Harry smiled as Jasper left, the afternoon had gone far smoother than he'd hoped.

Jasper shared so much but had given Harry the space he needed. Whilst he knew the conversations, he still needed to have were going to be painful, knowing Jasper wasn't going to push him to share more than he was ready for was a massive relief.

He glanced at his phone which was beeping with a constant countdown from Jake. Doom was approaching so he did the only thing that could potentially stop four angry teenagers from ripping into him.

He baked.

He also blatantly cheated but he only had 20 minutes so he forgave himself some magical shortcuts as he pulled together a quick pasta and as many cookies as magic could churn out with whatever ingredients he had.

And if he transfigured broccoli into sugar no one was going to find out, Mrs Weasley gotten away with it for years.

Was still getting away with it as far as he could tell, it wasn't like he told anyone.

She had only admitted it to Harry when he had caught her red handed with a butternut squash.

Nutrition was important and Ron never voluntarily ate vegetables, she'd had to resort to drastic measures.

Harry figured the boys could do with some more balanced meals and this way he wouldn't get the inevitable disapproving text from Billy if he sent Jake back with another sugar rush.

He finished his last batch of cookies just in time to drop the ward for the approaching teenagers, he dropped the muggle ward from the front approach and dropped the unplottable wards entirely. He wasn't planning on hiding behind his wards anymore after all and the postman would start to get suspicious soon.

Jake was yelling before he'd even fully left the car. "Harry Black, tell me your middle name right now so I can tell you how pissed I am."

Harry appreciated it, it was nice to see some of the family sense of drama bleed through.

"Yeah. Harrison Jefferson Camilla Maximillian Black, you have some explaining to do." That was Quil. He didn't quite have Jacob's flounce but he had a natural sense of rhythm that did a lot of the work for him.

"Camilla?" Embry piped up, "Why Camilla?"

"Dunno, sounds British though doesn't it."

"Why would you go for Jefferson if you were aiming for British?"

"Harrison Ernest Reginald Black!" Seth's contribution was yelled with extreme enthusiasm. He grinned and Quill and Embry who were staring at him. "That way it spells Herb and we can say it with the aitch so it sounds all English."

Quil and Embry nodded as if that made complete sense.

Jacob was still trying to stride dramatically but he was rapidly running out of ground if Harry didn't respond soon. It wouldn't do to undermine another member of House Black.

Harry sighed and opened the door, sliding to one side so Jacob could raise a finger to his face from a suitable distance.

"Harrison you're-in-so-much-trouble Black, explain yourself." Jake hadn't quite nailed the delivery but it was a very convincing performance from a beginner.

Harry immediately proffering the cookies as a peace offering. "My middle name is James if that helps." He winced, this next bit wasn't going to be good but he should probably start as he meant to continue on the honestly front. "Although if we're being entirely honest my name isn't Harrison Black."

"WHAT?!" Jake's voice had hit maximum pitch as well as volume and both Quil and Embry were rubbing their ears and glaring between Jake and Harry. "Are you even my cousin?"

The puppy dog eyes were out full force tonight, luckily he could shrug it off, he'd had enough experience with puppy dog eyes from an actual werewolf. Teddy was relentless.

"We're still related!" Harry spread open his hands, trying to look as honest as possible. "My grandmother was a Black, and I am technically Lord Black?"

Jake just gaped at him.

Embry helped himself to a cookie and headed past Harry. "Come on then guys, he's baked us cookies. Let's at least eat the bribe before we decide what we're going to do to him."

Quil and Seth nodded. Seth took a cookie, Quil just relieved him of the whole plate and they both disappeared through to the living room.

Harry moved cautiously towards Jake. He was grateful for the time alone to talk to his cousin but not entirely sure what to say. Now his hands were empty he was back to wringing his fingers.

No more distracting thoughts about the family taste for melodrama to keep him from properly explaining himself.

