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

Author's Notes: And here is chapter 7, as promised!

One thing, however: I want to remind you guys that this part of the story is technically Hyleth, Ginny, and Theo telling everything to their family/friends. Because of this, not all the juicy details that you probably want are going to be revealed in this chapter. I've given some screen time to them, but yes, it was an intentional decision to hide the big stuff. I understand if you don't like the result of that decision lol, but I stand by it because I'm evil like that. ;)

As always, I hope you enjoy! Until the next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~daughter of briganti~

~meet me in the woods~

~chapter 7~

16 July 1995
Potter Manor, Dyfed, Wales, Great Britain

Hyleth came to awareness slowly.

She was laying on a bed – it didn't feel much like her own, whether the one at the cottage or her one at Hogwarts. It wasn't as comfortable as either of them. The quality of the bed made the hurt that she could feel in every single part of her body, from her head to her toes, that more irritating; it felt like she had run a marathon, or flown on a broom for several hours only after the Cushioning Charm on it had worn off.

There was a dream nagging at her mind, too. A dream involving a magic with its own voice, thirteen stones in a circle, and a crazier than crazy explanation for how she was connected to them, which also involved her being told she would have to marry thirteen different people. Along with that latter part had come a pain that had turned into something unlike any other she had experienced before, and then –

(A woman was standing before her in the forest, under the light of the full moon that shouldn't have been, as the full moon for the month had already come to pass – Remus had come to the cottage for it. She'd heard his howls in the near distance before she'd gone to sleep that night.

The woman was tall, with long auburn hair which flowed in waves. Her eyes were an emerald green, the same color as Hyleth's and her mother's. In fact, the woman probably could have been mistaken for Lily Evans Potter from a distance. She was wearing a white dress, which flowed in the wind. Her feet were an inch above the ground.

She was beautiful and deadly, lovely and terrifying. Her aura made that be known.

The woman's lips curved into a smile. "I told you, my dear, that you would understand soon enough, didn't I?")

– Wait.

She never, never experienced pain in her dreams that didn't involve Voldemort. That meant –

Her eyes flung open.

She was in a room she didn't recognize. But before she could begin to panic too much about that, she saw that her father was sitting in an armchair next to the bed. His face was somber. There were deep circles under his eyes.

"Hey, pup," he said, picking up her glasses from off to the side and handing them to her. "How are you feeling?"

Hyleth didn't answer his question as she sat up in the bed and put her glasses on. In truth, it was because she didn't knowhow she was feeling. How was she supposed to feel? "Wha – what happened?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Pritchard had just told us – " she cut off, swallowing thickly. She couldn't finish the sentence. Softer, as she clutched at her arms, "Why would Mum do something like this? I feel like I'm in a nightmare! I don't – I don't want to marry thirteen freaking people! That's not fair to me! That's not fair to them! And what about the kids – "

"I know," Sirius said gently. "But this is real, pup. And we are going to get through this, one way or the other. No matter what. But you really don't remember anything else?"

She thought back on the last of her most recent memories.

"And what if I don't want this?" she screamed. "Because I don't! My mum did this to me without ever asking for my permission!"

Briganti's eyes were alight with twin pools of green fire. "You would dare to question the sacrifice that your mother made for you? To question my choice to make you my own? I allowed you to survive that Halloween night, to go on and become the person that you are now! If I had not done that, what do you think would have happened? You would have died the night of the ritual, and then what would have become of my land and its people under the tyranny of that wizard who calls himself a Dark Lord?"

"But Neville – "

"Was never a contender for your destiny. You have always been the only one Voldemort would have chosen to go after, marking you as his equal." Briganti's tone changed, her eyes softening. She reached out, cupping one of Hyleth's cheeks in her hand, even as the girl desperately tried to avoid her. "It is a heavy burden that rests upon your shoulders, Hyleth. But that and the promise of your pure heart were what made me decide to accept you as my flesh and blood. As my daughter, you will vanquish the Dark Lord called Voldemort who has dared to think he can savage my lands and my people, and all who follow in his path. You will enact my might against them, and then – ")

"Not really," she relied. Then, her eyes widened as something else occurred to her. "Wait...why don't I feel like I'm in rut?"

Somehow, she knew what rut was supposed to feel like, despite having only just started going into her first one yesterday – it was yesterday, right? She hadn't been out for like a week or something?

What she was feeling right now wasn't anything like that; her muscles didn't feel heavy in the same way that they should and had yesterday, she didn't feel quicker to anger than usual, and nor did she feel...anything else.

