Coughing violently, Madeline burst out of the Great Hall and surged into the corridor, followed by billowing (kinda) smoke and a herd of frightened, and some elated, students. As the students scattered, herded by their teachers towards their common rooms, Maddie broke off from the crowd and out a side door. Ignoring any shouts to stop, Maddie ran towards the lake. And ran and ran and ran. The wolf transformation had turned her into a freak, but a freak that could run.

The straps of her shoes had snapped apart during the transformation and the heeled soles were flapping against her hairy heels as she tore through the underbrush, her once white dress getting more and more torn as she did so. The rocky ground tore into her feet but she ignored the pain and ran blindly towards the lake, the tears in her eyes obscuring her vision. Which was all the better since all she could focus on was her furry, clawed hands that tore at the branches and shrubs in her way.

She didn't stop running until she ran out of ground to run on and did a flying cannonball into the icy cold lake. For a moment, as she sunk into the murky depths, she felt like time had stopped. Noise faded and Maddie let herself hang there in the void, debating whether she even wanted to return to the surface or not. When she ran out of air she had no choice but to decide and at the last moment, she reminded herself that this wasn't the end of the world and that she was stronger then this. No stupid words from stupid boys, hideous transformations or fires could make her give it all up. With this in mind, she kicked off and pushed towards the surface.

As she broke through the icy waves, Maddie gasped for air, her legs kicking frantically to keep her afloat. Once she had coughed up the bit of water she ingested, She turned towards the shore and swam as hard as she could. Since it was a short drop that she had jumped from, Maddie had to swim a bit farther then anticipated and when she finally pulled herself on shore, she was more exhausted then she expected. Sinking to her knees in the mud, Maddie wrapped her arms around herself and buried her head on her knees, sobs of anger and relief shaking her shoulders.

You think being a seer would make life easier, wouldn’t you? You would think Astrid would have seen what had happened at the Halloween ball coming, but no she saw none of it. The only thing she saw made little sense to her, and didn’t exactly lead her to believe anything would happen at the ball. In any event Astrid had not even made an appearance at the ball out of protest. If she could have made others do the same it might have been more of a statement, but Astrid found it was hard to tell teenage kids not to go and party.

Rather than staying inside, listening to the sounds of the ball she would never admit to wanting to go too, she found herself outside for most of the night. She was walking around the grounds, probably against the rules knowing her luck, but the peace she felt was quickly disturbed. She had been standing near the lakes edge thinking, she had been doing a lot of that lately. Was it time to go back to SAWS? Things were getting mess, and she was stronger or at least she felt like she was. Was she ready to take the reigns on something that exploded like she had not expected. Fauna shouldn’t have to do everything alone.

The splash of the water caught her off guard, but when she saw nothing she thought it to be some water creature celebrating its own Halloween. She didn’t think anything would have gone wrong up at Hogwarts, but how wrong she was. She didn’t expect that a little later she would see someone swimming towards the shore, or was it a something. She couldn’t honestly be sure what it was, but as it neared the shore and moved into an almost fetal position Astrid gasped. She had seen this, it was that damned picture that made no sense and even now it didn’t make sense. Was it a person, was it a wolf? Was it a werewolf? Astrid stopped on the last thought and fumbled for her bag and her wand. Did werewolves swim? Did they look like that? Was it even a full moon? Astrid swallowed the nervous lump forming in her throat, she had no voice to scream but only say, “Hello.”

“Hello.”

"Uh?" Maddie's head snapped up and her wide yellow eyes stared into the darkness at the owner of the voice, horrified that someone had heard her sobbing like a child. Wiping the tears away abruptly, since they obscured her vision, Maddie realized that it was not a stranger but a familiar face staring back at her. Tensing, Maddie didn't know whether to run away or to Astrid. On one hand, Astrid wouldn't attack a werewolf without provecation and she was someone that Maddie trusted and respected. On the other, she hadn't been at the dance and therefore wouldn't know what had happened or that it was Maddie inside that horrible werewolf skin, so she might get scared and run off if Maddie approached her. Besides, she didn't like being seen as a crybaby.

However, one more look down at her malformed paws made Maddie toss all dignity to the wind. She didn't want to face this alone! She wanted to rant and rave and cry to someone who gave a damn. And with her luck, Astrid was one of those people she could do that with, without feeling like she was being judged. A surge of relief  washed away any fears she had and Maddie wiped away the fresh tears before running towards Astrid. Normally such a sight would send someone running in the other direction in terror, but in this form Maddie was faster. She nearly tackled Astrid as she cried out "Aaaaastriiiiiidddd..." and hugged her tightly, her face buried in her shoulder and her still wet dress probably soaking her to the bone.

The attention of the thing was on her, Astrid didn’t even know how to refer to it in her own thoughts. Was it a person? Was it a werewolf? Everything she knew about werewolves didn’t add up to now. She had never heard of a werewolf swimming, nor for one to be around when there was not a full moon. Astrid made a quick look to the sky, she was pretty darn sure there was not a full moon tonight. She brushed her curls from her face nervously; her wand grasped in her other hand tightly but not pointed as to threaten the person or creature. Astrid, if this was a werewolf, was determined to prove they weren’t as terrible as people made them out to be. Astrid felt if she were to run from this, then she would be a hypocrite. What kept her stand there was her vision, for once she was in the place at the right time to fix something.

A small yelp of fear escaped her lips as the thing charged towards her, no person. As her name came from the mouth of the person she was nearly bowled over to the ground with the hug. She could feel the wet seeping into her clothes from this person, whoever they were. Where had they come from? The depths of the water? Then how did they know her name? “You’re a student?” She asked in confusion. What had gone off at that ball? Astrid quickly looked to the castle in confusion, but then back to the person with their arms latched around her. She still held her wand tight, she was fearful because she didn’t know what was going on. “Who are you? What has happened?” Was she once again too late to stop something from happening? This gift was torturing her.