"But she did touch this bird. I'd stake my life on it."
"Um… please, Mister Bird - do you know where Wendy is?" Charla asked imploringly, her eyes shining with hope
...
Fawkes the phoenix trilled again and lifted himself into the air without even flapping his wings, curving over the heads of his audience, turning around and bobbing his head.
"Well, if that's not an indication to follow him then I don't know what is," Lily noted.
"Come on then. Let's move!" Gajeel bolted after the bird, the others close behind. Happy zipped downwards to grab Gajeel and hoist him up into the air in pursuit of their new companion. Fawkes wheeled around and swooped low to the ground, flapping just ahead of the party and leading them back over the greenhouses and out towards the lake again, leaving the unconscious Ron groaning on the ground, just starting to regain his senses.
And it was at this point that Hermione arrived on the scene, having heard some kind of commotion going on from the first floor and, deciding Ron might need some help, hurrying out to see what was happening. When she spotted the youngest Weasley brother lying prone on the ground not far from some shattered glass and a smashed wall, she gasped and darted over to him.
"Ron! Ron, are you okay?! Wake up! Wake up, Ronald!"
"H'mi'ny?" Ron mumbled as he blearily opened his eyes, before he suddenly remembered exactly why he had fainted and yelled, bolting upright and seizing his wand, looking around wildly for his attacker.
"Ron! Ron, what happened?" Hermione gasped. "Why were you lying on the ground?"
"Hermione… there was… there was… long black hair… like some kind of demon… the scariest… he… his arm… sword… arm turn sword… he… he just… out of nowhere…"
"Ron, calm down! Tell me, what happened!"
"Didn't you see him?" Ron cried wildly. "Didn't you… there was a man… and he… Hermione… his arm… it turned into a sword!"
Hermione blinked. "Ron, this really isn't the time for a joke."
"I'm not joking! He smashed through that wall and started screaming at me about some girl and then his arm… where did he go?"
"Ron, are you sure you weren't… dreaming…?" Hermione questioned.
"Dreaming? Hermione, do you think I dreamed someone smashing that wall in? That one, right there, that's been smashed?"
"I'm not saying that something didn't happen but… Ron, why would someone turn his own arm into a sword? If he wanted to threaten you or something, all he would have to do is threaten to use the Cruciatus Curse or something and transfiguring your own body is extremely complicated and dangerous and…"
"Hermione, you don't get it," Ron said earnestly. "He didn't even use a wand. His arm just… switched from being an arm to being a sword. Just like that, right in front of me. No incantation or anything."
"But… what… that's impossible, Ron. No magic like that exists."
"I know what I saw!"
"I… I'm sure you do. And I'm not saying I don't believe you but… there must be some explanation. Some hallucinogenic magic maybe or… well, I don't know. But the point is I'm sure it wasn't what it looked like."
"That was no hallucination," Ron shook his head stubbornly. He grabbed me by the cloak, he smashed me against the bloody glass. That guy was real. Through and through. I know it."
Hermione bit her lip - none of what Ron was saying made any logistical sense to her at all. So she simply sighed and said, "Well… regardless of what happened or didn't happen we should find a Professor and report this. At the very least some act of vandalism happened here."
"And at the very worst, which it is, there's a sword-wielding maniac running around here!" Ron agreed as they hurried back towards the castle. "You should have seen the guy, Hermione. He was huge, muscled… covered in metal studs… his eyes were red. Just like Harry said You-Know-Who's were…"
Hermione looked across at Ron sharply. "You're saying that you saw…"
"No! No, not that. It wasn't him. But… I don't know what it means… that guy was not a normal wizard, whoever he was, Hermione."
"Well, whatever the case, you were definitely attacked by something," Hermione murmured, looking ahead and focusing on the path to the front doors once more.
"I don't get it. Where's he taking us?" Charla was practically whimpering as they swept low over the surface of the lake, looking back over her shoulder at the castle that they were notably getting further and further away from. "Isn't Wendy in that place?"
"We don't know for sure," Mavis pointed out. "Remember, her scent disappeared. It's entirely possible she was magically transported somewhere else."
Fawkes keened musically at this, almost as if he was replying in the affirmative.
"But you know where she is, do ye, Flame-bird?" Gajeel asked, to which Fawkes looked back at him and chirruped, but distinctly nodded his head.
"Flame-bird?" Happy asked. "Why would you call him that?"
"He smells like fire. A little bit like the Salamander."
"Oh… I… I wonder where Natsu is right now. If it took us this long to find Wendy even after Wendy was part of our group at the start…"
"Oi, none of that, blue cat! Salamander will be fine. He'll bull his way through any situation that he faces without thinking his way through it in the first place like he usually does. He don't need you to be fretting about him, alright?"
"Yeah… yeah, I know… wow, I'm hungry, I wonder how many tasty fishies there are in this lake…"
"AND DEFINITELY NONE OF THAT! YOU TRY AND CATCH A FISH WHILE YOU ARE CARRYING ME AND YOU ARE DEAD!"
"AYE SIR!" Happy squeaked. Mavis laughed, knowing Gajeel wasn't serious but now unable to stop herself from picturing him being dunked into the water. She also decided not to mention that they had actually passed through the wards around the castle again, but it had let them all out just fine. It seemed they were mostly one-way wards designed only to keep people from getting in easily.
"Wait…" Gajeel suddenly lifted his head, nose twitching again. "This… this smell… yes…"
"Is it Wendy…? You smell her again?" Charla asked immediately.
"Believe it, white cat! And it's getting stronger!"
