Author Note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I enjoyed every suggestion for how Harry and Jake would meet Nick, and I've decided to incorporate a few of them into my original idea.

Special shout-out goes to Wolf Miestwin, who is one of the sole reasons for this story being good so far, as he has pointed out all the plot holes and errors I've made before a lot of people can see them. Thanks, man. You're a true legend.

And to the reviewer who goes by the name of Guest'a, thanks for all the suggestions. You have a plethora of great ideas, and I hope you like what I've done with them.

If you haven't already, I'd like it if you read A Ray of Hope, which is written by the determined writer Camoss. He's been under a lot of stress right now, and I know he'd really appreciate the support for his story. It would mean a lot for both him AND me if you read his story and showed your support.

And without further ado, on to the chapter!


Trust me, I'm an I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T shit hustler
Chasing dreams since I was fourteen with the four-track bussing...

-Can't Hold Us (2011), Macklemore & Ryan Lewis


Chapter 4
The Fox and the Shrew

Marcus Savage was not a happy mammal today. It had been a rather rough day at the Z.M.D. for him, chasing down crooks who used their magic for nefarious deeds and erasing the memories of the mundanes who had witnessed the dragon that had torched down a bakery in the Meadowlands. Not to mention the fact that the chief was breathing down his neck for results on a certain crime lord, who had somehow escaped every attempted arrest. All in all, it was a stressful day for Marcus.

He trudged to his office, planning to have a drink of sherry to ease his mind from the strains of work. Reclining in his comfortable dragon leather chair, he stretched for the drawer in front of him, where he kept the things he wished to stay hidden from everyone. Reaching in for a glass and a bottle, he noticed, to his utmost shock, that the grimoire he had placed in there, the Emrys family grimoire, had disappeared.

Marcus dropped his glass onto the carpet that lay below, frantically pulling the drawer out in his attempt to determine where the book had gone. But try as he might, he was unable to find it and it seemed as if all hope was lost for him. He honestly couldn't fathom how someone had stolen the book, when he had warded the drawer from being opened by anyone that didn't have his DNA.

At least, he couldn't figure it out until he heard the front door close and a familiar voice echo around the house.

"I'm home!" his son, Jack, yelled. Within that instant, the cause of Marcus's worry became clear.

"JACK!" he roared, his voice rebounding off the walls until it reached Jack's ears. "COME HERE!"

Jack timidly ambled in the direction of his father's voice, a bit afraid of what was to come. He had a rough idea of why his father was mad, considering where his voice was originating from. He entered his father's office and looked straight into his father's livid eyes, the blue irises looking more like lightning than the azure they usually were.

"Y-yes, father?" he trembled.

"Where's the book I left here?" Marcus asked, pointing at the drawer. "And don't lie to me! I'll know if you do."

"I-in my bag." Jack whimpered, trying not to meet his father's eyes.

"Did you read it?" Marcus questioned with a stern look. When there was no answer, he continued. "Well? Did you?"

"Y-yes, father." he replied, gulping as his father became even more enraged. "B-but only a little bit."

A snarl escaped Marcus's mouth, and his paws clenched into fist as he struggled to contain his anger. It was difficult, but eventually he managed to quench his outrage at the fact that his son had shown a complete disregard for the basic customs of magical people.

"Jack," Marcus said as calmly as he could. "What is the first rule regarding other houses?"

Jack looked down in shame, recalling that information from their very first lesson. "Never read another family's grimoire." he said glumly.

"Unless you have the permission of the House's head." Marcus finished. "You will be punished for this..."

"What?!" Jack protested.

"You must learn that every action has consequences, Jack." Marcus explained curtly, ignoring his son's interruption. "If a magical official, or worse, the head of a house saw you reading another family's grimoire, you could get into some serious trouble."

Jack's mouth fell agape, but soon closed it when he realised how serious his father's tone was.

"Hand the grimoire over, Jack." Marcus ordered, extending his paw for the receiving of the tome.

At his father's command, Jack slipped his backpack off quickly and opened it. His heart stopped as he rummaged through its contents, unable to find the book that he vividly remembered having at recess.

"Oh no." Jack whispered to himself. His father's long ears perked up.

"What do you mean 'oh no'?" he asked.

"I-it's not there!" Jack exclaimed. "But I remember I had it after recess, right before the-" he trailed off as his eyes widened.

"Right before the what?" Marcus inquired irately.

