My Life As A Teenage Werewolf
Ael L. Bolt
~~~~~~
Rating: PG to PG-13
Timeframe: 1990-1998
Genre: Fantasy/General
Possible Spoilers: SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP, QTTA, FB
Summary: Ael L. Bolt was a charming four-year-old when a werewolf ruined her life. Now living in England with her family, what will happen when she is introduced to the magical world? Follow her life from the night she was bitten to her first year at Hogwarts.
Disclaimer: Despite what the story tells you, I haven't actually written the Harry Potter series. JK Rowling does indeed exist, and she does indeed own Harry Potter and all associated paraphenalia. I am just borrowing her toys for a simple, slightly-AU fanfic. Aside from that, I own myself. Imagine that! ;) All kidding aside...Katrina Phillips, William Phillips, and Khense Nekire belong to Dark Jedi Princess, Ael L. Bolt belongs to...dundundun...Ael L. Bolt! That is to say, ME. :P Oh yeah, and I'm an American. Gasp, horror. I'm attempting to write this British-style - it IS Harry Potter, and my character lives in England - but if any Americanisms seep through, blame those damn Yankees.
Author's Notes #1: No romance, no Mary Sues, no wildly-exaggerated powers. Nope, this girl's a normal werewolf with all the problems attached. And in case anyone starts getting ideas that she's gonna become one of Harry's fictional harem, guess again. Also, please note: Ael and her life (up to age 4) are based off a real person with their permission. Of course, it wasn't that hard to get permission from myself, but you know how it goes. ;) And before you start getting skeptical, the snake incident (aside from understanding what it said) is all true. There was a huge snake in our yard, and my dad nailed it in the head with an arrow. Damn thing didn't die until my mom took a shovel to it, chopped it into tiny pieces, and scattered them in the woods. She swears it was a zombie snake. ^_^;;;
Author's Notes #2: Ael L. Bolt is not my real name. Ael is close to my first name which is Allison, and my middle initial is L but it doesn't stand for the same thing. Last but not least, my last name is not really Bolt. Surprise, surprise.
Author's Notes #3: I have tampered with the timeline a bit. My brother is now three years older than he really is, and the nearest full moon to Halloween of 1990 was on November 2, but for the sake of the story it's Halloween. I've also muddied up my dad's past a bit. You'll see what I mean.
Author's Notes #4: I realize Kat and Ael might seem a bit too gramatically- correct for four-year-olds. Even a bit long-winded. But hey, blame it on the whole Dark Creature thing. I'm too lazy to interview my mom's DayCare kids to see how they talk.
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
Prologue - A Young Parselmouth
The Bolts were a charming little family in Munith, Michigan. They lived in a trailer park called Coachman's Cove near Portage Lake, and for all appearances they were a normal family. Mr. Bolt was a dark-haired man with a wonderful sense of humour, as well as a knack for bow hunting. His wife, Mrs. Bolt, was a beautiful brunette who ran a Child Care Centre. Their son, Christopher Lee, was only nine years old, but already he was very intelligent and often spent his time taking apart every mechanical device in the house. The other child in the family was a three-year-old girl named Ael. Ael had shiny blond hair and loved playing outside in the woods nearby with her older brother.
On the day our story begins, it was a partly cloudy October day. Mrs. Bolt and the children were inside the trailer, watching a cartoon. Mr. Bolt and his hunting partner, John Ralph, were out on a hunting expedition. Everything appeared perfectly normal; an ordinary autumn day.
Mr. Bolt's blue Thunderbird pulled into the park, and he got out, holding his bow in one hand and a large sack in the other. He walked around to the back of the trailer and put the sack on top of an old shed, then went into the building. "You won't believe this snake we found, Cindy!" he called to his wife. "It was out in the road, striking at cars."
"You brought it home?" Mrs. Bolt said, somewhat frightened at the thought of an insane snake in the house.
"Oh, don't worry, John and I killed it. Shot it in the head with an arrow. The DNR guy wasn't home, so we're going to have him look at it when he gets back. I don't know what kind of snake it was."
"Where'd you put it, Rick?"
"It's in a sack on top of the shed. The kids won't get into it, and the dog can't reach."
From the hallway, Ael listened with interest. She liked snakes, and thought it was very mean of her daddy to shoot it. She didn't like it when he brought home dead deer either, but there wasn't really anything she could do about it.
