A/N: Short A/N once again. I'm not going through the whole gift giving…there's tons of people and I'll lose track. The year is drawing to a close and it seems that the kids won't be going back to the school without their two favorite teachers, or will they?
This one's a bit late...sorry for that guys! But, for those of you who are already out of High School, you know how hard pre-calculus and calculus are...and they're killing me. That's why this is late. And we're slowly coming to the end of the story. SLOWLY! Very slowly. I'm thinking there's gonna be around 30, maybe 35 chapters.
The gentle breeze in the calm forest hit the two leopards curled up on a soft patch a grass, lounging contently, neither worried about the cold snow or biting wind. Harry nestled contently next to his mate, the larger's tail swishing next to him as his tail curled around it.
"It's so peaceful here." He whispered, two small bodies nuzzling into the fur on his stomach. He glanced at them, purring softly.
"Only because you three are here." Severus whispered back to him.
"Harry? It's time to wake up little one." Harry blinked open his eyes, looking up at Severus sleepily before shutting them again, curling into a tight ball. "Harry."
"Don't wanna." He whined, hearing Severus chuckle.
"Alright then…I'll just go tell your mother that you're too lazy to get off your tail to see her and speak to Draco."
"Mom can wait and Malfoy can go fuck himself." Harry growled. Severus chuckled in amusement again at his small mate.
"Someone is not a morning person." The larger leopard jumped back onto the bed, curling around Harry.
Harry grumbled, moving closer to the warmth wrapped around him. "I'd rather not get up…I want to go back to that dream…Why'd you wake me up anyway?"
"What was the dream about? And I woke you up because Lily is close to finding the counter curse to getting me back into my normal animagus form. And from then I just have to wait another hour to change back to my human self." Severus explained, running his tongue lazily over Harry's ear.
"mmm…the dream was us with two adopted kittens…they were cute with the little darker spots that kits have…and their eyes were still blue-gray." Harry purred, thinking of the dream and focusing on the bath his ears were getting.
"Sounds like a good dream." The potion's master draped one paw over Harry to keep him from getting up when the door to their room opened. Harry had developed a strange habit of hiding everytime someone decided to come into the room. Severus blamed it on his relatives and Dumbledore taking away his peace of mind. One thing that hadn't changed though was that he still turned into just a boneless pile of fur when his ears were messed with, fully distracting him.
"So you two are awake." Lily said, walking into the room and shutting the door. Severus held back a snicker at the resulting whine that came from the other side of the door.
"The mutt still not trusting me around Harry?" He asked between licks as he kept cleaning Harry's ears. The teen shook him off though, standing up to stretch his wings before leaping off the bed. "And what happened to you being tired?"
"Mom came in, that's what." Harry replied cheekily, sitting down on the floor next to Lily. She laughed softly at her son and best friend and Harry's ears flicked. He loved the sound of his mother's laugh. He loved everything about her though, besides the fact that she couldn't have been the one to raise him.
Severus rolled his eyes and stretched before leaping off of the bed as well, walking over to Lily and Harry. "How's the counter curse coming along?" He asked.
"Fairly well, we're testing out the spell first though. Since it wasn't spoken we had to do a ton of searching in Tom's library, and with tonight being a full moon it means Remus is taking a break at Nagini's orders. He's also bringing Teddy around soon."
"Really?" Harry looked up at his mother. Out of all the Marauders only James had a kid at a young age. Since Sirius and Remus were together, that meant no kid for them. Or it did until Tonks volunteered to carry one for them. Teddy was named after her father, and took after her most of the time. But as luck would have it, he developed his father's lycanthropy later on when he turned one, which happened in Harry's sixth year. Since then Harry hadn't been allowed to see him, despite being the child's godfather. It would be the first time he got to see the little werewolf since he was born. "I wonder if he remembers me.."
"He's only one Harry, I'll be surprised if he remembers his own hair color." Severus said, dodging the paw swipe Harry aimed at him.
"Play nice with the pup Sev or I might have to rethink my dream." He teased.
"Enough talk of grandchildren with my best friend Harry, please." Lily said, sighing when Sirius started scratching at the door again. "Sirius are you a dog or a wizard?"
