A/N: This chapter resulted afteran overnighter at uni with nothing but 15 minutes worth of power-napping in those long 36 odd hrs, so kindly ignore any blatant spelling/grammar mistakes, or anything that doesn't make sense in general (which may very well be the entire chapter but meh).
Harry Potter wondered if he was dead, but then realised he was in way too much pain to be anywhere near as dead as he'd hoped. Shivering, he curled closer to the warmth along his side while his entire body screamed in protest against the slight movement. But that's not the worst of his troubles; he was currently inflicted with a migraine that was the great grandmother of the mother of all migraines. His head was now just mass of sensitive nerves wracked with fiery hot pain every half a second. Which somehow, as impossible as it may seem, felt worse than the time his giant pink blob of a cousin doused his hair with lighter fluid and actually set his head aflame with his new pencil blowtorch (Vernon Dursley wasn't laughing by the time his new leather jacket received the same treatment and the poor blowtorch now resided in the musty old desk at his uncle's work, misused now and then to heat pasta or melt butter for lunch).
After fifteen minutes worth of willing for all the pain to disappear and failing miserably, the flushed boy forced his eyes open. The first thing he realised was he couldn't see, after a brief moment of panic he realised it was due the fact he had his face mashed up against a fur coat of some kind. The second thing he realised after he peeled his face away from the fur coat was that it wasn't a fur coat. Unless that is, said fur coat had brilliant icy blue eyes, a muzzle, two twitching ears and resembled remarkably the biggest wolf Harry had ever seen.
Jumping up in alarm, letting out the most girlish squeal he would ever emit, Harry ran away as fast as his legs would take him. Or at least, that's what he would have done had his body been willing to cooperate. What really happened however was a pathetic mew and a uncoordinated scramble that took him a grand distance of a hand span from his original position. After a few seconds, Harry squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. Not only was he in worse pain than before (his body really didn't appreciate the sudden movement), he was now cold as well. He should have stayed where he was, at least then he'd be nice and warm when the wolf decided it was hungry rather than cold and damp like he was now.
"That was astoundingly the most pathetic act of get away I have ever seen!" An unfamiliar voice howled with laughter.
The boy snapped his eyes open, scanning the dim area for the source of the sound. Try as he might he could not spot anything remotely human, he did however find a large number of wolves all shapes and sizes which made his attempt to escape a few moments before seem even more ridiculous.
"Yes, it was indeed. Most amusing thing I've come across since Spaz got his head stuck in a tree chasing after that squirrel."
"Where are you?" Harry growled, in both frustration and humiliation.
"My, are you blind on top of having absolutely no coordination?"
Speaking of blindness, Harry awkwardly patted his face in search of his missing glasses and found them indeed to be missing. Blinking, he looked around again and found he was still able to see clearly, just as he had once been able to before he got his glasses. In fact, probably better than before if this uncanny ability to see in the dim setting was any indication. So absorbed was he in this new discovery, Harry did not noticed the second wolf until she stuck her snout in his face.
A yelp and a flinch was all he could manage, other than that the boy stayed stock still in his sprawled position observing the newcomer with morbid fascination.
She was beautiful (it was a her, he just knew it somehow), with smooth gleaming white coat and amber eyes that glowed. Perfectly proportioned, she was by far the most graceful and artistic creature he'd ever seen. The only quality that detracted from her attractivenesswas probably the fact that she was a large wolf who could and may very well decide that he was dinner.
"Oh dear, he's still thinking we're going to just gobble him right up isn't he?"
Emerald green eyes widened.
The she-wolf nosed him again and darted a playful lick across his cheek, her laughing eyes sparkled with mirth.
"I'm sorry to say your rather scrawny form does nothing at all for us big bad wolves of the west."
"West? I thought we were situated more north-ish than west?"
"Ah well, it went better. Alliteration and all you know."
Harry Potter was now bloody confused. Here he was in the middle of nowhere, in more pain than he'd ever been, being patronised by two large wolves, wait, make that two largetalking wolves (as there is no doubt now concerning the speakers, as one Sherlock Holmes once stated, when all other possibilities have been eliminated, the only one left, no matter how utterly absurd it may seem, must be the truth – or something along those lines anyway) who were now happily conversing about the technicalities of the English language. He has been in many…strange, shall we say, situations before (usually the cause of a large pink beach ball named Dudley) but this is simply ludicrous.
Reaching over to pinch himself just to check he was awake, Harry paused as he felt sharp pain lance through his body.
'Well that's good enough in a bad way I suppose…' Fighting to keep his breath in check, the boy clenched his fists, wishing for it to end. Green eyes glazed over in shock as another wave of pain hit.
The two wolves had long since stopped trading remarks and turned their attention to the tense boy. The white female leaned forward, touching a cool nose to his brow then plopped herself down next to him. The boy shivered slightly as the warmth began seeping through his side, he didn't realise just how cold he'd gotten. A soft padding, then another warm body at his side. Sighing slightly as the warmth seem to take away some of his pain as well, the boy felt himself relax against the canines. Slowly, sleepy green eyes drooped shut as Harry Potter was finally whisked away by Morpheus into the land of dreams.
Unbeknownst to the sleeping boy, two wolves, dark and light, ying and yang gazed intently down at him and in a split second decision that felt as right as the rain that still poured from the sky outside, appointed themselves his new guardians. A few more moments of comfortable silence before the female darted a sly sideways glance at her partner.
