Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Fragmented Soul	By : StrawberryGirl87 & Bickymonster Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Fenrir Views: 79703 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 10
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything in the fandom. no money/profit is made.

Chapter List
- 76
- 77
- 78
Fragmented Soul
Chapter 77 - Bite
Having discussed it at length the evening before, while the three of them had been in their forest room, Harry, Clay and Romy had come to the conclusion that they were going to ask their Slytherin friends to give them a hand, to help them get ahead of Hermione and her threats. The Slytherins did have a lot more experience with her than they did, after all, given that they had all been in school with her since they were eleven. Harry was hoping that they might know of a weakness, of some way of hurting her that could make her stop coming after them the way she was; though he knew that was a long shot at best.
This was why the three werewolf pups had risen early, Clayton begrudgingly so, and gone down to the Slytherin dormitory to catch the others before they went to breakfast. It was a conversation that they needed to have in privacy and preferably not in the Great Hall.
Daphne was the first to show up in the common room, with her sister and best friend on either side of her. However, she had taken one look at the three werewolf pups sitting around the fire, waiting and realised that something wasn’t right; immediately she started walking in the opposite direction with Pansy and Astoria, though the latter had had to be dragged away rather forcefully, with a lot of protesting.
Draco had actually been the first of the boys to get up, though, given the time it took for him to get himself ready for the day, Theo had managed to get up and dressed in the meantime. So it was that the two boys came out into the common room together, only a few minutes after Daphne, Astoria and Pansy had appeared. The two boys were both rather surprised to find the three werewolves sitting there, waiting.
“What’s wrong?” Draco asked as soon as he got close to the three of them, realising that there must have been a pretty serious reason for the three werewolves to have gathered themselves together in the Slytherin dormitory before they had even all had breakfast.
“Hermione Granger has threatened to expose us,” Romy said, answering Draco’s question; there really was no point in beating around the bush on this one. “We need your help to get to her before she is able to do so.”
“Isn’t this something you need to talk to head honcho Alpha about?” Theo asked causing Clayton to laugh a little at the new name for Fenrir, it was almost as good as some of the ones that Harry had come up with.
“We’ve got a message to him but I’m not sure what he’s going to be able to do,” Harry said with a frown. He was sure that this would be something that was bothering his mate, not being able to help them this time, and it was making him second guess his decision to tell Fenrir; though he did know that he couldn’t and shouldn’t have kept this from the alpha. “It isn’t like he can storm the castle and kill her for threatening us,” he said, knowing that Fenrir would probably very much like to actually do exactly that.
“Though I’m sure that he’d like to,” Clay added, echoing Harry’s thoughts. They all knew full well that there was very little that their Alpha wouldn’t have done to protect, not only Harry, but his pack and their home as well. It was a little comforting to know that Fenrir would go to such lengths if need be, but they were all hoping it never would.
“So how can we help?” Draco asked, looking over his friends, knowing that without question he was going to help them. There was so much binding them together now; he had made his choice some time ago, and he was going to stick to it for as long as he could. The mark burned on his arm might have labelled him as one of Voldemort’s men but he considered himself Harry’s ally, and so there was very little Draco wouldn’t do to help them. He had to believe that Harry could win this war, because it was the only way he could ensure that his family would get to live the lives they deserved; he had to trust Harry because he was asking them to help him just as much, to save his family.
“We just need a way to shut her up,” Romy said, “preferably without killing or injuring her in anyway.” She wanted to stop the news of their lycanthropy from getting out, but she didn’t really want to resort to such drastic measures.
“Even though we’d like to do just that,” Clay said bitterly. He truly hated this girl; he had wanted to snap her neck himself when Romy had told him what Hermione had wanted in exchange for her keeping her mouth shut.
“You know she’s probably told the other Gryffindor’s what you are,” Theo said, having no doubt on this. “I mean, she’s not stupid, she’d know that you’d want to shut her up.”
“I agree with Theo,” Draco said with a nod of his head, certain that his friend was right. “She'll want allies, particularly if she is going to try and break a story this huge. She might have even started telling them before she threatened to out you,” he pointed out.
“Not if she actually thought that Romy might bend to her terms,” Harry commented. It was so difficult to tell which thing Granger actually wanted more; they knew that she had been lusting after Clayton since they had first come to Hogwarts, but it was unclear whether she wanted to out them as revenge, or if she really was just using it as leverage to try and break up Romy and Clay.
“Surely she can’t believe that Romy would,” Clay said, a sly grin forming on his face as he pulled his girlfriend into his side. “I mean, who would break up with me, I’m fabulous.”
“Goof,” Romy said, rolling her eyes and shoving him off her gently, though she stayed sitting close to him. She felt really uncomfortable that her relationship with Clayton had probably been the trigger that had set this all off, and had to remind herself repeatedly that it wasn’t her fault that Granger was so bitter and angry.
“Honestly, I am not sure there is a great deal you can do to stop her,” Theo told them apologetically, knowing how difficult it could make things if their secret really was to get out. “As much as I dislike Granger, there is no denying how smart she is. What?” he asked after a few seconds, when he saw the look of disdain Draco was giving him.
“No, I think Theo’s right about this, Draco,” Harry said with a sigh, flopping back against the sofa. “She's clever and is probably going to have backup plans, for her backup plans.”
“She’s still only human, she has to have a weakness,” Clay said, feeling a little frustrated. He hated this girl and he wanted to make sure that she didn’t spill their secret. “Are we just going to let her tell everyone about us?” Clay asked incredulously. He didn’t actually much care what anyone thought about what he was, but he hated the idea of how people might start treating his pack siblings.
“Unless we can think of a way to stop her,” Romy said sadly, “but I’m drawing a blank here. Sorry,” she added, looking to Harry. It was likely he who would end up being affected most by such news getting out, even if just because he was more well known than either she or Clayton were.
“Don’t be, not your fault,” he told her, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. He could see the guilt written all over her face, and didn’t want her blaming herself for any of this. “It’s not like I am coming up with any great solutions either,” he grumbled, feeling rather frustrated with this.
“Perhaps we get some breakfast and mull it over for a while,” Draco suggested. It was clear that none of them were about to come up with anything at the moment, and he often felt that focusing on a problem too intensely could just make it more difficult to see the best solution.
“Yes, and then we can do a bit of Gryffindor watching too,” Harry added with a smirk; he suspected that Theo was right, that Hermione would be talking to her house mates, and now he wanted to see if he could figure out what was going on in that house.
“See if we can work out who she is talking to,” Romy said, understanding what Harry was getting at and nodding her approval of this idea. “We really need to know who she has on side.”
“I could probably ask the Weasley twins,” Clay suggested. His contact with them recently hadn’t been as frequent, now that the three of them had moved into the forest room, but he thought he might be able to get some information from them about the state of things in the Gryffindor house. They had been nothing but nice to him so far.
“Yeah, maybe,” Harry said with a slightly pensive expression. He knew that Clay considered the twins something close to friends, or at least allies, but he wasn’t quite so sure about it; if Hermione had already been telling the Gryffindors about their lycanthropy then there would be no telling who was actually loyal or not.
“Have you thought about asking Dumbledore? He might be able to help,” Theo suggested, already knowing that Harry wasn’t going to like the idea. However, there was no denying the power and influence that the headmaster had, no matter how much of a manipulative bastard the man was.
“I don’t want to owe him anything, that is not a man you want to owe favours to,” Harry said with a frown. If he could have stomached it then he might have gone to Dumbledore but it just wasn’t an option in his mind. Nothing was worth asking that man for help.
“Yeah,” Clayton agreed, “everything that man does has a price on it,” he grumbled as the group of them started to get up and head towards the exit. They were all hungry and needed to get something to eat before classes started for the day.
FGHP
They had quickly noticed that Hermione was completely absent from breakfast, which was something of a shame, but some of the looks that were being thrown their way all but confirmed their worries that the Gryffindors knew what they were. Ron in particular was looking livid, and the frequent glances to the head table made Harry think that the adult presence in the room was all that was keeping the redhead from coming over and simply attacking them or something.
It was quickly becoming clear that this was spiralling out of control and that there was very little they could do to stop their secret getting out, because even if they did find a way to stop Hermione there was no certainty that one of the others wouldn’t spill their secret. This wasn't going to kept quiet for much longer no matter what they did.
“Let’s just go,” Harry said with a sigh about ten minutes after they had come to breakfast. He stood up, returning the angry glare Dean Thomas was giving him; he hadn’t eaten much but he was not at all in the mood to sit there and be glared at. Romy and Clay nodded their agreement, Clay grabbing himself a couple of brownies and wrapping them in a napkin to take with him as he got to his feet. Theo and Draco both hurriedly took a few more spoonfuls of their respective breakfasts, before they too were getting up.
