Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Terribly sorry it's been a hot minute since the last update! Life changes have been going on which resulted in some really bad writer's block. The good news is that I got over it (at least with this story), so you'll get a chapter tonight and a chapter on Saturday! Hooray! :)

Also, I realized a tad too late that the pronunciation of Hyleth's name may...not be clear. Her name comes from the Welsh name Heledd, but I envision it being pronounced as HY-leth (as in let, but with a soft th, not hard). I hope that helps in case you were confused.

And as always, I hope that you enjoy, too. Until next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~daughter of briganti~

~meet me in the woods~

~chapter 4~

Hyleth was standing in a forest.

It was a forest which reminded her a bit of the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, albeit a part of her knew – she wasn't sure of how – that she was hundreds of miles away from Scotland entirely. It was ancient, old and wizened. The trunks of the trees were the thickest she'd ever seen, and somehow she knew they all had the ability to bear wood for wands.

She could feel the age of the forest, too: it was older than Hogwarts, older than Arthur Pendragon and Merlin, older than the Roman Invasion itself. Perhaps it was even as old as the Celtic Invasion, which had been many millennia prior to the thousand years before the Roman Invasion that most muggles thought. That was one of the first things she had learned in her History of Magic class at Hogwarts.

Not only that, the forest was so old, it seemed to have its own magic, its own sentience.

The magic wrapped around her mind, twisting and coiling like a snake. It spoke to her without a voice of its own:

You are mine, it said. For almost fourteen years, you have been mine. You were made to be the flesh of my flesh, the blood of my blood. My lands will always be your home.

"What?" Hyleth cried out. She looked around instinctively for the owner of the voice; it was simply too hard of a human instinct to break. Still, she saw nothing. "Wh – who are you? What do you mean, 'I'm yours?' I don't belong to anyone!"

The magic laughed. That is what you think. You have forgotten that you remember that night, just like how you thought you had forgotten the night Voldemort marked you as his equal until that Dementor came near you. But I will remind you of how much you do indeed know, my dear, for the time of reclamation is very nearly upon us.

"The time for wha – ?"

Hyleth cut off as, all of the sudden, there were voices from within the forest. Her head snapped up to see their owners, but it was dark – only the light of the full moon was filtering in through the leaves of the trees – so she continued to see nothing at all.

That didn't stop her from hearing. She heard the whispers of the voices, which had not originally been said that way. They had first been uttered as shouts of anger, of grief:

"I'm not going to let you do this!"

"We don't have any other choice! It's the only way that we can save her!"

"This won't be saving her, Lily! It'll be dooming her! Her and everyone else she could ever possibly love!"

"...Papa? Mum?" Hyleth breathed.

"It'll be their choice."

"But it won't be hers!"

"How else will she be able to survive the Killing Curse, James? Or any of the other curses that he will try to kill her with?"

"We'll find another way!"

"But we don't have anymore time!"

"I don't care, Lily! I refuse to let you – !"

"Stupefy!"

Hyleth flinched back, as if she'd been the one who was struck.

"I'm sorry, Alpha," said her mother. Now, she was truly whispering. "I hope that one day, if we ever live to see it, you'll forgive me. But...I don't think we will."

"You were almost too late for us to start," a new voice said. It was with an accent that Hyleth had never heard before; it wasn't British, yet it wasn't like any other that she knew of, either. "We thought that you had almost changed your mind."

"No...I haven't."

"Are you sure? Because you know that once we start the ritual, we will not be able to stop. Her agony will become your agony, as you will be unable to comfort her. But if you falter, she will die."

"I..."

"No one will blame you if you want to stop now, Lily," another voice said. Surprisingly, this one was more familiar to Hyleth than the other one. It wasn't as familiar as her parents', but still. "James certainly won't. I know that we've come a long way – "

"No, we have to do this. It's not a matter of what I want. Hyleth must survive. There is no other alternative."

"Then let us begin."

"...Mummy loves you, Hyleth. Dada loves you. Remember I wouldn't have done this if there was any other way. Be strong, Hyleth. You must be strong for what you're about to face."

The tone of the voices changed. They began to speak in an incantation. It was in a language that sounded so old, Hyleth thought it must have been otherwise forgotten, outside of this sole purpose.

The chanting caused Hyleth's lightning-shaped scars which were all over her body to prickle. Lichtenberg figures, Hermione had called them when they had first met.

Hyleth winced at the feeling, her body squirming with discomfort.

Then, in the blink of an eye, her scars exploded with pain. It was as horrible, as wretched as when they had hurt and she had been put under the Cruciatus Curse at the Riddle family cemetery in Little Hangleton.