"One of the side effects of the ritual, or so Pritchard thinks," said her father. "Briganti reclaiming you or whatever last night forced you to present earlier than you should've, but in return you went through the entire length of rut in a matter of hours."

"Wow," Hyleth said. Ruts were typically two weeks long, and here she'd basically gotten out of her first one.

She didn't know how to feel about that, either.

Not in the least because Briganti hadn't mentioned any of that to her last night.

Her body definitely felt different. She could feel the...erm...changes in her anatomy, which was currently internal. Female alpha penises were retractible.

"Why don't you take a few minutes?" her dad suggested. "The bathroom is on the door to your right. I transferred some of the clothes from the room that Pritchard intended for you into this one. We'll be in the main room when you're ready."

He didn't give her a choice, choosing that moment to take his leave. He closed the door to the hallway behind him.

"A few minutes."

Hyleth knew she would need several.

She went into the bathroom, closing and locking the door. She did take a few minutes to observe the changes of her body – she was sure that she had to have grown an inch quite literally overnight, and that wasn't speaking for her now having a penis. It made going to the loo more than a little awkward, but she managed it. Mostly.

As the saying went: "practice makes perfect."

Then she took a shower, which was much quicker than her shower the day before. She didn't want to spend too long thinking about everything until she absolutely had to, yet it was like that was all her brain wanted to do.

Once she was ready, she stepped into the main room, the walls (or lack thereof, more like it) of which made it obvious that she and the others were in a wizarding tent. Her dad and Pritchard were there, the two men each drinking a cup of coffee, and so was –

"Hyleth!" Ginny cried out.

The omega ran over to her and pulled her into a hug which rivaled her mother's. Hyleth stumbled back slightly with a surprised noise, her arms instinctively wrapping around Ginny's waist.

With her sense of smell greater than ever from having presented, the new-female alpha was able to get a most powerful whiff of Ginny's scent. It was simply pheromones, as they weren't scent matches; nevertheless, it was absolutely intoxicating. The scent, combined with the way that Ginny's nose was inadvertently pressed up against her just formed and still sore mating gland, went straight to Hyleth's gut. A feeling there occurred that she had never previously felt.

The blood rose to her cheeks.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Ginny said, pulling away. Her face was the same color as her hair. "I just – I was so scared last night, you didn't see – "

"Well, I experienced it," said Hyleth flatly.

She regretted the words the second they'd left her mouth.

Ginny smiled weakly. "Yeah, I know."

...Shit, that made her feel exponentially worse.

Pritchard cleared his throat. "Would you like some coffee, Hyleth?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. I wouldn't mind."

A cup filled itself upon him waving his hand and floated over to the spot where Hyleth was supposed to sit.

She sat down, and she couldn't help but think that none of this felt natural. She should be raging, screaming, as she had yesterday and in...whatever that had been last night with Briganti.

Perhaps her new reality had yet to truly sink in.

The smell and sight of food up-close roused her stomach. Her mouth salivating, she proceeded to help herself to the eggs, bangers, bacon, toast, and fried potatoes, mushrooms, and tomatoes. It was kind of like the full English breakfast, except with its own unique twist. She suspected American.

She didn't care.

It was absolutely delicious.

Sirius chuckled wryly. "James was the same way after his first rut was over," he said. "Practically ate his own weight that breakfast. Lily – " He cut himself off.

Hyleth paused, almost tempted to set down her fork. Her stomach felt like it was about to churn.

Alas, her need for food was far more important than her emotions.

She didn't stop until she'd had more than her fair share of the meal. A burp escaped from her mouth; flushing once more, she used the napkin she'd been given. "Sorry."

"No need to worry," Pritchard said. He folded the copy of The Daily Prophet that he'd been reading since she'd come out of her room. She didn't get a good look at it; that was probably a good thing. "You should know, before we do anything else, that we had a discussion last night over everything that's happened, and some things have resulted because of it."

Hyleth's mouth ran dry. Just what she hadn't wanted to think about: any of this at all. "Like what?"

"Perhaps we should take this conversation outside," suggested Pritchard. "I would like to confirm a theory."

They stepped out of the wizarding tent. Pritchard led them away from the clearing with the circle of stones to another one that wasn't as large, but it appeared he thought it would do. As for the former, Hyleth avoided looking at it as much as possible, although it did occur to her now that she should've figured her original dream had taken place in her ancestral lands. There weren't many other places with forests so ancient that could also bear wood for wands, as had been previously remarked.

"Lord Black," Pritchard said.