"Right before the fire alarm went off." Jack answered. "The teachers said it was a false alarm, but..."

"Did you see that red fox, Emrys, around then?"

"No, the only fox I saw was that weird, black-furred fox." Jack replied hastily.

"Black-furred?" Marcus clarified, thinking back to the day he was at the orphanage. "Did he have bright green eyes?"

"Y-yes."

Marcus slumped back in his chair, his paw on his head, and groaned. He now knew that his son had screwed up everything he had tried to achieve since the fire that killed most of House Emrys. The justice that the entire family deserved, for the atrocities that had occurred because of their ancestor, would not come into fruition because of Jack. And Marcus might never get his vengeance for what they had done to him.

"Well done, Jack." he congratulated, his voice laced with sarcasm. "You probably just returned the grimoire back to its owner."


Sahara Square Elementary
At the Same Time

Nick tossed his janitor's uniform into the storage closet indignantly and sighed in frustration. How was he going to tell Mr Big about this new development with the boy? Everyone knew that Mr Big didn't take failure lightly, so what was he going to do?

Before he'd even had a chance to think of a believable explanation, the phone Mr Big had given him rang. He gulped, but he answered quickly, preparing himself for the worst.

"Yes, Mr Big?"

"Nicky..." the voice of Mr Big rasped. "How are you? How's the job going?"

"It may have felt a bit better if I didn't have to work where my old man used to." Nick replied, glancing at the patched overalls that hung in the corner.

"I know, Nicky." Mr Big replied, sounding forlorn. "Your father... he was a good fox, one of my best, before he disappeared."

"You still haven't told me why he disappeared." said Nick tersely.

There was a brief silence on the other side of the phone, before Mr Big replied, "All in good time, Nicky. All in good time."

Nick sighed, having expected an answer like that. It was all he got nowadays: promises of an answer. He got the same response from his mother, his father's friends and now Mr Big.

"Is there anything to report on the boy?"

This was the question Nick had been dreading, the one he didn't want to answer, at least not to Mr Big. Though Nick knew of Mr Big's dislike of failure, he remembered his intense hatred of liars. So, he swallowed his fear and responded.

"Yes, sir. From what I overhead, he got expelled along with a friend of his, for pulling a fire alarm."

"Expelled?" Mr Big repeated. "Then we must move quickly, before he's relocated again. Theo was only just able to find out where he was the last time, and I don't want to have to wait that long again."

"Sir," Nick interjected. "If you don't mind me asking, what's so important about this one fox in particular?"

There was a pause. "Let's just say it's a favour to an old family friend." he said hoarsely. "You should head to the Canyonlands. That's where his orphanage is, so he's bound to be there."

"The Canyonlands? Those old slums?"

"Yes, and when you talk to him, tell him that I'm a Code Myrddin. He'll know what that means." he paused, as if checking that Nick had understand. When he received no reply, he continued. "And try to bring his 'friend' too, I'm interested as to who he is. Now get moving."

The call ended, and Nick was left in the dark storage closet, pondering what Mr Big had said. He had an unexplainable feeling that his life was about to change, for better or for worse.


The Canyonlands

"Harry, I think I've got an idea." said Jake, picking the book off the ground. "You remember when I was telling you about how when we're very angry or sad, our magic would... activate."

"Yeah..." Harry replied, recalling the conversation they'd had a few days ago. "You said we wouldn't be able to control it completely until we were eleven."

"That's what I thought." said Jake as he placed the open book on the bench the two sat on. "But if this is what it says it is, we may be able to control our magic much sooner. Have a look."

Harry obliged, peering at the handwritten pages that lay in the book, and began to read.

The Core-Maturer

As the supposed "bastard" descendants of the great Merlin, we of House Emrys have been the subjects of much scorn and hate from the magician populace, with many believing our ancestor to have been the cause of the ripples that now plague our world. Because of this, our young children, whose magical cores have not yet matured, have been the target of many heinous deeds, many of them lethal.

It was for this reason that I, Lucia Emrys, attempted to create a potion that would mature a child's core to the point where they could control it at a much younger age. This would allow our children to defend themselves and will help the House of Emrys survive to the next generation.

From the tests that I have done as of this writing, I have concluded that the formula is a complete success. The children who consumed the potion, after two weeks of ingesting the mixture daily, were able to control their magic to the level of an adult. The results also show that any family abilities the children possessed tended to show at the same time. For example, the children from our family exhibited the family gift of wandless magic after the two-week period. And the children from that family of shrews across the street displayed signs of their innate telepathy earlier than expected.

