Harry watched the two wizards walk along the trail, thankfully away from him. He felt as if his heart had stopped beating and taken up residence somewhere in his stomach. Gekko advanced towards him, waving a fistful of crushed leaves and scowling at him. Harry relaxed his features into a calm interest, making sure the polite air of indifference he used when serving patrons at the Pub was successfully hiding the hammering in his heart and the sudden chills up his spine.
"I thought we were s'posed to be playing tag? Why are you on your arse….you're it!" The diminutive werewolf glared at him, uncannily resembling Mrs Weasley. Harry forced himself to focus on the boy, pushing the anxiety in his mind away from himself, just as Dawn had taught him. 'Worrying over the inevitable doesn't make it come any slower' he told himself.
"Gekko, I said that after you got what you needed for your assignment we'd horse around, if it wasn't to late…It's"-he checked his watch-'almost eight o'clock, so we should probably head back before it gets dark." He stood up from the swings and looked down at his young charge. Gekko looked as if he wanted to argue but settled on pouting silently and walking with Harry to the bus stop. Harry sighed and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "We'll stop for ice cream on the way back." He told him. Gekko cheered happily and grabbed Harry's hand, pulling him faster to the bus stop where there was a respectable amount of people waiting already. Harry grinned and ran forward, catching Gekko in a headlock and ruffling his blonde head. The boy laughed and tried to tackle the taller teen, but only managed to knock them both into a severe looking woman in a tweed dress.
"Sorry!" Harry exclaimed, laughing at the werewolf's attempts to smooth his tousled hair down. The woman glared at Harry for a minute before stalking off, muttering about rude little muggles under her breath. The two boys managed to settle down enough to get on the bus (the occasional glare from an adult over Harry's hairstyle caused several giggles to erupt out of Gekko's mouth, and Harry to growl in annoyance at the offending grown-up) and make it to the ice cream parlour without any mishaps.
"Harry?" Gekko asked around a mouthful of strawberry ice cream.
"Hmm" He replied, licking some raspberry chocolate off his fingers.
"How come your Ministry of Magic doesn't like werewolves?" He sounded genuinely curious.
Harry raised his eyebrow and looked at him sideways. "Aren't you a registered werewolf?" he asked in puzzlement.
Gekko grinned broadly, a pink ice cream moustache around his mouth giving him a clownish appearance. "Dawn said it was a much wiser idea to let the ministry think I died with my parents, she said they don't take kindly to werewolf children in muggle areas, something about being slightly more uncontrollable than a full grown wolf." He shrugged "I was four when my parents died so I don't really remember enough to compare."
"You-your parents were werewolves? How did you become one?" Harry felt astounded that a parent would bite their child, werewolf aside, 'but then', he reflected, 'without the Wolfsbane potion, control over basic instincts is nonexistent'.
"Well" said Gekko, speaking as if he were talking to a rather slow three-year-old, "When a Mummy werewolf loves a Daddy werewolf, or is exceptionally drunk, they shag, the little pee stick turns blue, and nine months later a little werewolf pops out of the chute. It's really not that hard to grasp."
Harry choked on his ice cream.
"You were born a werewolf? Is that even possible? I read that the curse can only be passed by being bitten." Harry said, ignoring the incredulous stares of the surrounding muggles and the crude mental image that was in his head.
Gekko shrugged, unconcerned "It's very rare, and even more so that two werewolves of the opposite sex will get together, but it does happen, your Ministry does have a law against two werewolves breeding, mainly because when the offspring is born it's either one of two things. A perfectly healthy child suffering from lycanthropy, or a perfectly healthy monster that will take one month to grow to adulthood and'- He punctuated each word by hopping from foot to foot- 'Rip, Tear, Kill, Eat, and Maul every human thing in it's path. Cool huh?" He grinned wolfishly.
"You are a horrible child." Harry said in dreadful tones. Gekko laughed happily.
"So…. if a werewolf had a child with a human, would that kid be a werewolf?" He asked, while Gekko and him left the ice cream bar and the traumatized muggles behind.
"Nah, I asked Dawn, she said that the chances of that happening were as likely as a pink thestral prancing through dandelions… So, why doesn't your Ministry like werewolves?" He asked again.
Harry sighed and stopped Gekko just as the two turned into Coller Alley. "Let's get this straight." He said, bending down on one knee to look at the young boy directly. "The Ministry of Magic is not my Ministry; they're a bunch a fools who would rather accuse innocents and truth of wrong doing than accept their own fear. They don't like werewolves because you can't always control them, and if anything, the Ministry of Magic is terrified of what they can't control. Understand?"
The little boy frowned thoughtfully and nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense, corrupt governments do that."
Harry sighed and stood up and rubbed at the prickling he felt in his neck. "Besides, why would it matter if they're afraid of you? Dawn isn't, I most certainly am not, and there are lots of other people who don't care three sneezes past Tuesday that you turn into a monster once a month…women, actually, are more sympathetic than men." He shrugged, thinking about the moods swings that Hermione went through every so often, every month, in fact.
Gekko looked up at him and smiled. He walked behind Harry and jumped onto his back. Harry, now long used to being the Werewolf's favourite form of transportation simply smiled, and took off running toward flat 23, Gekko hanging onto his neck and laughing gaily.
Tonks hatred of muggle transportation seemed to be growing each day. The noise of buses and cars grated on her nerves and made her edgy. 'I'll never understand what Sirius saw in them.' She thought to herself as she boarded yet another bus in hopes of finding a sixteen year-old boy wizard in muggle London.
It had been a month since that idiot child took off, and even though Tonks understood better than most of the Order why Harry needed to be on his own, she still wished he had chosen a slightly more opportune time to take off. Like after Voldemort was dead.
And muggle clothes were itchy! The Metamorphmagus tried not to fidget in her tweed dress as she dreamed longingly of her comfortable Auror robes and sensible boots. These heeled things were just not healthy for someone who couldn't chew gum and walk at the same time. Tonks scowled at some nearby passengers who were giving her some strange looks as she scanned the bus for a familiar set of round glasses and messy black hair. So far, there had been no sight of Harry Potter. The Bus Driver pulled into the park stop and people began to file out. Tonks rose also; Snape and Remus were supposed to be searching in the park-she could meet up with them at the apparition point two streets over. She had made it down the vehicle steps and onto the sidewalk when a pair of muggle boys who were fooling around knocked into her.
"Sorry!" The taller boy said; who looked old enough to know better than to horse around where people could be pushed into traffic. His voice seemed oddly familiar to Tonks for some reason, who didn't pay attention to it very much and glared at the pair, the smaller of whom was grinning at her in a strange fashion. She cursed silently, trying to keep her balance on her shoes, muttering something about muggles and arrogance. It was only when she had caught her balance and the bus had driven away did she realise who belonged to the voice she heard.
She cursed aloud this time, and accidentally turned a bike port into a large pink toadstool.
Alright! That's number 8 done, I'll try to get the next one up asap, hopefully my schoolwork won't be as insane last semester. Ugh.
Thanks for all you support! Don't Forget to Read and Review! AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!