"Agh!" she screamed. She fell to the ground on her hands and knees, her eyes squeezing shut.

It was practically the only thing she could do. She couldn't speak.

Hell, she could barely even think and breathe.

I – I don't understand! her mind wailed.

You will soon enough, the magic told her as it kept on curling around her brain. There was something slightly comforting about it, if only because it was something she could latch onto in the face of all of the pain. But for now, you must open your eyes. See what you remember.

Against what she thought were all odds, Hyleth was able to do as she was instructed. She looked up – and what she saw made sense and didn't, all at once.

Before her now, rather than the expanse of forest, were stones. They were as large as the ones at Stonehenge, and looked to be made of the same material as the smaller ones – bluestones, dragged all the way from Wales.

She could only see three of the stones in front of her. Inexplicably, though, she knew that there had to be thirteen, forming a circle around her.

The stones were illuminated by the light of the full moon – and they were glowing on their own, too. Runes carved into their surface were full of a bluish light.

The runes were foreign to her, completely dissimilar from the ones Professor Babbling had taught her over the course of last year. They didn't look like they had even developed from the Phoenician system, as was the norm for runes in Europe. And yet –

15 July 1995
Black Cottage, Cornwall, England, Great Britain

Hyleth woke up with a start.

She sat up in bed, her hand placed over her heart and her messy black hair falling in her face. She stared at the contents of her room – and it took her a few moments to realize that she was truly seeing them. Something about the Gryffindor red comforter of her bed, the armchair of the same color and the bookshelf right next to it, her desk and chair, Hedwig's perch, the open window opposite of her bed, the Quidditch posters for the Welsh and Irish teams hanging from the walls as well as the pictures of her family and friends, and the slanted ceiling...yes, something about them just seemed off. Like they weren't real.

At least, not as real as what she had seen in her dream, as paradoxical as that sounded.

"Hyleth?" a voice asked. "Are you alright?"

It nearly made her jump out of her skin.

But then, she recognized who it was.

Ginny.

She forced herself to relax.

The redheaded omega, as far as she could tell, was looking at her concernedly from the pullout mattress on the lower right to Hyleth's. Obviously, Hyleth had given her quite the start, too.

"I'm fine, Gin," she said, lifting her hand from her chest to run it through her hair, before grabbing her glasses off of her nightstand and putting them on. "Just...strange dream."

"Must've been," Ginny deadpanned.

She laughed. "Yeah."

Ginny's eyes flitted away from her, over to her desk. "A letter came for you last night, by the way," she informed her. "It's from Nott."

Hyleth followed her gaze, swallowing thickly. Sure enough, a new letter was there, on top of the two she had received from Cedric and the others from Ron, Hermione, and Ginny herself since coming back from Hogwarts. Besides Theo's, they had all been opened, yet not all of them had been answered.

She still needed to get back to Cedric after his second letter, which he had dictated to his mother. The effects of prolonged Cruciatus exposure were still too much for him to be able to use his hands yet...

Hyleth pushed the thought aside, and it was not too terribly hard for her to do. There was a knock at the door, making her and Ginny nearly jump out of their skins.

"'Morning, girls," her father said as he opened the door. He paused briefly, his eyes squinting. "Are you two alright?"

"Just fine," Hyleth repeated herself. "'Morning, Dad."

"Good morning, Sirius," Ginny added.

Her father didn't look like he believed her, but he didn't press the issue. "Okay, then," he said. "I don't mean to intrude, but I was wondering what you two wanted for breakfast this morning."

"I'll eat whatever Hyleth wants," Ginny said quickly.

Hyleth whirled around at her. "That's not fair!"

The omega smiled back. "Deal with it, Potter."

As Hyleth went back to facing her dad, she saw him giving her a raised eyebrow. "Well?"

She sighed as she thought about her answer. Usually, she would say eggs, bacon, and toast, because that was her favorite breakfast – if only because it had been the easiest to cook during her time at the Dursleys and she'd come to enjoy its simplicity.

But today, for some reason, that option felt particularly unappealing.

It almost made her stomach flip, even.

"...Can we have pancakes?" she asked.

Sirius barked out a laugh. "'Pancakes?' Our kind, or the American kind?" He'd gotten quite good at cooking, having brushed up the skills that Azkaban had made rusty over the past year with cooking shows and books and the like.

Ginny also snickered, Hyleth knew it. She heard it.

When she turned to look at her once more, however, the other girl's face was perfectly serene.

She sighed again. "Our kind."

"Right. British pancakes it is, then," her dad said. "Take a shower. Get dressed. Do whatever it is you want to do. Breakfast will be downstairs when you're ready for it." He closed the door.