A few hours later...
Mr. Bolt went out back to fetch the snake, and stopped when he saw the sack on the ground and its former prisoner slithering under the house. The snake was alive, and it was mad in addition to disoriented.
Unnoticed by the adult, Ael sat on top of a large boulder next to the house, listening to the snake's hissing. "Ssstupid humansss," she heard. "You think you can get away with lotsss more than you can. Well, no more. Your territory isss mine now."
Three days later, Mrs. Bolt finally killed the snake with a shovel and buried it in the woods. She didn't know that her daughter had understood the snake, and Ael didn't intend to tell her anytime soon. It was a secret.
~~~~~~
Chapter One - Curse of the Wolf
Four-year-old Ael skipped through the woods, happily munching on a bar of chocolate. It was Halloween, and her daddy was taking her trick-or- treating. The moon was full and the sky was dark, just the way Halloween should be - but rarely is - in Michigan.
Mr. Bolt didn't like his children to roam the woods at night, but he was still at work and Ael's mother had told her she could wander for fifteen minutes. In a small trailer park like this, what could possibly happen?
The first sign that something was wrong came with a rustling of bushes, and a low growl. Ael stopped and stared into the shadows, and a pair of reddish eyes glared back. A grey paw moved into the moonlight, followed by the large dusky head of a wolf. Its lips were curled in a snarl as it approached the young girl.
Oblivious to the dangerous fangs, Ael wondered whose doggie it was. She stepped forward to pet it, and that is when it struck.
The wolf lunged at the little girl, knocking her to the ground and sinking its teeth deep into her right shoulder. She screamed, and the wolf howled in pain at the shrill voice in its sensitive ears.
A large tan blur leaped out, yowling, and slammed into the wolf, knocking it off the girl with a yip of pain. The cougar hissed, and slashed at the wolf with extended claws. The wolf took a step back, eyes flickering to the wounded girl, and tried to get around the huge cat. The cougar snapped at the canine, and the wolf withdrew with a loud, fierce howl of protest. In the blink of an eye, the cougar became a young man, who pointed a "stick" at the wolf and yelled "Stupefy!"
The wolf slumped to the ground, unconscious, and the cougar-turned-man ran over to Ael. "Are you okay? Did he get you?"
Ael nodded, sobbing in pain and shock. The blue-eyed man touched the bleeding bite wound carefully, and some of the pain receded. "Oh, you poor little girl...you've been marked by a werewolf. Your parents must be told. Where do you live?"
Ael sniffed and pointed towards the trailer park. The man picked her up carefully, and for the first time she noticed that he was wearing some weird, extremely loose clothes of some kind. He tucked the wand - that's what the stick was - into a pocket and set off for the trailer.
When they arrived, Mr. Bolt was just getting home. He saw the man, and his daughter held in his arms. "Bloody hell, Jake, please tell me you weren't out here with Xander tonight," he said, rushing over to take Ael from him.
Jake looked downcast. "Sorry, Rick. I tried to stop him from biting her, but he already got her a good one before I could do anything."
Mr. Bolt sighed explosively. "Can you two handle the mission here on your own? I get the feeling I'll be needing to move back home after my wife finds out. She's a Muggle, you know. And besides, I've heard there's a new potion out for werewolves; it's supposed to make the wolf more docile, but only a few Potion Masters know how to brew it and none of them are local."
Jake nodded. "Xander and I can handle it, oh Mighty King of Curses." He let out a short chuckle, then glanced back towards the woods. "I'd better go back and find him, though, before the Stunning Spell wears off." In the blink of an eye, he became a cougar and disappeared into the forest.
Mr. Bolt watched him go, then sighed and glanced down at Ael. "How am I going to tell your mother about all this?"
~~~~~~
Needless to say, Mrs. Bolt took it very well. Her first reaction was shock at the revelation that not only was her husband a wizard, but her daughter was now a werewolf. Then she got mad and slapped him for keeping it from her, but surprisingly enough, she was okay with it after that.
Christopher, on the other hand, was ecstatic - not to mention relieved that there was explanation to how he once made a VCR levitate.
Almost immediately, the Bolt family sold their trailer and moved away to Britain. They moved into 122 Randolph Avenue in Maida Vale, London, and from that point on were only American at heart.