“Don’t let them see how much they are bugging you,” Draco said quietly, walking next to Harry as they all headed towards the door of the Great Hall. He had been raised since a small child to keep the emotion from his face, and he was sure that Harry’s obvious anger and frustration was only going to spur the Gryffindors on.
“You try staying calm when you have a quarter of Hogwarts looking like they want to burn you at the stake,” Harry grumbled, but Draco just gave him an incredulous look, obviously quite confident that he could have kept up his cool emotionless facade no matter what the Gryffindors did. “Oh, of course, I forget you have that Malfoy training,” Harry said with a sigh.
“And besides, they wouldn’t burn you at the stake,” Draco said, trying to lighten the mood a little. “Maybe stab you with silver," he added with a grin, causing Theo to laugh.
“Gee, thanks,” Harry said with heavy sarcasm, though he did actually feel a little better; there was something comforting about knowing that Draco and Theo, at least, were still their friends.
“Fucking disgusting bastards,” a familiar carrying voice said from a short way behind them. It was apparent that Ron and his friends had followed them from the Great Hall and had been unable to hold their tongues any longer.
“Surprised they let you into the school,” Dean commented as Harry, Romy, Clay, Draco and Theo turned to face them; they simply couldn’t risk having their backs turned to the Gryffindors at the moment, not when they seemed so ready to attack, even if it was only verbally so far.
“Could say the same about you,” Romy commented. “Brave of Dumbledore to actually even try to teach a group of Neanderthals,” she added with a smirk, when the insult went straight over Ron’s head, though she was equally pleased with the scowl that formed on Dean’s face.
“Come on guys, let’s just leave them,” Seamus said, trying to walk away, not wanting to be involved in any form of confrontation. However, neither Dean nor Ron were coming with him and he knew he had to stay with them to make sure they didn’t cause too much trouble.
“I suggest you listen to Mr Finnegan.” McGonagall’s voice caught all of their attention and the eight students turned to see the head of Gryffindor house standing near the doorway to the Great Hall; her lips were pinched into a thin line and she was looking highly annoyed. “Unless you would all rather join me in detention?” she suggested when none of them moved or reacted.
“I should…” Clay started to say, glaring at Ron, but Romy gave her boyfriend a quick kick to the leg, glaring at him when he turned to look at her questioningly.
“Not worth it,” she muttered under her breath. She really did understand the anger that Clay felt towards Ron but attacking him there, right in front of McGonagall, would be the height of stupidity.
“Let’s go,” Harry said, throwing a look at Ron, Dean and Seamus, before storming off towards the Grand Staircase. He could hear the others only a couple of steps behind and hoped that Ron and friends had had the good sense to take another route to class.
“Fucking Gryffindors,” Draco grumbled as he caught up with Harry, easily keeping pace with him only thanks to his long legs. Harry grunted and nodded in agreement to that sentiment.
“Distract me, talk to me about anything, just please distract me before I go back down these stairs and beat the shit out of Weasley,” Harry said, the tension obvious in both his body and voice.
“Erm, Sirius Black is apparently a prisoner in Malfoy Manor,” Draco said, actually having to struggle not to laugh when Harry turned to him with wide surprised eyes, clearly not having expected that. “I was going to tell you later, but…”
“Yeah…” Harry said vaguely, thinking that he was really going to have to pass that particular piece of information onto Remus when he got the chance.
“I know you don’t really care about him or anything, but doesn’t he have some connection to Professor Lupin or something?” Draco asked curiously. He thought he remembered Harry saying something of the like, but he couldn’t really be sure.
“They dated I think,” Harry confirmed dismissively. “How do you know about this?” he asked. He knew that Draco had gone back to the Manor over the weekend, but he didn’t think that it was likely that Draco would have gone sneaking around the house on the long shot that there might be a prisoner of value somewhere.
“My mother told me,” Draco explained. “She also said there was at least one other person being kept in the dungeons, a blonde girl. I know it isn’t much but better than nothing right?”
“Yeah, it is,” Harry agreed, nodding his head. “Perhaps more than you know,” he went on wondering if the blonde girl could be Tessie’s sister, Jilly. They had had no leads on where she had been held captive, though they had all been listening for any clue on her whereabouts. Or else, maybe that was whoever they were using to turn werewolves for Gideon’s pack. Either way the information was useful. “How did your trip home go? Did Voldemort…?”
“No, it was fine,” Draco assured him a little briskly. He felt a little bad not telling Harry about the Dark Mark still but that wasn’t something Harry needed to worry about. “There's that he thinks you’re pregnant, which might be a problem, but that was all he wanted to talk about. I don’t think he trusts me.”
“Then he has very good instincts,” Harry said with a sigh, knowing that Draco’s loyalty was with protecting his family. “Are you sure that it was okay, he didn’t hurt you?”
“No,” Draco lied, “for the Dark Lord it was very refined and calm. He instructed me to find out more about your pregnancy and report back to him; so, not sure what you want me to tell him.”
“That I am denying it?” Harry suggested, thinking that this was going to be the easiest route to take. He didn’t think that encouraging Tom to believe he was pregnant was a very good idea at all. After Fenrir's warnings about how dangerous it might be, Harry didn't want Voldemort coming after him thinking he was weaker or attempting to steal children that didn't exist.
“I assumed as much; I will write a letter to my father saying something to affect,” Draco told him. “Also, I'm assuming that the test you went for yesterday was negative?” he asked; he was certain that Harry, Romy and Clay wouldn’t be acting so normally and worrying about Hermione quite so much if it hadn’t been. Draco could only imagine what Clay and Romy's reactions might be if Harry, as the mate to their Alpha, was indeed pregnant.
“Of course,” Harry said with a grin. “Fenrir will have to wait a few years yet before I let him knock me up.” It might have been something that Harry wanted, desperately so, but he wasn't stupid enough to let it happen just yet, not when they were all in so much danger, no matter how many times he wanted it.
“That, Harry, was a mental image I definitely didn’t need,” Draco drawled with a roll of his eyes. The concept of his friend heavily pregnant wasn't one that he wanted to think of often.
“You’re welcome,” Harry said with a laugh, smirking unrepentantly; he couldn't help but sadistically enjoy making his friend feel slightly uncomfortable.
FGHP
With the final bell having rung for the day, Harry was grateful that transfiguration was finally over. The class were all packing up their books and talking about what they would be having for dinner. Tempers had calmed a little but then they had not had another run in with the Gryffindors… yet.
Harry and Theo were caught up in a bit of a discussion regarding some of the theory they had been learning as they exited the room, but Harry’s attention was quickly caught by the sight of Remus, standing across the hallway, seemingly waiting for him.
“Sorry, Theo, can we pick this up later?” he requested, curious to go and see what the professor might want; usually he went to see Remus rather than the other way around.
Remus had promised to go to the territory for him the evening before and Harry was a little concerned, though somewhat hopeful, that Fenrir might have wanted the professor to pass a message back. He was keen to hear any news from home with it being two weeks until they could be there again but not if it was bad news.
“Sure thing,” Theo said with a shrug. He knew that the Professor was a werewolf but apparently Harry was a lot closer to the older man than he had realised.
“I’ll see you guys later,” Harry said, as Draco and Clay came out of the classroom. The pair of them were looking a little confused, as Harry headed off, until they too spotted the professor.
“Want me to come with you?” Clayton asked as Harry reached Remus, the two of them starting to walk off together.
“No, go spend some quality time with your girlfriend,” Harry returned with a dismissive wave before he and the professor rounded a corner and were gone. “You speak to Fenrir?” Harry asked Lupin in a soft voice, as they moved into a quieter area of the castle; he wasn’t quite sure where they were heading to but he was happy to follow the professor’s lead.
“Yes, I gave him your message,” Remus confirmed with a nod. “And ended up cornered into dinner as well,” he added, giving Harry a pointed look.
Harry chuckled. “I think Callie just likes making sure people are well fed and taken care of,” he explained, already knowing full well who it would have been who had offered Remus a warm meal. Callie was just one of the most kind and thoughtful people he had ever had the pleasure of knowing. “But everyone is okay?”
“They are,” he confirmed. “Though that isn’t actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” the professor went on. “I took a detour on the way home last night, and went to do those checks that I mentioned to you last time we talked. I am now fairly certain I have found what you are looking for.” He didn’t want to be too much more explicit about what he was referring to, not while they were walking around the school.
“You’re sure?” Harry asked, almost a little excited. He hated that he had this mission to complete, but that they might have made some progress with it was decidedly good news. “We should get Dumbledore and destroy it then,” he suggested.
“That, Harry, is exactly where we are going,” Remus pointed out, as they turned around another corner, and Harry realised that the professor was correct, they were definitely heading in the direction of the headmaster’s office.
“I probably should tell Romy and Clay if I am leaving the castle though,” Harry said looking worried. He knew that Clay would know it was with Remus, but actually leaving Hogwarts without informing his pack siblings felt wrong.
