It was near to midmorning a week later when the first of Vulpe's recruits trickled in. The trot of horse hooves on the ground announced her arrival, wild looking horse with an even wilder woman sitting astride with a crude looking saddle, feet kicked up by the horse's ribs and not in stirrups. One arm carried a shield, and the other carried a javelin. The dull gleam of bronze rather then the sheen of steel decorated her weapons and armour, including the hand axes slung across her shoulder blades and the hilt of the sword at her side. The trail of reins hung from her hand, as she pulled the horse up in front of the gates, sunlight gleaming across her limed hair, standing up in stiff white spikes and the mane of her horse treated the same way. The mare between her legs was a roan, reddy brown hide shining dully in the sun while behind a colt of the same color capered along, his nose marked by a splash of white and beads hung jangling around his neck.

"Lo, we are arrived at journey's end, friend," she said to her horse, wheeling the mare in a tight circle in the dust before the gate. The colt whickered, prancing out of the way. "Let us see then, if our words still open the gate to us, aye?" Raising her spear, she banged on the gates of Hogwarts with the butt of it, raising her voice to wail a word that had not been spoken there for a time upon a time. The gates opened slowly, and she passed through, shoulders rising and falling with the rhythm as her mare trotted, colt following once more behind. Soaring, her voice entered the ears of the students within, calling of war and terror, of triumph and the heart stopping pleasure of a cavalry charge with your sisters beside you and your horse steady between your legs. The thunder of hooves in your ears like the rolling thunder and the screams of war cries bursting from the throats around you and your own, breathing dust and the first wet swing of a sword into flesh.

"Kekekekekeke, my sister, my sister, I call to you from the back of my horse -

Lo, see how our foe flees before us like leaves before the storm -

In the name of the god, we are the riders, the warriors, the soul-slayers –

Soul-reaver, free woman, raise your sword high, oh my sister –

Axes to hand, oh my sister-herd kindred, my lover, my sister –

We are the free women of the plains, dear sister, my lover –

We ride free with no man's hand to deter us, we ride them under the hooves of our steeds –

See, how they run then before the might of us women, the riders, soul-reavers –

The rabbit to our wolf, we hunt them across the plains with the eagle flying above –

Know me, my sisters, and sing me to a victory, a death in battle with blood painted on my hands –

Aieeeeeeeee, my sisters, we ride forth in victory, the scalps of our enemies attached to our saddles –

Grant me honour and victory, no cities for me, wide plains, open sky and good riding-

No weakness, no faltering, onwards ride we, the thundering storm clouds..." she sang in a voice as fierce as a hawk's shriek or the howl of the wolf pack in winter, images clear even though she sang in a language older then the stones of Hogwarts itself and not in English. Her song dipped and soared, ancient syllables ringing out harshly in time to the hoof falls of her horse. The colt almost seemed to dance a counterpoint, younger lighter hooves falling with a different note on the earth. The mare tossed her head and whinnied shrilly in challenge as the woman cut her song short, pulling her to a halt so the horse reared, fighting the bit in her mouth and dancing back on her hind legs.

"Eeeyah, my friend, we shall wait and see what they say before we strike," the woman counseled, letting her horse find its feet once more, blowing nervously and snorting at the calm Dumbledore. The murmur of students could be heard clearly, pale faces and palms pressed to the windows and black uniforms shrouding the rest of them. It almost looked like ghosts were clamoring there, watching the meeting. "I have come. The fox calls, she speak the madspeak of the gods and calls forth an army, to be the one of which is I, the daughter of the herds, sister of the wolves, and cousin to the eagles. Lo, forth do I come when all is peace, to cry out the way of war that is coming, the blood thundering to be spilt on thirsting earth." The colt approached Dumbledore curiously as the woman spoke, snuffing the hem of his robes where they trailed on the ground before leaping away like a young deer with a kick and toss of his head. She watched with amused forbearance, voice lilting through her words like she was still singing. "I have come, to teach two. One claimed by lightning and a girl, who I do not yet know who it is. The boy who tasted death and survived, curse bloodbought free by mother love and facing to human evil, do I come to teach the way of the warrior on foot. The girl who will follow me as herd-sister, war-cryer, soul-reaver free and beautiful as the towering storm, I have been told I will find here. She will be as my daughter, the one I will not bear from my flesh and my womb, as I will not suffer a man to touch me. Virgin and resolute, I stand apart independent. This is my sister the horse and her son, who is to befriend my daughter-heir. Their names are," she whickered twice, two distinct separate sounds. Both horses' ears pricked up. "But since you speak not truth, rather in split tongue and not as animals, you may call them Shining-Sunset and Blood-On-Steel. I am...Fury. I will make camp now." She turned the horse away to ride around the corner of the castle and head for the Forbidden Forest.

