Attire: Usual weekend kit: Slytherin pride, kilt, no shoes, wolf fang necklace, feathers in his braid.

Reducio

Part 1
1 July 2023

Colin opened his eyes. His head hurt. His chest hurt. His arms hurt. The Sun beat down on him and he heard the sound of a cat wailing not too far away. It sounded worried and scared. Something was sticking out of his mouth, like one of those muggle see gar willow things that made stinky smoke. Colin reached up to get it out. His left hand and arm were bloodied. He sat up and looked himself over. His shirt and skin had been neatly sliced. There was blood everywhere.

He saw that he was up against a stone wall by the side of a road. Water flowed nearby. He took a drink. The Mudhadal. Colin smiled. He was home. He found his trunk some yards away, and his satchel and broom. "Greebo? It's okay lad, you can come out!"

"RRRRUUUUUUUWWWW!?"

It took a moment, but Colin soon spotted a midnight black face with piercing blue eyes peek through the wildflowers along the river bank. Colin sat on his trunk and spread the parchment out. It looked like a ten year old wrote it. Rich, coming from a thirteen year old! "Hamish. Always sucked at penmanship that one." He remembered now what must have occasioned his older cousin Hamish to write such a lengthy and elegant bit of prose.

Yore such a wank, Caileann. You and y'ore half stauner and you're stupid mudblood wifey. Yoo'd best not cost me my position --- WE ARE NOT DUN!

Colin smirked. The note was smudged and blood stained. He sniffed at it. It wasn't his blood. Colin smiled. The fight had been quick and dirty. It had been over Clair. Hamish just couldn't accept that a Pureblood would love a muggleborn. They fought right there on the A-836 on the Mudhadal Bridge. It was just like the battles between heroes in the old stories, fighting at the ford of a river. For all he was grown up, Colin realised that Hamish, whilst brutal, wasn't terribly good at magic. He probably shouldn't have called him a squib, though. Hamish truly excelled at two basic spells, and even though Colin had set his cousin's head on fire and severed his left hand, Hamish's slashing spell almost split his body open and his flipendo was like being kicked in the nuts by an erumpent. The last thing he remembered was flying head first towards the stone wall of the bridge.

"Well Greebo me lad! I reckon Hamish 'The Hammer' is off to St Mungos to get his poor hand fixed up! But at least we're home, laddie! I'm sure ye'll like it here!" Colin considered strapping everything to his broom and flying the rest of the way home, but decided that he wasn't bleeding that badly and after the Battle of Clair's Honour a walk up the lane towards McCoire House would do him good. "I just wish Liam were here, Greebo lad!"

"MRRRR."

"Aye, you'd've liked him! He's just like me! Only Ravenclaw, like Clair!" Colin smiled as he walked along the empty road. He paused at the road sign. Tongue lay some miles ahead on the A-836, but they'd be turning off towards the northwest. "Ironic lad," he said to the black cat. He nodded towards the sign. "Hope. That's where we're headed. There's no hope of finding anything there but Liam's grave."

Colin let out a deep and heavy sigh. His shoulders sank. He took off his bloodied shirt, gathered up his things and made the turn up the lane towards Hope and home. Greebo dashed about sniffing here and there.

Part 2

It was a long and lonesome walk.

Unlike the A-836, where Colin and Liam used to bring Ciarán to watch the muggles drive their fast motorcars and bikes, this track seemed to have been all but unknown to muggledom. Colin met some foxes crossing from side to the other, and the occasional raven going about its business; but apart from himself and Greebo, no one was travelling the narrow lane.

"Stupid Hamish," he said suddenly. Greebo paid him no mind. He had found something far more interesting in the water ditch by the roadside. "Honestly Greebo. If he calls Clair a mudblood ever again, I swear I'll rip his entire arm off! Might even bite the bastard. See how the Bats like that." Colin huffed for a little while as he trudged along. "He knows what I am." This actually worried Colin considerably. His family knew of course. But that didn't include any of his many cousins or other relations. Even Angus and Argus weren't such gits that they'd spill the tea on their brother to the likes of Hamish. Of course, Colin had made no secret of his werewolfery this year. "It's not like I went around telling everyone I met, right? 'Ayo! I'm Colin! I'm a Werewolf!!' But how did Hamish find out?"

Colin took no more than three steps further when he saw in his mind's eye Clair and AngelFyre sitting on either side of him. They were in the caretakers cabin again. "Whoa. Could that be it?" He didn't want to speak the thought aloud at first. He stopped. He set his trunk down in the middle of the lane. He sat down on it and thought everything through.