A month passed by quickly, and soon it was time for Ael's first transformation. Her father locked her in a small glass-door office with the family collie, Sheba, and set himself outside to make sure nothing went wrong. He made sure his wand was ready, in case he needed it for anything - once Ael was transformed, chances were she'd lose control of her own mind.
A shaft of moonlight slowly crept into the room, and touched the werewolf girl. She stiffened as it appeared, and then shuddered. The change was beginning.
Shaggy silver fur sprouted, bones shifted, claws grew from fingernails, a long bushy tail made itself known, and her very face grew out into a wolf's muzzle. Her weak human teeth sharpened into deadly fangs, and her ears became pointed and fuzzy.
Within moments, the frightened young girl was replaced with a rather confused werepuppy. Sheba was also considerably puzzled.
The larger dog leaned down and sniffed at the pup, who yipped back and bit her on the nose. The collie yelped, then nudged the werewolf with a paw. Ael-wolf blinked and scampered between the dog's legs, nipping at her tail as she went past. Sheba spent the next five minutes trying to keep a suddenly-hyper wolf pup off her tail.
Mr. Bolt smiled. "It looks like she's going to be alright."
~~~~~~
And Ael was more than alright, she was downright glad to be a werewolf, for the most part. Every full moon, she and Sheba would be locked into the office together, with her father to watch with wand and aconite ready, just in case.
Spring arrived, and with it came the chance to pay a visit to Paddington Rec, a nearby park. Ael immediately fell in love with a circular garden that had a brick wall around it. Her parents also realized that it would make a perfect place for a werepuppy on the night of the full moon: the wolf had plenty of space to run and play, no one would be around to see her, and best of all there would be no danger of her breaking out and either running away or biting someone else.
And so, on the night of April 28, 1991, Ael caught her first glimpse of Katrina Phillips.
The transformation had come as always; a touch of silvery moonlight and a sickening, but brief, change into what most considered a man-eating monster. This time was Ael's first night in the garden, and her wolf half absolutely loved it. No pesky humans, lots of things to smell, and plenty of flowerbeds to trash out and leave the Muggles wondering.
Sheba, who was now somewhat adjusted to the monthly routine, calmly supervised the werepuppy as she scampered around the enclosed area, trampling newly-grown flowers and digging deep holes in the dirt.
The moon rose to its highest point not long afterward, and its soft glow caught the pup's attention. Fascinated, she sat back on her haunches and stared up at it, then leaned back and did something she'd never done before.
"AwrOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!"
Sheba jumped in surprise as a long, pure howl was issued from the werepup's muzzle. She eyed the younger canine warily, and as the note descended into silence, she let out a short howl of her own.
The werepuppy caught onto the game immediately, and promptly howled again, this time higher in pitch and much, much louder than before. The alternating notes were almost like music; the songs of the wolves. And though Sheba was a collie, not a wolf, somewhere back in her ancestry was the more primitive lupine instincts of pack and pride.
A rustling of feet on grass caught the werepup's attention, and she bounded over to the gate to poke her head through the iron bars. A relatively short shadow was struggling against a much taller one, growling under her breath and straining towards the garden. The taller figure was getting somewhat exasperated. "Be QUIET, Katrina," the male voice said.
The werepuppy sniffed at the air, trying to place the scent of the two odd creatures. They smelled faintly of coppery blood, with traces of a burning fear-scent that wasn't actually coming from them - rather, it was as if they had been in contact with a very frightened person recently. Overlaid on top of this odd combination was a sour tang, something that definitely did NOT smell as if it would be something even remotely good to eat.
Sheba was growling nervously, herding the werepup away from the gate. And just in time. The moon's last rays disappeared, and the young wolf was replaced by Ael. She blinked blearily at the big collie, who licked her hand in an attempt to reorient her quicker.
Mr. Bolt appeared from the shadows and stopped as he saw the two dark figures on the grass. He pulled out his wand and raised it warily as he walked up to the gate. Still watching them, he unlatched the gate and picked up his exhausted daughter.
"Harbouring werewolves, are we, Bolt?"
Mr. Bolt tensed at the sudden voice, but relaxed - very slightly - as he recognized it. "You might say that, Phillips."