"I would like to talk with you more fully on what you plan to do in my school," Dumbledore said softly but with steel running through his voice.

"Talker, old man, we can talktalk tonight. I have ridden far today and my sister must rest. Her son's hooves are young, and we traveled over paths ungrassed and stony today. Tonight!" She kicked the horse in the ribs and galloped away, the colt wheeling to flee after his mother. At the edge of the forest, she did not pause but continued her wild gallop in. Two forms could be seen there briefly to meet her, one black, one white. The wolves howled to welcome their kindred into the forest and the mare screamed challenge and greeting in return. The woman's wild howling yell silenced even the animals, before the Forest was hushed once more. Seeming to have swallowed them whole.

Fury walked up to the school alone when it came time for dinner, armed to the teeth and hair brushed up into the lime-stiffened spikes. She looked barbaric and wondrous, something ancient and powerful walking the earth in a world that refused to recognize her possible power and just saw crudity and savagery instead of the very imperative life she embodied. Pushing open the doors, she stalked into the Great Hall, looking neither to right or left where the students had sat down for dinner. They boomed shut behind her, as she kept her eyes lifted to where the teachers sat at the top table, while side to side the students were gradually working themselves into an uproar of curious speculation. Who was she? Where had she come from?

Tamsin lurked in an upper nook; tail lashing while Jack turned his eyes from the warrior woman and looked at Hermoine instead. Draco hushed Blaise with one hand, looking at the newest arrival to Hogwarts, eyes bright with curiosity and speculation as to what she was and what she doing here. The black haired girl quieted, pursing her lips slightly and provoking her sometimes boyfriend, one of the other Slytherins, to lean over and kiss her softly. She wriggled across the bench to sit in his lap, small enough to do so comfortably, placing one arm around his neck and leaning against him as she watched the barefooted woman measure her stately progress across the floor to stand in front of the stairs that led up to the staff table.

She stood there, one hand fingering the hilt of the sword at her side and looked upwards, nodding slightly at McGonagall before her eyes continued to Snape, then back to Dumbledore where he sat in the middle.

"As I have said, so I have come."

"So we can see..." Dumbledore steepled his fingers and looked at her over them, aged eyes steady. "Will you come up and be seated at the table, Fury? We offer meat, salt, fire and drink."

"You know the guest rights then. It is good that not all old ways have passed from this world you wizards have made. I will, and feel right welcome." Fury stalked up to the dais, seating herself at the empty seat next to Snape. She sprawled there, unconcerned at the look he gave her, obviously nursing a secret amusement at all the goings on and commotion she had caused. "Ah, so you are the fox's soul. I can see it...in your eyes. She's sunk her wildfire deep on you, it's painted visible, dark one." She reached out a hand languidly and picked up the goblet, sipping approvingly from the liquid contained therein. It smelt faintly of berries and sunshine, staining her lips a dark red as Snape stared at her coldly.

"I am sure I do not know what you mean-"

"Which doesn't mean it's not truth, shadow man. Lady hawk there would understand my thoughts. The wolves told me of thee, how goes it?" Fury turned her attention to Hooch, smiling faintly.

"It goes well, warrior," Hooch said, stabbing at her meal with a fork. "I teach the children what it is to have wings."

"Ah, to fly. You have spoken with the storm crow then?"

"No, he seems quite...afraid of me, rather. No matter. If he decides my ancestry is reason to fear, then who am I to quibble? He fears the cat and the wolves also, even if the fox has his uneasy friendship. I think that is more a matter of them both being seers, of different kinds, then anything else. Ha!" Hooch managed to spear the bite of food she'd been chasing around the plate and put it in her mouth triumphantly. Fury chuckled.

"Nay a thing escapes a hawk."

"Or the warrior on horseback, I think," Hooch said. "It's been a while, Rhiannon."

"Ha, that's a name I had once! Bridgit, Rhiannon...Maiden Warrior, one of the Three and all in One." She sipped reflectively. "Wizards forget what was, before the magic surrendered into their hands. The paths of blood and bone and soul, magic hard bought instead of...ah, a plaything." She flicked her fingers then took her beltknife and started to saw the bread on her plate, cutting a piece of meat to lay along it. "I have come to teach. Warrior ways, swordplay, the way of the warrior on foot to the boy famous for surviving Dark Magics. Horses are women's pathways." She sniffed irritably, and then gulped down more of the berry-scented crimson whatever it was she was drinking. "Men."