Sirius stepped forwards, handing Hyleth her wand. Hyleth remembered she'd picked it up after they'd deemed Pritchard trustworthy for at least a conversation yesterday, before he had revealed everything. She'd lost track of it after that, though. It wasn't a surprise somebody else had it.

"See that tree over there? The smaller one?" her dad instructed, pointing at his target. It was on the other side of the clearing. "We want you to perform the Expelliarumus on it."

Hyleth stared at him. "You want me to disarm a tree?"

He smiled. "Have some faith."

Shrugging, she allowed him to step back before performing the spell. "Expelliarmus!"

CRAAAAAAAACK!

"Protego!" she heard Pritchard shout. A blue shield formed in front of her. It was probably a good thing.

Hyleth gaped in horror at the aftermath. Her spell had not only shredded the entire tree – a fifty-foot tree – into the equivalent of one-foot splinters or less, it had additionally caused some significant damage to two of the trees behind it. She could feel the magic of the forest recoil slightly.

"As I expected," Pritchard spoke. "You have had a drastic increase in your magic because of the ritual."

Hyleth looked down at her wand, before her head snapped back up to him. "How am I supposed to perform spells like this?"

"That's the thing," he said: "You will have to relearn how."

He and her father gave her the rundown as quickly as they could, telling her that they thought it would be best for them to leave the country and go to her great-grandmother's property for the remainder of the summer. They told her how they thought it would be best, too, for her to get...married for at least the first time before the end of the summer.

"But don't those two things conflict with each other?" she asked them, waving a hand in her frustration. "I'm not just going to marry the first beta girl or omega that I see on the street in Greece!"

Off to the side, and having been silent for most of this part of the conversation, Ginny cracked a smile.

"We'll figure it out," Hyleth's father assured her. "For now, we're going to go back to the cottage so we can all pack our things and Ginny can go back to the Burrow before we go."

"Wait, we're leaving today?"

"Tomorrow," Sirius replied. "But the faster we get your magic under control, the better."

They went back to Black Cottage by Apparition. Hyleth and Ginny went up to the former's room, which was just the same as they had left it. That didn't necessarily feel like a good thing.

Already, the female alpha had the sensation that she was in the room of a ghost: of a person who she had once been, but who she would never be again.

She sat down on her bed and stared off into space for a few minutes. Hedwig came swooping in, pulling her out of her state of mind. As if sensing her owner's distress, the owl flew over to her, landing on her lap. She nipped lovingly at Hyleth's fingers as the girl started to pet her; a smile was earned for her efforts.

"Do you want to come with us to Greece, Hedwig?" Hyleth asked quietly. "It's a lot hotter there than it is here. You might just want to go back with Ginny to the Burrow and then off to Grimmauld Place."

Unexpectedly, this caused Ginny, who was in the middle of packing her things, to pause, her form going stiff.

Squinting her eyes, Hyleth looked away from her owl and at the omega. "Ginny, what is it?"

"It's nothing," her friend said. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, before biting her lip. Then, apparently emboldened, she added, "Actually, I want to say something that I've wanted to say for a long time. I thought I was going to have a bit longer to say it, but that doesn't matter now."

...What?

Oh.

Hyleth's face twisted with pain of the emotional kind. "Ginny, wait. Please – "

"I love you, Hyleth Lily Potter," Ginny said bluntly, like ripping off a bandaid. Her brown eyes were alight with equal parts strong will and the emotion she was speaking of. "I've loved you ever since I can remember. You're the only person that there's ever been for me. I don't want to go back to the Burrow and my family today. I want to go with you. I want you to marry me. I want you to be my Alpha."

Hedwig hopped away as Hyleth stood up from her bed. "Gin, you don't know what you're talking about. Pritchard only knows so much about the ritual my mother did to me; I only know so much about the ritual!"

She thought back on everything Briganti had told her the night before, and how none of that was enough. The ancient goddess – her second mother, in a sense – had mostly told her things she'd kind of already known. About how she would have to defeat Voldemort, how it could only be her and not Neville, like Sirius had explained once. Only, those things didn't have the literal religious gravity that they had now.

And in the case of the minority of things she hadn't known, it wasn't like they were about what currently mattered to her the most.

"I don't care," Ginny said.

"But we don't really know what this'll mean for the people that I'll marry! I mean, what if you marry me, and then you decide that you don't want to be with me?" Hyleth returned, her voice raised. "From the sound of it, I doubt I'll ever be able to grant you or any of the others a divorce! I don't want you or – or them to be stuck with me forever! It's bad enough that my mum took my choice, my agency! I don't want to take away yours!"

Her eyes were beading with tears. She didn't wipe them away.