Hyleth hesitated. "A shower sounds like a good idea. Do you want in first, or – ?"

"Nah, go ahead."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Hy."

Taking her cue, Hyleth swung her legs over the other side of the bed and stood up. She placed her hands behind her neck and stretched. She couldn't prevent herself from noticing how heavy practically every muscle in her body felt.

She didn't think much about that, either, nor did she about the pain that she felt as she used the toilet, which caused her to hiss out a, "Dammit," under her breath.

She knew what the cause of the latter was, and that it was not because of a UTI. She'd had many of those over the years, so she knew the signs; honestly, it was probably a wonder she hadn't gotten any permanent damage from so many infections.

But that left only one alternative for what the source of the pain could be, and she knew that it was rather (read: extremely) early for her to be experiencing the pain to such a degree. Hence why she didn't want to think about it.

It seemed like nothing about her life could ever truly go how it was supposed to.

She took her shower, closing her eyes and arching her neck at how good the hot water felt on her skin. When she was done, she used her wand to dry off her hair, which she'd combed in the shower – the wards of the property prevented any underage magic from being detected, and Merlin was that a mercy she hadn't known she'd wanted until she'd gotten it.

With a towel wrapped around her torso, she then went to open the bathroom door.

"Ow!" she yelped.

Ginny was sitting at Hyleth's desk now, already dressed for the day. She looked up from the book she'd been skimming through – on Animagi and the transformation process, which Sirius had gotten Hyleth as an early birthday present – in surprise. "What happened?"

"I shocked myself again," Hyleth grumbled, waving her hand.

"What?"

"Static electricity," she explained. Too late, she realized her mistake: it seemed like anything to do with electricity that wasn't also to do with cars or motorcycles, pureblood wizards and witches didn't know much about. To be fair, as she hurried to clarify her statement, it occurred to her that nor did she: "It's like...when things get too much energy, it has to come out somehow. So it does, through a shock. Sometimes it's so bad you can even see the small bolt of electricity it causes, kind of like lightning."

"Wow," Ginny said. She giggled. "But, you know...I don't think wizards and witches usually get that, Hyleth."

She blinked. "They don't?"

"No."

"Huh."

"And you said that this happened 'again?'"

"...It's been happening on and off for the past couple weeks now, yeah," Hyleth said. She shrugged. "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

Ginny neither agreed nor disagreed with her statement.

Hyleth got dressed and pulled her hair into its signature ponytail as Ginny was in the bathroom. They went downstairs together, and sure enough, breakfast was there waiting for them as Hyleth's father nursed his morning cup of coffee. They talked with him about this and that as they ate.

Their first item on the agenda for today came about after they were done:

Flying.

Ginny was really amazing on a broom, thanks to all the years she had snuck out at night and "borrowed" her brothers' brooms. She'd told Hyleth before that she wanted to try out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team this year, even if it was only for a spot on the reserve team. Angelina, Alicia, and Katie were simply too good as the Gryffindor Trifecta, and Hyleth was the best Seeker at Hogwarts according to almost everyone who talked about that kind of thing.

Hyleth didn't necessarily agree; she had her faults.

That was neither here nor there, though.

She and Ginny played Catch the Snitch for most of the morning, racing through the twenty-acre wood which surrounded the cottage. They laughed and laughed as they flew, and Hyleth felt some of the tension she'd been feeling ever since three weeks ago leave her shoulders.

She'd missed flying on a broom over the past year. She'd missed feeling the wind going through her hair, how relaxing that was. There were no responsibilities up here; no Triwizard Tournament tasks to prepare for and feel like she was losing her mind over; no Voldemort actively threatening her life and the lives of all of her friends and everyone else she knew.

There were some thoughts for her other friends, particularly Theo. She wondered what his letter would say about how he was doing and what all was going on at his home. With Voldemort back, his father would have no choice except to become a Death Eater again in order to keep his sons safe. That was what Theo had said the last time they'd talked.

He'd been even sicklier than usual then; the stress had been getting to him, and they hadn't even left Hogwarts yet.

But there wasn't really anything she could do for him, if only because he wouldn't allow it. He was always insistent on fighting his own battles.

Birds of a feather and all that, as some might say.

They flew back to the house at eleven for lunch, the sweat dripping down the backs of their necks. Sirius waved to them; he was in the garage built off to the side of the house, which had housed his motorcycle ever since Hagrid had returned it to him.

Hyleth got the deli-style roast beef and cheese out of the ice box (powered by its own magic in lieu of electricity) and Ginny got the bread and crisps out of the pantry. Whereas her father was fascinated by muggle technology, Ginny was by their food; she fished some of the crisps out of the bag whilst she walked over to the counter, munching on them happily. Hyleth laughed.