Clair and AngelFyre had helped him with so much this year! They helped him find out who had written the hit letter. Agatha Auchincloss. Aunt Aggatha. Lemon face. That sour old woman from the wedding last year. She sent the Werewolves after Colin before he started Hogwarts. He knew that he, Liam and Ciarán didn't kill the beast. Surely she would know about his condition. She'd know he had been bitten. Colin smirked. She probably got an earful from whoever the Wolf was, on account of having to go home missing his upper right canine!

"Aw, crap. How many people has she told? Hamish and Uncle Hamish already hate me and Da. Did she tell them too?" Greebo nudged Colin's leg comfortingly. He casually licked between his toes. Colin wondered at how long his claws were. "Ye did well in the fight, laddie!" Colin said, scritching the black cat's head. "It was terribly bad sport of him to send a spell yer way! I don't reckon ye have any magic to fight back with?" Greebo had scratched Hamish's knee, so no doubt the older lad would bear a grudge against Colin's cat, too.

"Welp. We'll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it, eh Greebo?"

"MrrrrRRRR?"

Colin patted the cat's sides before getting up and continuing his walk home. He couldn't help but wonder. If Hamish knew that Colin was a Werewolf, might he be working for Aunt Agatha? Sure he sent the hit letter home, along with what he and Clair and AngelFyre had come up with. He knew now that he should have said something sooner, but he wanted to find evidence! He wanted to help corner Liam's killer!

He shook his head as he walked.

What if he wasn't safe, even here at home? "If someone attacked me out here on the lane, they could stuff us into the chest, Greebo, bury the lot, and no one would ever know..."

@Clair Fernandez | @AngelFyre McCubbin

Part 3

Colin's mind swirled with all sorts of jumbled things, thoughts of Luci and Becca and Tes and conjectures about Avery and now Hamish and of course day dreams about Clair, as the warm Sun beat down on him and he made his way home again. Time slowed for Colin as he walked along the lane and his second year at Hogwarts filtered through his imagination. The rush of the Mudhadal sang from a distance to Colin's left side and the small streams bubbling down from higher ground to the right came to him at intervals.

At last the narrow lane broadened slightly and a gate was visible to the left. The dirt lane that went down that way led to a rather stately cottage where his Aunt Maureen and her gang of bairns lived. They often came up to McCoire House, or he and his siblings would go down to theirs to have adventures in the Great South Lands. To the west lived the families of several of Colin's Da's cousins. But it was to the north Colin turned. Another narrow track, partially lined with stone, partially with clover, stood McCoire House. Some distance away from the track stood a high and imposing tower. His cousins, Wolf, Argus and Merlin, all averred that the White Tower was haunted by a powerful witch.

"Well, duh!" Colin said aloud. Greebo looked up at his boy from his perch on a stack of rounded stones. Colin laughed! "Of course the White Tower is haunted by a powerful witch, Greebo me lad! That's Auntie Indigo's house!" That was another of Colin's favourite places, because as sure as he and Liam and Ciarán would show up, the twins Scathach and Malcolm, his Uncle Colin's kids, would be sure to play some big kid games with them and they could easily press Aunti Indigo for stories about the War and what they got up to at Hogwarts when Mr Potter was there!

Colin loved Auntie Indigo. Not least because the twins looked a lot like Colin and Liam (though red haired in stead of pale blond) and were similarly rambunctious, but because she knew his Uncle Colin so well. It was she who had given him his uncle's old school robes and a few trinkets he carried with him whilst at Hogwarts.

He waved to the Tower and headed along the track again. It wasn't too long that he heard a voice from up ahead. It was familiar. Colin smiled. It was Ciarán, his little sister! She'd be starting Hoggys in September! He'd just turned into the drive that led through the grounds of McCoire House when she met him with huge smile! Colin dropped his trunk and satchel and broom by the side of the track. "CAILEANNNNN!!!" she cried as he whirled her around. "Cailean? Wh--- Look at ye lad! Why is there always so much blood on ye, laddie? Oo! Ye've a kitty!"

Ciarán turned from Colin as quick as a wink once she'd caught sight of Greebo. For his part, the cat was not quite sure what to make of the girl. "What's his name? Coo kitty kitty! Who's a handsome lad!? And look at yer beautiful blue eyes!" Before Greebo preened as the girl showered him with compliments. She picked him up and cuddled him in her arms! She scritched his ears and rubbed his tummy. Greebo's eyes widened. This was not how it was supposed to work! He was supposed to be a fierce cat! And here he was purring and enjoying a tummy rub!

Colin told his sister a little of the story. About Hamish and the fight. She nodded, telling him that Ma had sent him to London. Of course, Hamish had grumbled like a school boy made to clean the black boards! For some reason, Da and a whole bunch of the men of the household had gone away. Even Auntie Indigo and her twins, Scathach and Malcolm. She shook her head slowly. "No one would tell me anything, Cail! So, I just came out here to watch for ye! And ye're a right mess!"

"Well, Ci, when am I not a mess? I was almost killed down there ---!"