It was hard for her to cry most of the time. The Dursleys had always told her how much better she'd had it with them than she would've had in an orphanage or foster home, that it was selfish for her to cry when so many other kids didn't have it as good and they weren't even freaks like her. It was a hard habit for her to break; at Hogwarts, the few times that she'd cried there, she always did it when no one else was around and/or awake, and always in silence.

It said a lot that she was crying right now.

"You're not taking away my choices or my agency, don't you see? Like I said, I want you to marry me. I love you," Ginny said softly. She approached her – and Hyleth hadn't moved away from her bed, so there was nowhere for her to go very easily. "If you really don't want to, that's fine. But how many people do you know who you would be alright with marrying before the summer's over? Three people, at the most? Me, Hermione – "

"I'm not doing that to her," Hyleth said, her throat tightening. She could only imagine what the beta girl was going to do when she heard about all this.

Because yes, maybe Hyleth had a crush on Hermione. Maybe she had a crush on Ginny, too. For at least a while, in each case. They were both kind, and fierce, and pretty. Their dresses at the Yule Ball, Ginny's pastel green and pink and Hermione's periwinkle, had made them stand out, although Ginny hadn't really liked hers – too dated, she'd said. Hyleth had wished then, when she'd seen them coming down the stairs (she'd had to arrive early as one of the champions), that she would've presented prior to the Yule Ball, so she could've asked one of them out instead of having to go with arsehole Ernie Macmillan, as the tradition for those who hadn't presented yet dictated.

But they were her friends.

She didn't want to put anyone through what was going to be required of her because of her being a Daughter of Briganti, but most of all them.

" – And Nott," Ginny ended, acting like Hyleth hadn't spoken. She went to Hyleth's desk and held up the envelope for his most recent letter, still unopened. "I gave it a lot of thought last night. It says a lot how willing he is to be friends with you, despite the risks. What do you think is going to happen if his dad or older brother find out that he is?"

"His father won't hurt him," Hyleth argued. She knew enough about Tiberius Nott to know that.

"Maybe not, but what about the other Death Eaters? Voldemort?" Ginny pressed. She came back over. Her dark brown eyes were wide like a deer's. They were shimmering, too. "Even if you don't want Hermione, you'll have me, and you'll have Theo. You've got to know it'll probably be a lot better for him this way. And me and him are a lot better than any of the other alternatives. Sirius could draw up a betrothal contract for you to marry somebody else, but you won't know them like you know us."

"But that's – "

"Please, Hyleth," Ginny said over her, practically begging. "I'll take on the Potter name; I'll be your Lady Consort for the House when we turn seventeen. I don't know what all that means like some of the other pureblood beta girls and omegas do, but I'll learn. You heard about what happened to Wulfnoð Peverell when he waited too long to marry, how much in pain he was. I don't want that for you. You saved my life once; let me help you now."

That final blow, the reminder of the Chamber of Secrets, was a bit too much for Hyleth. She squirmed, admitted reluctantly, "It's not that I don't like you that way, Ginny. I've...liked you like that for a long time, too. But – mmph!"

Ginny's lips were suddenly on hers. They were slightly chapped, because the redheaded omega had never much cared for lip gloss or makeup in general. She did most of the work, since Hyleth was too stunned to do anything except make muffled noises, but that was alright. Hyleth knew that this had to be Ginny's first kiss as well as hers, yet she obviously had some sort of idea of what to do.

"It's as simple as that," Ginny breathed when they separated, her cheeks flushed, her lips swollen, and her eyes dilated.

Anything Hyleth could've said was stopped before it could begin by a knock at the door and it being opened. "Hyleth, Ginny, are you – ?" Hyleth's father started to ask. He ceased in his metaphorical tracks, taking the situation in.

The female alpha felt like she was going to die on the spot. "Dad – "

"This wasn't exactly what I meant when I said 'we'll figure it out,'" he remarked blandly. He sighed. "Can't say I'm wholly surprised, though."

"Dad, it's not – "

"Are you sure, Ginny?"

"Completely," the other girl said. She jutted out her chin, as if silently daring either of them to question her.

"If this was any other situation, I'd ask more than that, but as it is, I suppose all I can is that you're coming with us, then?" He sighed again after Ginny nodded in confirmation. "I was hoping you'd explain to the others what there's going on, but we'll figure something else out – including how I'm going to explain this to your parents when the time comes. I'll leave you two to the rest of your moment – and no funny business!"

He closed the door so loudly, both of the girls jumped.

"He's taking this a lot better than he did last night," Ginny observed.

