Haru and Toboe were having fun. This was their first ever train ride. To add to that fun, they had plenty of things to sniff out. The train was full of interesting smells.
Once they had gone up and down the train at least twice, the two returned to their compartment. Inside were two new people. A girl with bushy brown hair who smelled of old tomes and a timid boy who reeked of plants and dirt.
"Sorry, we didn't know this compartment was already occupied," said the girl.
"That's alright. We were only exploring the train. You're welcome to stay," said Haru.
The two seemed relieved to have such a pleasant welcome.
"I'm Hermione Granger," said the girl.
"Neville Longbottom," said the boy.
"I'm Toboe and this is Haru."
It didn't take long for the four to become friends. Toboe and Neville discussed various plants while Haru and Hermione talked about books.
Everything was going great...until the door opened.
In the frame stood a gangly red head with freckles.
"Do you mind? Everywhere else is full," he claimed.
Haru knew that to be a lie. He and Toboe had passed at least three empty compartments.
"This is full too. There's an empty one five doors down though," Haru suggested.
The red head clearly didn't hear the warning in his tone, because he moved to enter the compartment anyway.
Haru stood in front of him, clearly annoyed.
"Look, this one is full. Why are you so dead set on joining us?" he asked.
"Because I heard the boy-who-lived was in here," said the red head.
"You have the wrong compartment then. Try the one three doors down," said Haru firmly.
The boy left angrily. Haru pitied whoever this boy-who-lived bloke was.
"What was his problem?" asked Hermione. She had seen the empty compartments as well, and the boy's attitude had rubbed her the wrong way.
"I have no idea. My guess is that he's one of those people who hang around famous people hoping the glory would rub off on them," shrugged Haru.
"Who is this boy-who-lived?" asked Toboe.
"He's the one who defeated the Dark Lord ten years back. They say he has a lightning shaped scar on his forehead, and that he lives with his muggle relatives," said Hermione promptly.
"Wait, if he defeated the Dark Lord, then who was stupid enough to paint a target on him like that? Wouldn't the followers come after him if they knew something as distinctive as a lightning scar?" said Haru incredulous.
Hermione opened and closed her mouth. She could find no fault in his logic. Who had let that bit slip? It was as bad as painting a large bull's eye on the child's back saying 'here I am, come and kill me!'.
"I have no idea," admitted Hermione.
"Anyway, why would the boy even allow anyone to see the scar if he knew he was being targeted?" asked Haru.
That was when Neville noticed something on Haru's forehead that made him gape.
"You're Harry Potter!"
"No, I gave up that name a while back. There's a reason I prefer Haru to Harry," said Haru.
"What does Haru mean anyway?" asked Hermione.
"It's Japanese for 'Spring'."
"And Toboe?" asked Neville.
"Howl*."
Haru and Toboe followed the others to be sorted. They weren't impressed with the speech.
"Black, Haru!"
Haru walked up to the stool.
Not a bad mind, I must say. You would fit in any of the four houses. Which do you want to go to?
Which one suits me best?
For one of your kine, I would have great difficulty.
Um...which one wouldn't hate me for what I am?
In that case...
"Hufflepuff!"
Dead silence met this cry. A Black in Hufflepuff?
"Lupin, Toboe!"
Dumbledore looked at him closely. He wasn't aware that there was anyone left of the Lupin line. And this Toboe did resemble Remus after a fashion.
"Hufflepuff!"
Now he was interested. What was it about Black and Lupin that bothered him?
"I can't believe we both got into the same house Toboe!" said Haru with a grin.
Toboe laughed. He really liked having the energetic Haru as a pack brother. And Kiba was really nice to him too!
They picked their beds and crashed. The moon silently rose above the treetops.
Dumbledore looked into the family tree. Nowhere did it say that Lupin had a nephew. And under the Black family line there was an odd mark under Sirius's name. He had seen this before.
Wolf adoption. He scowled. This would not do. He couldn't have his golden boy turn out to be one of those wretched wolves.
He had never believed the tales of Redemption anyway.
Haru found an odd book that caught his attention. It was old, almost falling apart. When he went to check it out, the librarian told him he could have it for two galleons. He paid her and left.
Fabula Magica
Legend of the Lupus Spiritus
Four hundred years ago, there was a prophecy passed down by a great Seer.
"When the darkness of fate has twisted around a Childe of Light, the wolves shall rise.
Following the path of the Luna Flora, they shall redeem those who have strayed from the path of true magic.
This time of redemption will not be heralded by all, for those who guide the sheep will seek to quell the illuminating path.
If the path of Light is hidden, all hope for Magic shall be lost."
