Kiba slept deeply, after the daughter of the Lunar Maiden Chesa had died. He could not find the pup that Lily had brought to him for protection.
Four years ago, during the night of a half moon, he had found Chesa's daughter. Lily Potter wasn't surprised to hear his voice, since she could easily hear the werewolf beside her, even when he lost control of his mind. Thanks to her blood, the man was slowly becoming a true wolf who could shift into a human.
Not that he was aware of what Lily had done for him.
Kiba, still in pain over the loss of his pack which had gone into sleep in different parts of the British Isles, had approached her. She had taken one look, and to the shock of the werewolf beside her, had allowed him to get a good whiff of her daughter's scent. That way he could find her anywhere she was.
And now, the little Flower Maiden was gone, taken over the water to a house he had yet to find.
Every full moon, he would throw his spirit out into the world to locate the girl. He had already found two of his pack, though he was unable to wake them without the song of the moon.
He was almost about to give up hope...when he heard the voice singing. It was far away in the distance, but the long miles were no matter when one was in spirit form.
It was the voice of a small child, lost and alone in the dark cold woods. Her voice didn't waver as the Hunter's Moon glowed pale in the sky. She was dancing barefoot in the cold night. Her pale form practically glowed under the bright moon.
He sat there, watching her nimble feet dance in the trees. She looked so frail and weak. Even under the moonlight, he could see clear bruises and ribs.
But what really angered him was this.
While it was obvious the child in front of him was the pup that had gone missing after the attack, it was blatantly clear that whoever she was living with wasn't taking care of her. At all.
And since she was the last chance they had to reach Paradise, he was beyond pissed.
He was positively murderous in his rage.
Once the sun rose that day, Kiba woke up for the first time in years.
Ever since the attack on the house, he had been in a hibernating slumber. The only one who was even still awake was Blue, and that because she was only half wolf.
She was currently living with Remus, the werewolf that Lily had trusted around her daughter.
Artemis Selena Potter looked up from where she was sitting on the swing. Her cousin, Dudley, would be around to push her off into the dirt again soon, so she was prepared to jump off the second he came near her.
None of the teachers even bothered to chastise him anymore, once Petunia and Vernon had made it clear that they could care less how their precious Dudley treated his cousin. And after she came to the school with a larger than normal bruise...
The teachers quickly learned that if they kept their mouths shut about the abuse, the girl would come to school with less injuries. Particularly after three of their own had complained to three separate agencies who could have done something to protect her, and had gone missing without a trace within a week of the report. Each of them had found that the previous report had also gone missing, which spoke volumes about the fact that someone was deliberately leaving a child in an abusive home.
And that didn't sit well with any of them.
Selena (she rarely went by her first name) was the one to spot the beautiful white wolf staring at her. So when she vanished during lunch, none of the teachers raised the alarm.
They had seen her head into the densely wooded area and had assumed that her uncle was on the warpath again. They weren't going to force her to return to a home where she could get killed.
Some of the teachers had even taken to giving her sandwiches whenever Dudley wasn't looking. It was such a small thing, but the look in her eyes whenever they gave her one spoke volumes.
Kiba wasn't surprised that the girl walked up to him without fear. Her emerald eyes were darkened with pain. It was even more obvious than before that she was in a house that didn't want her around.
He lay down, and the girl immediately fell sound asleep against his side. She knew without knowing why that she had nothing to fear from the wolf. Even one that was big enough to carry her on its back.
When she woke up, she took one look into the golden eyes of the wolf, and fell completely in love with it. For reasons only her mother would have known why, Selena absolutely loved all things Wiccan.
Once, when she was three, she overheard her aunt say the word 'witch' to her uncle in a tone of fear. The naturally impressionable three year old had waited until she was in a school full of books, and had asked the librarian for anything related to witches.
She had been directed by the kindly old woman to the religion section, having misheard the girl, and had since been hooked on the Wiccan religion which heavily focused on the moon and nature.
Wolves also tended to pop up in Wiccan lore often enough that her love of it had grown rather large. Which was why she tried to get locked out of the house as often as she could on full moon nights so that she could dance.
So it was with some surprise to her that when the wolf barked, she could hear words.
Almost like it could speak to her directly to her mind.
