head at the door. The older girl looked around and spotted Ginny who was awake and staring at her.
The girl nodded and waved Ginny towards her while putting a finger up to her lips. Then Olivia slowly backed up and shut the door quietly. Using the moonlight as a guide, Ginny quickly slipped into her school robes and shoes and snuck out into the hallway where Olivia was waiting. Olivia waved and the two of them carefully made their way to the common room.
Once they were in the empty common room, Ginny turned to Olivia. “What’s going on?” Ginny whispered, “What are we doing?”
“Follow me,” Olivia whispered in a flat tone. She straightened up and walked towards the exit to the common room. Ginny hesitated for a moment, but then followed. It was Olivia right? She must have a reason for doing all of this.
They walked through the dark Hogwarts hallways until they reached the entrance to the silent and dark Hogwarts great lawn.
Ginny was about to take a step when all of a sudden she felt a painful twinge and sharp pull on the other side of her familiar bond. Oh no! Fawkes! Ginny turned around and started running back into the castle.
“Stupify,” Olivia said from behind her, and before Ginny knew it everything went black around her.
Ginny woke up to find herself floating in the air levitating near the ceiling of a rickety and cracked wooden ceiling above her. In the ramshackle room of broken furniture and broken boards and mold below, Ginny could just barely see Olivia standing there ramrod straight in front of a terrifying creature shrouded in shadow. The humanoid creature towered over Olivia, its sharp claws like curved swords on the ends of its fingers. It was covered in gray fur and its jaws were dripping with saliva. Its eyes were glowing bright with a golden light. It was a werewolf!
“Tell me! Where is the person? The one you were tasked to retrieve?” The creature asked roughly as it contorted its massive jaws in strange ways.
“They are here, delivered to you as ordered.” Olivia replied absently, sounding almost drugged or detached from reality.
“Where are they?! Show them to me!”
“They are in this room,” Olivia said, “I have delivered them as ordered.”
“But where?! Enough of this. Without magic to give new orders, you’re useless. In this room, hm? Do you perhaps care for this girl, Beyonder?” The werewolf said, “Perhaps I should turn her into a werewolf? Quite the miserable existence in this world. It would be so easy…”
The werewolf opened its jaws wide and hovered them directly over Olivia’s shoulder without biting down. Olivia’s wand arm that was still pointed at Ginny started to tremble slightly even as the rest of her body remained still.
Olivia! Ginny sent out a magic tendril to the glass of a nearby window and with a push, sent it outward and shattered the glass with a loud crash. With a blur of motion, the werewolf leaned away from Olivia and leapt towards the window with its jaws wide and claws extended. It started flailing around wildly, its brightly glowing golden eyes looking every which way as it smashed everything around the area in its rampage.
Ginny felt into the pocket of her robes and pulled out her wand. She tugged on her bond with Fawkes hard, but there was no response. She could tell he was alive and didn't seem to be in any pain. But something must have happened. He had always responded, even if just a little when she tugged on their bond. What had happened to him that he wouldn’t respond at all?
“BEYONDER! I KNOW YOU’RE IN HERE SOMEWHERE!” The werewolf howled as it stood among the wreckage on that side of the room.
“I don’t know how you disguise yourself from me, Beyonder,” the werewolf continued as it started pacing around the room, occasionally swiping its massive claws across the room and snapping at thin air occasionally.
“But I will tear answers from your soul piece by piece if I have to. No one defies Fate and gets away with it! It must have been you that took Pettigrew from me. I’m sure of it. Sirius Black was supposed to be here with Harry Potter. He would face the Dementors, Pettigrew would escape and be pivotal to the future… All of that lost because of your interference. But in this confluence of important events, I can act and find you again. Things are out of place, and it is all because of YOU! Everything a beautiful clockwork and running according to my design. And you’re interfering where you DON’T BELONG! ALL OF YOU OF THE BEYOND ARE PARASITES!”
The werewolf leapt to the other side of the room and started snarling and slashing at thin air with its claws even as it smashed the furniture and floor around it into kindling as Ginny floated above...