"I'm sorry. I know I didn't tell you a lot of things, but I have mostly avoided lying to you, just bent the truth slightly." Harry swallowed and looked down, he knew what that sounded like. "You and Billy are still the only family I have left. I can't necessarily tell you everything, but I promise I won't ever lie to you again."

The silence seemed to linger, and Harry had to bit his lip to stop himself from saying more.

Jake closed his mouth and nodded sharply. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay. I can deal with this." Jake was nodding to himself. "Anyway, we've got our own stuff to tell you, it wasn't like you were the only one keeping secrets."

Harry nodded and gestured for Jake to head in first. Hiding some kind of shapeshifter ability might not be the same as Harry hiding he has magic, but they were similar enough that Harry knew they could at least start on somewhat even ground.

They trailed through to the living area where Quil had already consumed most of the first plate of cookies.

Catching Jake's mournful look Harry summoned the next plate in from the kitchen.

It gently floated over the sofa and Harry was briefly reminded of Dobby's floating dessert from 2nd year.

That elf had been insane, but Harry still missed him.

Quil's flinch when the second plate floated past his ear took Harry completely by surprise as well as sending the empty first plate flying into a nearby wall.

They all stared at the broken pieces before turning back to stare at the still floating plate.

Seth cleared his throat. "Can I have another cookie?"

Harry twitched a finger, directing the plate to come to rest on the table in front of Seth. Another twitch had the first plate reforming and making its way back to the kitchen.

The shapeshifters all just watched it in silence.

Harry really should have had some kind of plan for this. McGonagall had always turned into a cat to introduce Muggleborn families to the concept of magic.

Floating cookie plates probably wasn't the best equivalent. Even if it was more delicious.

"So magic then?" Seth was looking at him with an excited smile, every inch the fifteen-year-old who had just found out magic was real, and Harry couldn't help smiling back. Maybe he could stick with floating things around after all.

"Magic." Harry confirmed but couldn't help a quick visual sweep of the cabin to check for listeners. He coughed and shifted uncomfortably. "It's actually technically illegal for me to tell you about magic but I figure with vampires in town and whatever is going on down in the reservation that ship has sailed."

The Quileute lot looked at each other awkwardly.

Jake rubbed the back of his head, "We can understand that." He glanced at the other three. "And full disclosure me and Billy knew about the whole magic thing in the Black family, just figured you left the family for the same reason Grandpa Marius did."

Harry nodded. "That makes sense, I didn't know he'd had a chance to pass anything on. I wasn't sure if the Black family back then did the whole memory wipe thing for non-magical children."

When they all looked at Harry panicked, he raised hands, palms out in surrender. He really needed to remember not to bring up memory charms, it was an even worse intro to the UK than various floating plates of cookies.

"I don't agree with it, but wixen take the secrecy of our world very seriously and can be really shitty about non-magical children." That was probably the understatement of the decade.

Merlin, he should have known better than to have casually brought up one of the worst things about the statute this early in the conversation.

Seth narrowed his eyes at Harry, "Have you ever used the memory thing on us?"

Harry shook his head violently. "No, I was just going to leave if anyone found out. I promise I wouldn't mess with someone's mind like that without an incredibly good reason and permission if I can get it."

All of them relaxed. All except Jake.

"You were just going to leave?!" Jake looked at him accusingly, "Were you even going to say goodbye?"

"I was going to come round yours before I left town." Harry shrugged and looked down. "I didn't- I don't want to leave. I just can't afford to draw attention to myself, and I didn't want to get the lot of you involved in the whole vampire thing."

Quil snorted. "We're already involved with the leeches."

Harry glanced up at him. "I know that now, but if you'd managed to keep a low profile, I didn't want to draw attention to whatever it is you guys have going on." He gestured up and down at them in an all-encompassing wave.

They all looked embarrassed.

"How did you know?" Jake was finally looking at him with something other than accusation.