The taller shadow, still holding the smaller, struggling one, stepped out into the faint glow of starlight. The subtle gleam off two pointed fangs gave him a dangerous aura, and though he was dressed in black it only served to make his pale skin stand out more obviously. "I must admit, I didn't expect to see you of all people back in London so soon," he said. "Why aren't you in America, hunting my kind?"
Mr. Bolt shot him a glare. "The mission got cut short. Blame Xander. He bit my daughter, the neighbors were upset, we moved. End of story."
The vampire nodded, and ignored another whine of "Daaaaaaad!" from the girl in his grasp. "That is your child, then?"
Mr. Bolt looked down at Ael, who had at some point fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder. "Yes. You've obviously got one of your own, and a vampire at that, I presume?"
"It could not be any other way. You know that."
Mr. Bolt decided to cut the chatter and get right to the point. "Look, Phillips, I know you were a Slytherin and I was a Hufflepuff, but House rivalry shouldn't really matter anymore, should it? At least not for our daughters. They really could be good friends, if you let them. They're both Dark Creatures, you know...they could have a lot to bond over."
The vampire raised an eyebrow. "You think?"
"Yes, I do. I admit that the House rivalry was stupid, and is even more so now than it was before. Let's put it behind us, or at least let our children be friends if we cannot."
The vampire considered that for a moment. "Indeed, Bolt. It seems that Hufflepuff instincts do indeed resolve certain situations. Very well, I will consent."
The vampire girl growled, and yelled, "Dad, LET GO!" She was obviously not listening to the conversation between the two Hogwarts alumni, despite the fact that it concerned herself.
"Let her go, Phillips."
The vampire did as he was asked, albeit reluctantly. He looked down at his daughter with a stern look on his pale face. "Stay away from Mr. Bolt's dog, Katrina. Do you understand?"
Katrina scowled, both at the new rule and the fact that her father had used her full first name, but she nodded. "I'm hungry."
The vampire waved her off. "Yes, yes, I'll get you something in a minute. So, Bolt, shall we have the girls meet a week from tomorrow? I assume your daughter will be recovered by then."
"Indeed. That works fine." Mr. Bolt nodded. "See you later, Phillips." He glanced down at the patiently waiting collie. "Come, Sheba. We're going home."
To be continued...
Ael L. Bolt
~~~~~~
Rating: PG to PG-13
Timeframe: 1990-1998
Genre: Fantasy/General
Possible Spoilers: SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP, QTTA, FB
Summary: Ael L. Bolt was a charming four-year-old when a werewolf ruined her life. Now living in England with her family, what will happen when she is introduced to the magical world? Follow her life from the night she was bitten to her first year at Hogwarts.
Disclaimer: Despite what the story tells you, I haven't actually written the Harry Potter series. JK Rowling does indeed exist, and she does indeed own Harry Potter and all associated paraphenalia. I am just borrowing her toys for a simple, slightly-AU fanfic. Aside from that, I own myself. Imagine that! ;) All kidding aside...Katrina Phillips, William Phillips, and Khense Nekire belong to Dark Jedi Princess, Ael L. Bolt belongs to...dundundun...Ael L. Bolt! That is to say, ME. :P Oh yeah, and I'm an American. Gasp, horror. I'm attempting to write this British-style - it IS Harry Potter, and my character lives in England - but if any Americanisms seep through, blame those damn Yankees.
Author's Notes #1: No romance, no Mary Sues, no wildly-exaggerated powers. Nope, this girl's a normal werewolf with all the problems attached. And in case anyone starts getting ideas that she's gonna become one of Harry's fictional harem, guess again. Also, please note: Ael and her life (up to age 4) are based off a real person with their permission. Of course, it wasn't that hard to get permission from myself, but you know how it goes. ;) And before you start getting skeptical, the snake incident (aside from understanding what it said) is all true. There was a huge snake in our yard, and my dad nailed it in the head with an arrow. Damn thing didn't die until my mom took a shovel to it, chopped it into tiny pieces, and scattered them in the woods. She swears it was a zombie snake. ^_^;;;
Author's Notes #2: Ael L. Bolt is not my real name. Ael is close to my first name which is Allison, and my middle initial is L but it doesn't stand for the same thing. Last but not least, my last name is not really Bolt. Surprise, surprise.
