This started out as a joke that some members of DLP played on a new member – 4R4W. We didn't quite appreciate his story, so some of us wrote…interesting continuations of it. Things went on, and here's what we came up with.

If you enjoy this, please visit the DLP C2 for some great stories (not all of them humor, but all of them well-written, putting this drivel to shame, I'm sure :P). You can find the C2 here at www. fanfiction .net/community/DLP_5_Starred_and_Featured_Authors/84507/

Please join, and visit DLP for a great community of fantastic authors in all our (sometimes brutal, cranky, and ornery) glory.

Contributors (not all of them featured here, but I tried for cohesion as much as possible with something like this…) include: CareOtters (whose idea this whole thing was), IdSayWhyNot, Palindrome, myself kmfrank, and Swimdraconian (who came up with the magnificent title).

Harry Potter and teh Sparkly Hufflepuff

Running on the ground: beautiful. The moist grass underneath his paws felt golden. The smells of autumn drove him mad. He ran toward the mountains on the horizon. The light of the early morning illuminated the wolf's path through the Forbidden Forest, toward Hogwarts. Taking a lungful of air, he let out a howl as he raced across the mud and the snapped twigs, with his jaw protruded as if he was on a Hunt. He jumped upward, his flight driven by the enormous lean power of his hindlegs.

The landing hurt his knees with pressure. Suddenly collapsing, gasping air like a drowning cub, he moaned, a low growl that silenced nearby twittering birds. He blinked, as morning sunlight burned his eyes. Blinked again, the dryness of eyelid and flesh motion felt sandy. He thought of the beach.

He had bred on the beach of Longshore Islands, back when he was a cub maturing into Wolfhood. The rite of passage: finding a bitch to fuck. He went with two packmates of his age, the adventurious trio. He had the sleekest fur, and the strongest leaps. His teeth were the sharpest, and his speed unmatched.

Montana and Zulf were also tough and strong, but their line was secondary: his father was the pack leader. They had gone through a forest similar to the Forbidden Forest, but not as potent.

He could smell the magic wafting his nose, the waves of light and energy spreading as it entered his nostrils, filling his mind with peace, serenity. 'Where art thou, my love,' he thought, thinking of the mate he had found at Longshore beach. She was beautiful, a lovely imagerie he could still remember, from the aroma of the ring of white fur around her neck, hanging like a necklace, to the sleek black mane coating her body and her sharp black eyes that pierced his soul the way her canines could pierce the toughest of deer hides.

A whisper called from a dark unknown place. 'I am coming, please, try to conserve your energy. You are not strong enough to hunt, not... not now.'

He listened. The voice faided to silence. His perked ears drooped as he continued absorb his surroundings.

There was nobody here except a black adder sleeping in a grove at the base of a tree trunk. She was digesting a big meal, the wolf deduced from the scent of snake juice. Flaring his nose, eyes wider, he tried to stand.

He could not. His legs were shaking.

All energy fled his body. He fell but was unconscious before he hit the hardness of packed mud.

Water trickled down his muzzle, the wetness slid across his eyebrows. Saliva, warm, soft, and familiar hit his snot, the scent engaged his heart to faster, harder beasts. Delerium of sickness started to receede in the background as he opened his eyes to meet those black orbs that held the unknown, the wild. His mate had come to him, had heard his call. The evening sunlight receeding into the darkness cast a shadow on her eyes and on her ring of white fur that he so loved to snuggle against.

'How are the cubs,' he asked, his eyes flashing to the sky to gauge the time till darkness submerged them. 'They are safe, yes?'

'Jeehas has taken wound. A green sickness grows inside of him. I fear he will die soon.' Her orbs sank into a lake of tears. She turned away from him.

"Sasha," he called, but she wandered off and he was too tired to follow her. He sank back down in the mud, and thought of those who invaded his lands, his territories. Those wizards, who would if they could enslave the Wolven race, used sticks to hit them with jets of hot light... that did things. Magic in an inferior race was a bitter fruit to swallow.

But the Pack prevailed. They always did, because their magic was far stronger, far more potent than the wizarding mankind.

Or so they had thought.

(written by 4R4W)