"You have no idea how hard it was to find you, little flower."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Kiba. Your mother could speak to wolves too, so don't be alarmed. Though she usually talked to me through her mind so as not to alarm her husband."
"Talk...through her mind?"
Can I do that?
'Yes, you can. Though you'll have to work on the fact that your eyes glaze over while we talk.'
Selena grinned at him. She finally had a friend! One that even her annoying cousin couldn't chase away! Kiba gave a wolfy chuff, which she quickly realized was his version of a laugh.
'That tub of lard had better watch his step, because I'm not going anywhere.'
Can you take me far away from them?
'I can't. If I tried, someone would just find us and hunt me down. What I can do is insure that they never harm you again.'
That'll work.
It was with great shock that the teachers found Selena Potter come to school a month later with a terrified Dudley Dursley. While he no longer hunted her down to beat her up, her aunt and uncle no longer wanted anything to do with her.
She no longer came into school with bruises and broken bones.
Of course she did spend a rather large amount of time inside the woods with books beside her. Though very few of the teachers spoke of the white shadow that followed the girl. It was positively wolf like in form.
On the plus side, they no longer worried about the abuse the girl suffered from her guardians. She had clearly gained a guardian angel in the wolf that always watched her at school.
On the downside, the fact that the poor girl wasn't normal had become abundantly clear. It had been hidden for the longest time because of the abuse, but now it had started to surface. Still, no one did anything because it was painfully clear her guardian angel would react to anything that harmed her.
Which was why no one commented on the fact that she spent large amounts of time at the library reading books far too advanced for someone barely ten.
Then she turned eleven, and a whole new world opened up for her. One that would eventually draw her into a civil war on the brink of destroying Europe.
Selena looked up when she saw the owl. Kiba was still sleeping in the bushes, where only she could see him. Though she did wonder why her aunt never once glanced nervously towards the tail that Kiba kept twitching outside the bushes.
When asked, Kiba chuffed in a wolfy chuckle (she had become a master of speaking wolf without hearing words) that he had gained a bit of magical power from living around her mother for nearly two years. The ward around her aunt's house only made it stronger.
He didn't know what would happen if he went anywhere near someplace heavily magicked, but he wasn't too eager to find out.
Selena waited until she was halfway to the library before she relieved the letter from the owl. And when she finished reading it she headed straight to the woods.
It was well known that there was a witch in the woods, and that she had a wolf for a familiar. It didn't help that Selena tended to sing rather...loudly whenever the moon was full.
Kiba, what do you think of this letter?
'I think it's real. The werewolf that used to visit your mother was one of the magical variety. Though I'm fairly sure the blood she used to slip into the food she gave him is wearing off.'
Blood?
'Remus Lupin is one of the magical werewolves, and their transformation is rather...painful. He used to accept my presence whenever the moon was full, and I usually kept him from harming himself. Your mother used to use some of her blood to ease the transition. It worked, mostly because she happened to be the daughter of the Lunar Maiden.'
Lunar Maiden?
'It was what your grandmother on your mother's side was. A few decades ago, a rift in time had been ripped open, and we fell through. Chesa was the only connection to the Lunar Flowers that used to grow in our time, and when she nearly died the rift opened. Most of the pack went into a deep sleep, and I woke up after Lily had you. Blue should be awake too, if she hasn't decided to sleep until the others are awakened.'
How many others are there?
'There's me, Tsume, Hige, Toboe and Blue. We were some of the last free wolves alive before the rift.'
What were they like?
'I never said they were dead. They're just asleep until someone can wake them up.'
A few days later someone knocked on the door, and the face looked vaguely familiar.
He had lanky black hair that appeared like it fought shampoo and conditioner daily to and usually won. He didn't appear too happy to be there either.
"Selena Potter?" he asked.
Selena looked at him and said "That would be me. Who sir, if I may ask, are you?"
"Severus Snape, potionsmaster of Hogwarts."
Kiba, do you recognize this guy?
'Snape, also known as Talon by your mother. You can trust him to a point, but he still reeks to high heaven.'
"If you're here about that magic school invitation, we may as well leave now. My aunt and uncle abhor the word magic, and always lock me in the cupboard if it's even mentioned," she informed him.
Snape frowned at that, but decided that not talking to Petunia wouldn't do any harm. It wasn't like he actually enjoyed the company of Lily's...sister.