"Look, there's buildings across the lake," Lily pointed ahead. "Some kind of village I think."
"Then that's where we're going," Gajeel grinned.
Fawkes led them down over the street of Hogsmeade, the scent getting stronger in Gajeel's nose with every passing second. Most of the windows in the village were dark - all the businesses having closed for the night and most people having gone to bed. Even the Three Broomsticks was quiet. But there was one business that was, for the moment, still open.
And it just happened to be the building that Fawkes stopped in front of.
"This is it!" Gajeel growled as Happy set him down. "She's in there!" And without another word he thundered to the door and slammed it off its hinges with a single blow, sending it flying into the room to crash against a table, and a couple of witches within shrieked and fell over.
"WHERE IS SHE!?" Gajeel bellowed at the top of his lungs, glaring at the few customers and the astonished barman. "TELL ME WHERE SHE IS OR I SWEAR I'LL BEAT YOU ALL BLOODY!"
"Where who is!?" cried one of the witches.
"Who do you think you are!?" cried the other.
"You wanna tell me what I want to know!?" Gajeel growled warningly, preparing to morph his arm into a club. "For the sake of your health, I highly recommend it."
"Get out!" Aberforth rounded the bar angrily. "Get out of my pub now, you halfwit! Or I'll throw you out!"
"Oh, you will, huh?" Gajeel's furious glare settled on the aged barman. "Well… we'll see about that, shall we?"
But even as he took a step closer, his intimidating entrance was suddenly ruined when Wendy suddenly hurried into the room from the back, took one look at the situation and screamed, "GAJEEL-SAN!" before dashing over and throwing herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him tightly. "Gajeel-san! You found me! You came to find me!"
"Uh…" Gajeel looked down at her awkwardly, arms spread wide as if afraid of touching and breaking her somehow. "Yeah… yeah girlie, we sure did."
"It's so good to see you, Gajeel-san!" Wendy looked up at him, smile wide and eyes shining, evidence of tears pricking at the corners. "I mean I knew you were in this world somewhere but I was sure it would take longer before anyone found me."
"Don't underestimate a Dragon Slayer's nose, kid," Gajeel shrugged, patting her head a little but then looking even more awkward for it. "Though you left me a confusing trail sure enough. Anyway, got someone here that might want to see you. Just guessing, but I think she was worried about you."
"WENDY!" Charla seemed unable to contain herself any longer and whooshed in through the door, her glowing wings flaring as she made a beeline straight for the Sky Dragon Slayer tears streaming down her furry cheeks and her eyes round as saucers.
"CHARLA!" Wendy gasped and immediately seized her in her arms, spinning her round in circles a couple of times at arm's length before pulling her in tightly to her chest and holding her as if her life depended on it. "Charla… you made it. You made it!"
"Wendy, you're okay," Charla bawled into Wendy's dress. "Oh thank the gods you're okay. When that dragon knocked you off the cliff and you vanished from sight, I thought… I thought you… I was so scared that you might be…"
"Don't say it, Charla, don't say it. I'm fine," Wendy hiccoughed, now not even trying to stop tears of relief and happiness beginning to flow. "But I was so worried too… I didn't know what had happened after I fell off the cliff and I thought… maybe if… oh Charla, I'm so sorry. I was stupid, I was…"
"No, Wendy, you weren't," Charla sniffled earnestly, looking up at her. "If I'd been raised by a dragon I wouldn't want to believe it either. But that's not important. None of that's important. What is important is that you're safe and we're… we're together again… I feared sometimes that… we might have lost you."
"I'm not going anywhere, Charla," Wendy pulled the cat even closer. "And don't… don't you dare go anywhere either."
"I… I promise I won't. And I promise… I'll try harder to look after you. I promised I would and I… seem to keep failing."
"No, you don't. Don't you ever say that, Charla. You're the best guardian I could hope for. It's always me doing the childish and naive things that gets me in trouble, not you."
Charla chuckled and tried to hold back a happy sob at the same time. "You Wendy have got to be one of the least childish people your age ever. In any universe."
"Aye, that I definitely agree with," Happy piped up from where he and Lily were standing in the door, Mavis hovering over them.
"It must have been a horrendous shock to you to see the dragons acting like that after all," Lily nodded.
"Happy! Lily!" Wendy cried. "So good to see you too, and you Master Mavis though I thought you'd be alright for sure," she sniffed with a grin.
"We would have still been looking for you if we hadn't bumped into Gajeel," Happy grinned. "It was his nose that tracked you down after all."
"Thank you, Gajeel-san," Wendy beamed up at the much taller Dragon Slayer before bowing her head slightly. "I'll never forget this."
"Yeah, well," Gajeel shrugged. "If you really want to show thanks then you can start by healing Lily's back. Apparently real dragon fire isn't quite as easy to shrug off even for a tough Exceed like him."
"Oh gosh!" Wendy gasped and immediately hurried over to Lily, placing Charla down on the floor and staring in horror at the slowly healing burns over Lily's guild mark. She quickly held her hands up and began the healing process and Lily felt relief from the throbbing pain beginning to fade very quickly and he sighed in relief.
"Don't exert yourself, Wendy. They were already on their way to healing."
"No, it's okay. I easily have enough magic for this," Wendy assured him. "I'm amazed you kept going from such a blast though. It must have washed right over you."
"Takes more than that to bring me down, I assure you," Lily grinned a little lopsidedly.
"I think it would take less than that to bring me down," Happy murmured, a little despondently.
"Geehee! That's my cat! Toughest on the block," Gajeel grinned.
...
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