"Eh? I wonder what those weird words mean. I bet Remus knows!"
Dear Remus and Kiba,
I found this weird book in the library that the librarian let me keep. It had some words I didn't understand. Do you think you could find out? Here is a list of the words I found..."
Haru tied the scroll to Tsuki, who flew off. She did not stray from her path, even when a red light almost hit her.
Haru scowled, and saw a familiar old geezer. It was the headmaster!
Dumbledore, as if sensing his gaze, turn to the Hufflepuff tower. Haru had gone inside the second he realized what the old man had tried.
Remus stared at the letter.
Tsuki rested on her perch from the rather narrow escape from the school.
Haru had discovered a prophecy none of them had known about. One that involved all wolves. Particularly the Spirit Wolves like Kiba.
Kiba took a look at it, and realized that it was part of a much bigger tale than Remus had realized.
"Remus, you know about the Lunar flower, right?"
"A flower so rare that it's almost extinct? What about it?"
"You know about our legend, about the power of that particular flower?"
Remus realized what he was getting at.
"You mean these are connected?"
Kiba nodded.
"How will we find that flower? Any potionsmaster worth his salt has tried to find them, but none have ever succeeded."
"One did succeed, but he was wise enough to hide it's location."
"Who?"
Kiba looked at him like Remus already knew that answer. His eyes widened.
"Snape?"
"If I'm right, Haru and Toboe will come across the one he hid sooner rather than later. I better start writing him a letter about this new problem."
For reasons he never told Remus, Kiba had gotten along with Snape rather well.
It was mostly because Kiba tended to be a loner, just like Snape was. Plus whenever he came for healing potions he always paid with extremely rare potions ingredients. It was a working arrangement.
Snape read the essay with disdain. While he hated James Potter with every fiber of his being for the stunts he used to pull on him, the sad fact was that Harry wasn't his biological son. Add to the fact that Kiba was his brother, and Snape really didn't have any reason to hate the boy.
Snape liked Kiba. The boy was sensible and knew how to pay properly for his help. Plus it was thanks to Kiba that he had found that patch of Lunar Flowers in the Forbidden Forest and had been able to hide them.
He had no idea that Unicorns tended to guard the flowers by attacking anyone who came near them without a wolf accompanying them with their horns.
Kiba had explained to him about how long ago, before the Spirit Wolves had been forced into hiding, they had met with a large herd of unicorns and asked them to protect the precious flowers from the humans. Because of the pure nature of the flowers, the unicorns had agreed, and word had spread to the other herds.
Just to make sure he didn't end up gutted by the horn of a normally docile creature, Kiba had marked him lightly on the ankle. Which meant he could harvest a few petals every full moon without worrying about the unicorns attacking him.
Haru had done a rather well written and informed essay on the effects of moon rocks. He had even included a few notes on the effects of using moon rocks that were smashed, rather than crushed.
So Snape had given the boy a rare 'O' worthy paper. Very few people were on his good side after all.
Hermione walked up to Haru and Toboe with irritation on her face.
"I don't know how you do it! Why do you keep getting 'O' when I can barely scrape an Acceptable?" she complained.
"Because I do more than the required work? 'Mione, every time I do the research, I also look up the effects of alternate methods of preparing the ingredient and add that," said Haru.
Clearly that idea had never occurred to her.
"Besides, you should have listen to the older students when they said Snape was very biased against Gryffindor students. If you like, we can help you with your potions homework if you help us with charms."
"What about Herbology?"
Toboe shook his head. In exchange for keeping the more unpleasant Slytherins and Gryffindors off his back, Neville had been helping them with their herbology homework.
Neville, while lacking in Potions and Charms, was a natural Green Mage.
Hermione was clearly torn, but when she looked at her Potions paper, she made up her mind.
"Where and when?"
Haru and Toboe grinned.
"We do a group study in the library every Sunday, and we all work on our homework on Saturday. Mostly it's to proofread the other's work."
And just like that, their group grew by one. The next time she turned in a potions paper, she was relieve to see the 'A' had jumped overnight to an 'EE'. It would have been an 'O', but like Haru had pointed out, it was a miracle he even gave her an Exceeds Expectations since she was a Gryffindor.
Ever so slowly, the days crept by.
In the staff room and the common rooms of the students, there were rumors of wolves in the Forbidden Forest. The Gryffindor Terror Twins, Fred and George had taken it upon themselves to catch a glimpse of the wolves, or better yet a picture.
They had no idea that Toboe and Haru had marked their scent so that they could avoid them. Though they had great fun scaring the pants off them under the full moon.
Eventually though, the two decided that it wouldn't hurt to have allies in the Upper years.