The door swung open after her outburst, Sirius scooping Harry up into his arms. It was something to be proud of, being able to pick up Harry with his size. Even if the leopard was still dwarfed by his larger mate. "Hey! Pads put me down!"
"No way Prongslet!" Sirius grinned. "Your godson's coming today so I want to give you a few pointers on how to be a good godfather."
"In other words, do nothing he says." Severus grumbled, glaring at the grim animagus in front of him. His tail twitched irritably, wanting Sirius to let Harry go.
"Sev, play nice!" Harry scolded before twisting his way out of the bone crushing hug Sirius was trying to give him. "I know how to act around kids Siri!" He sat down next to Severus, twining their tails together. "I'll be good….won't I?"
"Of course kit." Sirius patted his head. "Now come on, it's breakfast time."
Harry yawned as Lucius went into yet another story of the first war. It wasn't that the history lesson wasn't interesting.
It was who was teaching it.
The teens were gathered on the floor listening to the story. Harry in the middle of the little pile up consisting of him, Hermione, Luna, the twins, Neville, and Blaise. Draco was sitting a bit away from them, eyes focusing on anything but them.
Harry yawned again, showing large canine teeth before snapping his jaws shut, glancing over to the loner. He tapped a claw lightly on the floor, catching Draco's attention. Gray eyes looked shyly at him. 'It's so unnatural seeing him like this…' He waved his tail, telling the boy to come over and nosing Fred off of his shoulder. The half asleep red-head grumbled and curled closer to George. Draco moved tentatively over to Harry, flinching when a large black wing rested him against the leopard's shoulder. 'I can't blame him though. We're so alike, forced to do things by that bastard… I'll kill him.'
"Harry, calm down. Your fur's fluffing out." Hermione ran one hand over his back, her other holding Blaise's hand. The boy was the only one not using Harry as a pillow, using Hermione as one instead.
"Sorry 'Mione. Just thinking about killing Dumbledore." He explained in a soft tone. "Can we just take a nap now Lucius? Everyone's asleep anyway." He said in a slightly louder tone.
"Alright then. It's time for the meeting anyway. And then your first raids are tonight." Lucius informed the group. "You'll be put into groups."
Only a few of the teens gave a muttered reply, the others asleep as Harry said they were. Lucius walked out of the room, Harry breathing a sigh of relief. "I can only take so much of his stories."
"I know. It's so annoying." George said. "Unlike this little one." He placed a hand on Draco's head, causing the younger boy to jump slightly. "What's up Draco? Relax! We're not gonna bite."
"Yea, we know it was Dumbledore's fault for you doing all that stuff." Luna added, tilting her head back on Harry's back to look at him. "Well, except for kissing Harry."
"Draco don't listen to them, they're crazy." Harry said. "But Luna's right. I don't blame you, you were under the imperious curse."
"…alright." Draco said in a soft tone, his body going tense as someone wrapped their arm around him.
"Calm down wolfie…just sleep." George snickered at his brother's sleepy tone as Fred pulled Draco close to himself, keeping the blonde's head on Harry's shoulder.
"Am I that good of a pillow?" Harry asked, looking around. Neville was fast asleep next to Luna with his head on Harry's back, Luna had her head on Harry's stomach next to Hermione's. The twins and Draco were on his other side. He didn't mind though, it didn't hurt.
"Hell yes. Your fur's soft." George answered. "Now you sleep too."
"Why? When we could plan." The tone of his voice caught everyone's attention. Luna woke Neville up as Draco tried to squirm out of Fred's grasp and wake the twin up. "We all know who's in the right and wrong here now, so I believe we should have a good idea on things before we go on the first raid."
"Well, we know it won't be anything too risky right? Why, on our first raid, take us somewhere high risk?" Blaise asked. "So I think we should be good with just using our magic, no need to be physical about attacks."
"Unless we're ambushed." Hermione added. "Then we need to stick with the rest of the group."
Harry nodded. "It also depends on who we go with. If we have Bella with us, someone has to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't blow us all up. While if we have Fenrir or Remus, we need to make sure they don't turn anyone. So one or more of us might have to stay in our animagus forms to keep them under control."
"You guys are missing a few things though." Luna sat up. "Didn't Lily say that Remus was bringing Teddy today? Who's to say that Remus will be coming? Or you Harry?"
