分卷阅读7（1 / 2）

He let his thoughts wander back to the Slytherin dungeons and how he might get in. A simple unlocking charm wouldn’t work, or else students would have been breaking into different house’s dormitories willy nilly. He supposed he could hardly ask McGonagall, either, as she seemed rather tight-lipped about the whole thing. He was half wondering if he could blow a hole in the wall of the dungeon when he noticed something move out of the corner of his eye.

He gasped. The wolf.

It was walking right up against the castle wall, so close its side rubbed against the stone. It seemed to notice Harry in the same instance, stopping in its tracks.

There was only about twenty feet between them.

Harry dropped to a squat and held out his hand, as though the animal in front of him were a common house dog.

“Hi,” he called softly. “I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me.”

The wolf tensed at Harry’s voice, but did not make to run away.

“What are you doing so close to the castle? Hagrid doesn’t like it too much, best not let him see,” Harry continued, standing again and walking slowly towards the wolf his hand still extended. He stopped when he had halved the distance and returned to a squat.

“Come on now, I won’t bite,” Harry said.

The wolf let out a snort that Harry felt sounded strangely akin to a laugh, and then began to inch slowly towards him.

Finally, the wolf reached his fingertips, but did not sniff him like a normal dog would. Instead they sat and looked up at Harry, their eyes eerily intelligent. They cocked their head.

Harry noticed up close that the wolf was not a true white, but rather a white gold.

“Aren’t you a pretty thing? I told Hagrid you were nothing to worry about,” Harry murmured. He reached out and pet the wolf’s head, but drew his hand back as soon as it made contact. A wave of unease came over him, that sick feeling he had felt in the hall earlier.

The wolf did not move, other than to look away from Harry, turning their nose into the air, as though offended.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Harry said out loud, feeling suddenly defensive.

The wolf looked at him out of the corner of their eye.

Harry was struck with how human the expression was. It reminded him of when he would talk to Sirius when…Oh. Oh.

“Who—” Harry began but the question died in his throat. He cleared it and began again. “Who, exactly, are you?”

The wolf’s grey eye dragged away from him, looking forwards once more, only more pointedly this time.

“A student?”