Chapter Two – In which owls fly through invisible places, cubs give warnings of danger to strangers who are not worthy of trust, and werepups play dodge ball.

Albus Dumbledore idly stroked the owl perched on his knee, hoping against hope that this attempt, their last resort, would be successful.

Albus carefully attached the Hogwarts acceptance letter to the owl's leg.  It was addressed to one Harry James Potter, but the location was as of yet still blank.  It would adjust when the owl got into the air and located the recipient.

It had been nine years since Harry disappeared from his relative's home, apparently without any explanation or any sign of how he had left or where he had gone, but only seven years since the Wizarding World found out about it, a fact that caused Albus to feel endless amounts of guilt.  His thoughts would drag him down the paths of 'what if' and 'why didn't I' until he had to sort his thoughts into his pensieve just to get some sleep.  General consensus was that the boy had been kidnapped and then killed, or kidnapped and raised by a dark wizarding family.  Either way, the situation was bad but for so long as Harry's death was unconfirmed, Albus remained hopeful.

But if this didn't work, there wasn't likely to be anything that would.  Hogwarts acceptance letters had very strong Finding charms placed on them.  The same charms in fact, that had been used by the Hogwarts founders more than a thousand years before.  It had been five hundred years since anyone had been able to replicate them and there had yet to be anyone who could come up with a Finding charm of even half the strength (the charm was strong enough that if the letter was destroyed, it would reappear in triplicate and try again until one of the duplicate letters reached the recipient).  The letters were not created manually; in fact, no one knew exactly how they came to be.  They merely appeared with yearly regularity on the Assistant Headmaster or Headmistress's desk, to be sent out via school owl.

The Headmaster cast two additional charms on the letter.  The first would inform him of the address the letter would soon come to display, and the second was a Tracking charm which was linked to a map spread on his desk.  The map was currently blank except for a dot that read "Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."  The map would change as the owl moved, tracing the bird's path wherever it went.  The first charm could not be blocked in any way, but the second and ultimately more effective charm could be obstructed if the owl flew through an Unplottable location, hence the reason for the duality.

Albus walked over to the window and let the owl go, then turned quickly to look at the map, but once he saw the duplicated address he no longer cared about the map.  He knew exactly what it would show: a very short line that seemed to indicate that the owl vanished into thin air.

Mr. H. Potter

The den

The Forbidden Forest

Scotland

'Well,' thought Albus rather inanely, 'at least that answers the question of whether or not he's alive.'

~*~(*)~*~

Remus Lupin looked up when his fireplace suddenly lit itself and a head popped into existence within the flames and winced.  He really wasn't fit to see anyone.  He was disheveled, having not seen the point of showering or changing his clothes for a number of days.  He'd been fired from his latest job – and he'd really been enjoying it, too – when the new boss had found out about his lycanthropy.

And the last person he wanted to have see him like this was Albus Dumbledore.  So of course, by the laws of that bastard Murphy, Albus Dumbledore was looking out at him from the fireplace.

"Hello, Remus," said Albus, graciously ignoring the unkempt appearance of his former pupil.  Remus blushed anyway, embarrassed at being caught moping by the Headmaster of Hogwarts himself.

"Hello, Professor Dumbledore."

"Would you mind coming to Hogwarts in an hour or so?  I have something of rather considerable importance to speak to you about."

Remus recognized that Albus was giving him time to clean himself up, and his blush deepened further.

"That would be no problem, Professor."

"I'll see you then."  And with that statement, Dumbledore's head vanished, leaving Remus alone with his mortification.  Showering and dressing quickly, Remus threw a handful of floo powder into the fireplace and stepped in. 

"The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade!"  he shouted, eager to see what Dumbledore thought was so important for him, of all people, to know.

~*~(*)~*~

"I've found Harry Potter."  Remus stared at Albus in absolute, unadulterated shock.

"What?" Remus asked, not quite sure he'd heard correctly.  Albus Dumbledore smiled indulgently.

"I have discovered the location of Harry Potter."  Remus just looked at him for a few long moments, while his brain slowly began functioning normally again.

"And?" asked Remus finally.

Albus' eyes twinkled infuriatingly as he smiled at Remus while cheerfully munching on some yellow muggle hard candy, "And what, Remus?"  Remus wanted to scream at him, or hit him, or something that would get the infuriating man to stop twinkling.

"So where is he?  And why did you call me?  I'm not his father, not even his godfather.  It's wonderful to hear that he's been found, that he's not-" Remus paused momentarily, "that he's still alive.  But what does it have to do with me?"

