Becky4: Thank you. Yes, Anastasia and Padfoot are communicating telepathically. Padfoot didn't go in human form because he believed that she would have problems trusting humans after her not-so-pleasant parents.
Saxistwriterchick: Unorthodox? Thank you … I think.
The beginning of July sneaked upon them without much ado. It was a rainy July that year, and the urchins found many excuses to stay indoors and chat. Anastasia was usually present for those chats, but she kept in the background. Sometimes they would make and effort to involve her in the conversation, but she felt more comfortable in the background, along with Little T. Sometimes the two of them would have their own silent discussion going using facial expressions. As the two youngest members of the inner circle, they were closer to each other than most.
The discussion the other members had could be about anything. A favourite topic was whining about policemen, or perhaps talking about their various names. Anastasia learned that Lizard was short for Elizabeth, Bullet was nicknamed by his brother when he was very young for "being small and about as harmful as a still bullet", which wasn't entirely true any longer, and that Little T had no idea what his name was, and they spent quite some time trying to think up names beginning with T. Anastasia looked around and saw Jack smirk a little. She raised one eyebrow to him, and his smirk widened.
"I ain't sayin' anyfink," he told her quietly, but of course the other gang members heard him.
They let out a howl.
"Yer knew! Struth! Yer traitor! Right! Yer 'ad us guessin' for ages like that, and yer knew all along! Blimey!"
"Well, Squirt, right, yer migh button it, right, but yor not daft, do wot guvnor! Certainly better than some of the uvver skin an' blisters Jack's brought 'ome," Lightfingers praised.
Anastasia cocked her head questioningly. Other sisters?
"Sure. Yer didn't fink yer were the only one, did yer, then, eh, mate?" Bullet explained. "Didn't ever occur strange that this stranger just comes up and offers ter help yer? It's 'is way ter recruit new members ter the gang. O'course, he usually fails right bad, but once in a wile 'e gets 'ome some bloke 'oo's actually useful. So 'e picked yer up and became puzzled by yor silence, and then yer grew on 'im."
Anastasia grew hot and cold. She knew it was stupid of her to be feeling this betrayed, but she did, and she couldn't help it. She knew she was selfish, to want to be special in the eyes of Jack, and she knew she was being unreasonable. However, that knowledge did not stop any of those feelings from running through her.
The silence in the warehouse was thick and uncomfortable. Little T had put his hand on Anastasia's shoulder, but she had made no move to acknowledge it.
"Squirt, luv? Squirt, right, I'm bloody well sorry. I should 'ave told yer this, but I didn't want ter make yer sad. I don't luv yer any less because I picked up some terrible girls and fellas for the gang. Yer right are me sister, Squirt, right, and I luv yer. Yer maybe don't believe me, but it's true," Jack bent down and tried to reassure her. His voice was thick.
She looked up at his face. He looked remorseful, and his eyes looked somewhat glittering. She had the suspicion that her eyes were equally wet. She turned her face away from him. It hurt, and she told herself that it was stupid, it was no big deal, but her body couldn't let itself be stopped by her sense. A single tear slid down her cheek. It tasted salty on her tongue. She dried it away with the back of her hand and stood up.
Only when she had entered the room she locked herself in during the full moon did she realize that they still hadn't found out what Little T's name was.
Sirius grew more restless by each passing day. He didn't know where the wolf-child was, or what she was doing, or even if she was safe or not, and it was not a pleasant feeling. He had long passed being worried, and was now bordering panic. He knew the teachers were worried about him, especially since he had never been one to waste his days in one place, but it didn't bother him. What bothered him was that as time went by, their hopes of finding the wolf-child grew significantly smaller and smaller. She could be anywhere by now. They could find her in Wales, or Kent, or perhaps Surrey, or Glasgow, maybe, or even at the bottom of a lake somewhere. Which was rather disheartening. In fact, the only place they could be absolutely sure she wasn't in was Hogwarts, and Hogsmeade to an extent.
He spent the days in his dog form. Although he had been pardoned when they had managed to capture Wormtail, he didn't feel comfortable around other witches and wizards. Or to be more truthful, they didn't feel comfortable around him. To the students he was just the Professors Lupin's cute dog, Padfoot. Which suited him just fine. After all, he had spent almost all of his time around the wolf-child as Padfoot.
It had been a Hufflepuff fourth year that had first come across the idea to use him as a messenger.
"Here, Padfoot, can you give this to Professor Granger?" he had asked and held out a letter. Padfoot was quite willing to oblige, and soon the sight of a large dog speeding across Hogwarts castle with a piece of paper in his mouth was not an uncommon one. At least it gave him a feeling of being useful. Who'd have thought, when he himself was a student at Hogwarts, that he'd end up as a messenger dog within the castle? It was, in a way, Wormtail's fault. Sirius liked to blame everything that went wrong in his life on Wormtail, and to some extent, it was Wormtail's fault.
The days slipped by. Soon the students returned home, and Mad-Eye came to discus their search for the girl. Remus was a bit worried that they were keeping Moody from more important work, but the latter reassured him that he was completely free.
Sirius watched them depart with a description of Anastasia and a detailed map of London. He was feeling better than he had since he returned to Hogwarts. Now, the only thing he could do was wait.
Finding the wolf-child was harder than they thought. Moody had brought a dark creatures detector (guaranteed to detect the dark creature nearest to it), but it was of little use to them, since the needle kept spinning to the place right beside him. So they were forced to rely on Moony's sense of scents. They headed to London, which was where the young lycanthrope had last been seen, but made detours along the way, into forests and other places where a werewolf would be likely to be found.
Moony spent a night in a forest howling before they could enter the city. It took days for Moony to find Anastasia's scent among the bustling people. But one day he found it in an abandoned warehouse, and he and his companion stepped in.