Behold, the glorious rewrite of my brain-baby!
I have changed the entire baseplan for this story, because my brain musings of brain-to-computer-post without extensive reconsideration may have gotten me to post chapters without feeling self concious, but they were shit. Beyond shit, honestly, and more updates is absolutely not a valid excuse for that. It was pathetic, and I apologize. Now, I hope you enjoy the updated version of my brain child.
Au: more modernized, because I can't live without music, and a lot of Youtube. Also rather Americanized, because I don't trust myself to keep my characters sounding British.
I do not own Harry Potter or anything associated with it, nor do I own Youtube, Ipods,or pretty much anything in this story except for my characters, Thunder, Sunshine and Raincloud, their parents who make a very brief appearance in the beginning here, and the basic plot for this psychotic mess of existence.
~oOo~
The tiny girl cuddled her fathers chest contentedly. After a long moment of quiet, she peeped out, "Daddy? Why don' I go ta school like Thun'er and Sunny?"
Her father lightly ran his hand over her head, pressing a kiss to her forehead, much to her delight. "Because you're very special, darling, and the muggles won't understand that as well as we do. Even some of the other wizards and witches might not understand. But believe me, you will go to school soon, and you will have Thunder and Sunshine waiting for you on your first day. Now, let's get back to arithmetic."
The girl whined patheticly and slid off her fathers lap into a puddle of child at his feet.
~oOo~
"Alright, one more time, come on now. Ready? One... Two... Three."
The man slowly swung a hand towards her, following the same pattern they'd been following for almost an hour. Perfectly in time, they traded sweeps of arms and kicks of feet, spinning around each other at a snails pace, occassionally pausing when the girl started to totter or needed a moment to remember what came next, but not stopping until they had finished the entire dance.
The girl purr-chirped happily. "Daddy I did it! I did 'a hoooow t'ing!"
Her father laughed, ruffling her hair and letting her latch onto his hand. "Yes, you did. You're getting very good. In another week we'll be going full speed, now won't we?"
"I wanna go 'gain! P'eeease?" She nuzzled his palm adorably.
He snorted and shook his head. "Alright, alright. One more time. Merlin, if only you were this happy about your other studies!"
~oOo~
"One-two-three-four, five-six-seven-eight. One-and-two, three-and-four, five, Hold, seven eight-"
"Ow!"
The brunette woman sighed, Powder blue eyes softening as her youngest hopped, balancing on one foot and rubbing the other. "I told you you needed to stretch. You've probably strained your foot. Come here, honey."
The tiny girl hobbled over and flopped down on the floor. Her mother chuckled and lifted the offended foot into her lap, massaging it with her thumbs. "Momma, I don' like this. Can I pull-ease do somethin' else, um... La-dee-like?"
She 'hmm'd thoughtfully as she rubbed, pursing her lips. "Well... We could try music, I think."
"Like a gee-tar?"
"Guitar, and no." She played with the foot in her lap, bending it around to make sure the injury was tended. "We have a Piano in the sitting room. Or we could get you a violin. Those are both properly lady like."
"...I wanna try violin."
~oOo~
Most of the house was quiet. Other than the group in the front room and the tiny figure making her way towards them, nothing was happening.
The child's mind was racing. She'd heard noises, and wanted so badly to investigate. Imagine if it were a vampire- or a dragon! A real dragon in their sitting room, oh wouldn't her parents be proud of her for being so brave! She could use the new fight she'd been practicing with her daddy, and she'd remember the whole thing, and she'd beat up whatever had wandered into their home so fast they wouldn't know what hit them!
She crept quietly across the second-floor landing, near silent from practice and the plush carpeting. As she neared the edge of the stairs, the whispers became quiet words. There was a tiny curl of disappointment before she strained her hearing to catch as much of what was going on as she could.
Down below was a group of five figures. One of them was distinctly female- she had dark hair that looked black without lighting, cropped short near her chin, and a thin frame, facing away from her, but she had no doubts in her mind that this was her mother. Beside her was a man, taller and broader, with dusty-yellow hair that half glowed white in the darkness, clothes hanging rather loosely on his body. This was her daddy- absolutely. She could see the scars carved into the skin of his back, from one shoulder to his opposite hip. The other three were cloaked, and she had nothing to go on but their unfamiliar voices.