Author's Notes #3: I have tampered with the timeline a bit. My brother is now three years older than he really is, and the nearest full moon to Halloween of 1990 was on November 2, but for the sake of the story it's Halloween. I've also muddied up my dad's past a bit. You'll see what I mean.
Author's Notes #4: I realize Kat and Ael might seem a bit too gramatically- correct for four-year-olds. Even a bit long-winded. But hey, blame it on the whole Dark Creature thing. I'm too lazy to interview my mom's DayCare kids to see how they talk.
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
Prologue - A Young Parselmouth
The Bolts were a charming little family in Munith, Michigan. They lived in a trailer park called Coachman's Cove near Portage Lake, and for all appearances they were a normal family. Mr. Bolt was a dark-haired man with a wonderful sense of humour, as well as a knack for bow hunting. His wife, Mrs. Bolt, was a beautiful brunette who ran a Child Care Centre. Their son, Christopher Lee, was only nine years old, but already he was very intelligent and often spent his time taking apart every mechanical device in the house. The other child in the family was a three-year-old girl named Ael. Ael had shiny blond hair and loved playing outside in the woods nearby with her older brother.
On the day our story begins, it was a partly cloudy October day. Mrs. Bolt and the children were inside the trailer, watching a cartoon. Mr. Bolt and his hunting partner, John Ralph, were out on a hunting expedition. Everything appeared perfectly normal; an ordinary autumn day.
Mr. Bolt's blue Thunderbird pulled into the park, and he got out, holding his bow in one hand and a large sack in the other. He walked around to the back of the trailer and put the sack on top of an old shed, then went into the building. "You won't believe this snake we found, Cindy!" he called to his wife. "It was out in the road, striking at cars."
"You brought it home?" Mrs. Bolt said, somewhat frightened at the thought of an insane snake in the house.
"Oh, don't worry, John and I killed it. Shot it in the head with an arrow. The DNR guy wasn't home, so we're going to have him look at it when he gets back. I don't know what kind of snake it was."
"Where'd you put it, Rick?"
"It's in a sack on top of the shed. The kids won't get into it, and the dog can't reach."
From the hallway, Ael listened with interest. She liked snakes, and thought it was very mean of her daddy to shoot it. She didn't like it when he brought home dead deer either, but there wasn't really anything she could do about it.
A few hours later...
Mr. Bolt went out back to fetch the snake, and stopped when he saw the sack on the ground and its former prisoner slithering under the house. The snake was alive, and it was mad in addition to disoriented.
Unnoticed by the adult, Ael sat on top of a large boulder next to the house, listening to the snake's hissing. "Ssstupid humansss," she heard. "You think you can get away with lotsss more than you can. Well, no more. Your territory isss mine now."
Three days later, Mrs. Bolt finally killed the snake with a shovel and buried it in the woods. She didn't know that her daughter had understood the snake, and Ael didn't intend to tell her anytime soon. It was a secret.
~~~~~~
Chapter One - Curse of the Wolf
Four-year-old Ael skipped through the woods, happily munching on a bar of chocolate. It was Halloween, and her daddy was taking her trick-or- treating. The moon was full and the sky was dark, just the way Halloween should be - but rarely is - in Michigan.
Mr. Bolt didn't like his children to roam the woods at night, but he was still at work and Ael's mother had told her she could wander for fifteen minutes. In a small trailer park like this, what could possibly happen?
The first sign that something was wrong came with a rustling of bushes, and a low growl. Ael stopped and stared into the shadows, and a pair of reddish eyes glared back. A grey paw moved into the moonlight, followed by the large dusky head of a wolf. Its lips were curled in a snarl as it approached the young girl.
Oblivious to the dangerous fangs, Ael wondered whose doggie it was. She stepped forward to pet it, and that is when it struck.
The wolf lunged at the little girl, knocking her to the ground and sinking its teeth deep into her right shoulder. She screamed, and the wolf howled in pain at the shrill voice in its sensitive ears.
A large tan blur leaped out, yowling, and slammed into the wolf, knocking it off the girl with a yip of pain. The cougar hissed, and slashed at the wolf with extended claws. The wolf took a step back, eyes flickering to the wounded girl, and tried to get around the huge cat. The cougar snapped at the canine, and the wolf withdrew with a loud, fierce howl of protest. In the blink of an eye, the cougar became a young man, who pointed a "stick" at the wolf and yelled "Stupefy!"