"Harry is in the Forbidden Forest."  Remus stared at him – he seemed to be doing that a lot today – and wondered absently whether Dumbledore was trying to kill him.  He didn't think he could take many more shocks today.

"The Forbidden Forest,"  said Remus.  It wasn't a question, but Albus nodded anyway.

Remus sighed, one hand coming up to massage the bridge of his nose, "You want me to retrieve him, right?  You called me because I'm a werewolf, so I'm more likely than most to be able to go deep into the forest and still come out alive."  It hurt a bit, that he wasn't called here because of his relation, such as it was, to Harry, but rather because of what he was.

"And because you are an eminently capable wizard with particular proficiency in dealing with magical creatures and defending yourself, and because of your relation to Harry's parents," replied Albus easily, as though reading Remus' mind.  The assurance didn't do much to appease Remus' feelings.  He knew that his condition was still the primary factor, but he pushed the thought away.  It didn't help anything.

"The next full moon is in a week," said Remus.

"And hopefully you'll be back before then, and Harry as well."  Remus nodded.  Albus, eyes still twinkling, lifted up a thick yellow parchment envelope and held it out for Remus to take.

"The letter will act as a two way portkey," Remus took it.  "To activate in, tap it with your wand and say 'Hogwarts.'"

"Anything else I need to know before leaving?" asked Remus.

"Just try to enjoy yourself, Remus."  Remus rolled his eyes inwardly.  Albus always had to play the omniscient superpower.  Taking a deep breath and preparing himself for the jarring trip, Remus tapped the letter with his wand.

"Hogwarts."  And he was gone.

~*~(*)~*~

Harry, grinning, threw the fur-covered ball as hard as he could at one of his year mates, then ducked another one that had been on a collision course toward his head.  She bared her teeth in playful challenge and gathered a good dozen of the happily squeaking puffskeins, preparing to bombard him with fuzzy projectiles, but before she could throw the first one she was struck from three different puffskeins, each coming from a member of Harry's team.

Harry laughed triumphantly, only to promptly spit out the puffskein that landed in his open mouth.   He grinned and shook his head ruefully, obediently leaving the game and walking over to the side where he and his former opponent promptly started up a game of catch with a puffskein stolen from the other game.

After about five minutes a voice suddenly shouted, "Free for all!" and suddenly the air was filled with squeaking puff balls, thrown at anyone and everyone as the werepups indiscriminately attacked each other with brightly colored, squeaking balls of fluff.  The longer it went on, the more children collapsed on the side-lines, overtaken with laughter.

Finally, there was only two left.  Harry and a boy a year younger than him.  They quickly abandoned the pretense of throwing things at each other and started wrestling, growling and grinning as they rolled around.

The other boy let out a "whoof" as he landed on his back and Harry pinned him, grinning.

"Do you surrender?" asked Harry.  Harry was alpha among the pups.  He had an advantage, of course, being ten.  Cubs were graduated to "adult" status at twelve, and could no longer occupy the junior pecking order, so Harry was older and stronger than most of the others.

He was also rather small for his age, which led to endless friendly challenges for the alpha pup position.

Harry decided that Rolf had been silent for entirely too long and began tickling the boy ferociously.  The boy screamed, and tried to squirm away but found that Harry had pinned him too well.

"Well, do you?" asked Harry, poking the younger boy in the side for good measure.

"Yes, yes, I surrender," Rolf said breathlessly, still laughing.  "Now let me up!"  Harry got up off him and stood, head held high.  His sharp ears alerted him to someone walking up behind him and he spun, smiling as he saw "Dad" enter the clearing where the pups had been playing.

"I see you won again, eh Harry?" he asked, smiling indulgently as Harry smiled in triumph.  "Dad" was a bit of an honorary title, though as the current Alpha of the pack he was father to a good deal of the pups.  But it was tradition.  All pups grew up knowing the Alpha and his mate as "Dad" and "Mum" while the rest of the adults were "Aunt" and "Uncle", regardless of who had actually birthed them.

"Well," the Alpha continued, "it's time for lunch, but if you're all too tired from all this activity, I suppose you can take a nap instead..."  The pups, and there were probably a good twenty of them, all ran past the Alpha toward the den where food was waiting.  Dad caught Harry by the back of his shirt before he could run past as well.

Harry looked up at him, gnawing at his lip worriedly.  Had he done something wrong?

"Harry, I need to talk to you."  Harry nodded slowly in trepidation.  The Alpha seemed to sense his discomfort and reached out with one hand to ruffle his hair roughly.  "You're not in trouble, don't worry."  Harry smiled in relief.

"This came for you.  I thought you should have it."  Dad handed him a thick envelope adorned with green script.

