In the Eye of the Wolf
By Becca
Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise
Notes: Ugh! I know you all want to kill me and I seriously can't blame you lol. A shortish-sweet chapter here for you now, just to let you all know that I haven't abandoned it. Just like I haven't abandoned any of my other stories. I'll tryyyy and get updates up quicker but I'm working on my 'Heir of Corvus' series and am still seriously blocked on just about everything else. I haven't checked for any errors because its 7.55 am and I haven't been to sleep yet, I wanted to get this up for you.
Chapter Twelve
Interesting certainly wasn't the word for it.
Harry woke to find some emerald green robes laid out for him, as promised, and he dressed in them as quickly as he could. The material was of the finest he had ever seen before; it felt like silk but looked much richer. The robes pulled tight across his chest, clinging to his muscles on the upper part of his body and then it just shimmered down to the ground, brushing against his legs softly as he walked.
He straightened out his hair with surprising ease and noticed that it had grown quite a bit since he last cut it. If he remembered correctly, that had been over a year ago when Aunt Petunia had ranted about the uselessness of it. Instead of merely pushing it back and leaving it, he pulled a hair-tie pit of his trunk which had been amongst the clothes Sirius had bought him at the beginning of the year, and then tied his hair back.
It was only just long enough to go in a ponytail but it would do. He left two bangs out to frame his face, one of which nearly managed to cover the scar completely.
When he was ready, he stepped out of the bedroom hesitantly and then pushed the door to the 'living room' open to see the headmaster sat with a book on his knee in front of the fire, though it didn't look like the old man was actually reading, he seemed to be lost in his thoughts.
Without saying a word and trying to not disturb him, Harry stepped further into the room and shut the door behind him. He glanced around awkwardly but before he could go and sit in the chair near the window, he noticed that he had gained the headmasters attention.
"Ahh good morning Harry, did you sleep well?"
"Yes sir, thank you sir. Yourself?" he replied politely and he smiled with a little relief as the old man patted the seat beside him. He crossed the room and sat on the other end of the settee, clasping his hands and letting them fall to his knee.
This was awkward.
"Relax my son; this is your home now. Should you wish it, of course?" Dumbledore said softly when he noticed the tenseness and he reached across to take Harry's hand. "I happened to sleep exceptionally well, thank you very much. Please, call me Albus."
"Yes sir- umm – Albus." Harry murmured awkwardly and then grinned sheepishly at the laugh he received in return. They both sat in silence for a while, staring into the fire while Albus continued to hold Harry's hand and then the old wizard sighed heavily.
"Come, we'll go down to the kitchens for breakfast before we leave. I assume you are hungry?"
Harry allowed himself to be led out through Dumbledore's, well, their, quarters and into the office. He saw Fawkes perched on his wooden stick and he walked over to stroke the Phoenix while the headmaster collected something from the draw of his desk. Without a word said, they left the office and entered the main part of the school.
Harry was barely able to pay attention as they entered the kitchens and sat down at the table there, attacked by house elves. He was too busy thinking about the day ahead. He knew without a doubt that one of the places they would visit today would be the Ministry to register him as a werewolf. It had to be done or there was a huge penalty should the ministry find a werewolf unregistered. Sometimes that penalty resulted in a sentence to Azkaban.
Harry definitely didn't want that.
It was inevitable. He had known that from the very start, before anyone else had found out. He had known that the entire world would find out and that it would probably be posted in the Daily Prophet, and if he wanted to admit it, then he would have to say that it had been dragged out for a lot longer than expected. Part of him didn't care, he knew he had everybody who loved and cared for him at his side. He had Remus and Sirius and Sev and Dumb-Albus and then of course there were his friends.
He would get through this.
He had to get through this.
He chewed slowly on a piece of toast and turned his thoughts away from the Ministry. Dumbledore had said that they were going to be doing lots of things today, so apart from registering him as a werewolf, what else would they be doing? For the life of him, he couldn't even begin to guess.
"Harry? Are you alright?" Dumbledore asked kindly and Harry blinked away from his thoughts, smiling sheepishly when he realised that the old man had been trying to get his attention for the last five minutes.
"Yes sir, I was just thinking. Are you going to tell me what we're doing today yet?" he asked hopefully but Dumbledore just beamed at him, his eyes twinkling so much that Harry couldn't stop himself from laughing. One could say that it was cute.
"Nope, it's a surprise." Albus replied in a sing-song voice, grinning inwardly when Harry gave yet another snort of amusement. He eyed the young boy for a minute intently and sighed, they would be going to the Ministry, but after that Albus wanted to do something that would take Harry's mind off everything for a while. The truth was, he didn't even know what they would be doing today himself yet.
Perhaps a little shopping spree would do the trick.
-
Harry remained tense and unyielding from the minute they entered the Ministry building. He hadn't been far wrong when he had thought about them coming here. The headmaster had explained the necessity to him again, even though Harry knew why it must be done, and had tried to reassure him and tell him that everything would be fine. The only problem was that Dumbledore sounded like he was trying to reassure himself just as much as he was Harry.
His hand was being held, once more, by the headmaster of Hogwarts as they both handed over their wands. Dumbledore cheerfully and Harry with obvious hesitation. He didn't like to part with his only weapon anymore, not after the bloody summer he had had. When the wands had been put away safely and they had been deemed harmless to ministry officials in general, they passed through to a long corridor where several of the black portals that led to different offices and places.
Harry was instantly reminded of the end of the summer before his fifth year.
The forth portal they came too, Dumbledore stopped him and then motioned for him to go through first. With a deep breath, Harry bowed his head with acknowledgement and then pushed himself through.
When he came through on the other side, he was in a rather large office that had two desks in it. Rather like Mr. Weasleys office had been but at least twice the size. A witch and a wizard that Harry had never seen before we sat at said desks with their heads bowed over paperwork, and they both glanced up when they saw him enter.