The wolf slumped to the ground, unconscious, and the cougar-turned-man ran over to Ael. "Are you okay? Did he get you?"
Ael nodded, sobbing in pain and shock. The blue-eyed man touched the bleeding bite wound carefully, and some of the pain receded. "Oh, you poor little girl...you've been marked by a werewolf. Your parents must be told. Where do you live?"
Ael sniffed and pointed towards the trailer park. The man picked her up carefully, and for the first time she noticed that he was wearing some weird, extremely loose clothes of some kind. He tucked the wand - that's what the stick was - into a pocket and set off for the trailer.
When they arrived, Mr. Bolt was just getting home. He saw the man, and his daughter held in his arms. "Bloody hell, Jake, please tell me you weren't out here with Xander tonight," he said, rushing over to take Ael from him.
Jake looked downcast. "Sorry, Rick. I tried to stop him from biting her, but he already got her a good one before I could do anything."
Mr. Bolt sighed explosively. "Can you two handle the mission here on your own? I get the feeling I'll be needing to move back home after my wife finds out. She's a Muggle, you know. And besides, I've heard there's a new potion out for werewolves; it's supposed to make the wolf more docile, but only a few Potion Masters know how to brew it and none of them are local."
Jake nodded. "Xander and I can handle it, oh Mighty King of Curses." He let out a short chuckle, then glanced back towards the woods. "I'd better go back and find him, though, before the Stunning Spell wears off." In the blink of an eye, he became a cougar and disappeared into the forest.
Mr. Bolt watched him go, then sighed and glanced down at Ael. "How am I going to tell your mother about all this?"
~~~~~~
Needless to say, Mrs. Bolt took it very well. Her first reaction was shock at the revelation that not only was her husband a wizard, but her daughter was now a werewolf. Then she got mad and slapped him for keeping it from her, but surprisingly enough, she was okay with it after that.
Christopher, on the other hand, was ecstatic - not to mention relieved that there was explanation to how he once made a VCR levitate.
Almost immediately, the Bolt family sold their trailer and moved away to Britain. They moved into 122 Randolph Avenue in Maida Vale, London, and from that point on were only American at heart.
A month passed by quickly, and soon it was time for Ael's first transformation. Her father locked her in a small glass-door office with the family collie, Sheba, and set himself outside to make sure nothing went wrong. He made sure his wand was ready, in case he needed it for anything - once Ael was transformed, chances were she'd lose control of her own mind.
A shaft of moonlight slowly crept into the room, and touched the werewolf girl. She stiffened as it appeared, and then shuddered. The change was beginning.
Shaggy silver fur sprouted, bones shifted, claws grew from fingernails, a long bushy tail made itself known, and her very face grew out into a wolf's muzzle. Her weak human teeth sharpened into deadly fangs, and her ears became pointed and fuzzy.
Within moments, the frightened young girl was replaced with a rather confused werepuppy. Sheba was also considerably puzzled.
The larger dog leaned down and sniffed at the pup, who yipped back and bit her on the nose. The collie yelped, then nudged the werewolf with a paw. Ael-wolf blinked and scampered between the dog's legs, nipping at her tail as she went past. Sheba spent the next five minutes trying to keep a suddenly-hyper wolf pup off her tail.
Mr. Bolt smiled. "It looks like she's going to be alright."
~~~~~~
And Ael was more than alright, she was downright glad to be a werewolf, for the most part. Every full moon, she and Sheba would be locked into the office together, with her father to watch with wand and aconite ready, just in case.
Spring arrived, and with it came the chance to pay a visit to Paddington Rec, a nearby park. Ael immediately fell in love with a circular garden that had a brick wall around it. Her parents also realized that it would make a perfect place for a werepuppy on the night of the full moon: the wolf had plenty of space to run and play, no one would be around to see her, and best of all there would be no danger of her breaking out and either running away or biting someone else.
And so, on the night of April 28, 1991, Ael caught her first glimpse of Katrina Phillips.
The transformation had come as always; a touch of silvery moonlight and a sickening, but brief, change into what most considered a man-eating monster. This time was Ael's first night in the garden, and her wolf half absolutely loved it. No pesky humans, lots of things to smell, and plenty of flowerbeds to trash out and leave the Muggles wondering.