Harry snorted. "Jake mate, you feel like you're permanently running a fever, you are all extraordinarily large for teenagers and when you get angry your eyes flash amber. Not to mention the fact that you all find my mints by sniffing them out and your collective reflexes are insane." Harry glanced at Quil, "I also watched that one literally punch through a tree. I may be a bit different myself but it's hard not to notice a group of supernatural teenagers when they spend all their time hanging out with you."

"Hey!" Quil objected, "It wasn't tree, it was barely a large branch."

Harry just snorted. "You're better at blending in than the Cullens but I figure that is mostly down to them having no idea how teenagers actually behave in this century, you both suck at pretending to be entirely human."

"Oi" Seth objected. "I resemble that."

Harry grinned back at him. This was already going better than he thought it would.

Quil looked sulky. "I can't believe you're comparing us to the leeches."

Harry laughed, "I call it as I see it. Jake reminded me of an old family friend when we first met with the whole flashing eyes thing. For the first 10 minutes, I was convinced he was a werewolf. Of course, you don't have enough magic in you to fill a thimble, and the full moon was coming up and you seemed chill. So I figured some kind of natural shapeshifter?"

Jake just nodded.

Harry smiled, happy to have a theory confirmed. "What do you turn into?"

"Wolves." Jake looked chagrined at how easily he'd been picked out. "Doesn't have to be at the full moon, just when we want or when we're really angry."

Harry patted his shoulder lightly. "Don't worry, it wouldn't be obvious to everyone, I'm sure. I just have a lot of training."

Seth laughed, "Bet the Cullens are pissed you spotted them too."

Harry nodded; his eyes sparkling. "I don't know how everyone hasn't noticed something going on with them. They literally all have the same skin and eye colour and speak like old people."

Seth laughed lightly. "And they all smell the same. I know humans don't have the same sense of smell but still."

But Seth was the only one smiling. The rest of the wolves were disgruntled and Harry was unsure about the sudden change in mood.

When Harry looked at Quil, questioning, the teen growled. "Fucking leeches."

Jake just nodded looking down at his clenched fists.

Harry looked at them blankly. What the fuck. "Wait, do you have a thing going on with the Cullens?"

That at least stopped them all looking angry because now they looked horrified.

"It's not a thing." Embry objected.

"They're blood-sucking vampires, of course we're not happy with them." Jake exclaimed. "They could literally eat people."

Harry looked nonplussed. "You know they don't, right? The whole gold eyes thing? It would become obvious pretty quickly if they fell off the wagon."

"Are you on their side?" Embry looked disgusted; his nose wrinkled like he smelt something disgusting. He sniffed. "Wait. There's been a leech in here today!"

"What?" Jake yelled. "Was it the blonde one?"

"What?" Harry stared back, confused by this reaction.

"They eat people Harry, what are you doing inviting them into your home?"

Harry shrugged. "They eat animals, so do I. If they actually ate people, I'd have to do something about them, but they aren't hurting anyone."

"But they could." Jake looked at Harry, clearly confused by his attitude. "They could hurt people."

Harry stared at Jake. "So could you." He glanced at the rest of them who were shifting uncomfortably. Only Seth looked completely calm. "So could all of us."

"It's not the same, we don't drink people's blood."

"No, you just change into what I am assuming are pretty, huge wolves. You even change when you're angry which considering the fact that you're teenagers I imagine happens reasonably frequently." Harry could see Quil's eyes flash a bright yellow with his immediate angry response from across the room. He wasn't at risk of changing as far as Harry could tell but his wolf was definitely closer to the surface than Remus' ever had been. Or Teddy's.

Jake just looked confused, and Harry snorted. He had to remember these were actual supernatural teenagers. They were allowed to be vaguely stupid sometimes. "If I was a regular human and I managed to get any of you angry enough I am pretty sure I would get hurt."

"That's not true!" Jake protested.

"Are you telling me that none of you have ever changed without intending to?" When none of them denied it he continued. "It is only a matter of time before someone is in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is an accident." Harry raised a single eyebrow; he may not know the ins and outs of whatever kind of shapeshifter the teens were but there were certain hard and fast rules. One of those rules was that accidents would always happen. When you had teenagers with super strength and any form of emotion trigger it was even more inevitable that accidents would happen.

