He thought about Mr. Weasley's talk the previous year. Specifically about his suggestion of working with the Hufflepuffs who dominated the Ministry. They were a tight group, the Puffs in Harry's year. Good at keeping their secrets, Harry guessed.
Why, Harry wondered. Why were they so tight? What about being in a particular house helped them to be that way? Perhaps working with them started with understanding them.
So...how?
Harry had three classes with students from Hufflepuff. Herbology, Magical Creatures, and Arithmancy. Two of them were his new classes this year. So, otherwise it would have just been one class. And he only had all of Hufflepuff in one of those classes.
So the school schedule tried to keep Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs apart. Strange that. It was probably some tradition or a provision in some law or other. The petty things wizards did to hurt each other or repay slights...
Harry finished eating and decided to return to his walk outside. It was too nice to rush back to the tower on a day where he didn't even have classes.
Some time later, Harry was standing by the edge of the forest looking back at Hogwarts, trying to count the windows. That strange man earlier had put quite the story in Harry's head. Count the windows and find a cursed object. Ridiculous – or not?
Peeves was up there somewhere, wasn't he? Maybe Harry could do something about Peeves for his public project in Runes. Harry had heard that banishing ghosts was a dangerous business, but was it possible to repel them in some way?
Harry looked back to Hogwarts. He was excited for the year. He started to walk back to meet up with his friends. How would he fill this Sunday? He had finished his summer homework already...
He didn't make it to the castle as he planned.
Harry didn't feel the man knock him down, though he did feel the pain of the knife-slice. It wasn't immediate that pain, but gradual. Harry kicked and fought, but the powerful man held him down to the ground.
He looked like hair sprouted from every part of his face, neck, and hands. All his exposed skin was covered in a thick mat of hair.
"Quiet, boy."
He sounded like he was from Ireland.
"You know me, don't you? I'm not even from County Cork. Don't know why they call me the Wolf from Bandon..."
Harry had been attacked by a werewolf, the one who'd escaped Azkaban. Sirius had talked about him. Harry felt... Harry felt... He tried to reach for his wand. He couldn't find it. Where was it?
"I never killed those ones I went to prison for. I never did," he shouted. "I never attacked no one. Never did. All this hair, though. Can't hold a job. People can't even stand to look at me. It weren't safe for me, nowhere I went. A were like me, it's easy to say, "there, that's the one" and the Aurors came for me plenty of times. This last time they said I killed. I never did. I never would..."
He refused to look at Harry.
"I owe you to the man who got me free. So I suppose I will now be a killer. The cost of my freedom. I'm sorry, but it won't change my mind... Don't know you, don't know much about you at all. Boy-Who-Lived...well, you toppled one evil, but what about them Aurors... Never did nothing to them and they're worse than any You-Know-Who. So, thanks. But it wasn't enough. For me own sake, I'll try not to make this hurt. I've never done this before..."
Light flashed from inside the woods and the man, the wolf, jolted and started to bleed. His head fell to the right and his body slumped to the left.
Harry had gray spots in his vision. The knife...the cut. He dabbed at the blood and the ruined fabric of his robe. The cut hurt. "Help."
Someone had killed this man from the forest. Was he coming to help?
Or... what were the other choices?
Harry had to sit up. He had to get himself back into the castle now. He had to walk. He had to run...
The first person Harry came across screamed and ran away. Big help there. The second, however, was a Ravenclaw prefect Harry couldn't name. His eyes became bigger than dinner plates, but he pulled Harry into the castle. Harry passed out as he saw the distant doors of the infirmary.