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Wha'?" she asked after quickly swallowing the crisps she'd taken.

"Nothing, nothing," Hyleth said defensively. "Just...I'm happy you're here."

"Oh." The way that the omega's cheeks reddened made Hyleth's stomach do flips. "Well, you let me come over."

"Only because you offered," she reminded her.

"So did Ron and Hermione," said Ginny.

Hyleth didn't feel like picking apart that statement. Not here, not now.

She cleared her throat. "Do you want anything else on your sandwich? Mustard, ketchup, mayo?"

Ginny wrinkled her nose. "Who do you think I am, Ron?"

Their shoulders lifted and fell with their giggles.

They retreated to the living room upon finishing their lunch and cleaning up after themselves.

Decks of cards for Exploding Snap were brought out. They played one round, then two, then three, then four...

"Last one?" Ginny checked at the start of round five.

"Yeah," Hyleth said. "But I don't know what else we're going to do."

"Hermione would probably tell us to get started on our homework..."

She shook her head. "It's not even August yet. We'll figure something else out."

As she spoke, she dealt out the cards. Her hand brushed up against Ginny's accidentally right as she finished speaking.

Hyleth jerked back, and so did Ginny. "Merlin!" she hissed. Then, her eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open. "Hy, what are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything?" She meant it as a statement; it came out as the question.

She didn't think she'd ever seen Ginny so freaked out before.

Hyleth looked down. She thought she might've seen a flash of...something. Whatever it was, it was gone quickly.

"You didn't see that?" Ginny exclaimed.

"'See,' what?"

"Your fingertips! Those bolts of eclecity were coming out of them! Except, you told me they were blue!"

...Now that she had mentioned it, Hyleth's fingertips were tingling a little more currently than they had in comparison to the other times she'd gotten shocked. Frowning, she lifted her hand up so she could see it better, and snapped her fingers. What she was hoping to accomplish by that, she didn't know.

Ultimately, nothing happened.

"I know what I saw," Ginny growled. She reached over the coffee table, grabbed Hyleth's hand, and –

They both let loose expletives. Ginny sat back in her chair.

Yet Hyleth got to see what she was talking about. From the tips of her fingers, there were small arcs of...somethingcoming out. They acted like electricity, except their color wasn't blue. It was gold with green flecks. A golden-green.

The scars in her hand were also glowing with the color. It was very faint, but she could see it.

"Whoa," she whispered. "Is that – ?"

There was only one possibility in her mind for what it could be.

The arcs – of her magic – abruptly disappeared back into her hand. The glowing of her scars didn't go away; she and Ginny watched as it traveled up her arm, disappearing under her sleeve.

Ginny's freckles became the most prominent she'd ever seen them. "That – that's not natural, Hy."

"It doesn't feel that bad," said Hyleth.

She'd spoken too soon.

Traveling along with the glow was the tingling sensation. Like in her dream last night, it prickled at her scars. She shivered at the feeling.

Then it went deeper. She gasped as it went straight to her nether regions, igniting the pain that had already been there, turning it into something more.

Just like that, her entire body began to hurt, her heavy and aching muscles included. It wasn't as bad as it had been in her dream.

For now.

A part of her somehow knew it was going to become that way.

With what felt like its own accord, her arm wrapped around her waist. She moaned as she almost doubled over.

"I'm going to go get Sirius!" Ginny said.

"No...Gin...wait..." Hyleth spoke through gritted teeth.

But her friend was gone.

Only minutes must've passed until the omega came back with Hyleth's father. To her, it felt like it was far longer.

She bore through the pain. She'd been through worse. She'd been put under the Cruciatus Curse. Even if whatever was happening to her got as bad as that, she could deal with it.

A familiar voice-but-not-voice suddenly laughed. That's what you think, my dear.

Hyleth's head shot up once more. Chills went down her spine. A fear unlike any other, even her fear of Voldemort, made itself known in her mind. "What are...you doing to...?" she started to murmur.

"Pup!"

Sirius was there.

He ran into the room, Ginny hot on his heels. He crouched down in front of Hyleth, grabbing her by the shoulders.

The resulting shock made her scream. It was worse than all of its predecessors by far.

"Shit," her father cursed. "That's your magic, alright."

"But why is it doing that?" asked Ginny. "I've never heard of this happening before!"

Sirius' face darkened. It appeared that he had an idea or two. "Did she touch any plants while you two were outside?"

"Not besides the grass!"

"What about magical creatures? Any of those?"