“I already took the liberty of speaking with Romy after her lesson with me earlier today,” Remus said a little smugly. “I informed her that you and I had some business to take care of this evening and that you would likely tell them all about it when you got home. And that they shouldn’t worry because I would be going with you.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, a little surprised and touched by the consideration that Remus had obviously given this.
“I am beginning to understand a little of how your pack functions,” the professor admitted. “It is different to a lot of packs but I am learning. I can see now why you speak so highly of them.”
“Good,” Harry said simply, a smile on his lips. That was all there was too it really, he was just so pleased that Remus was starting to understand; it certainly gave him hope that the professor would one day be a full member of their pack.
“I think Dumbledore is unaware of just how close I have become to your pack,” Remus commented as they got close to the office. “Perhaps it would be wise to keep him ignorant on that front for now,” he suggested.
Harry nodded his agreement. Remus joining the pack put him under the protection of the vow and Harry suspected that that would be something which Dumbledore would want to avoid; he didn’t want to give the headmaster a chance to try and meddle in the professor’s interaction with the rest of the pack, particularly not now they were so close to having him as one of their own.
“You think we can play that to our advantage?” Harry asked curiously. He was all for any tactic that could be used against the headmaster. He was starting to like Remus more and more.
“Maybe, but shall we focus on the task at hand for now?” Remus suggested with a fond smile. Harry really did seem to have picked up a lot of Severus’ taste for Slytherin deviousness; though he had to admit that James might have had a few of those traits to pass on to Harry too. “Fizzing Whizzbee.”
“Agreed,” Harry said with a nod, his mind back on the locket Horcrux as the gargoyle responded to the password Remus had given and started to move, revealing the staircase beyond.
“Harry, Remus, what can I do for you this evening?” the headmaster asked, from where he was sat behind his large desk, as the two of them entered the room.
“I was hoping to borrow that sword of yours so I could go destroy a Horcrux,” Harry said casually with a shrug of his shoulders, as though his was a perfectly reasonable, normal, everyday request.
“You have one?” Dumbledore asked with surprise, leaning forward on his desk to peer at Remus and Harry closely. “How?” he asked; he had been trying to locate any more of them but had had little luck, no matter how carefully he trawled through Tom’s life.
The horcruxes so far seemed to be all things of significance to Tom’s life but at the moment he hadn’t been able to distinguish a theme to the particular objects he had used. An old book from his time at Hogwarts and a ring that had belonged to his mother. If Harry and Remus had managed to find another then it might lead to clues on what the others might be.
“No, I came here asking for the sword of Gryffindor for shits and giggles,” Harry said a roll of his eyes. “Just thought I could run around the school and terrorize the first years with it.”
“Harry,” Remus chastised lightly. He was actually a little amused, but didn’t think that antagonising the headmaster was the best way to start this off. “What he means to say is that yes, we believe we know the location of one of them and perhaps all three of us could go and deal with it.” He wanted to make it very clear to Dumbledore from the start that Harry would not being going anywhere without him.
“Whatever,” Harry said with a sigh, keeping up the pretence that he and Remus were not that close. “Are we doing this or not?”
“Certainly,” Dumbledore said, getting to his feet and summoning the sword from the case where he kept it on a high shelf. The blade had been quite dangerous enough before it had been imbued with Fiendfyre, and he hated to think what it might be capable of doing now if the wrong person was to get their hands on it. “Lead the way,” he said, gesturing to the fireplace, decidedly curious to find out where it was they were going.
“We’re going to the old Black residence,” Remus said rather pointedly. “I’m sure you’re familiar with its location already, Albus.” Harry rather appreciated the sass in Remus’ tone.
Dumbledore looked rather surprised by this revelation, but nodded none-the-less; he was not best pleased with the tone that Remus was taking with him, but while the man was actually helping the cause he was not going to fuss over something so petty.
“Alright, I shall meet you there in ten minutes, I have something that I have to take care of first,” Dumbledore told them. “I will bring the sword with me, please go ahead.”
Remus nodded, taking Harry gently by the arm and leading the teenager over towards the fireplace. “I will stay with you, I promise,” he whispered, knowing that Harry might find it difficult when they got out the other end and he realised where they were.
“Yeah, okay,” Harry said a little dismissively, grateful but not really sure why such a thing would be necessary, but he supposed he didn’t really have a clue where this place was, and it might be full of dangers for all he knew; though he didn’t think that Remus would take him anywhere too risky.
Taking a pinch of the powder from the pot on the mantelpiece and throwing it into the fire, Remus and Harry stepped into the green flames. “Grimmauld Place,” Remus stated clearly, the two of them disappearing through the floo.
Remus kept a firm grip on the teenager as they stepped out of the fireplace the other end, Harry having stumbled a little but remaining upright. Harry looked around, as he took in the sight of the room with surprise, recognising it at once, before turning to Remus. “It’s here?” he asked. He hadn’t been expecting to ever have a reason to return to the house where his father had been imprisoned, and he stepped a little closer to Remus as the memories washed over him.
“I probably should have explained where we were going,” Remus said apologetically. “I recognised the locket from when I was living here,” he explained. “And the initials… R.A.B., that’s Sirius brother, Regulus.”
Harry nodded his understanding, but it was quite a lot to take in. There was also something that he realised he really had to talk to Remus about, and he was suddenly glad that the headmaster had decided to let them go ahead. “Talking of Sirius…” Harry said hesitantly. “Do you know where he is?”
“No,” Remus said with a frown, a bit confused about why Harry would ask such a thing. “He has been missing for a while now. Why?” he asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, starting to wonder what it was that Harry knew.
“I am pretty sure I know where he is,” Harry admitted. “I only found out earlier today, and I was going to tell you later, but… well, being here, I can’t not say something.”
“Harry…” Remus encouraged, seeing the young man’s nervousness. He already suspected that Sirius had been taken by death eaters, something that Dumbledore had all but confirmed a while ago, but it seemed that Harry might have more answers.
“He’s at Malfoy Manor, being held there I believe,” Harry told him. “Sorry, I know that he means a lot to you…”
Remus sighed, not really all that surprised by this news; he had suspected as much. “He does, but he brought this upon himself to some extent, and I know there really isn’t anything we can do to help him at the moment, as much as I would like to.”
“From what I’ve been told I think that Tessie’s sister is there too, and we will be rescuing her, Fenrir has promised that much to Tessie; we could get Sirius out for you too,” Harry said, wondering if Remus would even want Sirius to be saved. It didn’t sound as if the two of them were close any more, he certainly didn’t seem to be overly concerned that his ex-lover was in the hands of the deatheaters at Malfoy Manor.
“Maybe this is not a good time to be discussing it,” Remus said with a glance back at the fireplace, knowing that they were running out of time and that Dumbledore would be here any minute. They couldn’t be seen being too friendly with one another if they wanted to keep up the pretence of not being that close.
“Right, so where is this horcrux?” Harry asked, looking around the all too familiar room. Being here was getting to him, it made his skin crawl. He was never going to be happy about being in this house, there were only bad memories here for him.
“Upstairs, in one of the drawing rooms,” Remus said, gesturing at the door that would lead them up to the rest of the house. “I considered bring it down here, or to Hogwarts, but I didn’t want to touch it, just in case,” he explained.
Harry nodded at that, glad that Remus hadn’t even tried; he was extremely fond of the man now and didn’t want to see anything happen to him. “We wait for Dumbledore and then we will go destroy it together,” he said firmly.
“Yes,” Dumbledore said, stepping out of the fireplace, sword of Godric Gryffindor in hand. It didn’t seem to faze him that he was back at the Black residence, the things that had happened here just didn’t bother him in the slightest. “Where is it?” the headmaster asked.
“Upstairs,” Harry said, repeating what he had been told, and Remus lead the way from the room, Harry just behind him, and Dumbledore following them both.
The professor led them up to the second floor and into a room with dingy olive coloured walls, which were mostly covered by well-worn tapestries, and heavy dark green curtains. Harry looked around the room with distaste, taking in the sight of the ancient sofas, and dusty glass covered cabinets and half-full bookcases.
“Over here,” Remus told them, leading them to one of the glass fronted cabinets and pointing into it.
Harry peered closely at where Remus was pointing and low and behold there it was, the locket that had eluded them for so long. The serpentine S, inlaid with glittering green stones. Even behind the glass, the locket seemed to rattle with life.
“Remarkable,” Dumbledore commented, trying to look over Harry and Remus’ shoulder to look into the cabinet, eager to see if Remus really had managed to locate the Horcrux that had eluded him.
“And now we destroy it,” Harry said with a sigh, not looking away from the piece of jewellery that had haunted his dreams since he was a young child. It was amazing to see it here, to know what it contained and knowing that he was about to destroy it.
