Fic: Children's Moon, Chapter Three (HP/Who, Sirius/Jack Harkness)

[st_aurafina]

Safe at the Red Lion, the Doctor demanded he be changed back. "I cannae think, not at this height. This close to the ground, it's all rabbits and trails and, ooh, who peed here, then? I never knew there was so much going on at ground level."

Sirius reversed the spell, stowed his wand in his pocket, and flopped onto the bed, exhausted from his panicked run into the forest.

"Oh, that is clever," said the Doctor, now in his own form. He turned a circle on his heel, stretched his arms up and lifted his knees one by one. "A complete metamorphic transition, mass and all, and you do it all with a swish of your wee twig." The accent had not yet completely left him.

Sirius rolled on his side to watch him. "One carefully calibrated swish, and a well-worded incantation, actually." He had not been this tired, not for a long time, not since the days after he escaped. He thought of the Gribbock boy, and how he must be feeling. Sirius at least had been a man, with a man's memories and experiences, to say nothing of the stubborn Black nature, which, to his family's credit had given him strength. He didn't want to imagine a child in that place.

"So, what have we got, then?" said the Doctor, striding up and down the room, obviously enjoying his long legs. "We've got a weird animal on the loose, we've got a group of your weird high-physics cultists living behind a photonic shield. We've got… I'm sorry, I have to interrupt myself to ask – pixies? Are there really pixies out there? What's a pixie, when it's at home? Where does a pixie call home, come to mention it?"

"Cornwall," said Sirius. "Pixies are awful, they're pests, and they bite. They're blue." He held his hands apart to indicate the size, but even that movement exhausted him, and he flopped against the pillows.

"You all right, mate?" The Doctor leaned over the bed, and touched Sirius' forehead. "You're easily a couple of degrees below standard human basal temperature." He perched on the edge of the bed, and rubbed Sirius's hands briskly then pulled a blanket over him. "I'll go rustle up something to eat, shall I? Should still be someone in the kitchens. Or I could cook." He sounded exceptionally eager about that idea.

He slipped out the door, and Sirius heard his footsteps clipping merrily down the stairs to the kitchens. A few minutes later, the footsteps returned, panicked, and the Doctor burst through the door, his eyes wild.

"Change me back! Quickly, change me back!"

Behind him, Sirius could hear more footsteps, coming quickly up the stairs and towards their room. The Doctor locked the door and put his shoulder into it for good measure, his face anguished.

Someone knocked. "You in there, Black? Can we debrief?" It was Jack Harkness' voice.

Sirius pulled himself upright and drew his wand. The Doctor clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut, ready for the spell to hit him.

"Stop it," said Sirius, softly. "You'll botch it, all tensed up." The Doctor let his shoulders down slowly, and Sirius released the spell with a sweep of his wand. "Cú Faoil" rolled off his tongue easily, but at the last minute, the door handle rattled. The Doctor spun mid-transformation, sonic screwdriver out and switched on to lock the door. Sirius felt the device integrate with his spell, and tried to make a correction but it was too late.

He stared at the dog on the floorboards. "I haven't splinched a transfiguration since I was thirteen."

"I dinnae understand," the Doctor muttered. The very tip of his bristling tail glowed faintly blue. The Doctor turned a tight circle, around and around, trying to catch a glimpse of it.

Sirius picked him up, and plonked him down on the bed. "Sit!" he said firmly. "Sit down, and don't move." He walked to the door and threw it open. Jack strode into the room, and the Doctor sat down and curled his tail underneath him, obscuring any glow.

"Got to be stern with the wee man, do you?" said Jack. He reached over, and pulled at the Doctor's ears, roughing up the fur on his head. "You're a good boy, aren't you, Dougal? Don't let Mr Black say otherwise."

The Doctor looked at Sirius, with a confused and agonised expression. Slowly, his behind began to wiggle back and forth, and beneath him, Sirius could see the thick tail start to wag. He understood; it was an instinctive response, but one that would certainly give them away.

"Please, call me Sirius." It seemed the best way to distract Jack's attention.

Jack did indeed swing around to gaze speculatively at Sirius. "You look terrible. Did something happen? I went looking for you but you vanished into thin air."

"We took a stroll through the forest," said Sirius. "I thought we'd see if we could pick up a trail."

"That's brave of you," said Jack. "None of the villagers are planning to set foot in there until the sun's up again. We got the man to the hospital, by the way. He's pretty torn up, but the doctors seem to think that he'll pull through, barring infection."