"Bags not telling the matriarch."
Her darker counterpart merely grinned…well…wolfishly before responding.
"Fine by me, I've always wanted to try out the whole 'Ma look what we found' approach."
The female snorted silently, careful not to jostle the sleeping boy while the male gingerly extracted himself from the boy's side with far more gentleness than would be expected. With eyes twinkling with mirth, the large wolf then bounded off like a puppy on crack.
Left alone with her charge, the alpha female gently curled herself tighter around the sleeping boy.
"When you wake up my little one, we really ought to do something about your projections."
Darting a nervous glance around the front area of the house, one Petunia Dudley quickly ushered her baby boy out onto the lawns. Standing stiffly on the side of the stairs she watched her darling-kin's Oscar winning performance.
Dudley gave a nervous twitch, swallowing and turning a rather interesting shade of magenta he gave strangled holler.
"Harry! Hurry up, we're gonna be late!"
With that, the overweight blob turned and shuffled frantically for the car.
From inside the house emerged a new figure. Clad in clothing several sizes too big with a baseball cap pulled over his face. A young boy with round glasses and messy hair came running down the stairs. With a quick wave and a 'Bye Aunt Petunia' he darted through the open car door into Vernon's ugly ford.
From the window of her cosy little house a few ways away, one Arabella Figg observed the exchange with a pleased smile. Today was a fishing trip she believed, nodding agreeably she returned to the kitchen to check on the water for her tea. Ever since the Dursleys returned from their trip from theAmericas they had been paying young Harry more attention which he desperatelyneeded. Perhaps the time spent in a foreign country has managed to convince the muggle family that the green eyed little boy was really rather sweet and most polite and helpful. From what she had gathered, the family had decided to send their son Dudley and Harry to a prestiged boarding school in Scotland in the coming school year. At first she was rather concerned and passed along the news to Albus, but the old man seemed delighted with the idea reflecting that such a change will get Harry used to the idea of boarding schools and allow him to become more independent. The Headmaster even took the liberties of modifying the blood protection charms so that they were now centred through Dudley Dursley who will be in close vicinity to Harry for most of the year. Humming a merry tune under her breath, Arabella took the kettle off the stove and set about to start dinner.
A few miles away, the little boy with round glasses pulled off his cap and extended out a grubby hand.
"Where's my money mister."
Pulling over in a narrow street, Vernon Dursley grumbled before emptying his wallet of cash.
"Now listen here you brat, one word of this to anyone…"
The boy widened his big brown eyes as he put on an innocent look.
"Why, sir, I would neverdream oftelling anyone about this… provided we agree on my pay and all that of course"
Counting the wad of cash he shoved a pink Dudley out of the way before clambering out of the car.
"Don't forget, we'll pick you up at the same place in two weeks time!" Vernon hollered, a hint of panic showing through.
A brisk salute was all the indication of agreeance that the child gave to the request as he strolled down the alleyway.
A sweating Dudley hurriedly pulled the door shut and met his father's eyes.
"Think we'll pull it off dad?"
The fat man grunted, nodding his head affirmative with more confidence than he felt.
"Of course son. We're almost home free, one more show for the crowd and we're there. Just once more and he'll be out of our lives. For good."
Half way across the world at Professor Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters, Storm ran her fingers repeatedly through her fine hair. Staring intently at the monitors of D-5 she typed furiously, stopping only once in a while to either sip out of her beloved mug or run her hands in frustration through her hair, again. Despite the lack of evidence Ororo was still utterly convinced that the supposed 'glitch' of the new sensor system was more than it appeared. Call it woman's intuition if you will, but she somehow knew something big was happening and she was stuck right in the middle of it, they all were. Now if only she could convince someone else without being stared at like she was a hallucinogenic sleep deprived nut. (Although she must concede to the sleep deprived description)
Twenty minutes later, the exotic woman let out a yelp of frustration and threw herself forwards, slumping over the large table. Glaring at the monitor with undisguised hatred she stabbed an accusing finger at it.
"Ungrateful little thing aren't you? Imade you! You're not supposed to do this to me!"
Waving her fists around in protest it was not long before the woman slammed them against the worn keyboard. Swearing mentally Ororo quickly straightened the offended item before the flashing screen caught her eye.
"Hardware balancing…?"
Eyes widening the woman shot off her seat. If this were a cartoon then there'd be a giant flashing light bulb dancing around her head.
"How could I have been so stupid?"
Getting on all fours she crawled beneath the table making her way behind the tall cabinets that were the brains and brawn of the D-5. Running long fingers down the wired plates she quickly spotted her target and pulled out a humming green circuit board with an excited grin. After a few moments and much prodding, the woman called Storm felt the colour wash out of her face. There, on the data storage capacitor was a tiny microscopic hole. Somehow, whatever had been detected that day had been even more powerful than she'd originally anticipated, in fact, it had been powerful enough to burn right through their system – literally! No wonder she couldn't find any record of it afterwards, the memory of that split second record had been completely wiped, the only reason the system didn't crash altogether was because she was a perfectionist and insisted on independent operation on all the files. Carefully unslotting the evidence she wriggled her way back out. Clutching her sanity tightlyto her chest she marched out of the labs towards the Professor's study.
"This is bigger than I thought."
A/N: Yay! I'm alive! Thanks for bearing with me!