McGonagall chuckled slightly, daintily eating her food before she put her cutlery down and lifted her goblet to sip. "So, what brought you here...now? Not to be rude, but it does seem rather odd."

"Fox asked, I come. Sister horse says yes, she take me here and her son thinks it will be fun. Fun! Colts." Fury blew air through her lips like an irritated horse, making a noise of aggravated inunderstanding. "Already, he tries to sniff an adder as we walk on the roads made by man to make his unheeding way. Cutting across the path of the sisters and brothers, breaking sacred places into scattered pieces. It is not right, what has come to pass. We...made a bad choice." Brooding now, she sipped from the goblet, flat wild stare fixed on McGonagall. "But what is done is done and may not be undone, unless what the Darkness has planned comes to pass. After meal, I talk with lightning boy and speak with girls. My successor is here, and I have come to find her. Her, I will teach the way of the horse, and of the wolf, and of the storm. Ha! It is good, that at last she is born."

"May I ask, how long you have been looking?" Dumbledore asked quietly.

"A long time. Long enough for me to want to lay down and rest, as my sister's mothers have done as time went by." Fury fixed Dumbledore with a sword-edged stare. "Long enough, wizard, as have we all those who have seen time pass from time to time." The dinner went on, Fury replying in her own fashion to all questions that were put to her before it was over and the students were starting to file out. The warrior woman jumped the dais edge and landed on the floor as silently as any cat, armour not making a sound around her as she stalked towards the crowd of black robed adolescents. Draco confronted her, eerie silver eyes fixed on hers.

"You've come from Vulpe?"

"The child of ice..." Fury almost purred, giving him a look up and down. "If you were a girl...my search would be over. She could sense it in you, that spark. Come here, adopted of the wildfire and let me know you." She took his shoulders and blew briefly at his mouth and nose; startled, Draco coughed and she hummed thoughtfully. "Indeed...she knows her worth when she sees it, blizzard unforgiving. Tread most carefully, little dragon, you aren't quite grown into what you need to be in the times ahead."

Draco stared into her suddenly ancient eyes and wondered about whether there was a grain of truth in that old saying that eyes were the windows to the soul, and what she saw reflected in his. "If you're looking for Potter, he's the one with the scruffy black hair next to the red headed gowk and the frizzy haired girl." Again that whisper of warm breath, smelling like sunwarmed strawberries and other summer type things when he'd been expecting maybe the sweet corrupted smell of old blood. He swayed in slightly, eyes dipping closed and then she was gone, leaving him feeling dazed. Blaise sidled up to him, slipping one arm around his waist as she blinked after the towering woman.

"Well, well."

"Stuff it, Zabini." He ruffled her hair with one hand and ignored her squeals of indignation, narrowly dodging the spiked heel to his instep as he sauntered away. Grabbing the other members of the Slytherin Quidditch team, he started talking Quidditch with them, planning Gryffindor's eventual downfall. If Fury did what he thought she would do, the amazing Potter would have no time for fun and games. She'd work him to the bone, bawling him out in a sergeant's top parade ground voice and snapping at his heels. And she wouldn't cut him an inch of slack because of what he was and what he'd done; she'd just work him harder.

And that, Draco found a very happy thought indeed.

"Eeeyah, what I have to work with? Warrior am I, not miracle worker," Fury muttered in disgust, looking Harry up and down and crossing her arms, hips cocked askew. The sword at her side fell with the pleats of her skirt before she heaved another sigh. "Stand up, boy, and let Fury think about where she must begin to teach you how to survive."

"Excuse me?" Harry said in some disbelief. Fury hit him low and hard in the stomach with one clenched fist, before bringing her armour-plated knee up to meet his head as it came down, breath knocked out of him in a painful whoosh.

"We shall get this settled here now, little boy," Fury told him, grabbing his hair in one hand easily as Harry gasped for breath and his eyes watered. The sword that had appeared in her hand warned Ron and Hermoine off, and Jack clung to Hermoine's wand hand, pleading with her not to get involved as his breath hitched and he stuttered with fear. He knew her, the Fury. And he didn't want Hermoine involved – though Ron could get himself killed for all the jackdaw cared. "I teach you the ways of the sword, so that when you face the snake in the grass next, you can run him through with the lion's sword. I am helping you, wizard. Don't forget it." She shook him roughly then dropped him on his feet, turning to face McGonagall as the woman halted next to her, slightly out of breath. "He rises at dawn, I teach him. Toughen him up. He will win, when I'm through with training believe me, sister heart." She grinned at McGonagall, and then cheerfully continued, "and if he isn't out on the lawns at dawn, I will come and fetch him, yes? Then he can go swimming in the lake. I think it is cold at this time of year."

