Dueling Werewolves

A month Morgana had been there, and then two months. It was dull living, but occasionally Remus would show up and they would have magic lessons, over the course of the time she had been there, she had learned quite a lot. And they were at it again today, both were standing in the middle of the drawing room. Sirius walked in and smiled at them both.

"Mind if I watch?"

"Not at all," said Remus, Sirius nodded and sat down.

"It's fine with me... as long as he's not chasing me around as a dog again," said Morgana, reminded of the time, just a few weeks ago, when she had been doing really terrible at a charm, and Sirius thought the best course of action was to chase her around as a dog, until she figured it out.

"A dog...?" Remus asked, looking from Morgana to Sirius, rather confused.

"Yes, when he was helping me with Expelliarmus he changed into his dog form and chased me around for an hour," said Morgana, trying to sound annoyed, Sirius only smirked.

"Padfoot needs to have some fun too."

"Padfoot should not be going around showing himself", said Remus, giving Sirius a look.

"It's only Morgana, she lives here, she had a right to know, she knew the second day she was here... and by all means, you told her you were a werewolf after only knowing her an hour."

"That's different, Sirius."

"'How is it different?"

"Come now, it doesn't matter... I'm not going to tell anyone Sirius is a dog and I'm not going to say anything about Remus either."

"I am not 'a dog', my Animagus form is a dog."

"Does it matter?" Morgana asked, placing her hands on her hips, with a smirk and a raise of the eyebrow, because, she was quite sure it did.

"Yes...indeed, it does" said Sirius, seemingly getting annoyed.

"Shall we start with the lesson, then?" Remus chimed in.

"Yes," said Morgana, smirking over at Sirius, one last time, who looked quite taken aback that Remus did not side with him.

"Today we will be practicing everything you have learned so far, you have come a long way since not being able to repair things, and I think very soon you may be able to duel."

"Duel... really?" Morgana asked, her insides tightening, who would she be dueling? And why did she have to start so soon? It was terrifying to think about.

"Let's start, shall we?" Remus said. "Start with Wingardium Leviosa ."

He put a handkerchief down on the floor and backed away, Morgana picked up her wand, from the end table it was once sitting on, and pointed it at the cloth.

"Wingardium Leviosa" she said and the handkerchief rose from the ground, he then had her do Evanesco, (Vanishing Spell,) Accio (Summoning Charm,) and many others. However, soon she was feeling tired and Sirius even had nodded off in his chair.

"I think that's good enough for now," said Remus, he looked over at Sirius with a smile. "I'll wake him up if you'd like to get started on lunch."

"Sure," Morgana said, as she trotted out of the drawing room. She was feeling although tired, very happy with herself, she had performed rather well with her spells and charms, but she was in no way ready to duel, at least not in her book. Once she was in the kitchen she decided on Steak And Kidney Pie for lunch, but instead of walking over to the cupboard, she accioed the ingredients, she liked doing things the muggle way, of course, but she was a witch after all. An hour later the three sat down for lunch, Sirius very groggy still from his nap.

"You did beautifully today," Sirius told her, as he ate his Steak And Kidney Pie.

"'How would you know?" she smirked at him. "You were asleep most of the time."

"I meant with lunch" he stated back, with a grin.

"But, you also did beautifully in lessons" Remus encouraged.

"We could do with some wine, I think," said Sirius, off topic and made to stand, but Morgana picked up her wand from the table and accioed the wine and glasses over to them. The bottle zoomed right past Sirius, as he tried to catch it, and over to her, where it came to be in her hand.

"Show off," he muttered.

In days to come Remus had Morgana practicing more and more, the spells and charms getting harder and harder. On the last night of Remus' stay, (he was staying in the house for a few days, probably because he was tired of listening to Sirius whining about being bored,) right after dinner; he called her back in the drawing room. She still had dishpan hands as she clutched onto her wand.