However, it appears that each dosage (one drop daily) only matures the child's core by a year. We uncovered this when my two-year old, Lindsey, didn't show any signs of control until her ninth dosage (2 more than it took for the other pups). She required a full sixteen days of the potion before she could fully control her magic, a fact we discovered when she began to cater to her needs better than we used to.

NOTE: The potion does not appear to work on mundanes or the Unblessed. No side-effects have shown yet, but there has been no evidence to show that it works on either

The writing went on, listing a bunch of ingredients that Harry had never seen nor heard of. He passed the book back to Jake, who was looking much cheerier than he was a few minutes ago.

"Do you know what this means?" Jake asked excitedly. "All we need are these ingredients, and we'd be able to control our magic."

Harry nodded in agreement, but he felt slightly unnerved at the things that had been said in the entry. What did the writer mean about "ripples"? What did she mean by "bastard descendants"? And what did Jake's family do to be hated by, what Harry assumed was, so many magicians?

"Uh, Jake..." he began, only to be cut off by the screeching of car tyres. The two turned their heads to see a black limousine skid to a halt, before reversing back to the pavement on the opposite side of the road. The revving of the car shut off as a red fox, most likely in his early twenties, stepped out from the passenger seat onto the asphalt below.

The fox wore a white shirt covered by a black leather jacket and a pair of crème corduroy trousers that stopped just above his ankles. His emerald green eyes seemed to glint as he made eye-contact with the two foxes, and he skulked over to them, his red-furred arms swinging slightly as he did so. In his paw, he clutched a photo which, as he advanced on the two, was shown to be a picture of a faintly younger, smiling Jake.

At the sight of the photo, Harry leapt off the bench and positioned himself in front of Jake, as if he was his protector against the unknown fox.

"Who are you?!" he called out to the fox. "What do you want?"

"The name's Nick Wilde." the fox replied, freezing a metre away from the two. "You?"

"Harry." he answered harshly. "You didn't answer my second question. What do you want?"

"There's no need to be so hostile." Nick said. "I just came here to talk to your friend."

"Yeah, I could see that." Harry responded, glaring at the photo Nick held in his paw.

Nick glanced down at the picture and the pieces fell into place. He now understood what was making the boy so unfriendly.

"Harry," Jake muttered, standing up. "Just let him speak."

"Thanks," Nick acknowledged, turning to Jake. "I came on behalf of my boss, Mr Big. He wanted to talk to you."

"Why should we trust you or your boss?" Jake asked.

Nick remembered back to what Mr Big had told him. "I don't know if this helps," he said. "But he told me to tell you that he's a… Code Myrddin, or something similar."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Jake. From Harry's perspective, his face appeared to have been moulded into an expression of shock at the fox's words. His face soon toughened, and a fire of determination ignited behind his eyes.

"Code Myrddin?" Harry whispered curiously. "What does that mean, Jake?"

Without a word, Jake grabbed the grimoire and stuffed it inside his bag, with pieces of paper rustling as he placed it within.

"What does that mean, Jake?" Harry repeated, louder this time.

Jake turned to the anxious black-furred fox and said, "It's a code that my parents taught me, and it means that we can probably trust this Mr Big."


Big Manor, Tundra Town

The limousine rolled up in front of a mansion, its roof topped with a thick layer of pristine white snow. As Harry and Jake exited the car, they shivered as a small gust of wind blew through their fur. They'd never been to Tundra Town, so they weren't used to the teeth-chattering cold, and neither had a jacket since they hadn't expected to need one today.

Nick and the polar bear driver hopped out too, with not so much as a shiver from either of them. They strolled over to the house, the two trembling foxes following hastily in the hopes of getting warm. The polar bear knocked a rhythm onto the hardwood door, and a small slit at the bear's eye level slid open, revealing a pair of blue eyes which scanned the two front mammals, Nick and the driver, one by one, as if searching for something.

The slit slid shut, followed by the jingling of chains before the door swung open, held by an even larger polar bear, all dressed in black. He let the four pass, though he did a double take when he saw Harry, obviously not expecting to see a black fox.