The wolves were silent. Quil still looked angry but whatever Embry was muttering under his breath seemed to be working.

"Look I'm not saying the Cullens aren't dangerous," He waved his hand dismissively, he was an ex-auror and dangerous was something that was familiar. "But if you run around killing any potentially dangerous beings rather than waiting for them to actually do something dangerous, you're turning into your own kind of monster."

Harry had spent years convincing the Wizengamot to repeal werewolf laws that punished werewolves for existing, decades convincing the wider wixen population that the solution to the 'werewolf problem' wasn't just killing all werewolves. This is a hill he would die on.

But he had learned to talk about it calmly. Decades in politics, however much he wanted to avoid it, had taught him that people always listened to the calm person in a room.

"They're vampires!"

"You turn into wolf when you get angry and I kill people with a magical stick."

"It's not the same thing."

Harry could see by the stubborn set of Jake's jaw that it wasn't getting through to him. He was going to have to bring it closer to home.

Welp, they may not be the same kind of wolves but hopefully they could relate.

"In the wizarding world there is a disease called Lycanthropy, people with the disease are commonly called werewolves. It is incurable and contagious, spread through a bite from a werewolf on the night of a full moon."

All the wolves shut up, listening. Quil had scoffed slightly when Harry mentioned the full moon and Embry slapped the back of his head. A familiar sound if you spent any time with the duo.

"None of the werewolves I've ever met chose to be what they were. Most of the month they would be the people I knew and loved, but one night a month they would turn into murderous, ravening monsters." Harry paused and tried to gauge the mood in the room.

Quil looked uncomfortable, any sign of anger in his eyes was gone. Embry was similar.

Jake looked mutinous.

Seth just looked sad.

"It didn't matter who they are the rest of the month, this one night a month they would murder the people they loved and not even remember it when they woke." Harry shivered. "I was almost bitten once, by a werewolf who I trusted. One of my dad's best friends and my teacher at the time."

They were all listening at least.

"There are some options to manage it, there's a potion that lets them keep their minds when they are turned, it is expensive, incredibly difficult to make and slowly poisons them. Most werewolves can't access it. Those who can't access Wolfsbane lock themselves in somewhere for the duration of the full moon, it is painful and can cause long term health issues. Or they run free and accept the risk that they might end up biting or killing someone."

"That's irresponsible." Jake was completely confident in the way that only teenagers really were. Embry, Quil and Seth looked less sure.

Harry just nodded to acknowledge Jake's label, most people would consider it irresponsible. "Remus Lupin was bitten when he was 5, he was one of the kindest men I have ever met and was one of the closest things to family I had. He never even scratched another human. Every month for close to 30 years he drugged himself or locked himself in a basement."

"Good for him." Jake shrugged dismissively. "He wasn't dangerous."

Merlin, he was having to remind himself that he'd been so much worse at this age. Morgana's tits, he'd almost killed Draco in a bathroom when he was Jake's age, he couldn't claim he'd had any sense either.

Harry just looked at Jake, one eyebrow raised. "He was very dangerous, and all it took was him forgetting to take the potion once on one of the most stressful nights of his life and he almost killed me. It is completely reasonable for someone to fear a werewolf, to be cautious around them."

Jake just shrugged and looked down.

Seth, always the quickest to pick up on the conversation direction, asked, "What happened to him?"

"When it came out Remus was outed in the national newspaper, he was blocked from most jobs in the wixen world as they knew he was a werewolf."

"He could have killed you." Jake gestured up and down at him and Harry was momentary taken aback by the concern in Jake's eyes.

He softened; this was an important discussion but that didn't mean that he wasn't touched by Jake's worry. "I was fine Jake, worse things happened that night believe it or not, it barely sticks out." Judging by the faces around his living room that had come out far less reassuring than he intended.

He coughed, his wide variety of near-death experiences at the 'safest place in the wizarding world' was not the point here.