Ginny pulsed her magic sense and took in the building. They were alone it seems. The door out was locked shut even as Ginny floated on the ceiling on Olivia’s spell. She could see that Olivia was starting to sweat and breathe a little heavier as she held her wand aloft to keep Ginny in the air.
Ginny took her magic tendrils and had an idea as she saw the broken window. She took six of her tendrils and sunk them into the door deeper into the house. With a soft grunt, Ginny sent the door flying back into the hallway, ripping it clean off of its rotten hinges and falling to the floor with a crash. Extending her magic tendril farther out, Ginny started shifting little pieces of debris on the floor as if to mimic somebody running away.
“I’VE GOT YOU NOW, BEYONDER!” The werewolf howled, “I’ll TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB AND FEAST ON YOUR FLESH!”
The werewolf charged out of the room and with loud crashes and crunches of claws on wood, tore through the building in hot pursuit of Ginny’s false footsteps. In her magic sense, Ginny detected the werewolf destroy a wooden cabinet into a cloud of wood splinters with a single swipe of a clawed hand. She swallowed thickly and kept focused on trying to make the noises and shifting of debris keep moving through the house.
With all the noise from below, Ginny took her remaining magic tendrils and pushed on the window and sank it into the glass. She pushed it out, but instead of letting it shatter, She grabbed each of the broken pieces and cleared them out from the window frame. She waved at Olivia and gestured to let her down. Olivia’s wand arm lowered and Ginny was gently lowered to the floor.
Ginny landed on her feet and stepped forward to grab the older girl’s hand. Olivia stared at her blankly as Ginny pulled her towards the open window as quietly as she could while also keeping the charade of her running away from the rabid werewolf snarling and rampaging on the other side of the building.
Ginny stood by the window with the blank faced Olivia standing next to her.
“C’mon, Olivia,” Ginny whispered, “Let’s go, get out of here. While I’ve got it distracted.”
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Olivia turned her head and looked at Ginny with an empty gaze.
Ginny walked around and shoved Olivia from behind towards the open window, which the girl didn’t resist. Ginny used her magic sense to carefully inspect the girl and her magic closely. There was a spell wrapped around her like nothing that Ginny had ever seen before. She had never tried breaking an enchantment on another person before. But she needed Olivia’s help to escape. The window was on the third floor of the building. Ginny might be able to get them both to the ground, but she’d be almost completely exhausted if she did so.
She inspected the spell surrounding Olivia critically for a long moment before carefully poking various points of it. They all shivered and flexed, but individually none of them caused the spell to fail. Olivia’s blank expression changed slightly and her cheeks started to flush slightly.
Ginny took all the weak points and checked again to see if she had missed any. For it to fail all at once, Ginny would have to hit them all at once. She took a deep breath but then injected her magic full speed into the points. The spell flexed and tried to resist Ginny but she pushed more magic into it and after a moment’s resistance the spell shattered.
Olivia’s face suddenly became more animated and her knees buckled slightly, panting heavily as she stumbled forward. She almost fell forward through the window, but Ginny stopped her with her magic tendrils, holding her back by her robes.
Olivia opened her mouth to talk as she spotted Ginny, but Ginny put a finger over her mouth and shook her head. Olivia shut her mouth and nodded. Ginny stopped her footstep charade with the werewolf raging on the other side of the building on the third floor. She needed to conserve her magic for this.
Ginny stepped up to the window and leaned out to look to the ground three stories down. She looked at Olivia and after pointing towards the two of them, pointed to the ground after.
Olivia looked confused and gestured to her wand after shaking her head. She couldn’t do that.
Ginny slung one leg over the windowsill and gestured for Olivia to come over. Olivia slung her own leg over the sill even as she looked confused. Ginny scooted forward and wrapped her arms around Olivia in a big hug. After some hesitation, Olivia followed suit. Olivia leaned in so she was whispering directly in Ginny’s ear, “What’s the plan?”
“I’ll get us down,” Ginny said, “But it’ll take most of what I have. You’ll have to get us back to the castle and get help.”
“How?”