Remus stepped back and out of the way allowing the headmaster to look inside the cabinet properly. The professor did, however, remain close to Harry, wanting to offer him the moral support to complete this particular part of the mission.
“That,” the headmaster said, “is the locket of Salazar Slytherin.”
“As in one of the four founders of the school?” Harry asked, actually finding it rather fascinating. He had no idea that Tom was so sentimental to such ancient artefacts, at least sentimental in the fact he saw some worth in them. He must have valued them a great deal to entrust a part of his soul to them.
“Indeed,” Dumbledore said as he opened the cabinet, still keeping the sword in hand, though he knew that he was going to be asking Harry to be the one to actually destroy this Horcrux. He wanted for the teenager to understand what it meant to destroy a part of someone’s soul.
“Is it significant that he’s used something that belonged to one of the founders?” Harry asked curiously as he watched Dumbledore carefully remove the locket from the cabinet with a flick of his wand and levitate it on to the coffee table in the middle of the room.
“I believe that it is,” Dumbledore said with a nod of his head, “I think that his use of this particular item will be the vital clue we have been missing in the hunt for the other Horcruxes.”
“What do you mean?” Harry asked as Dumbledore handed him the sword of Gryffindor. He took it without question having already suspected that he would have to be the one to actually destroy the locket. It was his part of the vow to do so after all.
“In your hand is the sword of Godric Gryffindor,” the headmaster explained. “Just like the locket it is an heirloom of one of the founders of Hogwarts, a place that meant a great deal to Tom Riddle.”
Harry nodded in understanding, thinking things over. “The other two founders would have had heirlooms too,” he said, the information clicking into place in his head, looking to the headmaster to confirm this, feeling rather pleased when the old man nodded.
“Helga Hufflepuff had a cup and Rowena Ravenclaw had a diadem, I believe that those two items will be the two that we are missing,” the headmaster said, “once this locket is destroyed.”
“Do you have any clue where they might be?” Harry asked; he had had dreams of a cup and a crown, dreams that he had told to Dumbledore and it all fit, that was for sure, but the location of the items, on the other hand, were not remotely precise.
“Only what your dream told us but it is a start, that we know what they are,” Dumbledore said with pride; he was happy that they were just one step closer to destroying Voldemort and he was going to take great pleasure in watching Harry destroy the locket.
“Then, let’s get on with it,” Harry said, readying the sword in his hand. The locket vibrated against the table as if it sensed the sword and knew what was about to happen.
“Harry, you don’t have to do this,” Remus said to him gently, wanting to spare the teenager from this if he could; however, he knew exactly how headstrong and stubborn Harry could be and the professor knew that Harry would not be dissuaded so easily.
“Yes I do,” Harry said with determination. Steadying himself, Harry looked at the locket, the headmaster giving him a firm look of great expectation.
“Speak to it,” Albus coaxed. “When it opens, destroy it.”
“You mean, you want me to speak parseltongue to it?” Harry asked, wanting to be sure that this was what the headmaster wanted of him and when the old man nodded Harry took a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he allowed the familiar snake like words spill out across his tongue.
The locket clicked open; Harry felt the need to look and found a pair of eyes staring back from inside it, eyes he recognised from seeing Tom Riddle at the ministry. “You will fail your pack, Harry Prince,” the locket hissed at him, the words echoing in his mind. “They will die for you,” it taunted, “and leave your mate alone in the world once more.”
“No!” Harry shouted, raising the sword above his head and bringing it crashing down on to the locket. He struggled to keep hold of the sword as flames with teeth and jaws swirled around the blade, snapping at anything they could reach.
“Harry!” he heard Remus exclaim in obvious fear, and he was vaguely aware of the professor close by, but his attention was firmly on the flames burning at the locket. It screamed as the fiery beasts on the blade turned it into little more than ash as the blade sliced right through, burning and destroying the coffee table, which had probably been an antique, in the process.
“That was… intense,” Harry said, promptly holding the sword out to Dumbledore, as he tried to calm his racing heart. The words that the locket had spoken to him, that the fragment of Tom’s soul had taunted him with, had left him rather shaken, and the power of the blade was violently intimidating.
“Harry, are you okay?” Remus asked, as the headmaster took the blade and crouched down to examine what remained of the locket and coffee table.
“You did well,” Dumbledore praised. He had thought that the locket might speak to Harry, might make the boy hesitate, but it seemed to have only pushed Harry onwards, encouraged him to destroy the locket without hesitation.
“Go fuck yourself,” Harry said, very much wanting to punch the headmaster. He didn’t want to be praised, he was doing this to keep himself alive by fulfilling his part of the vow. He wouldn’t have been here for any other reason.
“Language,” Remus chastised. He agreed with the sentiment, of course, but he didn’t approve of the way Harry was expressing his feelings.
“I believe we are done here,” Dumbledore said, gesturing towards the door.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Harry grumbled, as he stormed off out of the room. He had been keen to get out of the house from the moment that he had arrived, and even more so now that the locket's taunting had put him so on edge; he really needed to cuddle up between Romy and Clay for a bit… well truthfully he wanted to be in Fenrir’s arms, but he knew that wouldn’t be possible probably until the next full moon in a few weeks time.
“Come on,” Remus said, putting an arm around Harry as he caught up with him in the hallway just outside the room, leading him off down the stairs back toward the kitchen. They needed to get out of this house and back to the castle.
“I want to go home,” Harry said softly, leaning into Remus as they reached the kitchen fireplace. He desperately wanted to be with his pack, more specifically with Fenrir.
“I know, but hopefully your pack siblings will do,” Remus said with a sigh. As much as he wanted to grant Harry’s wish to go back to the pack, he knew he shouldn’t; Harry had been home a lot lately, and while was trying to accept his relationship with the Alpha, he didn’t think it was a good idea for Harry to run to Fenrir every time things weren’t great.
“They will, I just hate being away from the pack,” Harry told him as Remus threw floo powder into the flames.
“I know,” Remus said again. “Maybe you could go see Severus,” he suggested, as the two of them stepped into the fireplace. Harry suddenly grinned and nodded at that idea; it had been about a week and a half since he had been to see him last, and a lot had happened in that time. He thought he could tell his Dad all about having destroyed a Horcrux, about how much closer he was getting to being able to free him, give him some good news at last.
FGHP
“You missed dinner,” Romy said with a small frown as Harry entered the forest room and found not only her but Clayton in his arms and hugging him.
“I’m sorry, things got a little out of hand,” Harry said as his fellow pups released him from their vice like grips. “I’m sure the two of you thought up a unique way to pass the time, all alone in here.”
“Don’t you change the subject,” Romy said, giving Harry a playful slap on the arm. “What happened?”
“We destroyed a Horcrux,” Harry said with a sigh as he went to sit down. Romy and Clayton followed suit, the three of them settling down on the grass, knowing that he needed to talk this out.
“Professor Lupin told me that he was going to take you somewhere after class but to destroy a Horcrux… that’s madness,” Romy said in shock.
“You’re telling me,” Harry said; he had a relatively easy going day, after the trouble with the Gryffindors that morning, but the whole evening felt a little surreal. “I actually got back an hour ago but I went to see my Dad first.”
“Oh, Harry,” Romy said with a sigh, “I wish you would have come here first, we could have come with you.”
“No, I wanted to give you two some alone time and I just needed some time with my Dad,” Harry explained, though feeling rather touched that Romy, who had never even met his father, would have wanted to go see him. “I can’t put into words how much I wanted to go home,” he told them.
“Remus wouldn’t take you?” Clay asked, a little surprised by this.
“I didn’t want to push the subject,” Harry said; he felt Remus had already done enough for him lately what with helping with everything that happened at the ministry, coming to Fen’s birthday, finding the Horcrux and even taking the message to Fenrir the day before. “Maybe I will ask to go at the weekend or something, then we could all go,” he suggested. “Two weeks without seeing them feels like far too long.”
Romy and Clay both hummed and nodded in agreement to that, as the three of them cuddled together closer, Romy leaning against Harry, as he in turn leaned against Clay.
“Romy, you’re going to have to meet us at breakfast in the morning,” Clay said after a few minutes of comfortable silence, as they just enjoyed relaxing in each other’s company.
“Oh, you arranged everything?” Harry asked, looking up at his pack brother with a hopeful smile. They had been discussing the plan on and off for a little while, but they had been waiting for a little assistance in one aspect, which it now seemed Clay had managed to get sorted.
“What are you two up to?” Romy asked, sitting up properly and turning to fix them both with demanding stares. She was always worried when the two of them started talking in half cryptic sentences.
“Yes, it actually didn’t take much convincing,” Clay assured him. It had been more finding the time to have a discussion that wouldn’t be overheard by the wrong people, but the idea he had presented had been accepted eagerly.
“Brilliant, we’ll show him for messing with us,” Harry said firmly, a slightly evil smirk growing on his lips. The idea was even more appealing after the events of the day.