"I think he's just putting on a brave face for us. He told me before that Grandmother Walburga never bothered to try and hide how much she was upset with him and Grandfather Orion used him as emotional support for their marital issues. He doesn't want to be like them," said Hyleth.

That was besides the point, however.

"Really, Ginny – "

"If you say that I don't have to marry you one more time, Potter, I'm going to Bat-Bogey Hex you," the omega said. "It's getting old. I know I don't."

Hyleth sighed. She wasn't surrendering, per se; she refused to view it through that lens. She was...

She was acknowledging that Ginny had her points, maybe, that some would say this was the reasonable course of action and that she should do it, and so she would, her own personal convictions aside.

"Alright. But you're forgetting something: Pritchard said I'll have to have children as soon as possible. Are you really okay with that, with probably becoming a mum before you're sixteen?"

Ginny gave her a ferocious, if not additionally embarrassed, grin. "You're acting like I haven't been thinking about what our future children would be named since I was four years old."

"Er...right." She paused. "My dad is probably right about not telling your family the full extent of everything until it's said and over."

"My mum would never allow it. She wouldn't care that, as Pritchard said, we don't need their permission," Ginny agreed. "Dad and most of my brothers, you could probably win over." Her nose scrunched up. "Charlie might be an exception, since he's an omega too, but he'll come around."

Hyleth didn't want to think about that too much. "Right. But my point is, it's a tradition in the muggle world for the alpha, theta, or beta man to ask the father's permission for marriage to their beta woman or omega partner. I think so, anyways. Is it the same in the magical world?"

"It is," was the confirmation.

"I won't get to do that, if we do this." She hesitated, then reached out to grab Ginny's hands. "I think there's one thing I need to do, though. I don't have a ring – that's how they do it in the muggle world. I don't have a collar, either. But I'll get you one, when we get to Greece," she swore. She crouched down on one knee. "So, Ginevra Molly Weasley, as long as you're truly okay with it, will you marry me?"

Ginny beamed. "Of course."

They kissed again. There was a slight, electric-like shock, almost like the shocks of yesterday and the past few weeks for Hyleth. Yet they both intuitively knew the promise of danger was gone, so it did not deter them for longer than a brief pause.

"You're taking this a lot better today than I expected, too," Ginny noted afterwards.

Hyleth sniffled. "Oh, I'm definitely going to be bawling my eyes out tonight. Maybe throw a few things."

Ginny snickered. "I think that's warranted."

"I thought my mum was a good person," Hyleth whispered. "Everybody always told me she was. But now..."

"I'm not saying your feelings aren't valid, because they are, but I think she was complicated, like most people," Ginny said sagely. "And we tend to overlook or over-emphasize flaws after death."

Hyleth's thoughts circled back to Theo then. She'd said prior that he'd been sicklier the last time they'd spoken, but that didn't properly cover it: he'd already been sicklier than he had in previous years. He'd told her that Madam Pomfrey had been worried about him.

Ginny may have been right about it being better for her to marry Theo, but not for the reasons she'd been thinking. Pritchard had said – and it'd basically been confirmed by Briganti herself – that the ritual was about preserving bloodlines. Did that mean that some of the magic that was protecting Hyleth might be extended to her spouses once she married them, too? Could it be that – ?

"Do you really think Theo likes me?" she questioned.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Hy, I've never really talked to him, unlike you, but I've seen the way that he looks at you from the Slytherin table during meals sometimes. If he doesn't like you, I'll eat my hat."

"That's good," Hyleth said, without truly thinking about it. "Sirius told me something once about the Black Consort. He said that, first and foremost, I should always marry for love. And I think I am with you and Theo regardless, I just can't say the words yet," she acknowledged.

"I know," Ginny replied, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. "I don't expect you to yet; I've spent a lifetime loving you. I can wait, and I'm sure he can, too."

Hyleth smiled. "Thanks. Anyways, he told me that I'd need to give a lot of consideration for the Black Consort. Whoever they'd be, they'd need to be able to withstand the scrutiny from both the Light and Dark families. They'd need to be cunning, if possible, but with a good head on their shoulders."

"That does sound like Nott," Ginny hummed. "He's not like Draco or Pansy."

"No, definitely not," Hyleth said. "And I'm worried for him, with Voldemort's return, about what the stress could do to him. I could probably wait until September to proposition him, if I'm really serious about it, but – "

"You don't want to wait that long," her newly-fiancée, technically speaking, concluded. "I don't blame you. But, there's one problem, if you want to ask him before we leave tomorrow: how are we going to get to him?"

Word Count: 4,770