Ardent Argent

Chapter 1: By the Eyes of the Not-So-Blind

There are two kinds of light--the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

- James Thurber

"But why do you have to watch over the seer, Fenrir?"

Fenrir did not stop in his strides, though the other werewolf's question repeated itself endlessly in his mind. Why was he going to protect some weak man that had never been seen before? The Dark Lord Voldemort had requested of him to do so, but he owed no debt to the man, nor did the wizard have any purchase over him. No, he was not required by any means to protect a single man, but...

"Aren't you interested, Garm?" Fenrir asked, peering over his shoulder. The younger wolf's eyes were curtained by his dark hair, but he could clearly see the wariness that lingered in those orbs. "Supposedly, no one has ever seen this seer; Voldemort has kept him locked away his entire life in a gilded cage, never allowing him contact with the world around him. It's a miracle we are even aware of his existence."

"Especially so, considering how guardedly the Dark Lord keeps this secret," Garm agreed quietly, cupping his chin with his hand. "I still don't understand why he would request you to be the seer's guard though."

Fenrir laughed harshly. "Who knows what goes on in that man's mind? As long as it's interesting for me though, I'll go along with whatever he is planning." Fenrir grinned, a blood-lusty look in his eye. "After all, being in Voldemort's good favor is never a bad thing."

"If you continue to address the Dark Lord so colloquially, then you will never be in his favor," Garm reprimanded. Fenrir snorted contemptuously.

"Don't be such a weakling, Garm," Fenrir sneered. "You almost sound domesticated."

Garm's dark eyes flared viciously, and Fenrir nodded to himself. Seems like there was one less broken wolf in the world.

"We're here," Garm announced, and Fenrir almost chuckled. The pup needed to learn how to be a little less ostentatious; no one could have mistaken where their path had led them.

The silver-wrought gates stretched from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall, separating the outside world from the seer's domain. No one save Voldemort himself had passed through these gates and his seer had remained within the partitioned area ever since his first year of birth, when the Dark Lord carried him through with his robes still stained red from one of his previous victim's blood. A crescent moon lay in the center of the gates, the infamous seer's symbol that Voldemort had adopted as his own. Almost instinctively, Fenrir paid respect to the great matron, even if it was represented in a weakened form.

"How are we supposed to get it?" Garm asked, looking at Fenrir curiously. The older wolf reached into the pocket of his robe, withdrawing a long leather glove.

"Did you think that Voldemort sent us here unprepared?" Fenrir asked sarcastically, rolling up the sleeve of his shirt and pulling on the glove. The black piece of leather stretched nearly up to his elbow and as Fenrir flexed his arm, it pushed uncomfortably against his claws. "This will do."

Fenrir strode up to the gates, staring unflinchingly at the crescent moon lock. He wondered for a second if he was supposed to announce their presence before brushing the thought aside. If this seer was as good as they said then he should have prepared for them already.

He grabbed the crescent moon in his gloved hand and, with a mighty shove, threw the gates opened. They crashed against the stone walls of the hall with a loud bang that made Garm jump and Fenrir grin; nothing like making an entrance.

"Couldn't you have just opened the doors?" Garm asked weakly, grinning sheepishly when Fenrir glanced at him dispassionately.

"Why would I ever do that?" Fenrir replied, shaking his head mournfully. Pups these days.

"It's just that..." Fenrir tuned him out as he begun forward once more, paying no notice as he crossed into the hallowed halls of the seer. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing momentous about this occasion. He was merely collecting the seer and protecting him for the next few days until he could drop him off with Voldemort. In and out; it was practically a delivery, all things considered.

Fenrir tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling. Unfailingly, his eyes were drawn to where he knew the moon was at the moment. It would be only a half-moon tonight but soon, very soon, he and his pack would be able to run free under their mother's light.

"What do you think the seer will look like?" Garm asked, and Fenrir stopped walking long enough to bat him over the head lightly.

"You ask too many questions," Fenrir said, thinking back to the three seers he had met in his long life. Seers were rare beings, coveted ones too, because being able to see the future (or the past, or the present, or the flow of possibilities and potentialities) was a gift tantamount to absolute power. It was well known that if one had a seer in their possession, then they were nigh unconquerable. It was a dangerous thing to announce that one owned a seer though, as many would go to any length to procure one for themselves. Even Voldemort, who was quickly becoming a Dark Lord on a scale not seen for many years, was wary of boasting of his prized treasure, for fear of it being taken away from him by someone able to slip under the seer's notice. It was rare for such individuals to exist though, for the stronger a seer was the less chance there was of a person being Unwoven, but as always, even the slights chance of defeat is dangerous.

"Still, it is a valid question!" Garm argued, and Fenrir huffed irritably.

"In what way?" Fenrir questioned. "He will probably be an emaciated wreck of a being kept alive by magical support; many seers get lost in their own visions but are kept alive so that wizards can force themselves into their minds and see what they have seen and still see in their insanity."

Garm was pale as he asked his next question. "Do you really think the Dark Lord treats the seer like that? I've heard it said that he treasures the seer very highly!"

"Rumors, rumors, rumors," Fenrir muttered, shaking his head with a frown. "I have heard the same man speak of both the seer's radiant locks and his curtain of midnight hair. Let this be a lesson to you, Garmr: never place your trust wholly into the words of a gossipmonger."

"Yes, Alpha Fenrir," Garm murmured, chastened by the use of his true name.

"Wise words from a man wise enough to play the fool in a court of fools."