“On second thought, I don’t want to know,” Romy said with a sigh, leaning against Harry again. She had realised that it was probably best she stayed out of it and just let the two of them do what they were going to do.
“Just trust me when I say he deserves it,” Harry promised, pressing a kiss to Romy’s temple. She hummed sceptically, but said nothing more; it wasn’t like she would be able to dissuade them anyway.
FGHP
At the break of dawn, before the sun had even begun to rise over the trees, Harry and Clayton slipped out from underneath the Alpha blanket and silently dressed. Romy didn’t even stir from sleep as her two pack brothers slipped out of the forest room and headed in the direction of Gryffindor tower.
At the portrait of the fat lady there was an unexpected surprise waiting for Harry. Draco was leaning against the wall wearing jeans and jumper, looking rather impatient. Harry was a little stunned to see him if he were honest; he had been under the impression that it was just going to be him and Clay.
“What are you doing here?” Harry asked in a whisper as he gave Draco a huge hug. The blond had not been expecting this and was a little taken aback but he returned the embrace with a smile.
“Clay asked me to join you,” Draco explained as Harry released him.
“I thought we could use the extra pair of hands,” Clay said with a shrug, “plus, who isn’t going to want to humiliate this little bastard?”
“I would have thought you might find this all a little uncouth, Draco,” Harry said with a teasing smile.
“Ah, well I am choosing to think of it as family bonding,” Draco responded, smirking at Clay, who scowled at him.
Harry laughed. “Convenient excuse that,” he commented, but he was too pleased to have both his best friends there for what they had planned to nit-pick at all. He was quite sure that Draco was there for revenge as much as he and Clay were.
“Clay didn’t explain much more than the basics, so what do we do now?” Draco asked.
“We go inside,” Clay said with a smirk, thinking that for once his place in Gryffindor was going to pay off. “Dilligrout,” he said turning to the woman in the painting, who mumbled something about students being up and about too early, before swinging open to reveal a circular opening into the common room beyond.
“It’s so… red,” Draco commented quietly as he clambered through, Harry and Clayton following behind him a moment later. Neither of the two Slytherins had ever been inside the room before, so were looking around with uninhibited curiosity.
“Yeah, it’s garish isn’t it,” Clay said, wrinkling his nose in disgust; his opinion of the place certainly wasn’t helped any by how he had always been treated there. “The dormitory is that way,” he said pointing to the stairs that lead up to the boys dormitory.
“Such a shame we can’t get to Hermione too,” Harry said with annoyance, looking at the other staircase, that presumably would lead up to the rooms where the Gryffindor girls were sleeping.
“Why can’t we?” Clay asked, thinking that it would be a brilliant opportunity to get her back for wanting to expose them.
“Have you ever tried getting into the girls dormitories?” Draco asked with a small laugh, “trust me, we won’t be able to get to her this morning.” He had heard a great many stories about boys who had tried to get into girls dormitories whilst at Hogwarts, and it rarely ended well for them, and never with success.
“Such naughty little Slytherins,” an amused voice said from; the three of them froze; they couldn’t see who it was who had spoken, but the voice had come from the direction of the boys' staircase.
“Did you hear them, Fred?” another one asked, as the two identically red headed twins stepped out from the stairway and into the common room.
“Trying to prank poor little Hermione,” Fred said with an exaggerated sigh and shake of his head, his eyes on his twin and deliberately ignoring the other teenagers.
“Very naughty,” George agreed, a smirk on his face; he rather thought the girl might deserve it. He didn’t particularly have a problem with people being loners or focusing on their studies, as weird as it seemed to him, but she was just so bitter about everything it seemed and the girl tended to take her frustrations out on those around her. “As though little Ronnie wouldn’t be enough fun,” he added, shaking his head like his brother, and tutting in teasing disapproval.
“So everything go okay so far?” Clay asked, far too used to the way the twins were to be bothered by their banter. He really did like the pair of them, not least because neither of them seemed to feel any need to fit in or conform to the expectations of others; and that was something Clay could definitely respect.
“Of course,” Fred and George replied in unison, matching smiles on their faces. They had lots experience with these kind of things, so it had hardly been a challenge at all.
“Then leave the rest to us,” Harry said with a wide grin, stepping passed the two of them to head for the stairs. “Thank you,” he added, turning around to smile at the pair of them when he was a few steps up.
“Just for the record,” Fred went to say, wanting to make something clear after the confrontations from the previous morning that he had heard all about, “we don’t think you’re disgusting or vile.”
“You know what we are,” Clay said with a frown. It was a statement, there was no doubt given Fred’s words that they had been told, just as Ron, Dean and Seamus had been; it was only a matter of time before the word spread to the other houses now, if it hadn’t already.
“Hermione has a big mouth,” George said with a shrug, “nothing we could really do about that.” He felt a little bad that these young werewolves were going to be outed, but it wasn’t as though he had put them in that situation, so he felt no guilt in telling them this.
“It’s alright,” Harry said with a sigh, “though if she tries to spread it any further, a heads up would be nice.” It would definitely be useful to have a few people in Gryffindor to keep an eye on things; of course Clay was technically one of them, but he spent so little time with his house, that it barely counted.
“Oh, of course,” Fred said. He enjoyed a good bit of gossip sometimes, but what Hermione was doing just seemed deliberately vicious and nasty in his opinion, something that not even his and George’s very worst pranks were ever… at least not intentionally.
“Though she did go off to the owlery over lunch,” George pointed out, Fred nodding in agreement, remembering now that his twin had mentioned it. “Not sure what she was doing but the size of the letter she was mailing made me think it wasn’t a letter to her parents.”
“Great,” Harry said with a sigh, realising that even if they could come up with a plan it might already be too late to come up with a plan to keep his name and werewolf status from the headlines.
“Another problem for another day,” Draco said firmly, not wanting to see either Harry or Clay get caught up on that issue when they had a prank to be pulling; with what they were intending, it would definitely not do to get caught.
“Yeah,” Clayton agreed, nodding firmly and grinning at the twins. “We have a job to do.”
“Good luck,” Fred and George said in unison, as the three younger teenagers headed up the stairs.
FGHP
It seemed that Fred and George were good to their word, because Ron really was out for the count. Clay, Harry and Draco had even ‘accidentally’ knocked him into a few walls as they levitated him out of the Gryffindor fifth year boy’s dormitory, down the stairs, through the corridor and then down the Grand Staircase in the direction of the Great Hall; and still, Ron had not made any sound other than a few grunting snores, that had made Harry giggle.
“How quickly do you think he would reach the bottom if we just happened to drop him off the edge?” Clay asked with almost genuine curiosity, as he peered down to the lower floors of Hogwarts Castle, while they waited for a staircase to choose to turn back their way.
“Probably about as long as it would take for us to be expelled and arrested,” Draco said casually, as he too peered over the edge.
“And then we would never get to pull this prank,” Harry pointed out. “And that would be just a waste of good planning.” Both Draco and Clay nodded in agreement to that, and the three of them, along with the unconscious body of Ron, carried on down the stairs as it turned towards them once more.
They had just reached the ground floor when Clay suddenly froze, grabbing hold of both Harry and Draco and pulling them around the side of the staircase, to hide; Harry levitating Ron after them, lowering the Gryffindor to the ground.
“Shush,” Clay whispered when Harry went to ask what they were doing, and he mouthed the word ‘Filch’ when Harry continued to look confused. And sure enough a few moments later the grumbling caretaker came wandering out from one of the corridors across the way, heading straight for the staircase. The three of them held their breath, but thankfully it seemed the shadows kept them hidden from sight, and they remained unnoticed as Filch headed up the stairs.
“That was close,” Draco said quietly, as they slowly got up from their hiding spot, all three of them peering up the stairs to make sure that Filch really was gone. He found he was rather glad that Clay’s lycanthropy had given him such great hearing, and hence they had had enough time to act.
“Don’t worry, little brother, I’ve got your back,” Clay teased, grinning at the sight of Draco’s frown, as the three of them headed towards the Great Hall, Ron floating along behind them.
“Strip him,” Harry said to Clay, as he went to get one of the chairs from the teacher’s table to put their kidnapped Gryffindor into.
“You strip him,” Clay grumbled with a look of disgust, “out of all of us here you’re the only one likely to undress a man,” he said with a pointed look at Harry, who looked rather green at the thought of undressing Ron.
“Oh for goodness sake,” Draco said, stepping forward and whipping out his wand, “no one has to strip him, we only have to vanish his clothes.” He didn’t mind the banter between the two werewolves, in fact usually he rather enjoyed it but right now he just didn’t want to get caught.
“Get him on to the chair first,” Harry said quickly, as he levitated one of the chairs out from behind the head table, sending it in the direction of his friends, further down the hall. “I don’t want to touch him after he’s naked,” he pointed out. Being gay certainly didn’t make him any more keen to touch Ron than Clay or Draco were.