"No! Besides, she told me that the shocks have been happening for a while now! A couple weeks, even."

Hyleth's father became more upset. "And you didn't tell me?" he asked her.

"It wasn't...that bad," she defended herself. She wasn't going to tell him that it was quickly becoming that way.

Then again, she didn't need to.

"It looks like it is now," her dad remarked blandly. "Tell me where it hurts the most, Hyleth."

She guessed that it didn't need to be said that she hurt everywhere.

She didn't want to say it out loud, not when Ginny was in the room. Even when she was hurting, it felt too embarrassing.

Hyleth lowered her eyes and then glanced back up at her dad, hoping that he would understand.

If how his face blanched was any indicator, he did. Keeping his eyes on her, he spoke with a deceptively calm voice, "Ginny, dear, I need you to go to the Floo room and contact Madam Pomfrey. Her Floo password should be omnumi. Tell her that it's an emergency and we need her here right away. If she isn't there, then I want you to contact Remus or whoever else is on watch at Grimmauld Place. Tell them the same."

Ginny didn't give an affirmation; she simply turned on her feet and darted out of the room.

In her absence, Sirius' posture straightened. "I suspect I know what it's doing, even if I don't know the cause," he said. "I'm going to perform a spell."

Hyleth wet her lips. "Are you sure that's safe?"

The pain was beginning to recede some. She thought she could wait until Madam Pomfrey came; the matron would probably know how to protect herself better than her dad would.

"No," her dad responded. "I'm going to do it anyways."

She opened her mouth; it was a futile effort.

With a swish of his wand, summoned from its wand-holder, her dad cast his spell. It wasn't one that sounded familiar to Hyleth; she didn't think she'd ever heard it or read about it before. That made some sense: healer training didn't begin until year six at Hogwarts, and it was an elective. Anyone could take it, but they had to sign up for it.

Her lack of previous knowledge about the spell aside, she saw its effects: a shimmering wall of pink appeared in front of her.

Her father's face paled further.

"What is it?" Hyleth questioned desperately, her fear increasing sharply. "What does that mean?"

Sirius flicked his wand. The wall of pink disappeared. "It shouldn't be happening," he said quietly. "Not unless – "

"Dad!"

"I'm sorry, pup," he apologized. For his lack of response to her and so much more. "That spell was one of the basic diagnostic spells for mating cycles, and...it indicated that you're going into rut."

Hyleth gaped at him. "But that's not possible!"

Alphas only had their mating cycle once per year, during the spring, March to May, and thus that was the only time of year that they could present during, unlike the other three true designations. Ron, Dean, and Neville had all presented as alphas the previous spring, among others in their year, including Ernie Macmillan (who had been Hyleth's disastrous date to the Yule Ball) and the Slytherins Blaise Zabini and Tracey Davis.

There was some flexibility to the rule, but it wasn't much. Maybe a month or two at the most, not two, almost three. Yes, female alphas could have signs of pre-presenting up to six months in advance of their first rut – which Hyleth had thoughtwas causing her pain from earlier, and she supposed in a twisted way, that it was – but that was another thing entirely from going into rut properly.

"It usually isn't," her father agreed.

Just as she was about to ask him what he meant by that, this was when things went from bad to worse.

Ginny came sliding – quite literally, her socked feet sailing on the wooden floor – into the room. "The Floo isn't working! I tried throwing in the powder four times – twice for Madam Pomfrey, twice for Grimmauld Place! It wouldn't light!"

Sirius' eyes widened. "The wards."

A knock came from the front door, which was in the main hallway that led to the living room, kitchen, dining room, the ground floor loo, the Floo room, and the stairs to the first floor and cellar. It was a loud, powerful knock, and it set Hyleth more on edge than she'd been. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end.

His few years of being an auror not failing him, not even after spending twelve years in Azkaban, Hyleth's father raised his wand. He headed to the hallway. "Hyleth, take Ginny through the kitchen – " they were connected by an archway, as was the dining room to the kitchen – "and go down to the panic room in the cellar. Don't open it for anyone, not even me."

"Dad, no – " Hyleth summoned her wand into her hand, as he had done.

He didn't look at her. Over the sound of another round of knocking, he repeated, "Go, Hyleth!"

She doubted that she would've been able to go quickly enough, given how much the pain was crippling her and would continue to, if her own gut feeling was to be believed. Maybe she could've gotten Ginny into the panic room, if she would've told her how to get in. She would've been protected from whoever they were about to face: whether it be Voldemort and/or his Death Eaters, in spite of how they almost assuredly wouldn't have knocked, or...

There was no time, either way.

With a bang!, they all heard the front door swing open.

Word Count: 4,641