"We will not ask again, filthy half-blood," the first spat, in a shrill females voice. "Where- is- the- boy?!" She emphasized each word by pressing whatever was in her hand closer to her mother's throat. The whimpering noises she heard told her that it wasn't something her mother could handle- that... She wasn't quite sure what to think of that.
Her father said nothing, even as the woman flicked her arm out and some liquid flew from her mothers throat. In a second, she collapsed, pressing a hand to her throat as her head smacked into the solid marble floor. The child above watched in shock and confusion as the confrontation continued and her father dropped dead as well in a flash of bright green light.
The three strangers dissappeared with a trio of loud cracks, leaving the child frozen to the landing, staring down at her now-deceased parents. Her brain had simply stopped, unable to comprehend exactly what had happened, half convinced that the entire thing was just a dream. An hour passed, then another, and as the sun started to filter through the windows, her siblings woke, comeing out to the landing themselves. The middle child, a boy with their fathers fair hair and their mothers blue eyes, let out a piercing scream that made her ears shrink back, but even then she couldn't bring herself to move. Not until she saw the two elder boys kneeling beside their parents bodies did she manage to respond in any way.
Quietly, she got to her feet, unsteady in her dazed walk to the drawing room. A soft brown owl hooted at her from its perch on a shelf, fluttering down to her shoulder as she dipped a shaking quill into the ink and scratching out a barely legible note for the Ministry of Magic.
'We need help.'
Beneath it she put down the address, then held it up for the owl to take in its beak. She had no sooner told it "Ministry" than it was off, flying out the open window and into the day. Watching it leave, she managed to come to her senses a bit more and trudged down the stairs as if her own demise sat before her. Her brothers latched onto her in an instant, tears flowing freely down their faces. It wasn't fair, she concluded. They were children, all of them- Thunder was only nine, Sunshine eight, and she herself was barely seven. It wasn't fair.
But her father had warned her just days ago, hadn't he? Life wasn't fair, he'd told her after a trip to Gringotts that had left her feeling horrible for her appearance. Life wasn't fair, and it rarely pretended to be.
She let herself cry in her brothers' hold for a while before vouching instead to sit beside her father, leaning over to rest her head on his chest like they used to do during movies, pretending for just a moment that she didn't notice he was too cold, and wasn't breathing, and she couldn't hear that heavy drumbeat in his chest.
~oOo~
"We can't put them in an orphanage. They know of our world- they belong in our world- Giving them to muggles to take care of-!"
"We don't quite have many options at the moment. They've been staying at the Leaky Cauldron for almost two months now, and we haven't gotten a single request that hasn't ended as soon as the young Miss's condition is mentioned. No one is willing to put forth the effort to take care of her, and if you are so adament about keeping them together, this is the only option that will work in their favor."
The child sat in the next room, listening to the two officials arguing. She knew it was her fault that she and her siblings were still in limbo. No witch or wizard in their right mind wanted anything to do with a creature like her. With a half-breed. A Mutt. She wasn't sorry though. She'd lost her parents- let them die right in front of her. She would not lose them too.
The door to the bar swung open, and she shuffled uneasily in her seat, pulling on her hood to make sure her entire head was still hidden. The man who entered wandered over to the bar, taking the seat beside her, much to her discomfort. He greeted the bartender, Tom, and almost immediately asked, "Fudge still arguing with his Aurors?"
"'Fraid so. What can I get you?" Tom asked politely, setting a new cup of hot chocolate in front of the girl.
"I wouldn't say no to one of those," He answered with a smile, glancing down at the mug. Tom bustled about to get him a mug ready, and the mans focus turned to the girl. "Hello," He greeted politely, offering his hand. "I'm Remus Lupin."
She took a long moment to hesitate before grasping his hand, careful to keep most of her hand hidden in the folds of her cloak. "Rain," She answered simply. His grip was firm, but not overwhelming.
The man pestered her for a while longer, managing to get a few little answers out of her while they both finished their drinks. She wanted badly to simply leave him there at the bar and go to her room where she could teach herself more of the action-movie stunts and fights, or shadow-box to practice what she knew but couldn't practice with her daddy, but he had pushed it into her head that she shouldn't be rude to people she hadn't known very long, and fifteen minutes was definitly still 'not long.'