“I don’t particularly want to touch him fully clothed,” Clay grumbled, wondering if they should have invited the Weasley twins to take care of this bit too. It had all seemed hilarious in theory, but actually putting their plan into action was going to mean seeing a fair bit more than he ever really wanted to.
“Just lift him into the chair, Clayton,” Harry said with a chuckle, as the large wooden seat landed next to where they had laid Ron down on the floor. “Draco will help,” he said with an innocent smile. “I shall let you two strong dominant guys handle the heavy lifting, I am just a little submissive after all.”
Clay snorted. “Bloody convenient that is,” he griped, though he was more amused than anything. As little and submissive as Harry might be, Clay knew full well that his friend could have managed this himself if he wanted to.
“Well if anyone ever doubted you were a Slytherin, Harry…” Draco said, shaking his head as his voice trailing off, as he and Clayton hauled Ron up into the seat, Harry using a spell to bind the Gryffindor’s wrists, waist, and ankles in place.
“Avert your fragile eyes,” Harry warned his two friends as he went to cast the spell to vanish Ron’s clothes, just as Draco had suggested. And sure enough, a second later, Ron was strapped, completely naked, to a chair in the middle of the Great Hall.
“He is going to be livid when he wakes up,” Draco said, not sounding particularly worried about this at all; for one thing they would be long gone by that point.
“I know,” Clay said with a grin. “Isn’t it great.”
“As long as you’re prepared to deal with the fallout of this it is,” Draco said with a frown. He didn’t think that either werewolf realised that, while the prank might be a lot of fun, Ron wasn’t just going to take it without wanting some kind of revenge.
“Which reminds me,” Harry said with a smile, “can’t have anyone else taking the credit.” Using his wand, Harry signed his name across the red-head’s chest.
“Oh, Harry,” Clayton said with a sigh.
“You’ll thank me when you’re not in detention three nights a week,” Harry said as he levitated Ron up, off the ground so that he was very slowly rotating in the middle of the Great Hall.
“Come on, let’s get out of here before we get caught,” Draco said quickly, not wanting to hang around and wait for Filch to come back and catch them red-handed.
Harry and Clay nodded, knowing that they had to get back to Romy before she woke up and started worrying about them. So bidding goodnight to one another, the three of them agreed to meet back at the Great Hall at eight in the morning so that they would be able to enjoy the fall out of their prank.
FGHP
Romy had very little sympathy for her pack brothers when the two of them grumbled about being tired, as the three of them got up to go to breakfast; and she steadfastly ignored the fact that neither of them seemed to be able to keep from yawning.
“Happy Birthday,” Romy said with a grin, as she jogged the short way to catch up with Astoria, who she had spotted just a little further ahead of her down the corridor.
“Thanks,” the Slytherin girl replied happily. “Where are your usual entourage?” she asked curiously, thinking that it was unusual to find Romy without Harry and Clayton, at least so early in the day, before they had been forced to separate for class.
“Trailing behind,” she explained, gesturing back down the corridor, where Harry and Clay were walking rather slowly, and seemed to only be managing to stay upright due to the fact that they were both leaning against each other. “Idiots,” she said fondly, turning her attention back to Astoria.
“What were they up to, that they are so tired now?” Astoria asked. “Draco was looking a little less with it than usual this morning too.”
“I have no idea, I thought it better just not to ask,” Romy explained. “Though I had no idea that they were dragging Draco into whatever they were up to.” She wasn’t really sure whether to be pleased that Clay seemed to be getting along with Draco, or frustrated that Draco was letting himself get caught up in her pack siblings’ mad schemes.
“Well I am sure we will find out soon enough,” Astoria said with a slightly excited smile. She had expected to have a rather boring birthday, what with being stuck at school, but the idea that Harry, Clay and Draco might have sent up some kind of prank gave the whole day a lot more potential.
“Speaking of which,” Astoria said as they reached the Entrance Hall, Harry and Clay finally catching up with them, “what’s going on over there?” she asked, pointing into the Great Hall where there were many students pointing and laughing. Through all the ruckus they could hear the sounds of someone demanding to be let down.
“What on earth?” Romy asked as she and Astoria stepped forward to see what was happening. Harry and Clayton hung back; they didn’t need to see, they already knew and of course didn’t want to see it again.
“Ronald doesn’t seem particularly comfortable with his nudity,” Luna commented, as she stepped up to Romy’s other side, a thoughtful expression on her face. “He has a rather small penis,” she added as Romy and Astoria both turned to look at her with shocked expressions.
“Ronald, as in Ron Weasley?” Astoria asked, unable to help herself when she peered through the gathered students again, hoping to get a peek; mostly to see if Luna was actually serious.
“Yeah, because that won’t antagonise things with the Gryffindors at all,” Romy muttered under her breath with exasperation. She turned to give her now grinning pack brothers a stern look of disapproval; she certainly no desire to see what she now knew to be in the middle of the crowd of students.
Draco came through the doors to the Great Hall a few minutes later, accompanied by Theo, and couldn’t help but smirk at the madness that the room currently contained. Romy managed to finally drag Astoria away from the students in the direction of the Slytherin table, Luna trailing along behind, and by the time they got there, Harry, Clay, Draco and Theo had already taken their seats.
“Hello, Theodore,” Luna said with a soft smile, and Romy and Astoria shared amused looks.
“Erm, hi, Luna,” he replied looking a little perturbed. He wasn’t quite sure about the peculiar Ravenclaw girl, though there was something about her that he found rather sweet. It wasn’t until she reached forward for the teapot that he noticed her earrings that reminded him somewhat of the Valentines card he had received.
“That is really putting me off my breakfast,” Daphne said as she came and sat down at the table, she was carrying a small and beautifully wrapped gift in one hand, something she gave to her sister as she took her seat at the table.
“How long has he been up there?” Theo asked, watching as Professor McGonagall and Flitwick arrived to try and defuse the situation. They were the first teachers to arrive for breakfast and neither of them had been expecting to find such a horrific sight.
“A good few hours,” Clay said with amusement as the two Professors attempted to get a furious and red faced Ron down from his levitating chair, while trying to disperse the gathered students. Clay couldn’t help but catch the eye of the Weasley twins and grin at them; they, of course, were in fits of laughter at their little brother.
“What on earth possessed you?” Romy asked with a sigh of exasperation. She couldn’t imagine what her two pack brothers had been thinking when they had done this. From the way McGonagall was glaring in their direction it was clear that Harry hadn’t even bothered to conceal that he had been the one to carry out this prank.
“No one threatens us,” Harry said, “maybe Hermione will think twice about opening her big mouth now.”
“Or maybe she will take this as proof that you are nothing but animals and start shouting it to the world,” Romy countered with a scowl. She honestly thought that this was only like to provoke Hermione more; the girl was a Gryffindor for a reason and didn’t seem likely to turn tail and run.
“What’s Hermione threatening to do?” Astoria asked curiously. It seemed that once again everyone else was in on something that she had been left out of.
“Nothing that you need to worry about,” Daphne said firmly, giving Romy and Harry both very pointed looks.
“You know, if Hermione gets her way, everyone is going to know,” Draco whispered to Daphne, “if you don’t tell her, then someone else is going to.”
“It can be my birthday present, I’m fourteen now after all,” Astoria pointed out hopefully. “You can’t keep treating me like I am ten for the rest of my life.”
“No!” Daphne said firmly. “I am sorry, but I cannot allow you to get caught up in their mess,” she told her sister firmly.
“Romy?” Astoria asked, turning her furious gaze from her sister, and hoping that her friend would simply tell her the truth. Romy, however, just gave her an apologetic look that plainly said that she wasn’t going to say anything. “Fine, screw you all,” she said getting to her feet. “So much for having a nice birthday, if you are going to all be such miserable gits,” she declared before storming from the Hall.
“You can’t protect her forever,” Harry said with a sigh, “none of us want to be in the mess we’re in but this is a war, we don’t really have a choice.”
“You, Harry Prince, are trouble,” she told him, glaring at him with narrowed eyes. “Ever since you arrived at this school things have been turned on their head. You aren’t good for anyone and you don’t belong in this school,” Daphne snapped, getting up and following her sister out of the Great Hall.
“Good to know what she thinks,” Harry said, feeling a little hurt by what she had said. He couldn’t blame her though, trouble did seem to follow him around, but he was trying his best; he hadn’t made the situation worse on purpose, he just wanted to go home and be with his family.
“Don’t pay her any attention, she’s pissy because of Astoria,” Theo reassured him. “None of us think you’re too much trouble.”
“Speak for yourself,” Clay said with a grin, giving Harry a wink. “I have had to put up with him far longer than you lot, you haven’t seen half the trouble he can get into yet.”