"Anyway, that's not the point. Point is, up to that point Remus had never hurt anyone but that didn't stop him from being punished. Because of his condition he only managed to go to school because the headmaster helped him hide his condition. Without school, he wouldn't have ever been allowed to do magic despite being very capable of it. He wasn't allowed to work for the government and most businesses refused to accept applications from registered werewolves and it was illegal to be unregistered."

Even Jake could see where this was going now, and he was looking resentful. Harry continued in what Bill called his Wizengamot voice, it did not invite interruptions. Harry needed it, he had never been good at brevity. Why say one word when twenty would do?

"He wasn't allowed to go the wixen hospital when he was hurt just in case he suddenly turned, even outside the full moon, he fought on the right side of two wizarding wars and he wouldn't have been given any medical help if he had ever been injured."

Jake looked like he wanted to interrupt but Harry continued, calm and quiet. Voice showing none of the strain he was feeling.

"And when my parents were murdered, he wasn't allowed to take me in. Too dangerous to let a werewolf near a child. Instead, I was sent to my non-magical relatives where I lived in a cupboard for 10 years, I was regularly starved and occasionally beaten." Harry refused to pause to take in how the wolves reacted to that revelation, he may have processed a lot of his childhood, but it didn't mean he was completely comfortable talking about it.

"That's the one that I resent most but all of it was punishment. Punishment for being attacked when he was 5, punishment for something he certainly didn't choose, punishing him for what he was without him having to do anything first."

Harry shrugged, short and sharp before he pulled out his wand. The wolves looked at the stick curiously and Harry almost laughed. "I was given this when I was eleven and was told I was magic. I was sent to a school where I was taught to use it. At the age of 17 I was considered an adult and given free reign." He twirled the wand in his fingers and it let out sparks. "Some spells are outlawed, the killing curse, the worst torture curse and a total mind control spell. But there are plenty of legal ones just a horrifying. With this I could force you to tap dance and then wipe your memory of it, I could make you think that you owed me money or that we were friends, there's a spell that expels entrails, I could vanish all your bones or just throw part of a building at you."

The werewolves were looking at him with open mouths.

Harry laughed, bitter and scathing. "I am obviously not going to do any of that but literally the only thing stopping me is the fact that all of those things would be shitty, evil things to do. And I am not a shitty, evil person."

The room was silent.

"Muggles burnt my kind at the stake because of what we could do, it's a big part of why we're still hidden. People don't do well with powerful things they don't understand. The tendency is to want to kill someone powerful because of what they might be able to do to you."

Harry had probably made his point. Had probably more than made his point judging from the gaping faces.

"I'm not saying the Cullens aren't dangerous. I'm saying it is easy to decide to punish someone you already think is a monster without needing them to do anything first." He gestured at all of them. "It's easy to wave away the fact that everyone in this room is capable of violence and focus on someone you already hate for whatever reason."

Most of the wolves just looked vaguely terrified but Jake at least looked like he was thinking.

Merlin, when did Harry decide it was a good idea to run around terrifying teenagers. "If it helps, I can also heal wounds, conjure a projection made entirely of happy thoughts and turn any set of stairs into a slide."

Seth seemed to perk up at that and Jake sent him a tentative smile.

"Look I'm not expecting you to put aside genuine grievances with the vamp family but you know that I am going to be spending time with Jasper. You knew before I did. Don't make it weird now."

Jake at least looked embarrassed. "He can't be all bad if he likes you."

Harry felt so much raw affection well up in him, for a moment he regretted getting so harsh.

And then he remembered explaining to Teddy that just because kids at school said werewolves were evil didn't mean that his dad was a bad person. Didn't mean that he was a bad person. Dangerous didn't mean evil.

Better they learnt this lesson now.

He sighed and summoned another plate of cookies, this time securing a few for himself before putting them in front of the wolves. Quil was clearly eating his feelings, half the cookies were gone in seconds and his cheeks were chipmunk-like.