Nick led them down the corridor and into a room which looked to be an office. In the centre was a desk and a chair large enough for a polar bear to sit in. Harry and Jake assumed it must be for Mr Big, whoever he was. A side door on the right opened, and through it entered three polar bears, with the last being the largest of them all. The largest bear sat down, his hands on the desk, which he lifted to reveal a smaller chair on which sat a tiny shrew.

Confused, Harry and Jake were surprised when Nick stepped forward, kissing a tiny ring on the shrew's finger, before retreating to the sides of the two foxes.

"I've brought the boys, sir, as you requested." Nick informed the shrew.

"Thank you, Nicky." the shrew acknowledged, turning his attention to the duo. "I believe you may be wondering why I wished to speak to you, and why I sent Nick here to collect you and your friend, Jake."

"H-how do you know me, and how did you know the code?" Jake asked timidly.

The shrew was silent for a while, as if considering what he should say. "I was a business partner, and a good friend, to your father before his death." the shrew explained. "My father was friends with his father, and my grandfather to his. The once Ancient and Noble House of Big have been allies with the House of Emrys for generations."

"Before his untimely passing," he continued sadly. "Your father and I made a deal to watch over each other's family, in the unfortunate event that one of us should perish in our... line of work. He gave me the code so that you would know I was to be trusted, and that I meant you no harm."

Jake's breath caught in his chest at the realisation that even in death, his father watched out for him. To his left, Harry was looking at the shrew, wondering one thing.

"Why didn't you take him in after they died?" he asked bluntly. "Why now?"

Around the room, the polar bears snarled as one. They were soon quietened by Mr Big when he held up his hand for silence.

"It's alright, he's just curious." Mr Big said calmly. "And to answer your question, young fox, he was moved by that blasted hare Savage before I could get to him. Theo, my... computer expert, spent the better part of a year finding his whereabouts, which we only found a week ago after his second relocation."

Understanding washed over Harry, and he felt bad for his rudeness against a shrew he had only just met.

"But I have to say, kit, you are a mystery to me." the shrew resumed, still talking to Harry. "From what I've heard, you seem to have almost no connection to this city, except for the fact that you live in it."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"You have no family," Mr Big explained. "You were found alone on a street when you were very little, and DNA tests have no match to anyone as a possible relative. Growing up, you learned not to trust anyone, but a select few."

The shrew leaned forward in his chair at that moment, ignoring the interested look on Nick's face at this revelation.

"And yet even for an adult, you show surprisingly strong loyalty to Jake over there, who you've only known for a few weeks." he said. "You are an enigma, Harry, if I may call you that. I can see a bond between the two of you, and that's why I extended my invitation to you, which could turn into an offer for the both of you."

"What kind of offer?" Harry and Jake inquired at the same time.

Mr Big leaned back in his seat. "An offer of sanctuary." he replied simply. "You don't have to make the decision now, but I will expect an answer within a week from today. During that week, I will show you how my... business operates, and if you wish to take me up on my offer, just call me."

As the shrew finished, the polar bear who driven them here handed a single fox-sized cell phone to the two. Beside them, Nick's eyes widened as he realised what Mr Big's intentions were.

"Kevin will now show you out." Mr Big said, as the said polar bear opened the door for them. The two ambled away, with Kevin following behind, shutting the door as he did.

The instant the door closed, Nick turned his attention back to the shrew.

"That's what this is all about?" he asked. "You wanted to recruit two little boys?"

"Not just any boys." Mr Big countered. "The red fox, Jake, he's all that remains of the family that supported mine when we became Unblessed. His father was my partner for a very long time, and I owe it to him to preserve his legacy."

He paused. "But the black one, Harry, he intrigues me. There is a connection between him and Jake, of which I wish to learn more." At this, he focus turned back to Nick. "Keep an eye on them. They'll feel more comfortable with someone of their own species, and that could sway them to accept my offer."

Nick did not like it, but he couldn't refuse an order from the shrew.

"Yes, Mr Big." he replied compliantly.


* Any suggestions for what Harry and Jake will be shown from Mr Big's "business"? If they're asked to do something (e.g. shoot at a shooting gallery), who should be better at what? And do you believe they should take Mr Big up on his offer of sanctuary? Tell me in the review section below.

** Also, is there any experience or viewpoint you want to see in the next chapter (e.g. how in chapter 2, a part was from the viewpoint of Judy and Hermione)? Tell me if there is, and I'll see what I can do.

Author Note: So what do you guys think? Was this another great chapter or is there more I could add? Tell me in the reviews below.