As she finished her drink and decided she had an excuse to leave, The door to the parlor the Minister and his Auror friend had been using swung open. The man- Mr. Lupin, she reminded herself- stood quickly and started over to confront him. "Excuse me, Mr. Fudge? I came to inquire about the Krats children."
Rain froze in her retreat, listening as the minister stuttered for a moment before proceeding with his usual speech about her siblings, being careful to outline every flaw then smother it with something positive. She took a moment amidst this to slip into the little crevice she'd found under the stairs to listen in on the man some more. She had a vague impression of him from their small chat, but then, maybe he knew who and what she was, so he would have wanted to make a good impression.
As the monologue drew to a close- they'd taken a seat at a booth to discuss- Fudge moved into the dangerous waters. "Lastly, the young Miss Raincloud has a minor disability. While we have been researching and duplicating a very intriguing potion her father had been giving her, she appears to have suffered Second-hand Lycanthropy. She has not, as of yet, gone through a full transformation, due to her fathers clever knowledge of potions and his finding a way to properly dose her- enough that she suffers only minor nausea and weakness. Our researchers have agreed to produce the medication as it is needed and send it to you by either owl post or a shipment by Auror Delivery in person. If all of these conditions are acceptable, Then there is only a small amount of paperwork and the basic adoption fees to care for."
For a moment there was quiet, then- "Where do I sign?"
~oOo~
The three children had one trunk to share, filled with only clothes, a few toys, and pictures. The eldest, Thunder, stood in front of it, eyes big and calm as he surveyed the man in front of them. He had dark hair, like his mother, Remus noted, and her bright blue eyes. He seemed like the exact copy of Renae, right down to his quiet, observant nature.
Beside him was the middle child, also a boy, Sunshine.(honestly, who had named these children?) He was already tall, younger than his brother but almost equal in height. He had Alexander's hair and height, that he knew, and another pair of light blue eyes. The boy would probably tower over him by his sixth year at school. He was abnormally hyper, bouncing on the balls of his feet, then rocking back to his heels and doing it again.
Lastly was the youngest, and the only girl, Raincloud. He couldn't see much of her under the oversized traveling cloak hood pulled over her head, but he could assume she was rather quiet and stoic. She wouldn't be very trusting- not with her condition, at least. He wasn't, either. She stood between the boys, clinging to their hands as if she could hold them back.
"It's nice to meet you all," He greeted, kneeling in front of them. "My name is Remus Lupin. I'm going to be your guardian. I know you miss your parents, and I know I'll never replace them, but I promise, I will do my best to make sure that you each grow up the way they would have wanted."
"Why you want us?" The girl peeped out in an adorable baby-voice. Her eyes- the only thing he could clearly make out- had darkened to a gold tone, much unlike the pale buttery yellow they had been when he first spoke with her. "Nobody wants us." Her grip tightened on her brothers.
He looked at her for a moment, eventually letting a faint, broken smile come to his face. "Because we aren't all that different, you and I."
Her face twisted into a childish scowl. "Yeah we are. You don' know."
"I think you'd be surprised." Her shoulders shuffled, nudging the hood further down over her head. "Well, come on."
He knelt to help Thunder carry the trunk out to the waiting Ford Angela out front. From the front, a red-haired man grinned at them, waving cheerily. Once the trunk had been stashed in the back, he directed the children into the back seat and took the one beside their driver.
~oOo~
"Rain? Are you alright?"
The dark-haired girl flickered her gaze to the man beside her, staring down the house in front of her. Her brothers were a few yards away, closer to the elegant gates, but staring at the house with a similar discomfort. "I... I can' go in."
He ran a hand over her shoulder gently, murmuring in a low voice. "Rain, there's nothing bad in that house. I understand that it will be hard to stay here, knowing what happened, but it will help you heal-"
She vigorously shook her head, stumbling back as if the mere thought of setting foot inside those gates set her feet on fire. She threw out her hands to catch herself as she fell, hitting the ground with a dull thump and a squelch of damp grass. "No, no, no no no!"
Remus blinked at her in shock, holding his hands palm open to placate her. "Easy, alright, alright, I can't make you stay if you don't want to. But I haven't got anywhere else to stay yet. It'll take a few days to find somewhere new. What do you suppose we do until then?"
She was shaking, the poor girl, he thought to himself. The house- no, the memories- terrified her. Her hands, tucked under the sleeves of her cloak, cupped the sides of her head as she shook it violently. "I- I don' know, I don't know! I can' go in!"