“Thank you, Clayton, I feel so loved,” Harry said dryly, rolling his eyes at his friend’s remarks. He knew that Clay was just teasing and actually he did feel a little better already; though Theo’s reassurance had certainly helped with that too.
“It’s alright,” Clay said, flinging an arm around Romy, “I get all the loving I need from this lovely lady.”
“That’s what you think,” Romy said, giving him a stern look. “Apparently you have gained an affinity for stripping guys of their clothes now, so perhaps I am not quite so much your type anymore,” she teased.
“The stripping was all Harry’s idea,” Clayton said quickly, “he’s the one who likes to see guys naked!”
“Don’t go blaming me just because I’m gay,” Harry protested, “and there is only one man I ever want to see naked. Okay well there might be a few others I wouldn’t mind seeing,” he admitted when four sceptical expressions turned to him at once, “but believe me, Ron Weasley isn’t one of them.”
“It was your idea to have him up there naked, Harry,” Draco said with amusement, rather enjoying the banter and the teasing. Harry was pouting at his friends, arms folded across his chest but this only made Clay and Draco laugh harder.
“Not helping, Draco,” Harry protested, feeling he was being ganged up on a little here. “And the vanishing spell was your smart idea,” he pointed out, wanting to make it quite clear that it had not been all his doing.
“Only because I didn’t want to actually have to touch him,” Draco reminded him, and Theo gave a snort of amusement at the sneer of disgust on the blond’s face; he certainly wouldn’t have wanted to have to touch Weasley either.
“Uh hum,” a small cough interrupted, and they turned to see Professor Flitwick standing next to where Theo was sat, looking very disapproving. “As amusing as you all seem to find this situation, I have to impress upon you the seriousness of your actions.”
Across the room they could see McGonagall helping an obviously embarrassed Ron up from the chair that he had been freed from and was now firmly back on the ground. Dean handed Ron his own robe, as the two Gryffindors were hastily accompanied from the hall by their head of house.
“Thought that McGonagall might want to come over and have a quick chat,” Clay said conversationally, as they returned their attention to the short professor, still looking at them with a stern expression.
“She asked that I… deal with you,” he said, his eyes fixing particularly on Harry and Clayton. “Apparently she couldn’t not find the patience to deal with your ongoing trouble making today.”
“Awww, and I was so looking forward to catching up with her,” Harry said with an exaggerated sigh.
“Then it is fortunate, Mr Potter,” the professor said, not looking amused, “that you will have detention with her this lunchtime.”
“Excellent,” Harry said with a smile on his lips, “do tell her that I am looking forward to it. Oh and professor, I don’t suppose you could tell me her favourite flower, I’d love to get her something, you know, to mark the occasion.”
“Orange tulips,” Flitwick said with a smug look on his face. “Good luck, Mr Prince, you might need it.”
FGHP
As it happened, Ron and Dean had shown up only ten minutes after the start of the first lesson, History of Magic; though the looks they had given Harry and Clayton had spoken volumes about how pissed off they were. It didn’t help of course that a lot of the other students were pointing and laughing at Ron, sniggering and waving their little fingers in his direction. This was making Ron go redder than his hair and it only delighted Harry and Clay to see how much they had affected him.
Their second lesson of the day was potions, and the Slytherins were in a good mood as they came into the classroom, still riding the high from the successful prank on Ron. The Gryffindors’ foul moods did nothing to deter how jubilant they were all feeling, not even when little balls of paper were thrown at the back of their heads as they all settled down in front of their cauldrons.
“Settle down, class,” Slughorn called from the front of the room, his hands resting on his large portly belly as he smiled around at the students gathered before him. “Take your seats, we have much to do today,” he told them.
The class settled at their Professor’s request, getting out their books and waiting. Everyone listened as Slughorn instructed them on the page to turn to and walked them through the potion they would be brewing. Once again it was a potion that Harry had learnt to brew very early on in his life and he was confident he could brew it with his eyes closed.
“Professor, is there any chance I can brew something personal?” Harry quietly asked Slughorn after the professor had delivered all the instructions and told the class to get on with it. Harry didn’t want anyone to overhear his request, this potion had already got him into enough trouble as it was. “I can already brew what you’ve asked.”
Slughorn looked at Harry sceptically, though he didn’t want to discourage the teenager when he had seen the astounding potions the boy could brew. “Alright, my boy, what is it that you want to brew?”
“What part of personal didn’t you get?” Harry asked, looking at the Professor as if he were a little crazy. “No offence, sir, but a friend of mine needs this and she doesn’t want everyone to know about it.”
“Oh alright,” Slughorn said with a sigh, “go ahead but perhaps after class you could stay behind and we could check on your liquid luck potion together. I believe it’s coming along quite nicely but I would like your thoughts.”
“Fine,” Harry said with a sigh, “thank you, Professor.” Keen to get started Harry delved into his bag and pulling the book he had been researching the potion from out of his bag and slipping his school book back in.
Draco and Clayton were too used to seeing Harry doing his own thing in potions class now and didn’t even bat an eyelid. Though partly that was because Clayton was far too busy with trying to figure out his own potion, which already seemed to be giving him some trouble.
Halfway through class some of the students had already ruined their potions beyond being salvaged, but Slughorn was letting them soldier on because it was the only way they were going to learn. Ron and Dean, however, were muttering between themselves, clearly plotting something.
Harry was too busy focusing on the potion for Callie to notice much of what was going on around him. Once he started his potion brewing he tended to lose himself in it and completely block out everything that was going on around him.
Clayton, on the other hand, had ruined his potion fairly early on; the art of making potions was something that was completely lost on him. He didn’t get the subtle art or beautiful delicacy that was potion brewing. Therefore his attention had wandered elsewhere, and he had noticed that Ron and Dean were muttering amongst themselves.
However, it didn’t matter how closely he had been watching the two Gryffindor boys because when they threw something in the direction of Harry’s cauldron he couldn’t move fast enough to stop it. Instead, Clay dived, knocking Harry to the floor just in time as the cauldron exploded so violently that the table blasted apart, the splinters flying across the classroom, a few of them travelling with such velocity that they cut up some of Clayton’s exposed skin as he shielded Harry.
“What on earth!” Slughorn exclaimed as he picked himself up off the floor in shock, looking for the source of the explosion and seemed rather surprised when he saw that it was Harry's cauldron.
“It was him,” Clay said angrily, sitting up and pointing at Ron. The red-head looked a little pale, as if he had seen a ghost and the only thing that was keeping Clay from attacking him right now was that Harry was still holding onto him. “I saw him throw something into Harry’s cauldron!”
“Clay, you’re bleeding,” Harry said as he too sat up in somewhat of a daze, unsure of what had happened but more than grateful for Clayton’s quick thinking.
“I’m fine, check on Draco,” Clay said as he got up and then pulled Harry to his feet. The submissive nodded silently, going to where Draco had ducked down beneath his desk; he too looked to be in shock but was otherwise unharmed.
“What happened?” Slughorn demanded, this time turning to Ron and Dean who looked extremely guilty. Neither of them knew what to say as the Professor demanded answers from them both.
“It was only meant to ruin his potion,” Ron muttered irritably, “if he’d done his potion correctly that’s all it would have done.”
“So much for him being a potions whizz,” Dean said a little smugly.
“I was brewing something different,” Harry said angrily, Clayton having to stop him from going past him and attacking Ron. It was clear that the little submissive was sick and tired of the red-head’s attitude.
“Which I gave him permission for,” Slughorn said tiredly having realised that it was simply a childish prank gone very wrong. He didn’t really know how to deal with it if he were honest with himself; he had heard of what had happened to Ron that morning, it had spread through the school like wildfire. If he were truthful with himself he couldn’t really blame Weasley for wanting a little revenge; however, that didn’t make it right.
“Fucking idiot,” Clayton snarled as he held Harry back, knowing that Fenrir wouldn’t want Harry to do something that he would regret later.
“Enough,” Slughorn said with exasperation. “Weasley, Thomas and Finnegan, all of you to the headmaster’s study. Prince, take Danes to the hospital wing.” Clayton had a long jagged cut on his cheek where a piece of desk had hit him and it was bleeding profusely, blood trickling down his face.
What Slughorn had failed to realise was that all five boys would be leaving the room together. For an intelligent man this was a very stupid move, though in truth he just wanted them all out of his classroom before anything else exploded. He hadn’t thought this through and simply watched as the five teenagers packed away their things.
“I am going to make sure you pay for that, Weasley,” Clay said viciously, as they reached the corridor outside the classroom, and shut the door behind them.
“You all deserved that and more,” Dean snarled at them. “You should have been expelled after what you did to Ron this morning.”
“Stop this,” Seamus said with frustration, trying to drag Dean and Ron off towards the headmaster’s office. He was already feeling fairly fed up with having got into trouble for something he had known nothing about; he had actually been doing a moderately good job with his own potion and, for once, it hadn’t exploded or anything.