"That's good news," said Sirius. "Could they identify the animal?"

Jack pulled a file from inside his greatcoat. "No, but I've got a few ideas. Have you noticed that the moon's full? And that the last attack was just under a month ago. This is a case file from Torchwood – the first, actually, involving Queen Victoria."

The Doctor sat up on the bed, his hackles up. "Oh, that's what it was! It was so familiar but I couldnae place the scent." Since this was delivered in a series of barks and yips, it was unintelligible to Jack.

"You'd almost think he wants in on the conversation, wouldn't you?" Jack said.

"He's quite possessive," said Sirius. He picked the Doctor up, keeping his tail carefully concealed, and carried him over so he could stand on Sirius' thigh and put his front feet on the table. He scratched the Doctor's whiskers and ruffled his ears.

"Thanks," the Doctor said with a pleased wuffle. He rested his chin on his forelegs, close to the text of the file. Hopefully he could read better than Sirius could in dog form.

"Queen Victoria was the subject of an assassination attempt in 1879, out on the Scottish moors," said Jack, spreading the papers across the table. "Only, assassination wasn't the plan; it was an attempted colonisation by an alien species, something we think was the source of the legend of the werewolf."

"Werewolves aren't aliens," said Sirius. He was surprised that he hadn't noticed the full moon. It used to be second nature, to keep his eye on the phase of the moon, to always know where Remus was going to be when it was full.

Jack watched him, contemplative. "You say that like werewolves are not particularly surprising to you," he said.

"That's because I don't work for the Ministry of Defence," said Sirius. "I'm with the Ministry of Magic, and we've been dealing with werewolves since the seventeenth century."

The Doctor snarled a warning. "Are you sure about this, Sirius?"

Sirius stroked the fur down along his spine to soothe him. "It's all right, Dougal. Jack and I are just putting all our cards on the table."

"Oh, you're one of those people! With the wands and the fireplace transport system," said Jack. "I should have realised, with your clever little dog, and the disappearing act. Well, I'm glad you're doing your bit finally."

"Werewolves aren't aliens," said Sirius, again. "But if it was werewolves –"

"It was," the Doctor said, with a harrumphing bark. "I was there, with Queen Victoria. Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform, very distinctive odour. Blood and mercury and a hint of pine."

"Then we need to take Willoughby into care," finished Sirius. "Because in a lunar month, he'll probably be growing claws and fur."

"We need to find the original carrier, too," said Jack. "Otherwise we'll be meeting again in three and half weeks." He leaned forward. "And just between me and you – and Dougal, I suppose, if you're into that –"

"Here it comes," said the Doctor. "Hold onto your trousers, laddie."

" – There's plenty of other reasons to meet up with you," Jack said. He pressed his hand over Sirius' in a way that could be safely dismissed as comradely, but just as easily could mean more.

Sirius didn't pull his hand away. "Let's get Pickering safe first, before we discuss the future, shall we? I'll send a message to the Ministry, and have someone contact you about how to proceed with Willoughby. I'll need to speak with the wizard population here, and see what we can do about the werewolf." And talk to the Gribbocks, he thought, to find out exactly what their son carried home from Azkaban.

In the empty taproom, all the stools were piled on top of tables. Beside the dusty bottles of rarely used liqueurs were racks of crisps and sweets. The brands weren't familiar, this being a Muggle pub, but Sirius thought of that hopeless despair he'd felt in the forest. He slipped behind the high wooden bar and grabbed a couple of chocolate bars, their paper wrappers dusty but intact over the foil. It couldn't hurt to have it on hand. He patted his pockets for money to leave on the counter, finding only a strange hexagonal coin he'd won on Altair. He looked down at the Doctor on the other side of the bar.

"Do you have any money on you?"

The Doctor merely tilted his head at him, first one way, then the other. Sirius sighed, and left the hexagonal coin beside the till. Maybe it was worth something.

Sirius called out to Jack as he left the pub. "Here, Jack!" He threw a chocolate bar and Jack caught it out of the air easily.

He held it, curious. "What is this in aid of? Low blood sugar?"

It was difficult to explain the sensation of being close to a Dementor, even to a Muggle who knew something of the magic world. "Just keep it close. If things get desperate, eat the thing."

"Okay then," said Jack. "Good advice in any circumstance, I suppose." He gave Sirius a quick salute, and went on his way, tucking the chocolate bar into a pocket.

Chapter Two // Chapter Four