Embry was the next to break the silence. "So, the whole scary list of evil spells was cool and all but can you turn Quil into a toad?"

Harry laughed, surprised and then shrugged. "I could." Embry looked excited. Quil looked outraged but unable to object with his face filled with cookie. "Not that I would."

Quil harumphed and muttered something indecipherable. Harry twitched his wand and suddenly Embry was replaced with a pretty, white rabbit.

Harry stopped short of giving him a pocket watch and a monocle.

But he did make sure his tail was extra fluffy.

There was a moment of startled silence before Jake yelled for someone to pass him a hat and Seth launched himself across the coffee table to grab bunny-Embry.

The next couple of minutes was chaos, the teenager's reflexes didn't help much as they kept getting in each other's way. Embry was using his small size to his advantage and was leaping from place to place leaving destruction in his wake.

Eventually Jake managed to grab the bunny mid leap and held him victoriously above his head, the bunny promptly turned back into Embry and flattened Jake onto the floor.

McGonagall would be lecturing him on using human transfiguration as a prank but he figured the Marauder's rule was that it had to be easily reversible and not used to bully. The Marauder's rules were much more fun than McGonagall's.

Not that he would ever say that to the severe headmistress of Hogwarts.

Embry was breathlessly laughing, in no rush to let his friend up. "That was totally awesome." He looked up at Harry. "What else can you do?!"

The next ten minutes were filled with deep, meaningful conversation. And some casual reparos to put the worst of the damage back together.

"Can you pull a rabbit from a hat?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Can you make anything float?" Quil was clearly thinking of something specific, and Harry really didn't want to know.

"It's like lifting something physically, some things are more difficult to lift than others."

"Could you make my math teacher give me full marks?"

"I mean I could, I don't know why I would." Harry grinned at Seth.

"Can you turn invisible?" This was Embry and Harry knew he could never let him know about the invisibility cloak or his sweet stashes would never be safe again.

"Yes."

They waited for him to elaborate.

Nope.

"Can you make food out of nothing?"

Harry sighed and summoned another plate from the kitchen, clearly Quil was still hungry. "Nope, have to make food the regular way." He shrugged delicately. "There are shortcuts." He would take the broccoli secret to his grave.

"Can you fly?" Seth looked excited, maybe he was disappointed wolves didn't have wings.

"Sometimes." Harry gestured vaguely in the direction of his broom closet, "We use brooms most of the time."

"What's the stupidest thing you've ever seen a wizard do?"

Merlin there were so many choices.

"I watched two people eat a floating cupcake without once questioning why there was a floating cupcake or who might have put it there." An oldy but a goody.

"What was in the cupcake?" Quil seemed offended at the thought of something poisoning perfectly good baked goods.

"Sleeping draught. We locked them in a broom closet and used their hair to break into their common room."

"Hair?" Now Embry seemed horrified.

"Yeah, there a potion that when you add someone's hair to it you turn into that person for a couple of hours."

There was momentary silence after that pronouncement.

"It always tastes really, really bad."

No one seemed to want to follow up on that one.

"So, unicorns are really real?"

"Yep, and dragons, and fairies, and a whole host of other beasties."

"Have you ever met a dragon?"

"Yep."

"Is Santa Claus a wizard?"

"I don't think so?"

Harry eventually moved to the kitchen answering questions on spells, magical creatures, Hogwarts and pranks.

"They seriously turned part of the school into a swamp?"

"Yep!" Harry laughed, remembering Umbitch's face when she made her way through the corridor. "Took them weeks to get sorted. Helped that most of the teachers were on our side by that point."

He served up the pasta and they all dug in, as always, he had over catered so even with wolfy metabolisms the teenagers were full to groaning by the time they finished.

"So what is your real name if it isn't Harrison Black?" Quil asked through his last mouthful of pasta.

"Harry James Potter, or Potter-Black, after I inherited the title, I think my name technically changed but I am not sure."

Jake proffered his hand, "Nice to meet you, Harry Potter."