"Who's there!?" Fenrir exclaimed, stepping in front of his charge. The voice that had seemed to speak from everywhere and nowhere laughed lightly.

"Only me, and you, and you."

"Who are you?" Fenrir clarified, backing up as watched the hallway they were in with careful eyes. He couldn't see the tell-tale shimmer of a glamour, and he couldn't smell anything trying to disguise their presence, so where was the voice coming from?

"I am many things, one of which is a seer."

"The seer!" Garm breathed in awe, and Fenrir tensed, his thoughts racing. Was this Legilimency? No, his Occlumency was satisfactory enough to prevent that. Telepathy could be ruled out as well for the same reason, but...

"With such an analytical mind, how could anyone perceive you to be a mindless beast? Truly, you are well-deserving of your title."

"You don't need to be strong of mind to be an Alpha, seer," Fenrir called out as he inched forward, Garm right behind him. He could see just a few yards ahead where the hallway opened up into a large room.

"I wasn't talking about Alphas, Vánagandr."

Fenrir froze as the weight of his title hit him like a tidal wave. Though it was not his true name, there was power in knowing someone's title; power that the seer now wielded.

"Fenrir?" Garm asked, voice shaking slightly. Fenrir shook his head silently, his silver hair swaying with the gesture, trying to tell the younger wolf somehow to not draw the seer's attention to himself.

"Fenrisúlfr, Garmr, do not hesitate. Come to my side; no harm shall befall you there."

Fenrir cursed quietly as he felt his control of his body slip form his grasp at the seer's command. Garm whimpered slightly, and Fenrir wished that he could comfort the pup, but he had no will of his own to do so.

As soon as they left the dark hallway, they were struck with the beauty of the room they had entered into. The floor was charmed to look like a meadow; soft grass and damp earth crunched underfoot and pale white lilies and roses danced in a breeze that they could not feel. The floor gently sloped up until it reached the center of the room, where a stone dais sat, covered in silken sheets that flowed to the earthy ground. Gossamer curtains were draped from the ceiling of the large room and hid the dais from sight, though their sharp eyes could see a shadow that lay on it. The most beautiful thing about the room though was the ray of soft moonlight that shone down on the dais from a glass window on the ceiling, making the entire scene glow ethereally.

The room was suddenly lit up radiantly as a cloud covering the moon passed and the ray of moonlight's intensity became almost too much to bear. The lilies and the roses danced more furiously to a beat that they could not hear, their graceful swaying intermixed with hypnotizing undulations and the curtains glowed as if lit from within. They could see now with the new light the figure on the dais in greater clarity.

The first thing the noticed was the man's long hair, darker than black and seeming to absorb the moonlight surrounding him. It tumbled around him as he sat on the dais in ringlets and curls, long enough to almost serve as blanket and contrasting with his pale skin. He wore thin, white clothes that, they noticed as they were drawn closer were merely extensions of the curtains surrounding his resting place, roped around him and tying him in place. His eyes stared unceasingly at the window above him, not flickering once as they stopped just outside the dais, his back to them.

All was silent, as if the world was taking a breath, before the seer opened his mouth to speak.

"If you would allow me one moment, Fenrisúlfr, Garmr, then it would be most appreciated." Not waiting for their response (And why would he, Fenrir thought absent-mindedly. He already knew how they would react to his request), the seer conjured a thin dagger in his right hand. The two werewolves tensed as the smelt the dangerous scent of silver, but the seer merely bent back, arching his back until they could almost see his forehead before throwing the dagger straight up into the air. The world paused once more as it reached its apex and Fenrir rushed forward as he realized what was about to happen.

Just as he reached the seer and grabbed his shoulder, the knife fell, striking a glancing blow against his wrist and falling safely away from the seer. His skin sizzled as the silver touched him and he barely managed to suppress a howl of pain. He could hear Garm cry out his name and every instinct in his body was telling him to cleanse his wound, but he was frozen in place, held by the alluring, all-knowing emerald eyes of the seer.

The seer smiled thinly as he grabbed Fenrir's wrist, fingertips lightly touching the wound.

"This will scar," the seer whispered, and Fenrir was entranced. In a move too quick to see, the seer grabbed the werewolf's neck in a tight grip, choking him. "But that will be the least of your worries, Fenrisúlfr."

And so we begin! Right into the action, not delay in the story line, straight and to the point. For my long time readers, this must be quite the odd experience, considering that you usually have to slog through tons of author's notes before you even get to the main story. I'm making a concentrated effort to cut down on those, hopefully streamlining the reading process.

In any case, this story is a response to my beloved Kamerreon's rare pairings request. Kamerreon had a whole alphabet of Harry-slash pairings that she put on her profile and people chose from the numerous men (I think there was two to three men per letter that you could choose from) to write a oneshot about. Now, obviously, this is not a oneshot, but that should be okay, because Kamerreon is the last person I can think of who would try and limit a person's creative muses (aka, plunnies, the most deadly beings this side of the Internet). I was lucky enough to be given the two men I wanted (Fenrir and James), so be on the lookout for me juggling this story, a James/Harry oneshot, Inexorable Inevitability, A Moment of Mercy, and a few other projects that I'm trying to wrap up. And to think, I already know that none of them will be finished by the end of the year...

Let's not end this on a depressing note though! I want to end this on a happy one, so let's all cheer for an actually romantic Fenrir/Harry story from me!

Don't forget to review on your way out; everyone should know by now that I will love you forever if you do!

Ariaeris~

Ps: Yes, I know, lots of Norse mythology allusions. Wikipedia is your friend; God knows it has been mine.