Mr. H. Potter

The den

The Forbidden Forest

Scotland

Harry saw that the wax seal had already been broken when he flipped it over.  He looked up at Dad quizzically.

"I needed to know what it was," said the Alpha in response to his unspoken question.  Harry nodded and slipped two pieces of folded parchment out of the envelope.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL

Of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

~*~

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter

                We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

                Term begins on September 1.  We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

Harry looked at the letter in confusion.  He could read, as could some of the other pups (they only learned if they were interested), but he only understood perhaps half the words on the page.  He flipped to look at the supply list, but that was even more incomprehensible.
"What is it?" asked Harry, unable to come up with a better question.

"It's an acceptance letter for a human school," Dad replied.  Harry just looked at him in confusion.  "Humans are... they're like us, only they don't change."  Harry's eyes went wide.

"They don't?"  The idea of someone not changing was... incomprehensible.  How did they live?  How did they resolve differences without the one day a month when everyone was absolutely honest with everyone else, as animals were?  The one day when they fought each other, if it was necessary.

"No.  And a school is a place where they send their pups so that they can learn... things."

"What kind of things?" asked Harry curiously.

"Things like... reading, and writing.  That sort of thing."  The Alpha didn't actually properly know what was taught at a magic school, but he thought that that got it across well enough.

"But you teach us that," pointed out Harry logically

"Yes, well, humans... there are a lot more of them, and they send their children off to school so that they can learn from people who do nothing but teach children."

"But-"  The Alpha shook his head, and Harry stopped speaking.  The Alpha didn't exactly know how he was supposed to explain human society, especially considering that his understanding of it was sketchy at best.  He'd never actually been there, after all.

There was silence for a few moments before Harry asked tentatively, "What's a Headmaster?"

"A Headmaster is like... a human Alpha, only they're only Alpha of the school.  Kind of like you're only the Alpha of the pups," Dad explained.  He explained many of the other words in the letter, in terms he hoped Harry would understand.  It took some time as Harry, when he was learning, liked to learn things thoroughly so that he wouldn't have trouble remembering it later.

Finally, the Alpha asked, "Do you think you understand?"  Harry nodded.  And it was then that the Alpha finally got to the important question.

"Do you wish to go?"

"I-" Harry stopped, frowning in thought.  "I... don't know."  Harry was in difficulty.  He wanted to learn, and humans seemed fascinating from what little he'd just learned about them... but he didn't want to have to go to a school for years, as Dad had said human children did.  Harry liked living in the pack, and the thought of leaving them was not a happy one.

"Think about it," Dad said.  "It's a big decision."  The Alpha gave a theatrical sigh and looked at Harry with a long suffering expression.  "I suppose it's too much to hope for that there's any lunch left for us, eh?"

"There'd better be," Harry growled with a feral smile directed towards his Dad, who laughed.  With a whispered "let's go find out" from the grinning Alpha, they both ran towards the den laughing, racing to see who could get there first.

~*~(*)~*~

Remus stumbled as he landed and immediately found himself face to face with another werewolf.  In wolf form.  Remus stiffened in surprise.  There were rumors of werewolves whose change was exactly opposite to that of the usual werewolf – that is, werewolves that were only human on the day of the full moon, but Remus had certainly never seen one before and he had never expected to.

The wolf grabbed the sleeve of Remus' robe and tugged playfully before letting go and running five or so meters away.  When Remus just stood there the wolf ran back and repeated the action. Remus took the hint and, after stuffing the Hogwarts letter into his pocket, followed the creature to wherever he was trying to lead him.

They walked a short way, probably not even the length of a Quidditch field in Remus' estimation, and Remus found himself inside a large clearing.  It was a sort of small valley, surrounded nearly completely by huge boulders so that it was impenetrable on most sides.  There was a deep, fast moving river running directly through it and a cave on the far side.  Remus saw wolves playing throughout the clearing, and a few resting in the mouth of the cave.

The werewolf leading him tugged his sleeve once more and bounded up to the cave.  Remus followed him and at the wolf's urging, went inside.  He stood in the entrance for a moment, unsure of what he was supposed to do as he looked around at the fifty or so people cheerfully eating a meal of barely cooked meat and raw vegetables before a man got up from his seat on the floor and walked over to him.

If Remus had been transformed, he would have lowered his ears and gotten very low to the ground when the man came near.  Something about him, the way he moved, the way he carried himself, or maybe just the air of absolute confidence the man held about him like a cloak, made Remus' werewolf senses scream "Alpha."  As it was, Remus lowered his head slightly without meaning to.