"Teddy'll be fine without us for a bit." Harry said. "With all of us going, the raid shouldn't take long…" One thing worried him though. It was Luna who brought it up. "Luna…did you see something?"
"I don't know what it was." She said. "There was so much blood though." Everyone shivered at the mental image shared by them all.
"We'll be fine Luna." Harry placed one paw over her hand. "We'll all be safe. I'll make sure of it."
"Oh of course you lot will!" Everyone looks up, on edge as a hawk lands on the ground next to them, reinforced metal claws on it's talons. Different designs painted the claws as magic flowed around them. "With some training of course."
"Who are you, exactly?" Hermione asked, studying the bird closely. Harry looked him over. He seemed large, even for a hawk. But there was just something about him that seemed off.
"Name isn't all important, but I'm known as Tear to most." The hawk said, catching Harry's eyes glued on the claws. "It's a way to keep magic for those who haven't mastered wandless." He explained, lifting one foot to show the claws. "They're stuck on magically. Have been ever since I was forced into this form."
"You were forced?" Harry asked. This hawk, Tear, seemed so strange to him. Was he a death eater? A friend of Tom's?
"Ah yes, during the first war." The hawk paced, the claws making a clinking noise against the ground. "But now is not the time for stories, young winged one. You must prepare for the raid.
"Luna, Harry, Severus, Lily, Remus, Sirius, and Draco. You are the first group." Harry's eyes gleamed with excitement as Tom spoke. Lily and Sirius' expressions were guarded though.
"What's wrong Lils?" Severus asked, his tail flicking over his best friend's hand. He could tell something was up with her, but he couldn't place a name to it.
"I'm just worried about Harry." That's what it was. Protection. A mother wanting to guard their child. He could understand her worry though. He didn't want Harry to come either. "He could die…the raid's so close to the castle."
"He'll be fine." Severus reassured her. "Tom put all of us in a group together because he knows we all work well together. And with the werewolf and mutt with us Harry's chances of dying are slim." He looked over to Harry and Remus, who were handing Teddy over to Narcissa. She would stay behind with Nagini, Vipera, and Hedwig to keep an eye on the little werewolf pup. Her animagus form was a wolf like Draco's, making her the safest choice to stay with the child over the full moon. Night was quickly falling. "Let's go. I know a short cut to where we're going."
The short cut was as short as Severus had promised the small mismatched group as they approached the village in the cover of the night. Harry and Luna, in their animagus forms, had went ahead to check out everything as Lily performed the new spell on Severus, trapping him in his true animagus form for an hour.
"You'll be ready for the last part of the raid then, and I brought your wand." Lily explained, tossing the wand into the raven's talons as she glanced over to the werewolf sitting next to the tree, it's tail wrapped halfway around larger paws with Draco dozing beside him. The two wolves had stayed together with Sirius as Padfoot to keep Moony from attacking Lily, although Moony stated clearly after 20 minutes that she was one that he would never even think about attacking. Harry was prowling closer to the small village. His wings fluttered anxiously as Severus slipped on claws that were familiar to Tear's.
"I hate using these things." He grumbled. They always seemed so bulky and useless in his opinion. Of course it was better than having no magic at all. He half wished that she had waited for the spell until after the raid. Using a tail as a conductor for magic like a wand was much more easier and convenient than the claws. "We have about 5 minutes until the second wave comes. That's Lucius' group."
"They have Tear with them. And Nagini." Harry said as he trotted back to them. "Good. There's a lot of children in this village. If we're lucky, we might be able to have a few new recruits. If only to keep them out of the war." He reported. Severus nodded.
"Remember all of you." He raised his voice so the canines could hear him too from the tree. "The kids are to be gathered up, not harmed. Adults are killed or taken prisoner. Any Light side wizards or witches, are killed."
"And animals? Familiars?" Sirius spoke up.
"Kept alive. This is not their fight." Harry explained. "If we must, then they go with the children."
Lily nodded, standing up after petting Harry's back to calm him. "Alright. Let's go then."
A/N: now, I know Tear's gonna seem very random to most of you. And you're probably wondering "Why is he there and who is he?" Well, that will be explained after the raid. As you can tell, animagus forms are a huge part of this story (Hence the name Pet.) So he is meant to actually stand as what starts the second half of this story.