Harry shook his hand smiling at his second re-introduction of the day. "Nice to meet you too, Jacob Black."

"How are we actually related then?"

"Dorea Black was my grandmother, and she was Marius Black's younger sister."

Jake nodded happily before pausing.

Harry could almost see the cogs turning.

Jake frowned.

"Marius Black was my great-great-grandfather but Dorea is only your grandmother." Jake's eyes narrowed. "How does that make sense?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Well, you know, wizards live longer than muggles. Average age is about 140. Can live up to 200 with the right diet."

Jake continued to stare at him. Right, honesty.

"But the other reason might be because I'm older than I look."

Jake glared at him. "How old?"

Harry stared down at his pasta, any remaining appetite fleeing. "So, I might be close to 40 than I am 17."

Embry looked at him, bug-eyed. "You're 40?!"

Harry coughed, "43 actually."

They all gaped at him.

Harry tried to smile and then looked back down at his dinner.

"You're 43." Embry stated.

"Yep."

"Does that mean you can buy booze?"

The sound of Seth's hand hitting the back of Embry's head seemed to almost echo. "So not the point Embry."

The wolves were looking conflicted and Harry could understand their feelings. This had the potential to come off really creepy.

Jake just nudged Harry until he looked back up at him. "Why are you pretending to be 17?"

Harry hummed. Unsure how to start. "In some ways I'm not pretending. Something went really wrong when I was 17 and it froze my appearance like this, I have always looked like this although I used spells and potions in the wizarding world to look my actual age."

He glanced cautiously at the wolves, but they weren't glaring. Seth looked sympathetic and Jake just looked interested. Quil and Embry just looked confused as usual.

"I had a rough time in the wizarding world, when I was growing up there was a war that I was at the centre of. I lost a lot of friends, everyone did. After the war I went into the wizarding police, they're called Aurors, and it just meant I lost even more people." Harry pushed the last of his pasta around the plate. "I just couldn't bear being in the wizarding world anymore, so I decided to start over in the muggle world. Best way to do that was to get some kind of history here so I decided to do the last year of high school. I figured I might as well go to the place where I might be able to find the last bit of family I have left." He gestured around. "So, I came to Forks. Didn't expect it to be full of shapeshifters and wannabe vampires."

Jake was nodding and Harry felt his heart leap. "Makes sense to me." Harry felt relief pool through him like cool water. He still had family, with Jake onside maybe he had a chance with Billy. "So, it isn't weird that I'm pretending to be a teenager?"

"No buddy, it totally is." Jake patted him consolingly on the shoulder. "But I bet you were just as weird as an actual teenager."

Harry laughed. "You might be right; I didn't have what anyone would label as a normal childhood."

"So just to check, you won't be buying us booze?" Embry was pouting and Seth was winding up another slap behind him.

"I may look like a stupid teenager but I'm not actually trying to get murdered by Billy Black."

"Ow. Seeeth. Stop it." Embry rubbed the back of his head.

"So any other deep dark secrets?" Jake nudged Harry as he pulled together the plates and headed for the sink.

"Plenty." Harry grinned at them, "You'll know this when you're my age, I have secrets falling out of my ears."

Jake laughed, and Embry snagged the last plate before slipping it into the soapy water.

Harry noticed something moving out the corner of his eye and suppressed a smile.

"Well maybe I do have one last big one for tonight." The wolves turned to him as one, curiosity evident on their faces.

Facing him across the central island, he had their full attention.

"I have been hiding someone in my life from you, a very important someone." Harry pursed his lips and arranged his face in a serious expression. "You guys are important to me, and he has been a big part of my life for a long time."

The wolves leaned in, each of them fixated on Harry.

Harry paused dramatically.

Crookshanks leapt.

Jake screeched as claws entered his shoulders, the rest of the wolves panicked and in a quick cascade of fur Harry's kitchen was suddenly full of 4 wolves. Harry cackled and danced backwards out of the way of Seth's transformation.

