seeking thestral

[occluminous]

Feral goes back to school. Bella goes to Charlie's house for the rest of the summer. She studies her textbooks and does her summer projects and owls her friends.

She thinks about Dementors.

Comments

[pythbox]

Feral shuts his ghostly white eyes and ducks his dragonlike head and folds his dragonlike wings, shivering uncontrollably.

[alicornucopia]

Charlie doesn't fire.

He says, projecting enough to be heard through the house: "Bells. Magic thing. Back door. Don't come too close."

[occluminous]

Bella's footsteps come down the stairs, and -

"Dad - Dad don't shoot - Dad put the gun down -"

[alicornucopia]

"What is it, Bells, do you know?" Charlie asks, not lowering the gun.

[occluminous]

"That's my friend, he can turn into -"

[alicornucopia]

"You said you had a friend turned into something invisible, Renée said -"

[occluminous]

"Some people can see them, Dad - but he's my friend - put the gun down, now!"

[pythbox]

Feral continues to shiver.

[occluminous]

"Turn back?" Bella suggests.

[pythbox]

He shakes his head rapidly back and forth.

[occluminous]

"Are you stuck or someth- Dad for crying out loud stop pointing a gun at my friend!"

[alicornucopia]

Slowly, Charlie lowers, and holsters, his gun.

[pythbox]

Feral hears it. He blinks his eyes open, and takes a few steps back, still tense and shivering and with his wings tightly folded.

[occluminous]

Bella pushes past Charlie and hugs Feral round the neck. "Are you okay?" she murmurs.

[pythbox]

He unfolds a wing and drapes it around her, nuzzling her shoulder. Slowly, the shivering fades.

And then he turns back, and he's a fourteen-year-old boy in slightly old-fashioned and very beat-up clothes, clinging to Bella and crying.

[occluminous]

Hugs. Hugs hugs. "Dad," says Bella, "go away."

[alicornucopia]

Charlie goes.

[pythbox]

"I didn't think," Feral mumbles into her shoulder, "I didn't think he was there, I didn't think he'd see me, I didn't think he'd - and then I was just afraid I was gonna set him on fire - that's why I didn't turn back, I didn't know if it was just being a Thestral that was stopping me. Last time I was that scared I lit up my broom."

[occluminous]

"I'm sorry," says Bella, hugging him tight. "If I thought you were going to come here I would've warned you he might be able to see you - I'm sorry."

[pythbox]

Feral clings some more.

[occluminous]

Hug hug hug hug.

[pythbox]

Hug hug hug snuggle hug sniffle hug.

[occluminous]

"Do you want to come in or are you so spooked you're going to fly home as soon as you're done hugging me?" asks Bella weakly.

[pythbox]

"...dunno," he says. "Not done hugging you yet."

Hug.

[occluminous]

Hug.