It took all three of them cradling her for nearly twenty minutes before she could speak again. In the end, after a short talk with both the children and then with Arthur, they agreed that they could stay on the grounds for now, but in the Weasly tent.
It would take almost three months before the girl could stand being in the house long enough to properly move in.
~oOo~
The full moon high above cast a pale light over the mansion-esque house, shining carefully through the windows of the stiff two-story building. Inside, a small figure stirred, stumbling out of a dark room as if drunk.
Something was wrong-she knew that for certain. Her skin felt too tight, her blood was on fire... She couldn't think straight. She stumbled again, this time without anything to catch her, and she landed on all fours in a rectangle of moonlight. A slow second passed, and she tilted her head up to stare at the bright white orb through the window pane.
For the first time, she felt her bones forcing themselves about, shifting into something different, felt her mind go fuzzy and blank.
When she awoke the next morning in the woods behind the house, she was terrified. When she got back to the house and discovered a healer was tending her brother, she felt digusted.
Remus quietly comforted her, but her eyes never left the blond boy.
~oOo~
"I-I hate this!"
"Rainy, it's okay! You don't look that bad! It's just a little different!"
"It's not okay, Sunny! I look like- like- I-"
"Rain, you're still you. You always have been. You always will be. A little fur isn't going to change that."
"I look like that thing that hurt Sunny!" She spat, shoving away from them to get more space between her and the mirror. Her face was wet, made obvious by the darkness of the wet grey fur covering her skin.
It took both of the boys pulling her back to the seat to make her look at her reflection again. She glared at it spitefully.
Even before her first change, she'd looked different- mutated. Her ears had been pointed, and greyed with a thin layer of fur, her eyes had been too large for her face, and her jaw squared off too high, giving her a pouty, smushed sort of face below her eyes with the smushed front of her nose. Her fingers were too short, making her violin lessons a test of patience and dexterity, and ended in nails that always found a way to taper to a point, no matter how often she trimmed them flat. But this thing that stared back at her in the silvery mirror was an abomination- She could have walked into a grocery store without much fuss, but this thing-
Her face had formed a short, inch-long snout, her now-flat-and-darkened nose and her jaw and everything in between jerked out grotesquely, and her once cutely pointed ears were now huge half-cones she would be lucky to hide under a heavy travelling cloak. Her short fingers were fat digits, the pointed nails now full-out claws. She could weild a pencil alright, and she could hold her violin and bow, but she could barely bend them- almost like she had no joints in them anymore. And her legs- Her Wonderful, Normal, Human Legs!- were more suited for a forest creature than a young girl, her feet like paws, her balance thrown in seven different directions so she could barely stand under her own power. That went without mentioning her tail- A tail, thick and fluffy and- and the quarter-inch-thick grey fur that now covered every inch of skin she was aware of, except what was under her hair.
"I look like a monster," She not-quite sobbed, nose stuffy and throat thick with tears.
The blonde boy pulled her chair around to look her in the face, ignoring her wince when she saw the remnants of a few sharp scars along the side of his head, cutting down from his hairline and all the way down to his jaw. He frowned at her hard. "You're not a monster, Rain," He declared confidently, "You're my lil' sister, and you're the best lil' sister in the whole world, and if anyone thinks diff'rent, We'll show 'em just how wrong they are!"
She sniffled for a moment longer, then gave up and burried her face in his shoulder.
~oOo~
"Mister Remus?"
He immediately pressed a bookmark under the sentence he'd finished and looked up. Rain stood in the doorway of the study, feet kneading the ground. "Yes, Rain?"
Her eyes flickered around the room, hand-paws slowly unwinding from her middle to fiddle with each other instead. "I... I think we should get a new house."
He blinked. "Do you mind if I ask why?"
She shrugged first, turning her head in several directions before she spoke again. "It's just... it's really big. And we don't need a house this big. And... And sometimes when I'm getting up in the morning, I... I still see it."
Without further prompt, Remus spread his arms, accepting the halfling that took the opportunity to burrow into his chest as quickly as possible. When she had collected herself, he put a hand on her cheek. "I don't know how long it will take, but I will see if the house can be sold soon, and we can all pick a new house together. Does that sound alright?" She nodded, pointed ears swaying with the motion. "Good. I'm very proud of you for speaking to me. You're very mature, for such a young girl."