His kitchen had enough unbreakable charms on it that the wolves were bouncing off the walls and furniture. Crookshanks was causing chaos, leaping from wolf to wolf as they chased their tails trying to pin him down.

The chaos spilled into the living room and Harry laughed maniacally jumping from the armchair to the couch to avoid a swipe from the furry creature he thought might be Embry.

After ten minutes of chaos, Crookshanks was seemingly cornered, and Jake and Seth quickly turned back.

Which they immediately regrated when Crookshanks launched a counterattack. Harry was clearly going to have to do some tactical training with the wolves. They may be big but turning your back on a cornered enemy was really stupid.

"Godammit Harry, couldn't you have told us you were going to introduce us to a demon?" Jake demanded.

Seth was laughing, Harry loved Seth.

"And where would have been the fun in that?" Harry grinned at them both.

Jake was looking mournfully at his now ruined shoes, Embry and Quil turning back just to join in complaints about their ruined clothes.

Crookshanks was sneaking around the edges of the room.

"This was my favourite shirt, Harry." Embry looked at him with puppy dog eyes. "Why do you gotta be so evil?"

Harry just laughed, "You wound me Embry. First rule of pranks, never do anything that isn't fixable." A quick couple of spells soon had the teenagers clothes reforming around them. Favourite t-shirt and all. "Just my definition of fixable is slightly different to yours."

Though to punish him for the 'evil' accusation he turned all their underwear orange.

"Er guys." They all turned to see Seth staring at Crookshanks. "What's the cat got in his mouth?"

Harry could have given himself whiplash with how quickly he turned, Crookshanks was looking particularly smug.

Oh no.

Crookshanks opened his mouth and out flew a creature made of fairy dust, blue hair dye and rage.

The Cornish pixie, paused for a moment. Surveying his new surroundings.

Then he loosed a slightly high pitched battle cry and launched himself toward Jake, making a beeline for one of his nostrils.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" Jake bellowed, frantically defending his nose from its new invader.

"That would be a Cornish pixie." Harry looked up from a very smug looking Crookshanks and stared across the cabin to the door to his back garden, swinging open on its hinges.

Well shit.

Seth grabbed the pixie out of the air and it jabbered at him angrily. "Well at least this one's easier to catch whatever it is."

Harry ignored him, frantically trying to get to the door, cursing himself for making the backdoor charm resistant, the initial idea had been to stop it from ever being summoned open but that was working against him now. "One of them might be." He gasped out, still two steps short of his target.

The low-level buzzing that had been filling the room for a couple of minutes suddenly intensified and then, framed in the doorway, was the swarm.

Harry stared at them in defeat. "But there is never just one of them."

The swarm descended. Harry managed to slam the door on half and he had no hope that his pumpkin crop was going to survive the next hour.

The rest descended on them.

"They will lift you if they can get a hold of any part of you, protect your ears." Harry yelled as the blue blighters buzzed around his cabin, already two had a hold of Seth and were attempting to fly him around the ceiling.

Well, might as well embrace the chaos.

Harry made eye contact with Crookshanks who was just licking his paws and looking serene. Grinning at his fellow chaos gremlin, turnabout was fair play, Harry summoned Crookshanks directly in the way of a crowd of three pixies who were trying to corner Jake.

The yowl Crookshanks let out was very satisfying.

Harry cackled and leapt back into action, freezing two of the pixies who went straight for his glasses. "Person with the most pixies as the end gets a whole jar of a sweet that makes you breathe fire!"

Now properly motivated they made short work of the pixies but not before Embry had managed to get himself stuck on top of a bookcase. Quil found himself with a face full of a pie that had seemingly manifested from nowhere.

Jake just groaned, clutching a cooking pot that was vibrating ominously. "Since when do we have pixies in Forks?"

Harry looked down at his own pile of stunned creatures, "Hmm, good question."

Crookshanks just went back to grooming.

Suspicious. He didn't think you could order pixies by mail, and it would be a new height of chaos if Crookshanks had worked out how to make purchases.

He wouldn't put it past him though.