Though he always had serious doubts that the two were even related. Lily was a beautiful, bright woman with almost ruby red hair and emerald eyes.
Petunia was a straw haired woman with squinty eyes and a negative disposition. She also resembled a horse in all of the worst ways.
Lily and Petunia looked nothing alike, nor did they even seem alike when compared. More than a few times, when Lily brought out a picture of her sister, people would think she was joking or that she was adopted.
It wasn't until she produced a picture of her mother that people even believed her at all.
Chelsea Evans was a rather unusual woman, with beautiful green eyes and light red hair. It was obvious to anyone that Lily took after the mother and not the father.
The only time Snape reacted to the girl-who-lived was when she whistled, and a white wolf appeared. It was a little too familiar to him.
Finally, Snape spoke a word he hadn't said in ten years.
"Kiba."
The wolf barked, then did something to surprise them both.
"Hello Talon," said the man that now stood before them.
Selena blinked, then accepted it with grace. She always knew Kiba was unusually intelligent for a wolf.
"I thought you had died. You disappeared after..."
"I went into hiding. It took me a while to find her, and I will not allow her to come to harm."
Snape knew it all to well. Twice, when Lily was in danger of a Death Eater's curse, the white wolf had appeared without warning and taken out the threat. It had taken some doing on Lily's part to even be allowed in the home with Kiba around.
Kiba was intensely loyal to Lily, for reasons he never fully understood. But both had come to an agreement on protecting the girls.
Which was the only reason when he returned to the castle that he would keep his mouth shut about Kiba being with the girl. Albus had not made the best impression on the wolf, who had distrusted the man ever since Kiba had broken through the wards that Albus had set up personally.
Some of those wards had been keyed to Kiba specifically.
Too bad Kiba wasn't a normal wolf, and that the bond between him and Lily was stronger than even Dumbledore had considered.
(Though Snape would never admit it, he found the fact that the barmy old goat had been one upped by a wolf hilarious.)
Kiba looked around the magical alley with some disdain. He wasn't that fond of crowded human areas.
To be honest, neither were his companions.
"Remind me again why we have to come down this particular alley?" asked Selena, trying not to whine.
She didn't like whining, unless the situation called for it. Like when life had been particularly horrible for several days straight.
Snape winced a bit when the volume level grew. There was no chance in hell he was going to call her by her first name in the alley, the noise level would only shoot up if he did.
"Because the only way to access your parents vault is here. The goblins might have you do a blood test, and it would be quicker to get it directly rather than through a branch."
"I think the vault Lily set up for me is still active too," said Kiba unexpectedly.
The two stopped, and looked at him.
"What? James liked me well enough, especially when he realized that I would do anything to protect his family, even if I didn't particularly get along that well with his friends. He just made it easier for me to blend in without causing a fuss, and the old man couldn't do a thing about the vault that wasn't under the Potter name," shrugged Kiba.
Upon leaving the bank, they learned something rather...disconcerting.
James apparently had taken it to heart that Kiba would protect his family, and had set a safeguard should anyone take money from the Potter family vaults while not in the presence of either James or Selena.
The only thing left in the Potter name was the trust vault, which even Dumbledore couldn't access. The rest had been mysteriously changed to be under Kiba's name.
The goblins could care less about the change in vaults, because it was an ingenious joke played on the headmaster. It often caused them to cackle whenever the old man tried (and failed after the first few withdrawels) to steal from the goblins.
What made it hilarious was that the prank had been played by a dead man. No doubt the last two Marauders would enjoy the joke as well.
If they ever heard of it.
Severus Snape was not what one would call a pleasant man. Yet here he was enjoying shopping of all things with the child of James Potter and the wolf spirit that always protected Lily.
It was simple why really. Selena Potter was more like her mother than her father, and always asked intelligent questions few witches her age would even consider. And if her religion was anything to go by, she would be a natural potionsmaster.
Wiccans as a rule tended to be very, very good at brewing potions. And if he had his way, then all the children would learn from a Wiccan Witch.
He couldn't wait to see the look on the old cat's face when he told her that not only did he take the Potter brat shopping, but he actually enjoyed the experience.
Mostly because they got to tease Kiba relentlessly for having to wear a bubble head charm around his head before he could even enter the Apothecary.
Kiba took protecting Selena Potter very seriously.