The crashes stopped and Ginny felt the ball of magic representing the werewolf pause and cock its head to the side as if listening to something.
Ginny heaved and the two of them went tumbling out of the window. Olivia let out a gasp, but Ginny took her magic tendrils and attached them to both of their robes. She pushed up and their fall slowed. But with so much weight, Ginny’s magic immediately began to drain at a rapid rate. By the time their feet touched the ground, Ginny was panting slightly. Not as drained as she thought she would be, but still tired.
Olivia looked shocked at what happened, but followed as Ginny started running towards the castle and pulling the older girl along by the arm. They were running for twenty seconds or so before a loud howl pierced the night behind them. Ginny turned to see the werewolf standing in the frame of the window she and Olivia had jumped out of. It was clawing and opening a hole for its bulky form to move through, its eyes fixed on Olivia as she ran next to Ginny. Ginny noticed that its glowing golden eyes didn’t stray from Olivia to flicker to Ginny even for an instant. Was it not able to see her at all? Was it because of the necklace she had gotten from Balthazar that protected her from Fate? It worked on people that Fate was possessing too?
Ginny saw the werewolf finally finished tearing through the gap. It tumbled from the third floor in an uncontrolled fall. It hit the ground on its feet and immediately fell to the ground and yowled as its legs buckled under it.
As the two of them kept running, Ginny had a hope for a moment that it had been immobile. Twisting its ankle or breaking a leg from its fall. But then the beast twitched and Ginny’s eyes widened. She turned her head back around and flared her magic sense as far as she could.
She couldn’t detect the werewolf in her magic sense at this distance, but she prepared her magic tendrils for battle even as she faced forward and kept running. If it recovered it would be after them in moments.
“Olivia!” Ginny panted, “Run faster!”
The two of them pushed the pace, sprinting back towards the castle as fast as they could neck in neck. Ginny was more fit, but Olivia was much taller and older and so was still able to go just as fast as Ginny with the adrenaline pumping in their veins.
Ginny heard another loud howl behind them and the sound of heavy footsteps behind them. Ginny tensed. It had just entered the edges of her magic senses approaching at high speeds.
— — —
The puppet’s limbs were broken, and destroyed by the fall. Luckily this form was a werewolf, famous for their regeneration under moonlight. As the puppet sat there yowling and roaring in pain, Fate observed. No matter how hard she looked, she could not locate the Beyonder or even find the hole in her web that they must be occupying to be living at Hogwarts.
The moonlight shining down on the puppet did its work and the puppet’s limbs snapped and cracked as they realigned themselves and healed themselves. The puppet stood, moved by Fate’s chains looping through its form. Fate would have to make sure to eliminate the Beyonder tonight. After the confluence of events she had been preparing for passed, she would be unable to interfere for a time. Who knew what else the Beyonder would disrupt by them? Things were still manageable, the disruptions contained. But better to quash the Beyonder and its strange disguise against her started doing its work.
Fate watched through the puppet’s eyes as it stood and sniffed the air deeply. It saw the older girl fleeing into the distance. Fate had taken interest when the girl had spoken a name she could not remember during her class with the puppet. The imperius curse had allowed Fate to tell her to bring this person to the puppet at the proper time. She’d have ordered the girl to kill the Beyonder, but it was too risky. Who knew what horcruxes or life saving methods it might have that would allow it to escape if Fate wasn’t nearby to interfere after its body was destroyed? It had been hard enough with having another imperiused student send a killing curse at the sleeping phoenix. Fate knew Fawkes was bonded to someone, but not to who. Fate wasn’t sure if it was the Beyonder or someone else, but it was better to be safe in case the Beyonder might call for help from the Phoenix.
The older girl… the Beyonder had acted to save her. It's what must have happened, there was no other way that she could have broken free from the imperius curse. Fate and its puppet couldn’t see the Beyonder directly… but if the girl was threatened then perhaps it would expose itself somehow.
The puppet started to run, eating up the ground between itself and the running seventh year girl.