She managed a half smile. "I'm not that young. I'm almost nine."
He pat her head and smiled back. "And you're a very bright, very kind, very grown-up eight-and-three-quarters."
~oOo~
They'd moved into their new house three months ago, Remus thought to himself, listening to the thumping of someone in the sitting room doing some vigorous activity, but it had done nothing to slow Rain from her typical nightly routine. She'd been doing it since he'd adopted them, not that she knew he knew; she'd wait for him to go to bed, then quietly slip out of her room and sneak down to the sitting room, with the most space, and start shadow boxing. Once or twice, while he watched silently from around the doorway, she would pause, tired from an active round, and then look down, watching her furry feet as she slowly and careful rose to en pointe, then attempted a few steps in some old, half-forgotten routine until she stumbled or her toes rolled out from their place, and angered again she would throw herself more vigorously into her shadow boxing.
He crept quietly over to the doorway, watching her in the faint moonlight- a quarter moon tonight. Her face was set in a determined scowl, even as she followed her routine diligently, spinning quickly to deliver a firm, well balanced kick, taking a lowering step as she punched out hard.
Quietly, he resolved to buy her a punching bag. Soon. And perhaps hire a professional to teach her further.
~oOo~
No one spoke a word. Not a single syllable- just the trickle of running water and all four people's steady breathing.
"I know you wouldn't do something like this without a good reason," The adult of the quartet started, gently cleaning partially-dried blood from his only daughter's face. She winced at the contact with her still-sore snout. "But you won't tell me what your good reason was, and that worries me."
A few more seconds of quiet, then- "I didn't wanna fight him." Rain stopped when he wiped her face once more. "I just wanted to tell him that he couldn't push us around. We're not babies, and we're not bad. But he- He... He pushed Sunny off the monkey-bars. And then he laughed. And I just got really mad, and I... I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him wish he hadn't. I don't want anyone to think they can hurt my brothers. And I only meant to hit him once, like you told me, but then he hit back and I-"
"Hush." She went quiet again while he made a final scrub of her bruised face. Satisfied, he set the dirty rag in the sink to rinse out before he put it in the wash. "Don't ever be ashamed of defending yourself. And don't feel bad for standing up to people. You did the right thing, Rain, and though I wish you hadn't needed to fight, I'm proud of you for being so brave."
She sniffled, then winced. "Really? You're not mad?"
"No, Rain." She smiled up at him, eyes warming to a buttery gold. "I'm not mad at all."
~oOo~
"You have to send my letters every week-"
"I will, I promise."
"-and stay safe. Don't get in trouble, don't get hurt-"
"I'll be fine, Rain."
"-and you have to pay attention to people! Don't let anyone drag you into trouble-"
"Rain, we'll be fine!"
"You don't know that!" The tiny girl whined, nearly a whimper, paws threading through her hair and tugging at the strands in stress. The scarlet Hogwarts Express stood proud before her, careless of her worries. All around wizarding kind were bustling about, parents passing their children last-minute-forgotten items and cramming trunks into compartments. A pack of gingers stood nearby, going through a similar routine of promises and assurances to their children already loaded into their seats.
The blond eleven-year-old sighed, rubbing a thumb over the faded scars on the left side of his jaw. "Rain, you're only ten. You worry too much- you'll stress all the color out of your hair by the time you're twenty at this rate!"
She locked onto him and the brunet behind him fiercely, a protective fire in her eyes. "Promise me, Both of you! Promise me you'll be careful! If we get an owl saying you've- you've fallen off your brooms, or- or been hit with a hex, or got trampled by a unicorn in Magical Creatures- I- I just don't know what I'd do if you got hurt and I'm not there!" She hugged both of them tightly around the waists, more strength in her limbs than she appeared to have. "Just Promise me."
"I promise, Rain." Thunder muttered into her hair, just behind her large ear.
"Pinky Promise," Sunshine countered, nuzzling her head and worming a pinky around her end-digit.
She sighed heavily and released them, letting them retrieve hugs from their dad and scurry into the train as the whistle blew to summon everyone inside. As they slowly rolled out of the station, she whimpered again, hugging her dad's leg. "It's gonna be a loong nine months."
Remus chuckled and ruffled her hair gently. "Don't worry, darling. Next year you'll be able to follow and bother them all year."
~oOo~
AAAAAAND CUT.