The Alpha motioned for him to sit with him slightly away from where the rest of the werewolves – as Remus assumed they were – were eating.

"Who are you?" the Alpha asked bluntly.

"Remus Lupin."  And so it went.  Remus barely managed to keep up with the Alpha's rapid fire questioning.  The questions ranged from 'where are you from' to 'were you born pack or were you bitten', and all were asked while the Alpha regarded him with an almost predatory gaze that sent shivers up Remus' spine.

Finally, the Alpha stopped, and Remus felt rather as though someone had mistaken him for a wet rag and wrung him out thoroughly.  The Alpha was smiling at him and Remus was reminded of Albus Dumbledore and his annoying twinkling, except for the Alpha was decidedly more feral.

"Welcome to our pack then, Remus," the Alpha said genially, all previous predatory behavior vanishing behind the mask of a congenial, rowdy father.  "I am Lycaon.  Come, let's eat."  Remus followed him over to where the rest of the pack was finishing up their meal, feeling rather dazed.

Remus reached for a bit of meat, only to have it snatched out from just beneath his fingers by a small boy.  Lycaon laughed at his surprised expression.

"You'll have to be quicker than that if you want to eat, Remus."  Remus watched the others and noticed that standard table manners among humans seemed to not exist here.  Everyone grabbed whatever they could reach and, well, wolfed it down as quickly as they could.  The children were particularly quick, since they did not actually sit right next to the food as the adults did.  About the only person Remus saw eating leisurely was Lycaon, for whom food never vanished from beneath his fingers, though he never went so far as to take something from a subordinate.

That seemed to be another rule.  Once you had the food, it was indisputably yours but until you grabbed it, it was fair game.  Remus mimicked what the others were doing, grabbing a handful of food and eating it quickly so that he could go back for more.  Remus was still significantly slower than everyone else.  Remus had barely scraped two small handfuls of meat before the meal was over.  At that point all the children promptly left the den, starting up an impromptu game of 'tag' and Remus was immediately surrounded by other werewolves wanting to talk.

Remus sighed inwardly, faking enthusiasm as he answered their many questions and asked a few of his own.  This was undoubtedly going to be harder than he'd originally thought.

~*~(*)~*~

Harry watched as the new pack member splashed his face in the river.  He was interesting to watch.  His mannerisms were odd, and his accent was completely foreign sounding, and the clothes!  They were so elaborate.  Harry couldn't understand how the man could move in them at all, they looked so heavy.  Not to mention that the man smelled funny.  There was so little scent to him compared to the pack, and what natural smell he had was almost overwhelmed by a bitter, sharp scent of something that Harry couldn't identify.

Of course, Harry wasn't supposed to watch.  Pups weren't supposed to get near a new pack mate until the first moon after their stay.  Once they'd transformed with the rest of the pack, they became part of it as much as someone who had been born into it.

Though, Harry was a bit jealous.  He'd thought that all bitten werewolves looked different than born werewolves, as Harry himself did.  Harry, with his black hair and green eyes, was totally at odds with the usual brown and brown of the rest of the pack.  There was some variation in shades of brown, but the pack was otherwise perfectly uniform.  And this stranger, Remus he was called, fit in with them as well.  Though his hair was streaked with grey and didn't match the comparative youthfulness of his face.  Harry wondered what had caused that.

The man made a move that looked to Harry as though he was getting ready to bathe himself, which made Harry call out a warning, "You don't want to do that!"

The man started violently and spun to see who had shouted.  His eyes widened when he spotted Harry, which made Harry scowl.  Honestly, did he really look so odd?

"What?" the man asked in his strange accent.

"There's a kelpie in the river.  We're not supposed to go near it," Harry explained, feeling rather uncomfortable.  He was breaking the rules, and one of the biggest ones, by talking to him.  But he felt safe, as he was standing a good ten yards away from the man, with a steep rocky hill between the two of them.  He turned around to leave, feeling that he was pushing his luck enough as it was.

"Harry?" the man asked.  Harry's eyes widened and he spun back around.  How did he know his name?  The adults never, ever talked about the children with strangers.  It was as much as rule as the children not talking to them was.

"How do you know my name?" asked Harry, not pausing to think about whether it might not be a good idea.

"I knew your parents," Remus admitted softly.  Harry's eyes widened further.  He'd known for a long time that he wasn't born of the pack, that his birth parents must be somewhere else, but the idea of meeting them had never really occurred to him.

"You know them?" he asked, repeating Remus' statement approximately.  Harry frowned when Remus shook his head.  "But you said-"

Remus cut him off, "They died quite a few years ago.  I'm sorry."  Harry felt vaguely disappointed.  Not really upset, just sort of put out that his curiosity about his birth parents would go unsatisfied after all.

