A/N: Paul seems very used to seeing little boys with purple hair. Yay for the author being tired when she wrote this chapter! (Also thanks so much for boosting us up to 200+ reviews!)

DISCLAIMER: Don't own anyfink you recognize!

––––––

The New Dawning

Chapter Nine: The Second Head

"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them." ~James A. Baldwin

––––––

January 21, 2000

The clock on the wall across from him read midnight exactly. Teddy had been put to bed and tea had been made before Hermione spread him out on his bed, wearing only boxers ("Oh, don't be silly, Harry James Potter. It's not as if I haven't seen you naked before!" "Hermioneee," "Do you want to be healed or not, hmmm?" "...fine..."), and began to remove his bandages.

He could practically feel her cringing. He was trying not to move, because removing bandages stings like all hell, especially when your wounds are still bleeding when you put them on. The blood practically glues the bandages to you, meaning you have to pull and tug to get them off...it sounds disgusting, and it really is.

Harry could hear her banishing them as she pulled them off, knowing her nose was wrinkled up. When all was said and done, Hermione could barely bear the sight of blood (Merlin knows why she became a Healer). When the bandages were all off, she went to work removing the stitches – and bullocks, did that hurt.

Harry tried to entertain himself with the thought that he'd been stitched up by Dr. Carlisle Cullen, the vampire Hermione had previously interned under. Harry wondered what a vampire was doing being a doctor, but Hermione had soothed him with the fact that the Cullen family (that's what they called themselves, apparently, instead of a coven) drank animal blood, not human blood. That didn't really soothe Harry, because now he knew that he'd have to watch out for vampires and giant wolves when he went out in his Animagi form.

Harry closed his eyes tightly when he felt the last of the stitches leave. He was bleeding again, but that was okay – he knew Hermione was a wonderful Healer and he trusted her with his life. Something as small as a little blood was nothing.

"So tell me again what happened," Hermione prodded, her cool, familiar magic washing over his back. He shivered slightly.

"I put Teddy in his bed because he was asleep and decided to go running for ten or fifteen minutes. When I was looping back around to come home, I had to stop and wait because there were two giant wolves – don't look at me like that, Hermione – two giant wolves in the clearing. I must have made a noise because one of them came up and just started attacking me, and you know that you can't use magic in Animagi form. I was going to shift back, but it had me by my neck and I knew that the moment I changed, my neck would probably snap. So I didn't. And then Seth and Paul found me unconscious in the same clearing, I'm guessing, and I woke up in their house three hours later."

Hermione hummed, rubbing some Anti-Scarring cream on his back. It stung, but he knew it would help make sure he wouldn't have any scars. Or, at least, make the scars less visible.

"How big were these wolves? Did they seem unnatural?"

"I don't bloody well know, Hermione," Harry said, exasperated. "I was too busy panicking because there was a bloody wolf shaking me around like a dog with a dog toy. They were bigger than my Animagi form, almost twice its size. I guess that's unnatural."

"They may have been shapeshifters," Hermione decided. "La Push used to be a purely Wizarding reservation. In fact, the Blacks used to live here – until one of the early Blacks was disowned and then they all moved back to England, save for him. Most of the magic died out, but it was well-practiced for the Wizards of this reservation to become Animagi. Did you know, if two Animagi of the same species mate, their child will be able to naturally shift into that species?"

"I didn't, no," Harry responded, shoulders tense. "So you're telling me... that when all the magic died out in La Push, the Animagi gene was still passed down, allowing the children of La Push to shift?"

Hermione tutted slowly. "No, not all of them. All the people of La Push – well, all the people of Quileute descent, at least – have the Animagi gene. The gene is always passed on, but usually it's dormant. Mostly boys inherit the active gene, because the gene is more recessive in girls. Generally, the boys wouldn't even know they had the gene unless they had the urge to protect the reservation."

"Okay...so the reservation is in danger, then," Harry picked up. "Of what, though? And most Animagi aren't that big."

"Well, it could be any number of things, but usually it's another magical creature invading their space. The Cullens are vampires, Harry. Vampires are the number-one dangerous magical creature. That would force the boys with active genes to shift," she paused, saying an incantation over his back. "And that's because they're not Animagi. Over the years, the gene has probably mutated. It makes them bigger, more dangerous. They're plenty different from Animagi, which is why this particular situation is called shapeshifting."

Harry closed his eyes and thought on this for a moment, before humming. "Is that normal?"

"What? The birth of shapeshifters? Not particularly," she murmured quietly. "There's only a few of them left, because the knowledge of Animagi is nearly dead. Thousands of years ago, everyone became an Animagi. It was a required study."

"But that was well before the magical lines thinned out," Harry pointed out. "We're weaker now."

"Yes," Hermione confirmed. "Much, much weaker."

– – –

January 23, 2000

"Okay, get serious," Sam growled. His wolves were play-fighting, oblivious to his stress. It wasn't every day that he allowed the Cullens to bring in an army of vampires. "The Cullens have agreed to bring in fifteen more vampires – so adding that to their eight and our fifteen, that's only thirty eight. The army in the forest has twelve more than that, and it may not seem like a lot, but vampires. Are. Vicious. We've got to pull together and brush up our combat skills."

Another vampire had died by the crazy woman's fire-shield – that's what the wolves had decided it was – which meant they were down to 50 vampires and the crazy woman. By agreement, they had decided to ignore the woman and focus on the vampires. One woman couldn't do as much damage as fifty vampires, no matter how hard she tried, even with a fire-shield.

"It's only been three years," whined Seth. "Why can't you just train the new five?"