"We are going to try a hand at dueling... now don't get worried" he said, seeing the look of fear on her face. "It's not going to be like real dueling, I'm just going to throw a disarming curse at you and you have to repel it."

"Oh, that sounds so easy..." she trailed off; he just ignored her and walked to the other side of the cleared room.

"Now, on my count; I will attempt to disarm you, but you will say Protego; blocking me... now, ready to try?"

"No," she said flatly, he smiled at her slightly.

"No need to worry, now, ready?" he planted his feet into the floor and raised his wand, aiming for her middle. "One...two...treee...Expelliarmus."

Before she could even think of the word he had said to use, her wand was flying out of her hand and right into his. Remus convinced her to try it again and with much muttering to herself she stood, ready this time... she hoped.

"Ready?'

"As I'll never be..." she trailed off, glumly.

"Right, on the count of three again...one...two...three...Expelliarmus."

"Protego!" she shouted, yet her wand still fell from her hand, onto the floor with a clank.

"Not bad," he said, she looked at him weird, she wondered how he could say that, she hadn't blocked his curse at all. "Once more?"

"Alright..."

"Once again on the count of three...one...two...three...Expelliarmus."

"Protego!" she shouted, with as much emphasis as she could muster. This time her wand did not fall out of her hand, it stayed perfectly fitted in her palm, she looked up at him and he was smiling proudly.

"Very good, I couldn't have done it better myself."

"Oh please," she blushed, looking back down at her wand. They did it a few more times, each time she blocked him successfully. It was now time for him to leave and Morgana couldn't help feeling blue. It was nice having him around, another person in the house, at the very least. All she ever had for company was a convicted criminal and a rude house-elf.

"When will you be back?" she asked, walking him to the door.

"I can't say... but when I do, we'll be going at a bit more dueling."

"I can hardly wait," she faked a smile and he chuckled.

"You'll be a brilliant dueler in no time."

Once he left, she found Sirius in the Hippogriff's room; brushing him, Morgana then made her way to her own room and muttered spells under her breath until she fell asleep.

More days passed, things weren't very exciting around the house, no Order member had shown up for days and Morgana could tell the lack of visitors with news or just their presence was starting to annoy Sirius a great deal. They sat in the drawing room one night after dinner; Sirius leaning far back into his chair, accusing Morgana of feeding him too much, Morgana laughed it off as she sat on the floor, going through an old box of moving photos Sirius didn't want. He said he would rather kiss Kreacher than look at them with her, but yet he was still in the room, so she figured he was just being over-dramatic again.

"Whose house is this?" she asked, as she picked up a moving picture of a farm house, with rustling green trees, a white fence and a cow in the background. Sirius' family didn't seem much like the country type, so it was a bit odd to find. Sirius leaned forward and looked at the picture upside down.

"No idea," he said, mildly curious. "Must have been a summer vacation spot, or something."

"Never been there then?" she asked, causally, moving to put the picture down, but instead, Sirius took it from her hands.

"No," he said, softly. "I'm fairly sure my mother would have thought herself above a place like this."

Morgana shrugged and continued looking through the box of photos, many angry, or very serious faces looked back at her, sternly. But it seemed this picture of this farm house had struck a cord within Sirius, he was still looking at it several minutes later. "You know..." he muttered, once he noticed she was looking at him. "I want to live in a place like this, once this is all over."

"It would be nice after living here for so long..."

"I asked Harry once if he'd like to live with me, but as things turned out that was imposable, he did stay here a bit over the summer though, I wonder if he'd still want to live with me..." Sirius trailed off, Morgana looked over at him, with a smile.

"I'm sure he would, I bet he'd like that."

"What about you?" Sirius then asked. "Planning on going back to...wherever it is you're from?"

"No," she said quickly, he gave her a weird look. "There's nothing there for me now, I much rather be here, close to-"

"Close to Remus" he interrupted with a small smirk.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, confused. He laughed.

"Nothing..."

"No," she brushed his words off, looking down at the pictures in her hands, once more. "Close to everyone in the Order... and if I am really related to Harry; I'd like to get to know him, he'd be the only family I have left."

