Disclaimer: Yes. I am not a 14-year-old American, busy with high school. I am not middle class and using an old computer that can hardly connect to the Internet. I am obviously J.K. Rowling, posting on a site that I can't get money from… HONESTLY, NIMWIT, isn't it pretty straight on that if I had anything better to do, like earning millions of dollars, I would be doing it?
Dedication: This is for my best friend and common sense, Courtney. Without you, I would probably still be trying understand the directions.
"What do you mean, her bloody familiar?" Ron, as always, was the first to speak, and as always, the speech contained expletives.
"Watch your mouth, Ron!" Hermione, Arin, and Professor Dumbledore all said at the same time. Arin laughed. Then she continued. " Well Ron-"
"How do you know my name?"
"Because 'Mione knows it, idiot." Arin momentarily looked like an extremely petulant child. "Anyway," She paused and turned to Dumbledore. "Sir? Do they not know any of it?"
"No Arin, The Wer are a well kept secret."
"Should I tell them? All of it?"
"Yes. I think its time for this secret to come out." He looked down at her kindly, with a sad expression in his eyes that her sheltered mind could not identify. Later she would find it was pity.
Untouched by this strange occurrence, Arin plopped unceremoniously to the floor. "Gawd, this'll take a while."
"A long time ago, when wizards were more common than muggles and magic was the key to all success, there was a dark wizard who's name is forgotten in most circles and never mentioned in others. The world of magic was split in such a way that neighbor fought against neighbor, father against son, brother against sister. It was much the same as the situation is now with the dark lord. One faction wanted wizards to rule the world and exterminate the muggle race, and the others wished for muggle and wizard to live in peace, separately, of course, but in peace. The side of the light seemed to be well on its way to victory, but little did they know…"
"In the upper country of Norway, the Lord of the Dark was scheming. He began to experiment on muggles, thinking of a weapon that could walk among the enemy without giving them the slightest hint to their identity, but change into a deadly weapon at a signal. Basically, he wanted all the power of an animagus, without the trouble of training. Of course, it wouldn't work. He just killed massive amounts of muggles with no real results. It took him about a year and maybe twelve moves before he realized what he was doing wrong. He was in Holland at the time. You see he couldn't really change anything about muggles because they have no magical core for his own magic to interact with. So he began taking wizards and witches from his own ranks and experimenting on them. It worked… but drove every last one insane. Their children, however…"
"The parents were the first werewolves. Werewolves are made when the wolf is forced unwillingly to collaborate with the human, and consequently, the wolf is driven insane and fights forever against the human mind. On the full moon it is strongest, and unless the human can prevail, which it never does, the wolf takes control and wreaks havoc. Wer, however, are different. We are born with the wolf already a part of us. We don't control the wolf, but the wolf doesn't control us. It is a symbiotic relationship. I cannot live without the wolf, and the wolf cannot live without me. Now The Lord of the Dark made a mistake. When he added in the part of us that was to be the familiar, he intended it to be a relationship with his followers, but wolves do not think in the terms of violence as he and his followers. Wolves are only violent to those they see as weak. The light was strong. We respect the strong. So we rebelled. The first sane wer was Aryan, the first queen. She was the familiar of Alfred Van Doumlbledoeur, an ancestor of the Dumbledore line. That is why we as a people are beholden to the Dumbledore family. In fact, the wizards partly have a debt to us, for without our powers of prophecy and necromancy, the side of the light would not have won the war."
She stopped speaking, confused by the bewildered looks on all of the children's faces. "Prophecy? Necromancy?" Hermione asked hesitantly.
"Oh! You see we were given several powers. Prophecy, the ability to visit the worlds of the dead, and though the dark one did not mean for it to happen, the ability to make potions out of our own blood. Sadly, the repercussion from having these powers is that almost no one in the Wer line is a witch or wizard. The only reason I have magic is because I am a thirteenth child. The youngest child always has the most power, and usually families don't have more than five. There is almost no hope of being magical unless you are at least a seventh child."
"But I don't understand the whole familiar thing," Harry spoke up for the first time. "Why are you her familiar? What exactly is a familiar?
"That's the easiest part! When a wer finds a person who they are most like, it creates a bond with that person, and the wer will do whatever it takes to protect that person, and whatever that person tells him or her to."
"I think it is time for all of you to retire to your common room. Hermione, you are excused from all classes until you get used to this. I know that sometimes it is hard to adapt to such strange circumstances. Harry, Ron, you are not exempt from lesson, I expect you there with everyone else. Arin, obviously, you are in Gryffindor, with the same course schedule as Hermione. Now everyone OUT!" Dumbledore said in a rare fit of seriousness.