"For the looooove of Clllaaaiiirrr!!!" Ciarán rolled her eyes dramatically and laughed. "Anyway, ye'll live! Honestly, if I knew any spells, I'm sure I'd be cleaning the blood off ye day after day Cailean McCoire!" They heard sounds just then. Coming from within the gardens just inside the ancient stone wall. Voices. Lots of voices. Ciarán shrugged. "Maybe they're back, eh?"

Colin shrugged too. He was about to gather up his trunk and things again, ready to take the last steps towards home.

But he never did.

Ciarán gasped. She unceremoniously dropped Greebo!

"RAWRRR!" he growled. But neither Ciarán nor Colin paid him any mind.

The voices from inside the wall grew louder as they approached. There was shouting. Not of anger, but of concern! What was going on? Colin wondered. Suddenly people poured out of the gate, not twenty yards away. A figure separated itself from the rest, pale against the darker, taller figures behind.

It was tall. And narrow. And pale.

It looked like a gangly thing, a wild creature captured in some primaeval forest. It's hair, like Colin's own, was pale and was also matted and spiked at odd angles. It bore scars on its neck and the left side of its bare torso. There was a heart shaped mark on its chest. It wore only what appeared to be a stained and frayed old tablecloth or curtain of pale blue around its thin, bony waist. Its ribs were showing and it looked half starved.

But the eyes were clear! A sort of pond scum green!

Ciarán screamed!

The world collapsed around Colin. Everything was thrown into tumult and chaos! He lost all sight of his sister and all the others of his family and kin.

Neither of the figures said a word for a long moment. Then, two high, desperate, voices sounded out as if in long practiced unison:

LIIIAAAMMM!!! CAAAIIILLLEEEAAANNN!!!

Ciarán stared. She began to shiver! What was she seeing? Colin paid her no mind! She was no longer in his world! He only ran like a mad thing! And the dirty, half starved skeleton that looked like Colin ran like a mad thing! With whoops and howls and hot tears of pure unadulterated joy, two boys jumped into each other and each grabbed the other into the tightest and fiercest of embraces! No words were spoken, for there were no words in any language that could express what was happening in the bright summer afternoon. There were only sobs and cries rising up and flying from the profoundest depths of the twin souls.

They twirled each other around, then collapsed into the soft grass and wildflowers and herbs that lined the drive. Sobs turned into squeals and cries turned into heart overflowing laughter as two boys took to wrestling and tickling each other and carrying on in a heap of long arms and legs as if nothing evil at all had happened to them over the last year!

"Ye--- Ye're alive!" cried Colin as the lay facing each other in the grass. He touched his twin's scars.

"What do ye mean me!? They said you were dead lad!" Liam returned.

Both gave each other expressions of surprise!

"Wait. I got a letter and everything Liam! From St. Mungo's! Ma and Da said they buried you! I --- I was gonna go looking, you know..."

"... for me grave! Ye're a grand brother to me, Cailean! But! I'll have ye know Cailean lad that none other than Auld Aunt Hagatha herself made sure to tell me you were quite dead! That the Wolves finished you --- that night --- along with everyone else!"

They stared at each other for a long time. Clearly neither one of them would admit to actually being dead, so for his part, Colin decided that, in fact, they must both be alive and very much lied to. It felt like he was the butt of some horrible prank. "Aunt Agatha, eh. Old Sour Face herself. She --- I mean. The --- The letter."

"I know Cailean! Da told me some of it! About the letter and you and yer girlfriend!" Liam laughed loudly and made throbby hearts with his hands! Colin wrestled his twin over and the both squeaked! "Cailean's got a wifey! Bonny as can be! YEEEEEKK!!" Liam's entire body convulsed from the massive tickle onslaught!

"Shut it Liam McCoire!" cried Colin.

Liam laughed all the more! They sat up after a moment, facing each other.

Liam poked Colin's chest. "Ye've more scars than I remember lad."

Colin smirked, poking Liam's chest. "No, lad! You've more scars than I remember!" He traced the lines of somewhat evenly spaced marks, as if the skin had been rent by claws of some kind. He gently touched the numerous puncture marks on Liam's throat and left shoulder. Colin's green eyes sought out those of his Liam. He looked deeply into them. He wasn't sure how, but somehow he knew what Liam would tell him next.

Colin nodded, as to say it was okay.

Liam whispered: "Th---She never gave me any potion, lad. I ---"

Silence fell between them. Colin's eyes began to grow damp. How ---!? What an evil woman! Vile! She deserved no mercy, and Colin hoped that Da snuffed her proper. This was too much to process right now.

Colin took Liam into his arms.

He spoke gently into his brother's ears.

"It's mank, mate, let me tell you! But. We'll drink it together. From now on!"

@Clair Fernandez | @AngelFyre McCubbin