"You can't just-"

"I believe I just did." The lights in the Great Hall dipped and swayed as Fury stared McGonagall down. "He is the Boy-Who-Lived. I teach him to keep living. So. Training. Run, dodge, fight, swords, without swords, box, swim, but not ride horse. Horses are women's business. When I am done with him, he will be a warrior. You teach him wand waving; I'll teach him how to live without a silly piece of stick in his hand."

"Cat, stop it," Jack whispered, looking at the increasingly irate teacher. "Some immortals don't play by your rules, know it do I. Maiden, quiet your ire. The boy will come."

"I was not joking about the lake if you do not show," Fury told Harry and then swung around to go. Stopped stock still as she saw Luna and stared. Above the hall, Tamsin shifted uneasily, leaning forward and sharp eyes taking in the reactions of the people around as Fury lunged forward, grabbing Luna by the shoulders and kissing her hard. Fury felt the cry of surprise against her lips and pressed her kiss deeper, unforgiving metal breastplate digging into the softness of the girl who had called to her from behind the pieces of glass. She bit down on her own tongue hard, blood welling to the self-inflicted cut and staining both their lips and down their chins as she forced Luna to swallow it. Good girl, good girl, the warrior crooned softly to herself as she felt the muscles in the girl's throat work, and knowing what was starting to work.

Magic worked so much better when it was bought with blood. Made much more sense. Wizards. Always thinking they should get something for nothing, just a few words and a swish of a wand. Nothing that was worth any trouble, no sacrifice for what it was they wielded. Even birth came with pain and blood and screaming. Why should something as important as magic be any different?

She broke the violent kiss with a gasp, licking her lips free of blood while Luna looked at her dazedly, crimson a violent shout across her mouth.

"Mine," Fury told her with satisfaction, one arm held loosely around her waist. "I have been waiting for you for such a long time, child. Longer then you could think. Thank you, seer, for preventing them from separating us until what was needed to be done was complete," she added, turning to look at Jack, then eyes sweeping across to look at Tamsin who had dropped from her perch above the hall to help Jack make sure Fury wasn't pulled away. The cat nodded and smiled, honey blonde hair shining in the candlelight. Fury smiled back, recognizing a woman she'd fought beside before and was glad to see here.

"I can...I can see!" Luna said in astonishment, taking the no longer needed glasses off her face.

"One of the gifts of the Goddess is healing, child. A perfect vessel is better then a slightly flawed one, and you are...perfect," Fury murmured, brushing a thumb across Luna's cheek. "You were born to be this. Do not forget it." Her voice dropped from English to a harsher more guttural language, rhythmic music singing through it. "We are the thunder riding the edges of the storm. We are of the Herd, and we are of the Pack, and of the Flight. We are kin to every woman, and we are warriors." Slowly, Fury stepped away and Luna swayed after her, hand reaching out to touch and bring the older woman back. "Tomorrow. Cat, come walk with me and tell me of this place more then the fox did."

Tamsin curled into Fury's side, wriggling her ass as a sword calloused hand slid down to cup one rounded cheek and the two started to walk out, ignoring the chaos behind them. Luna stared after them, blood burning with a knowledge that was sliding into her veins and a queer sick sort of jealousy that Tamsin walked out with Fury and she didn't. Slowly, she licked her lips and ignored the questions that were shrilling around her from Hermoine, and then the boys of the Dream Team, and then from every other person in her place. She grabbed her books from where she'd dropped them and ran out of the hall, leaving her glasses on the floor and seeing perfectly for the first time in her life. Just not what she wanted to see in front of her.

All that night, she tossed and turned with restless dreaming. Flashes of wide open plains, dry grass as spread out as the ocean. The cut view that appeared through the eye slits of a helmet. A foal being birthed in a gush of blood and birth fluids to land on dry dust as its mother stood patiently, head down and back legs splayed. An army before her, banging swords on their shields and booming warcries as they marched. A battlefield after the fact, crows circling lazily on the wind and bodies scattered like autumn leaves. A sword, glowing red hot on the smithy's anvil. Dark, kohl lined eyes smiling through the dark and a fall of long black hair. The inside of a tent, cloistered dark and warm, like the return to a womb. Many things did the newly chosen warrior maiden see, and she remembered few of them on waking. But enough to know she was irrevocably changed, far beyond the healing of her sight on the purely physical level.

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I'm begging for reviews here, people. Please, if you're reading and you like this, tell me. And if you're reading and you don't, tell me anyway! I want to know, because I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on this one and I think it's better then the other stuff I've written. You're reading? Review! And make me happy. And I won't let Fury kill you.