Sheba, who was now somewhat adjusted to the monthly routine, calmly supervised the werepuppy as she scampered around the enclosed area, trampling newly-grown flowers and digging deep holes in the dirt.
The moon rose to its highest point not long afterward, and its soft glow caught the pup's attention. Fascinated, she sat back on her haunches and stared up at it, then leaned back and did something she'd never done before.
"AwrOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!"
Sheba jumped in surprise as a long, pure howl was issued from the werepup's muzzle. She eyed the younger canine warily, and as the note descended into silence, she let out a short howl of her own.
The werepuppy caught onto the game immediately, and promptly howled again, this time higher in pitch and much, much louder than before. The alternating notes were almost like music; the songs of the wolves. And though Sheba was a collie, not a wolf, somewhere back in her ancestry was the more primitive lupine instincts of pack and pride.
A rustling of feet on grass caught the werepup's attention, and she bounded over to the gate to poke her head through the iron bars. A relatively short shadow was struggling against a much taller one, growling under her breath and straining towards the garden. The taller figure was getting somewhat exasperated. "Be QUIET, Katrina," the male voice said.
The werepuppy sniffed at the air, trying to place the scent of the two odd creatures. They smelled faintly of coppery blood, with traces of a burning fear-scent that wasn't actually coming from them - rather, it was as if they had been in contact with a very frightened person recently. Overlaid on top of this odd combination was a sour tang, something that definitely did NOT smell as if it would be something even remotely good to eat.
Sheba was growling nervously, herding the werepup away from the gate. And just in time. The moon's last rays disappeared, and the young wolf was replaced by Ael. She blinked blearily at the big collie, who licked her hand in an attempt to reorient her quicker.
Mr. Bolt appeared from the shadows and stopped as he saw the two dark figures on the grass. He pulled out his wand and raised it warily as he walked up to the gate. Still watching them, he unlatched the gate and picked up his exhausted daughter.
"Harbouring werewolves, are we, Bolt?"
Mr. Bolt tensed at the sudden voice, but relaxed - very slightly - as he recognized it. "You might say that, Phillips."
The taller shadow, still holding the smaller, struggling one, stepped out into the faint glow of starlight. The subtle gleam off two pointed fangs gave him a dangerous aura, and though he was dressed in black it only served to make his pale skin stand out more obviously. "I must admit, I didn't expect to see you of all people back in London so soon," he said. "Why aren't you in America, hunting my kind?"
Mr. Bolt shot him a glare. "The mission got cut short. Blame Xander. He bit my daughter, the neighbors were upset, we moved. End of story."
The vampire nodded, and ignored another whine of "Daaaaaaad!" from the girl in his grasp. "That is your child, then?"
Mr. Bolt looked down at Ael, who had at some point fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder. "Yes. You've obviously got one of your own, and a vampire at that, I presume?"
"It could not be any other way. You know that."
Mr. Bolt decided to cut the chatter and get right to the point. "Look, Phillips, I know you were a Slytherin and I was a Hufflepuff, but House rivalry shouldn't really matter anymore, should it? At least not for our daughters. They really could be good friends, if you let them. They're both Dark Creatures, you know...they could have a lot to bond over."
The vampire raised an eyebrow. "You think?"
"Yes, I do. I admit that the House rivalry was stupid, and is even more so now than it was before. Let's put it behind us, or at least let our children be friends if we cannot."
The vampire considered that for a moment. "Indeed, Bolt. It seems that Hufflepuff instincts do indeed resolve certain situations. Very well, I will consent."
The vampire girl growled, and yelled, "Dad, LET GO!" She was obviously not listening to the conversation between the two Hogwarts alumni, despite the fact that it concerned herself.
"Let her go, Phillips."
The vampire did as he was asked, albeit reluctantly. He looked down at his daughter with a stern look on his pale face. "Stay away from Mr. Bolt's dog, Katrina. Do you understand?"
Katrina scowled, both at the new rule and the fact that her father had used her full first name, but she nodded. "I'm hungry."
The vampire waved her off. "Yes, yes, I'll get you something in a minute. So, Bolt, shall we have the girls meet a week from tomorrow? I assume your daughter will be recovered by then."
"Indeed. That works fine." Mr. Bolt nodded. "See you later, Phillips." He glanced down at the patiently waiting collie. "Come, Sheba. We're going home."
To be continued...