Fate watched the weave, the pattern she had built. Yes, she could snip this one thread if it came down to it. Time to see if the Beyonder would really intervene to save the girl…
— — —
Lupin could only despair as his werewolf form moved against his will to rush towards the two girls fleeing from him. This was unlike any imperius curse he’d ever heard of. Who had even cast it at him? He’d been an observer in his own body for months, unable to do anything as a stranger possessed him and forced him to teach his classes like nothing was wrong.
For some reason the person possessing his body was unable to see young Ginny Weasley despite smelling her and looking directly at her at points. It was spouting nonsense about her being a ‘Beyonder’ and rambling about ‘Fate’. His body charged towards the two girls at high speed, already healed from the moonlight shining down on it.
Lupin’s body had already closed half the distance between itself and the girls. They wouldn’t make it to the castle nearly in enough time. Just when Lupin thought that all was lost, his body suddenly tripped and fell to the ground on all fours. His head turned to look behind him and saw a foot wide clump of dirt had risen in the air where the body’s foot had landed, sending it tumbling to the ground.
“Telekinesis,” Lupin’s werewolf mouth growled, “I knew you were with her, Beyonder.”
His body stood and kept charging after the girl’s howling loudly as it did so. More clumps of dirt rose underneath Lupin’s feet, seeking to throw his body off balance and create unstable footing below him. The body stumbled side to side but managed to stay standing as it kept moving forward. The two girls were building more of a lead on Lupin’s body now, but not nearly enough. Even now, Lupin could feel that the clumps of rising dirt were becoming more and more infrequent even after a few seconds. Ginny Weasley stumbled slightly looking exhausted as the two girls kept running back to the castle.
Lupin tried to think of what to do as the clumps of dirt throwing off his footing stopped emerging. The body charged in a loping run, eating up the distance again. The body would be upon the two girls in seconds. He tried to resist to make his body move, but the force controlling him was too strong.
He could only watch in horror as his body closed the distance to the two girls in a flash.
A barrage of invisible blows pushed back on Lupin’s body as it was only a few steps away. It moved through them, barely slowed by the blows that barely even rippled its fur.
“Olivia!” Ginny shouted, “Behind you!”
But it was too late. As the Ravenclaw Prefect slowed in her run and turned around with her wand drawn, Lupin’s body was already above her. His two arms ended with massive claws extended and wrapped around the girl and lifted her off the ground with a grunt, sending the girl’s wand tumbling from her hand as her arms were crushed against her body.
Lupin’s body opened its mouth as his head scanned the lawn while completely skipping over the panicking Ginny Weasley.
“Expose yourself, Beyonder!” Lupin’s body said, “Or the girl dies. She is an acceptable loss.”
Lupin’s body opened his jaws and opened and closed them over Olivia’s head. The Ravenclaw prefect had frozen in fear as Lupin’s two clawed hands gripped her tightly.
“Or I could keep her alive and turn her into a werewolf,” Lupin’s mouth said, “A miserable existence in this world. Perhaps worse than death. You’d let her suffer through that when you worked so hard to save her, Beyonder?”
Lupin thrashed and fought as hard as he could to stop his body. He would not be like Greyback, infecting others to suffer through being a werewolf like he’d had to endure. But his body didn’t respond at all, no matter how much he struggled to stop it.
Lupin saw a strange bone necklace with a red gem shimmer into existence around Ginny Weasley’s neck. She looked hesitant, looking between Olivia and her necklace. She looked exhausted, barely able to stand as sweat poured down her face and breathing like she’d almost drowned and was recovering her air as quickly as she could.
“I could just kill her too,” Lupin’s mouth said, “Five seconds before I make a decision.”
Lupin’s jaws opened wide above and descended until his mouth was completely around Olivia’s whole shoulder and into most of her torso. Lupin’s mouth pressed gently in, not breaking through her robes just yet to bite down.
Ginny looked tense and after closing her eyes, reached up to her neck to remove the necklace protecting her from Lupin’s body’s gaze.
No! Lupin thought. But he could only watch as Ginny’s hand grew closer to her neck and his body’s jaws began to slowly increase their pressure and bite down on the Ravenclaw Prefect. To infect her and turn her into a monster like him.