Before anyone could say anything, Dumbledore had come through and he placed his hand on Harry's shoulder comfortingly as he smiled at the two officials.
"Good morning Lisa, Phillip." He said cheerfully and the two smiled widely.
"Morning headmaster. I must say, this is a surprise." the woman, Lisa, replied immediately as she stood up and held out her hand to the old man. Dumbledore took it gently and then motioned to Harry.
"Cant stay long I'm afraid, pressing business to attend too. First though, my young friend here needs to be registered as a werewolf. I want this to remain low key… no one but yourselves and the Minister is to hear about this." He said sternly, looking over the tops of his glasses at them. The two were staring at Harry in obvious shock, seeing the scar on his forehead and the obvious closeness between Harry and the headmaster.
"Of course! Mr. Potter, I'm afraid I'm going to need you to tell me everything about the night of the accident and the events surrounding it." Phillip managed to choke out after a minute, pulling a form out of his desk. Harry glanced up at Dumbledore and sighed when the old man nodded for him to do so. He told them out running away from the abuse, about managing to apparate somehow and then about finding himself in a forest on the night of a full moon.
Everything was reported carefully, word for word, and as suspected, the man said that they were going to have to inform the aurors about the abuse so that they could arrest the muggles and take action. Expected yet, but Harry had been hopeful that if he just skimmed over that bit, it wouldn't stick out. Unfortunately he had been wrong.
A blood sample was taken from him as well as more information on everything down to his shoe size. Finally after hours or answering questions, a mark was pressed into Harry's skin, on the underneath side of his arm, just above his elbow. A mark that told all who looked what he was. Lisa had been terribly apologetic about that and had even had tears in her eyes as she did it, obviously she hadn't wanted to.
It mattered little really. It had been done.
Finally, they left the Ministry and it wasn't until they were outside and breathing fresh air that Harry allowed himself to relax a little bit. He wanted nothing more now than to go home, curl up and pretend that none of this had ever happened, but Albus had ideas of his own.
First they went to Madame Malkin's where Dumbledore insisted on buying them both some muggle clothes. Then they changed into said clothes and headed into muggle London itself.
Harry had never been here before and he had to admit that it proved to be interesting. The first shop they went in had been a muggle clothes shop and everything that Harry looked at, Dumbledore bought. He didn't listen to any protests and just beamed when Harry glared at him with frustration, claiming that this was a treat from himself, Remus, Sirius and Severus.
After the clothes shop, they went to the book shop where Harry was very careful not to look at anything… but keeping his eyes closed the entire time. The situation was awkward, but Dumbledore would have none of it and he kept showing books to Harry, making him open his eyes to take a peek out of curiosity.
Already laden with more than enough bags towards them, Albus led him through London town centre, stopping in whatever shop caught his interest. After a while the embarrassment died down and Harry even found himself having fun. He managed to forget about the ministry for a while, even managed to forget about everything else as he tried on a pair of blue denim jeans with a brown picture of an eagle stamped across the back pockets.
Finally, after what must have been hours, they came to a stop outside of a muggle food place called MacDonalds. Harry had always wanted to try this but his relatives had never allowed him too. Their pockets were full of shrunken bags and in their hands they held more than enough to weigh them down… but Harry was smiling.
He had never before had so much fun.
-
When they returned to the castle, Harry went straight to his room to put all of his new things away and actually found himself running out of room. The drawers were full of clothes and yet he had a bit left over. The bookcase was full of books but he still had at least twenty more piled on the floor. He also had a few board games, some jewellery, new shoes and god only knew what else.
When he had finished, he slipped back out of the room and into the living room, as he had been instructed. Dumbledore was sat at the table this time and next to him sat both Remus and Sirius. All three men smiled when he entered and then gestured to the two things on the table in front of them.
The first thing was a dark red egg, the size of tennis ball. Harry looked at it for a minute with open confusion before he finally looked back up at the teachers.
"A phoenix egg Harry. Fathered by Fawkes… though he won't tell me who owns the mother. Fawkes tells me that this one is to be born for you specially. Like the wand, it's the phoenixes that choose the wizard." Dumbledore explained and Harry blinked, completely speechless. He stepped closer and reached out but stopped before he touched it, merely tracing around it in awe.
"I – wow – this is – thank you." He stuttered eventually and Dumbledore nodded with a smile. He was about to say something else when Sirius pushed the piece of paper across to Harry first, with obvious excitement. Watching his godfather cautiously, Harry took up the piece of paper and then his breath caught in his throat when he read the title.
"APPLICATION FOR JOINT-ADOPTION"
Was plastered across the top of the page. Harry looked back up with tears in his eyes and swallowed hard, unable to think of anything to say.
"Siri and I are going to live with each other out of school… we were rather hoping that you would join us sometimes. As a werewolf, I personally can't fill out the form and so Sirius will do that part." Remus explained, breaking the silence.
"Of course, I can't let them steal my son away all the time now can I?" Albus asked with a beaming smile. "If you agree and sign this, then you can spend half of the summer with Remus and Sirius, and then other half of the summer with me. Weekends we take it in turns and for Christmas we'll all be together." He said again and Harry stared at them, his tears running free.
"I – I don't know what to say – I – I mean – of course I want to! – but I – are you sure this is what you want?" he asked hesitantly, almost fearing the answer. The three men merely smiled softly at him and nodded without hesitation, letting him see how much they wanted this in their eyes.
When he was reassured, he dropped the letter back onto the table and then launched himself into their arms, Remus first because he was closest. He clung on to them tightly, unable to believe what he was seeing… or hearing. Any doubts that he may have had about their love for him now vanished and left him feeling warm and, well, once could say happy.