Hello again!
Think this is most definitely the quickest I've ever updated!
Hope you enjoy.
"So Mr. Harry, how exactly did you transform into a panther?" Sophia asked brightly
She had quickly warmed up to the pair who had saved her. They had promised her no harm and even gave her food from their supplies when they found out she had nothing left from when she had raided the tent. She began walking with them, hoping to find her way back to the highway where her Mom was. They promised to stick with her until they did.
"Well Sophia, that's a secret, can you keep a secret?" Harry asked chuckling
"Sure can Mr. Harry"
"Dad! Surely we can't tell her" Teddy exclaimed
"She's already seen something pretty weird kid, might as well, not like the Statue Of Secrecy has people protecting it now" Harry shrugged
"Tell me what?" Sophia finally demanded looking between Harry and Teddy.
"We're wizards" Teddy said nervously, he got on quite well with Sophia and didn't want her to be afraid of him for something he couldn't control about his heritage.
"OH!" Sophia yelled before suddenly being hushed by the Father and Son duo who looked around for any new threat "Are you guys from the Atlanta Academy of Magic?!" she continued whispering now
"The what?" Teddy asked confused
"The Atlanta Academy of Magic! They came to my house after my birthday last year. The age they start is 11 usually but I had to get deferred for a year because they had to sort me out a scholarship so I could attend, I was supposed to start in September but the Walkerpocolypse happened"
Harry looked shocked at randomly managing to find an underage witch in rural Georgia of all places. These things could only ever happen to him.
"No kiddo, we're from the United Kingdom, England specifically, most of the magical community there go to a school in Scotland called Hogwarts, it's a one thousand year old castle surrounded by a huge forest" Harry explained
"That's sounds amazing" Sophia sighed wistfully "I wish I had gotten to go to school, I was really looking forward to learning everything, I didn't know you could turn into animals though, can everyone do that?"
"Not everyone, some people don't have the patience for it, it can take years of training and dedication to learning everything about the process, but if you want, I can start teaching you how to find your inner animal. After all, the rules are out of the window at the moment ad I'm already making some progress with Teddy"
"You mean... you'll stick around and teach me magic?" Sophia gasped eyes wide and hopeful.
"Yes Sophia, I'll stick around, after all, wouldn't do to be leaving an underage witch hanging around, we'll just have to try get to a magical district to get you some supplies, and definitely a wand"
"I already have my wand" Sophia said, "The school took me to the magical district to show me around, I think they noticed the… atmosphere in my house, they wanted me to have somewhere to escape to if I needed it, mom saved up for months so that I could have my wand, it was just in moms pack when I got lost"
"Interesting, do you think you could tell me how to get there? Magical supplies are limited for the moment, it would be good to go get some, potion supplies and spare wands especially" Harry pondered out loud
"Yes I think so, Mom might be better with the street names though"
"Well, one less thing to worry about is always good in a world like this" Teddy finally piped up.
"Exactly Ted" Harry nodded
"So, what do we do now, how do we find our way back to my mom? Can you use magic to track her?" Sophia asked
"Well, I'm guessing by your story your mother isn't a witch?" Harry asked
"No, she was just as surprised as I was, Dad was furious though, he didn't like that I was... different" Sophia mumbled the last part
"You're not different, you're the same as any witch and wizard on the street, your powers are yours to master and to define you, I think that's one of the reasons you survived so long out here, magic is instinct, and your magic will always work to keep you alive until it simply can't anymore" Harry said "Anyway, since your mums not a witch we can't track her, magic calls to magic and if your mother is a mundane as you called her, then I won't be able to find her"
"So, if magic can only be used to track other magicals directly, what about finding my Mom?" Sophia asked, her eyes welling up "We have to find her Mr. Harry, she'll be going insane without me"
"Don't worry, I can't find her directly, but look at this…" Harry trailed off, mumbling his new favourite spell, showing Sophia the 5 mile map of their surroundings.
Gasping at the display of magic, Sophia quickly scoured the map looking for the highway she came from;
"There!" She pointed to a straight bit of road next to a small river; "that's where we were, the straight is filled with cars so we were going through them looking for supplies when the horde moved through, then I ran over the barriers into the river and then further in, I'm actually a lot further away than I thought"
"It will have been the tree jumping" Teddy said, "You would probably be surprised how far you managed to move"
"Okay so if you were here…" Harry started mumbling, looking over the map trying to figure it out, he noticed the barn full of walkers again but then noticed the other fifteen greens surrounding the house that was also on the property "Okay Sophia, so Green means Living Human, Blue means Animal and Red means Undead, I think this is your group here, how many are in it?"
"Rick, Shane, Glenn, Mr. Daryl, Mr. Dale, Mom, Lori, Carl, T-Dog and Andrea so, ten, eleven including me" she replied counting on her fingers, "But why would they leave the highway? What if I'd found my way back? Why would they leave me?" Sophia was nearly crying thinking about being abandoned
"Hey hey! I don't think they've abandoned you, look, this farm here is where I think your group is, I know theres more than you counted but if they've found a farm then count the people who could live there, and we'd have roughly the same number, and look at how it connects to the forest we're in, they probably doubled back to try find somewhere safe to stay whilst they looked for you" Harry was quick to comfort
"Maybe Mr. Harry, but I still don't see why my mom would leave the highway" Sophia mumbled
"I know it looks bad but I'm sure its not, the farm is only a mile away and we can get some answers for you" Teddy slung an arm around Sophia's shoulders. "Can we run Dad? We'll get there faster after all" Teddy smirked
"How you didn't get into Slytherin I'll never know" Harry shook his head "Come on then, hold tight" and he shifted into his Panther form.