"Because you all are getting out of shape," Sam snarled. His wolves bristled at the insult, but it was true – everything around here had been pretty peaceful until the vampires appeared, so their reflexes had no-doubt suffered.

Within minutes, he had them fighting each other – singles, pairs, triples. Three on three seemed to be the best, but they had to play the tag-team version because that left three wolves out.

Sam couldn't wait until their numbers were even again. Soon, he hoped. A few more of the boys in town had fallen ill with the symptoms, but somehow the crazy woman was keeping the vampires from making the majority of wolf genes appear. He didn't know how it was happening, but it was crazy annoying – so much so that he was about ready to get the Cullens and their vampire army to march through the streets of La Push just to get more wolves shifted. If it happened like last time, he hadn't a doubt that they'd all lose the ability once the threat was gone, anyways.

Chin up, alpha, Paul called sarcastically. I'm sure we'll all survive this, somehow.

The problem was, the longer they drew out the impending battle – for there would be a battle, Sam hadn't a doubt about that – the more danger La Push was in. He didn't know when they planned to attack, but hopefully they would put it off for long enough that Sam could rally his troops.

God only knew when that would be.

– – –

Paul took long strides up the drive to Black Manor. It'd been a few days since he'd seen Harry, so he wanted to make sure everything was okay. The girl, Mrs. Weasley or Hermione or whoever, had taken him home, but he wasn't entirely placated with just that fact. He knocked thrice on the door and within moments it was pulled open by a small boy in pajamas.

The boy's hair was wild, bright purple and sticking in every direction as if he'd just woke up. His heavy eyes looked up at Paul with curiosity, and then he yawned and toddled away, leaving the door wide open.

Paul raised his eyebrows and looked around the door for a doorbell. He didn't find one, so he decided to just go in – it worried him that nobody save for Harry's godson (Theo? Tyler? No, wait, Teddy!) had come to the door.

He needn't have worried, though, he found. Inside, he followed the toddler to the kitchen, where he found Harry asleep with his head on the table, looking utterly exhausted.

Teddy was prodding Harry awake, whispering something. Paul's ears picked it up: "Unc' Hoooooowie... summun's here."

Harry mumbled something under his breath that Paul couldn't decipher, before opening his eyes. Paul knocked on the kitchen wall a little sheepishly.

"Uh, hi," he murmured.

Harry blinked sleepily, looking at Paul as if he had two heads. "What're you doing here?"

Paul shrugged. "I came to check on you, and your godson here answered the door. He left it wide open, so I took that as an invitation to come in."

Harry leveled his gaze on Paul's eyes, before standing. "Well. I'm fine, if that's what you're asking. Thank you for checking on me."

"Haven't you been sleeping well?" Paul wondered, looking around. The kitchen was spotless, as was the rest of what he'd seen of the house. Maybe Harry had been cleaning and it wore him out?

"What? Oh. I had a late night last night, that's all," Harry yawned again, as if cementing his story in place, and then offered Paul some tea. Paul, who wasn't all that fond of tea, declined (but Teddy cried for some, so Harry poured a toddler-sized cup of strawberry iced tea for the boy, spinning a sippy top on top of it and handing it over).

Watching Harry interact with his godson made Paul happy, which confused him. The happy-confusion made him wonder what the hell was wrong with him, and he was so deep into his thoughts that Harry had to say his name several times before Paul looked up, shaking out of his stupor.

"Sorry," he mumbled, eying Teddy suspiciously. He didn't like children. Seeing children should not make him happy. Maybe Teddy was a witch. Er, warlock. Bewitching him with some sort of – some sort of happy spell or something. "What'd you say?"

"I was wondering if there was anything in particular you needed, or if you had just planned on sitting at my kitchen table all day," Harry chirped wryly, cocking an eyebrow.

Paul jumped up, shocked and a little embarrassed, before blurting the first thing that came to mind: "I was just wondering if you wanted to come to dinner with me tonight?"

Harry wasn't expecting this, and the knife he was using to slice up an apple for his godson slipped and nicked his palm. "Bloody hell," Harry cursed.

"Bloody hell!" Teddy cheered, and it was just so amusing that Paul couldn't help but to laugh as Harry gaped and chastised the boy.

"No, no, that's a naughty word, we don't say that!"

"Bloody hell?" Teddy asked, a bit confused.

"Yes, that. Grandma Andy would be very upset if she heard you say that," Harry told him seriously, making big eyes and trying to convince him as Harry set out the apple slices.

Teddy picked one up and munched on it, before saying, "'Kay."

Paul watched all of this, barely able to keep his laughter in. Harry turned to him, hands-on-hips and very unhappy.

"See what you taught my godson?"

"What? You said it, not me," Paul protested.

"Well, yes, I suppose," Harry pouted softly. "Fine, I'll go."

"What?"

"I'll go with you," Harry gave him that look again, the one that made Paul want to check and see if he really had grown a second head. "To dinner? You just invited me, like, three minutes ago."

Paul blinked. "Oh."

"Oh?"

"Oh," Paul agreed, and then Harry looked at him with mirth in his eyes.

"You are one interesting man, that's for sure, Paul Walker."

––––––

Review! C:

Last Chapter: Fenrir/Harry or Bill/Harry and crossover pairing is definitely Emmett/Harry. (Which I don't write or read much of because I really hate how dumb everyone makes Emmett seem and I hate reading/writing Bella/Edward/Renesmee/Rosalie and such.)

New Question: If you had to kill off one of the main-ish HP characters, who would it be? You cannot choose: Dumbledore, Ginny, Ron, Molly, Hermione, Voldemort, or Draco.