"Did you live with humans before?" asked Harry curiously.  He'd half decided that the man, having known his parents, must be all right to talk to.

"Yes."  Harry perked up, forgetting his earlier disappointment.  He'd told the Alpha that, after a few hours of thought, he'd decided not to go to the human school.  He couldn't stand the idea of being away from the pack for so long, but that didn't mean he wasn't still curious about them.

"Can you tell me about them?" Harry asked.

"I'll go hoarse if I have to shout at you from down here," said Remus, smiling slightly.  Harry slid down the rocks without giving it so much as a single thought.

"Now will you tell me?" asked Harry, now all of three feet away from the man he had earlier thought of as 'the stranger.'

Remus smiled at him, "All right.  What do you already know?"

~*~(*)~*~

Remus listened as Harry explained all he knew, which Remus realized after listening for only a few moments was very, very little.  Then Harry mentioned the Hogwarts school acceptance letter he'd received and Remus interrupted him.

"You got a Hogwarts letter?"  Albus certainly hadn't mentioned that.

"Yes.  It came yesterday."

"You're going then?" asked Remus, keeping up his casual air.  Perhaps this would be an easy mission after all.  His hopes were dashed when Harry shook his head.  "Why not?  It's quite an opportunity."  Especially for a werewolf, Remus added in his head.  But Harry had no idea what being a werewolf meant in wizarding society.  Remus had been rather surprised when he found out where the portkey had sent him.  He'd never in his wildest dreams expected Harry to be a werewolf, though he should have once Albus had named Harry's location.  Werewolves were more naturally magical than humans, and so were less likely to be attacked in a magically saturated place like the Forbidden Forest.  A human child would not have lasted a week, much less years like Harry obviously had.

Harry was rather slow to answer, "I don't want to leave the pack.  I like it here.  I'd miss them too much if I went away."  Remus winced inwardly.  If Harry didn't want to go, then pretty much the only way Remus was ever going to get him to Hogwarts was if he kidnapped-

No, Remus told himself.  He was not going to kidnap the boy.  It was cruel...

But, Remus realized, he didn't have much of a choice.  If Harry didn't want to go then Remus would never be able to convince Lycaon to let him take Harry anyway.  He slipped the letter out of his pocket, along with his wand.  Harry's eyes widened in surprise.

"Hey, that's just like the letter!" he exclaimed.  He frowned at Remus' silence.  "Remus?"  Remus grabbed him around the waist and tapped the portkey with his wand.  Ignoring Harry's struggling and yelling to let him go, Remus spoke the trigger word.
"Hogwarts."  And with an uncomfortably jolt, they vanished only moments before a dozen adult werewolves ran onto the scene.

They landed and Remus stumbled.  Harry took advantage of this and started biting, scratching, and otherwise attacking Remus in every way he could think of.  He squirmed frantically and shouted, nearly making Remus lose his grip, but not quite.

Remus heard, "Stupefy!" over the sound of Harry's shouts and the boy went limp in his arms.  Remus carefully set the boy down on a chair, wincing as every stinging scratch and aching bruise made itself very well known to him.  He turned and slumped into the other chair and looked over at Albus, who was merely smiling at him and looking completely unperturbed.

"Would you like a lemon drop, Remus?" asked Albus cheerfully, eyes twinkling as usual.

Remus wanted to bite him.

Review Replies

Winky27:  Thanks.

Cyberwolf:  **grins**  I sent you an e-mail...  And this is the only chapter where you really see Harry as a "baby" anything, werewolf or "human".  And it's not weird.  I happen to like the imagery of a baby vampire...  Okay, so maybe it's weird.  ^_^  Yes, it's a plot twist I suppose, or maybe just a plot device.  I couldn't have him be devoured by a werewolf this early.  It would kind of cut the fic a little short...  Thanks!

ZeonReborn:  er... thanks?

MedNar:  Yup, Davin is dead because of what bit him.  You actually bothered to work out his age?  I didn't even do that...  I just had this "old guy" image in my head.  ^_^  And yes, I'm skipping through time.  Shame on me...

RaistlinofMetallica:  Thanks!

annon:  Thanks!  There is going to be Remus for several chapters (and I hope this isn't clichéd!), but Remus isn't the one who actually raises Harry.  Davin is dead.  That's why the "spark" went out, actually.  Davin was no longer alive to keep the magic working.  I like cub!Harry too... but this is the only chapter where Harry is a "baby"... Maybe I'll go back and add a few chapters later  **shrug**