Sophia took a moment to admire the animal in front of her, she had never seen a panther before, and the majesty of the animal in front of her took her breath away, pure black soft fur, razor sharp nails poked out from underneath the biggest paws she had ever seen, and bright green eyes stared at her, Mr. Harrys eyes, she also noticed the strange white mark on his forehead, the same shape as the scar. She started stroking the panthers head, gigging when the giant cat let out a mewl of pleasure, Teddy hopped on the back and held a hand out to Sophia, encouraging her to jump on in front of him, she did and with a small grunt, Harry the Panther stood and began to walk away from the clearing, quickly turning it into a run.
"So whats it like being raised in the magical world?" Sophia asked Teddy, the wind was whistling in her ears, her hair flying out behind her and her stomach was in her throat from the bouncing but this was quite possibly the best experience of her life.
"Its amazing, we're a bit backwards in regards to things like technology, writing supplies, customs and dress sense, but it is a brilliant life. Dad raised me with a foot in both worlds though, he said I needed to learn to not depend solely on my magic, that there may come times in life where I can't use magic and I need to not be hindered without it, plus he likes me knowing the sense of accomplishment I get from not doing everything the easy way all the time" Teddy replied
"He sounds like an amazing Dad"
"He is, but it's been hard for him, he's not my biological dad, he's my godfather, my dad died in the war, and Harry raised me alongside Grandma, I couldn't ask for anything more between the two of them they've both sacrificed a lot to raise me"
"What do you mean?" Sophia asked
"My Mum, she also died in the war, and its the same war were thousands of people lost their lives, including my parents, and my grandmother, she lost both her daughter, my mum and her husband, so she had no one but me after the war, and growing up, I didn't really notice it at first but I knew it was hard for her to be around me, some days harder than others, I look a lot like my Mum apparently, and Dad, well, he was with someone, and they couldn't get over the fact that I was also a priority in his life, apparently he was young, he shouldn't have been looking after someone else's child, no matter what commitments he'd made before the parents had died" Teddy rolled his eyes "God I hate that woman, and her brother"
Sophia sat in silence for a minute or two; "The teachers, when they came to tell me about my magic, they took me to the shopping district like I said, that's how I have my wand and a couple of books, I was trying to learn when I could but my Dad, he really didn't like what I could do, a grant came through last month, so even though I already had some stuff we went back and used the grant to get the rest of my supplies, and I managed to get some other really cool stuff, I probably could have survived longer, but Mom has my pack" Here she laughed, "She didn't want anyone to find it and get freaked out when all they saw was a bottomless hole"
"Your Mom is really okay with it then?" Teddy enquired
"Oh yeah definitely. She was so proud and happy for me, we didn't have the best life with my Dad so I think she was just glad that I had an escape"
"So your Dad.. Just what? Hated you?" Teddy threw his hand to his mouth in horror at what he'd just said; "Sorry, I'm so sorry I really didn't mean to just come out with that, it's none of my business you don't have to tell me anything else" He mumbled apologetically
"It's okay, my Dad was a horrible man, he's abused my Mom my whole life, I escaped a lot of it because I was 'His special little Princess' but he would beat and scream at my Mom every single day, and I hated it, and him. He would never hit me, he was always just trying to get rid of Mom and take me out on trips" Sophia shuddered "I never knew what he really wanted from me, but I tried to resist being alone with him as much as possible, he hated me showing any kind of independence or strength though, so I always had to act weak, so he'd be happy, and for a while it worked…" She trailed off and Teddy let her be in her thoughts for a moment before gently nudging her to let her know he was there for her, and she continued; "But then we found out about Magic, and he turned on me too. My Mom tried so hard to keep him away from me, she got me into a shelter a couple of times, but she always had to return to him, so he didn't suspect her in my disappearance, she begged me so many times to just stay until school started so I would be safe, but I refused to let her go through it all alone, then the apocalypse happened, and we were stuck with him, so we still had to pretend, but finally, he died the other night" Here Sophia flung her arms out wide, as if indicating to Teddy how she truly felt about her freedom.
"How did your Dad die?"
"Eaten alive by Walkers in his tent" Sophia smirked and Teddy cringed
Suddenly the Panther came to a halt and kneeled down to let them off it's back. Looking around they realised they were behind the barn of a farm, the one that must have been on the map.
"This is it Sophia" Harry said quickly flicking the spell back up to double check; the Barn they were next to was full of Red dots and all three shuddered.
"Thank you Mr. Harry, lets find my Mom"
"Definitely kiddo, I need to speak to her about starting your training anyway"
As they stood up and made their way around the barn into the field, the three were shocked when yet another loud CRACK rang out after a shout, the third one they had all heard in three days in fact.
Then Teddy fell.
Chapter 2! Hope you all enjoy, as for my 4 reviewers, thank you all! And you'll just have to wait and see what pairings and people I introduce :D
Crossfire. x