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“'s bin lonely without yeh, Harry,” Hagrid said for about the hundredth time since he had cleared the table.
Harry hadn’t eaten much. He’d not felt himself since that afternoon, after his time in the dungeons.
“I’m sorry it’s been so long,” Harry replied. Again.
“Not yer fault, is it? I understan’ not wantin’ to be bothered an’ all,” Hagrid replied, although Harry did not believe he was happy to be excluded from Harry’s life for so long. No one had been.
Fang howled suddenly, making the both of them jump.
Hagrid stood quickly, hurrying over to the window and pulling back the curtain. The sun had set maybe half an hour earlier, and the candle light reflected off the window from where Harry sat, making it difficult to see out of the glass. Hagrid, however, seemed to have spotted something.
“Damn wolf,” he muttered.
“Wolf?” Harry asked, standing up at joining Hagrid at the window, which was not an easy task, seeing how much space Hagrid took up.
There, at the edge of the forest, stood a white wolf.
“He keeps comin’ out of the forest, he does, an’ getting real close to the grounds. I don’ like it one bit, but McGonagall told me I shouldn’ worry abou’ it. Says he doesn’ go abou’ killing anything an’ so who am I to kick him out? I say jus’ because he hasn’t killed summat yet doesn’ mean he won’t,” Hagrid said, with distaste.
Harry was surprised. Hagrid normally loved animals, especially ones with potential to kill.
“Why don’t you try and feed him to make sure he doesn’t kill anything?” Harry offered. He couldn’t take his eyes off the wolf outside. It slunk along the edge of the forest, but not in a way that suggested sneaking. The elegance in its movement almost seemed learned, the way it held its haunches, the movement of its tail, even the way it cocked its ears. There was an air of dignity about it that Harry did not associate with wild animals.
“I don’t like 'im. He’s just not righ’, Harry,” Hagrid eyed the animal suspiciously.
Harry agreed that the wolf wasn’t right, but he didn’t think it was bad. He sat with Hagrid half an hour more, all the while his mind unable to move on from the wolf. Finally, he found it had been long enough for him to leave without appearing rude, and made to do so.
Hagrid caught him in a bone crushing hug before he made his way out of the door.
“I missed yeh, Harry. Don’ be a stranger,” he said squeezing all the breath out of Harry.
“I won’t, Hagrid,” Harry laughed.
“An’ be careful on yer way back up to the castle,” Hagrid warned. “Tha’ wolf, yeh know.”
“Right,” Harry nodded.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and began the walk back to the castle. It felt strange. It was his second time making the trek today and about his thousandth time making it in his life, but somehow, it felt longer.
He let his thoughts wander back to the Slytherin dungeons and how he might get in. A simple unlocking charm wouldn’t work, or else students would have been breaking into different house’s dormitories willy nilly. He supposed he could hardly ask McGonagall, either, as she seemed rather tight-lipped about the whole thing. He was half wondering if he could blow a hole in the wall of the dungeon when he noticed something move out of the corner of his eye.
He gasped. The wolf.
It was walking right up against the castle wall, so close its side rubbed against the stone. It seemed to notice Harry in the same instance, stopping in its tracks.
There was only about twenty feet between them.
Harry dropped to a squat and held out his hand, as though the animal in front of him were a common house dog.
“Hi,” he called softly. “I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me.”
The wolf tensed at Harry’s voice, but did not make to run away.
“What are you doing so close to the castle? Hagrid doesn’t like it too much, best not let him see,” Harry continued, standing again and walking slowly towards the wolf his hand still extended. He stopped when he had halved the distance and returned to a squat.
“Come on now, I won’t bite,” Harry said.
The wolf let out a snort that Harry felt sounded strangely akin to a laugh, and then began to inch slowly towards him.
Finally, the wolf reached his fingertips, but did not sniff him like a normal dog would. Instead they sat and looked up at Harry, their eyes eerily intelligent. They cocked their head.
Harry noticed up close that the wolf was not a true white, but rather a white gold.
“Aren’t you a pretty thing? I told Hagrid you were nothing to worry about,” Harry murmured. He reached out and pet the wolf’s head, but drew his hand back as soon as it made contact. A wave of unease came over him, that sick feeling he had felt in the hall earlier.
The wolf did not move, other than to look away from Harry, turning their nose into the air, as though offended.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Harry said out loud, feeling suddenly defensive.
The wolf looked at him out of the corner of their eye.
Harry was struck with how human the expression was. It reminded him of when he would talk to Sirius when…Oh. Oh.
“Who—” Harry began but the question died in his throat. He cleared it and began again. “Who, exactly, are you?”
The wolf’s grey eye dragged away from him, looking forwards once more, only more pointedly this time.
“A student?”
The wolf huffed.
“No?”
Nothing.
“A professor, then?”
The laugh-ish snort returned.
“No again?”
The wolf scratched at their ear with their back paw, as if to say, “Just a wolf, thanks.”
“I know you’re not,” Harry said, his voice dropping. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
Another huff Harry chose to read as an affirmative.
“Then you know I was rather close to Sirius Black. I know an animagus when I see one,” he said, most of the time, he added mentally.