So they allowed the twins to catch a photo of them playing under the moonlight near the Black Lake. Fred and George rather liked the photo, because watching the two play was rather amusing.
Mostly because while Toboe was used to being a wolf, Haru always managed to pin him within five minutes. In exchange for the experience of fighting other wolves, Haru helped show Toboe how to hunt for himself.
Toboe was a bit soft, but he quickly toughened up enough to catch and kill rabbits.
Though it did lead to a few first years losing their lunch whenever they accidentally ran into what was left of the poor rabbit. The Upperclassmen were always very quick to vanish what was left of the animal.
And without warning, the day of their first flying lessons came to them. Neville was understandably nervous, even though because of his friendship with Haru and Toboe, he had started to gain a bit more backbone.
Haru was grinning, since his brother had explained a few things even Toboe hadn't picked up on about their kind.
Each Spirit Wolf had a natural attribute that would drive what their magic leaned towards. For Kiba it was water and moonlight. Toboe was a natural Earth and wood type wolf.
Haru, on the other hand... he was one of those rare wolves with two elements and a focus type. He could control Ice, which meant he had a lesser power over water and wind. And the focus that he used to strengthen his control over his magic was darkness.
Haru and Toboe mounted their brooms, though only Toboe actually felt at ease on the thin sticks of wood. Without warning, Neville kicked off. He had been a bundle of nerves the entire morning, so Haru had actually anticipated such a reaction.
He kicked off, hard, and flew up to Neville. He neatly caught the boy's robes before he fell to the ground. Once he was on the ground, Madam Hooch got onto both of them.
Particularly Haru, because it was hard enough to fly a broom for the first time, let alone catch someone from falling. Still, it did do some good.
Haru earned fifteen points for catching his classmate before he hurt himself.
"Hey Neville, have you seen Hermione today?" asked Haru.
It was the Halloween feast, and Haru hadn't seen the girl all day. Which worried him more than he liked.
"I heard from Padma Patil that she was in the girl's bathroom. Said she'd been in there all afternoon, crying her eyes out from something Ron Weasly had said to her," said one of their Irish classmates.
"What on earth could he had said to upset her so much?" asked Toboe.
"I think he mentioned that she had no friends because she was such a know-it-all," shrugged Justin.
Haru didn't like that one bit.
"We need to go get her. Would anyone mind if a Lion joined our table for the feast?" asked Haru.
Everyone shook their heads. Hufflepuff was all about loyalty, especially to one's friends. Haru was clearly showing his Hufflepuff nature by bringing the girl where she would be welcomed.
"Toboe, I'll go get Hermione."
"Okay."
Haru left the feast, and five minutes later returned with a rather surprised Hermione Granger. No one commented on the fact that the girl had been unanimously welcomed to the Hufflepuff table, when it was an unspoken rule for people to sit at their house table during the feasts.
Not ten minutes after returning to the great hall, the DADA came running in, screaming his head off about a troll in the dungeons. After the initial panic had been dissipated, no one realized that Hermione Granger was missing from her house until an hour after the teachers had gotten rid of the beast.
McGonagall had been less than happy that because of Ron, Hermione had been in danger. If Haru hadn't left the feast early and retrieved her, she would have come face to face with the troll.
It had gone into the same bathroom Haru had found her in.
Needless to say Ron got a rather harsh detention with Filch, who was more than happy to set the boy cleaning every armor in the castle without magic.
Haru was not looking forward to the Quidditch match. While Hermione had started to hang out with them more (mostly because Haru had inadvertently rescued her from a troll) the sheer noise level and the overwhelming smell of humans in a feverish state were rather unpleasant to the wolves.
Their only consolation was the fact that Hermione had found both the bubble head charm and the silencing charm after hearing the two boys complain about the headaches. Which meant they wouldn't be deafened by the noise level alone.
About halfway into the game, Haru realized something was wrong with some of the brooms. They kept coming a little too close to the stands where he happened to be.
So he dragged Toboe and Hermione to a different part of the stands.
Only to have the players nearly crash into them, again.
"Alright, something is going on here. They keep coming towards our part of the stands instead of avoiding them," complained Haru.
Hermione would have disputed that, if she hadn't noticed it herself.
"I don't think anyone would notice if we left," said Toboe.
"How about we go and hit the library. I would love to get away from this noise."
Hermione wasn't that thrilled with the match either, and had mostly been blackmailed into coming.
They promptly left before another broom nearly crashed into their stand.
(Later they found out that someone had jinxed the brooms to target Haru, and finally quit acting up when he left.)
(*This is actually true. I looked up the names of the wolves in Wolf's Rain and discovered that they were all WOLF related.)