"You can come live with us" Sirius then stated, smiling broadly. "We'll need a cook after all, and you can give the place that femine touch."

She laughed a bit at this, she wondered what it would be like to live with Sirius and Harry; still who she had never met, and she wondered what Harry did for fun and what Harry was really like in person. Sirius she had come to know pretty well, she wouldn't mind living with Sirius in a less dusty house and without a mean house-elf running around.

"Remus could even come with us too," Sirius then said, bringing her out of her thoughts.

"That would be a very odd household... one girl and three men..."

"Indeed it would... but Tonks could always come along as well, she could do with a bit of learning about running a household and such."

"Tonks?" Morgana questioned, she didn't mean for the dislike to sound so upfront. Sirius laughed, his laugh sounded almost like a dog barking, Morgana wondered if he had ever realized that. Soon, they both grew tired and Morgana left first, wondering how late it was, porbably past midnight, as she climbed the stairs toward her room.

She fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, dreaming about farm houses and oddly lit hallways that that led to a room with a random, rather ugly hanging rug, or at least she thought it was a rug, or maybe curtains. And she was also pretty sure Tonks was a cow at one point...but that was only right before she was roughly shaken awake.

"I thought I ought to wake you... it is almost noon" said Sirius, leaning over her, she glared at him. "And Remus will be here any moment."

"Why would you have to wake me for that?" She asked, throwing off her blankets and standing up, stretching. "Remus is here all the time, after all."

"Yes, but you'd be upset if you missed him..."

"Why would you say that?"

"Well," Sirius smirked, looking very pleased about something. "You do seem to fancy him."

"I don't 'fancy' anyone" she barked, feeling a bit tried and grumpy this morning, and it had everything to do with how rudely she was woken up.

"Just stating my opinion" Sirius smirked wider, as he put his hands up in defense.

"Well, don't," she told him, then threw him out of her room so she could change. Once she was fully dressed for the day she wandered down the many stairs, she heard voices, she knew them both right away, one was Sirius and the other was Remus. She went down the last few steps to see a tried looking Remus and an annoyed looking Sirius, they obviously were talking about something Morgana couldn't know because the conversation ended as soon as she walked in.

"Good afternoon, Morgana" Remus smiled, he did indeed look very tired, she wondered why.

"Hello," she smiled back, looking at his face intensely, and her thoughts then darted to one thing. "There was a full moon, wasn't there?"

"Indeed, there was..." he trailed off, his smile vanishing. She followed him into the kitchen, Sirius trailing behind them, Sirius took his usual chair once in the kitchen and Remus took the one off to Sirius' left. All through making breakfast Morgana fought with herself, she wanted to know more about werewolves, but didn't know if she should ask Remus or not, was that offensive? Finally, as breakfast came to an end and Sirius excused himself for a moment Morgana found her chance.

"Is it painful becoming a werewolf?" she asked, just out of the blue, Remus looked up at her and shrugged slightly.

"It was a lot worse when I was a child, very painful."

"Oh, that must be awful..."

"The pain isn't the worst part."

She just stared at him, wondering what it felt like, what it was to be a werewolf, how did it feel once the transformation was done.

"What's it like after you're a werewolf?" She asked, staring, gazingly at him.

"It's hard to explain," said Remus, staring off into nothingness, she couldn't tell if this conversation was bothersome to him or not. "I do seem to remember what happens while I'm a werewolf, yet I can't control myself, if I've been taking a certain potion I can...I'd still be in my right mind."

She could ask no more, even though she really wanted to, because Sirius had come back and they would now be going into the drawing room for the magic lesson. She would be attempting to duel once again. She was not looking forward to that.

(A/N: Alright, here is another chapter of this, this one is really long because...I honestly don't know why, I added more things than what was originally there. I did skip like a chapter and a half of the old story, just because it was pointless, and it doesn't need to be there. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!)