“I will get you out of this school,” Ron promised, glaring at Harry with an expression of complete loathing. “I don’t care what it takes, I am going to help Granger tell the world exactly what you are!”
“Like hell you are,” Clay snarled, lunging forward and going to punch Ron, but Dean got there first and threw a punch of his own, colliding with Clay’s jaw.
“You bastard!” Harry shouted, as he charged forward, shoving Dean hard, just to get him away from Clay. “Leave us alone,” he cried out, as Ron turned to try and hit him.
“Stop!” Seamus shouted, pushing his way past Ron, catching Clay’s next hit straight to the side of his head. It hurt and made him dizzy, but he was worried that someone was going to get seriously hurt, and with it still being during lessons there weren’t any teachers coming to help.
“Move, Seamus,” Dean snapped in annoyance, trying to push the Irishman out of the way so that he could get another swing at Clayton; he hated that it seemed their friend was turning on them. It was all Harry Prince’s doing, everything had been fine until he showed up.
“You’re going to pay, Prince,” Ron declared furiously, kicking out at Harry, who barely even noticed to blow to the side of his leg.
“I will NEVER let you hurt him, Weasley!” Clayton shouted, rage kicking in as he saw the kick Ron had given Harry. He tried to push past both Seamus and Dean, trying to get to Ron, wanting to rip his head from his shoulders at that moment, wanting to make him suffer; the kick might have been almost nothing but the potions explosion could have seriously hurt Harry, or worse.
“No,” Seamus said stubbornly, holding Clay back as best as he could, with the help of Dean, their limbs were all over the place as Clay batted them away easily thanks to his werewolf strength and stamina, but Seamus and Dean were determined to protect their friend, who was now looking fearfully at the enraged teenage werewolf.
“We’ll see how disgusting you think we are in a minute,” Clay said with a snarl, snapping his teeth in Ron’s direction.
“Clay, don’t,” Harry warned, rushing forward and trying to pull Clay back from the others, seeing how close his friend’s teeth had come to Dean’s arm. But the young dominant was lost to his fury and not listening, snarling at the red-head he was still trying reach. He wanted to hurt them for almost killing Harry because in his current state of mind that was what had almost happened.
“You monster,” Dean yelled in horrified realisation at what had almost happened to him, and he shoved at Clay hard, causing them all to stumble backwards, colliding with each other ending up in a complicated tangle of limbs, all of them pushing and shoving. Harry ducked quickly under Clay’s arm to try and get the other’s off his pack brother, but to no avail, as Clay continued to snap his teeth at the other Gryffindors as they all let out fearful shouts of panic, trying to get out of his biting range.
However, as Seamus moved to try and drag Ron out of the fight there was a scream, different, even amongst the others sounding in the hallway; it was filled with pain and alarmed shock and it took a moment for the Irishman to realise that it had come from him. “No! What did you do?” Seamus asked, stumbling back away from the fray, holding his own arm with his other hand, staring at it in complete horror.
“You bit him?!” Ron demanded to know, still unmoving from the spot where he was standing looking on in complete shock.
“I didn’t mean to,” Harry suddenly shouted, thinking quickly, “it was an accident,” he added as he backed away from Clay and Dean, who both were still gripping onto the front of each other’s robes. Clay too turned to look at Harry with wide surprised eyes, which Harry met with an intense stare that plainly said for Clay to keep his mouth shut.
“You monsters,” Dean repeated, though a little weakly this time, as he let go of Clay’s robes as though he was something disgusting. “Monsters,” he said again, looking between Harry, Clayton and then to Seamus, his eyes dropping to the obvious bite mark on his friend’s arm.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ron said suddenly, grabbing Dean by the arm and pulling him off down the corridor. They were all going to be in trouble, that much seemed clear, but he wasn’t going to stick around and give the werewolves a chance to bite him too. Dean just nodded dumbly, giving Seamus a look of sympathy before rushing off with Ron.
“You should go too,” Harry said to Clay, not wanting his friend to stick around and get blamed for this. They both knew full well that it had been Clayton, not him, who had bitten Seamus, and he didn’t want to give anyone a chance to even think of that being possible, which meant Clay needed to leave now.
“What, why…?” Clay asked, still in shock from what he had done. “This is my…” he tried to explain, but Harry shook his head firmly.
“No, it isn’t,” Harry interrupted firmly. “Go, find Romy, tell her what happened and meet me in the hospital wing,” he ordered firmly, needing for his friend to understand the full weight of what he had done and also what Harry needed to do next. Clayton had protected him when he had needed it, now it was Harry’s turn to return the favour.
“But…” Clayton protested, not wanting for Harry to take the fall for this. He was the one that was meant to be looking after Harry, not the other way around, but one stern glare from his best friend and he knew not to challenge him too much on this. His werewolf genes were kicking in and telling him that this was his Alpha’s mate and he had to be obeyed.
“No, Clayton,” Harry said with authority, “just get the hell out of here and do as you’re told!” He didn’t leave any room for negotiation, taking up the role of Alpha in the emergency situation in Fenrir’s absence was easier than he thought it might be. Clay scowled at him for a moment, but after a quick glance at Seamus, hurried off down the corridor in the direction of the transfiguration classroom where he knew Romy would be.
“A werewolf bit me,” Seamus said faintly, once Clayton had disappeared from sight, looking rather sick as Harry approached him.
“It’s going to be okay,” Harry said, reaching out and taking the Gryffindor’s bitten arm in his hands, wanting to get a better look at it. He held back the wince he wanted to give when he realised that Clay really had managed to break the skin.
“But a werewolf bit me,” Seamus repeated, still hardly able to believe what had actually just happened, his brain struggling to process just how much this might change everything, what he might become. He was half hoping that Harry would tell him it wasn’t true, deny that he, Romy and Clay were werewolves like Hermione had said, but the way Harry was looking at him had already told him the truth really.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” Harry said sadly; he had been a werewolf almost all his life, certainly as long as he could remember, so he couldn’t really be sure what must be going through Seamus’ mind at that moment, but he imagined that panic and fear would be highly present.
“Am I going to be one of you now?” the Irishman asked, his voice quiet, and trembling slightly as he spoke.
“I don’t know,” Harry told him earnestly. He thought it likely that Seamus would turn now, but he didn’t know if there were other factors involved; for one thing, Clay was still technically a pup, and Harry wasn’t sure if it was even possible for a pup to turn someone. Also the skin was only barely broken, and Clay was in human form… maybe Seamus would be okay, Harry thought hopefully to himself.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Seamus asked, looking a little unsteady on his feet as he continued to cradle his bitten arm, staring at it in horror.
“I’m going to take you to the hospital wing,” Harry stated, knowing that he was going to have to take control of the situation because the Gryffindor was obviously in shock; and understandably so.
“Why are you being nice?” the Gryffindor asked, looking up to meet Harry’s sad green eyes. He didn’t think that Harry, Clay or Romy were bad people, not like Ron, Hermione and Dean seemed to, but it wasn’t like they had ever been nice to him or anyone he knew before.
“Because this shouldn’t have happened to you and I’m sorry,” Harry told him; he might not have bitten Seamus personally but he still felt the guilt and responsibility for what had happened; Clayton was part of his pack and he should never had let things get so out of control. He was partially terrified for what might happen to Clay if anyone ever found out what he had done, particularly anyone at the ministry.
“I didn’t think you were nice,” Seamus stated simply. He had only seen Harry bully Ron and Dean, and even him too, and they ones who seemed to be singing his praises at all were Slytherins, and he wasn’t fool enough to believe a word they ever said.
“You shouldn’t believe everything people tell you.” Harry stated simply, as he started to guide the still trembling and shocked Seamus towards the medical wing, wondering just how badly this was going to end.

So who saw that coming? We hope you enjoyed the chapter, and please do take a few seconds to leave us a comment with your thoughts. You can also follow both of us on facebook; or visit the Fragmented Soul website, which has everything from character profiles to fan art. The links are available on our profile pages.
Review Reponses:
Littlepanther - Sorry that there was a little bit of a wait, real life kept on getting in the way for both us, but hopefully we haven't made you wait too long. I don't think Niko will be calling Fenrir Dad just yet, even if that is kind of the role he has taken on in his life now, but it could happen ;)
Delia cerrano - Yes, both Remus and Tessie are quite quiet people, but I think Tessie proved that she can defend herself when she fought off Axlar. They are both stronger than they believe they are. Remus, however, is not really ready for someone new after all that has happened with Sirius, because it has only been a few months since they broke up.
mre-quecky - Thank you, and you are very welcome.
Sup4rii - Thank you very much, and we do certainly feel very proud of our creation, particularly when we get lovely comments like yours. Glad you feel the pacing has improved, it is certainly tricky to get that balance in a story with this level of detail. :) Hope you enjoyed this chapter too.
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