Chapter 8 – Jacob Black

"If he is the first thing you think of when you wake up, the only thing you think of when you're awake, and the last thing you think of before you go to bed, then he is really somebody special."

/Jacob/\Harry\

Harry was at the beach again.

The waves crashed along the empty shore repeatedly. Harry wiggled his toes in the sand and looked around. The sun was setting, pretty hues of orange, purple, pink, and blue stretched across the horizon. A noise had him spinning around and gaping at the tall man that had saved him from his dream.

"It's you," Harry gasped, feeling oddly delighted at seeing his dream protector.

"I prefer Jacob, actually," the man replied, flashing his teeth in a devilishly sexy grin. Harry found his face becoming hot, and he determinedly kept his eyes focused on the stranger's face.

"Jacob," he murmured, testing the name on his tongue. "What are you doing here? And where is here?"

Jacob laughed, wolfish in nature and it reminded him of Sirius. "I am the guardian in the dreamcatcher; your guardian."

Harry nearly swallowed his tongue as Jacob began to walk towards him. His emerald eyes travelled downwards from the necklace around the man's neck to the lovely expanse of Jacob's naked chest down to the shorts that seemed to be a size too small and even further to the strong thighs and toned legs. Damn, he couldn't concentrate. "You…guardian?" he stumbled out, firmly squeezing his lips together in an attempt to not drool.

Jacob smiled, nodding his head. "As long as my dreamcatcher is over your bed, I will protect you."

The words brought a pleasant flush to Harry's skin. Someone to protect him. "Nobody's ever protected me before," he blurted out quietly, taking his eyes off Jacob and staring into the waves of the water.

Well, that statement was a little false. His parents did, after all, give up their lives to protect him, but everybody else seemed to think he was perfectly capable of fending off several murder attempts throughout his Hogwarts life. Sirius was trying, now, but he hadn't always been in his life.

Jacob made a small noise of acknowledgement and grabbed Harry's hand, dragging him to where the waves touched the sand. Harry smiled when the water reached his ankles. "Well, I'm always happy to be someone's first," Jacob said cheekily, his wolfish grin wide and suggestive.

Harry blinked before snorting and turning his head. "You remind me of Sirius," he decided, a small grin on his lips.

Jacob looked confused. "Serious? I thought I was a laid-back type of guy, actually, but thank you for crushing my perception of myself…"

Harry laughed. "Not serious, Sirius. He's my godfather."

Jacob managed to look like a kicked puppy. "Great, so I remind you of some old geezer."

Harry shook his head, smiling. Jacob definitely reminded him of Sirius. The wolfish laughter, the demeanor, the eyes. It made him feel more relaxed than he'd felt in months. All of the tension and pressures of the outside world melted and Harry could actually breathe. "Sirius isn't old," he said. He saw Jacob grin and briefly wondered why he felt so familiar and comfortable around a man he'd never before met.

"Well, Harry Potter, why don't you tell me about yourself?" Jacob plopped down onto the wet sand, ignoring the water that crept along the shore.

Harry glanced at him in surprise. "How'd you know my name?"

"That red-eyed freaky dude," Jacob replied bluntly. "Which, by the way, leads me to ask you a question. How did another soul end up residing in your body?"

Harry gasped. "Another soul? What do you mean?" he asked quietly, feeling very small.

Jacob stared at him for a moment before trying to put his observation into words. "That red-eyed creep was not just a dream or a figment of your imagination. It was another soul—or what was left of a soul. It resembled more of a leech than a proper soul, to be honest with you."

Harry swallowed thickly and felt his insides quiver. "Leech?"

Jacob nodded, his face one of seriousness and concern. "It seemed to be feeding off you somehow," he explained. "I've never seen anything like it."

"I don't know what it was," Harry murmured. "I guess I'll have to ask Sirius or Professor Dumbledore about it."

He didn't realize how afraid his voice sounded until Jacob had wrapped his large arms around him and began murmuring words of comfort.

"It's gone now," Jacob assured. "It can't come back, and on the off chance that it does, I will be here to drive it away."

Harry nodded his head. It was gone. That thought made breathing a little easier. "Thank you," he whispered.

Jacob pulled away and nodded his head, grinning. "It was nothing," he said, a strange gleam in his eyes. "Are you going to tell me about yourself?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm not very interesting."

Jacob scoffed. "Humor me, then," he said, though his tone clearly indicated his disbelief at Harry's previous statement.

"Well, I guess I'm your average wizard. I don't have parents, and right now I'm spending the summer with my godfather. Um, I don't know what else to tell you…" Harry trailed off.

"How old are you?" Jacob asked, his head cocked to the side not unlike a…well, wolf.

"Fourteen. I'll be fifteen at the end of July," Harry replied, smiling a little. "What about you?"

Jacob smirked. "I'm sixteen."

Harry couldn't help it. His jaw dropped. This very sexy protector of his was only sixteen years old? He definitely didn't look it. "But…how are you so…oh, that's just not fair." Harry huffed slightly, cursing his genes. "Wait, if you're only…oh, never mind."

"No, what is it?" Jacob looked at him curiously.

Harry hesitated. "It's just…you're only sixteen. How did you end up in a dreamcatcher?"

Jacob winced slightly, and Harry immediately rushed to apologize. Jacob waved it away, however, and began to explain his story. "To make a long story short, I failed at protecting someone I loved very much. And back in my time, that failure shamed not only me, but my tribe and my pack. I asked my shaman to help me redeem myself, and this was the solution," Jacob concluded. He gave Harry a grin. "And I'd like to think I've been doing a pretty good job so far."

Harry smiled back before frowning. "It must be awfully lonely…"

Jacob shrugged. "I get to spend time with the people I protect, when I protect them," he explained. "Yeah, there are times when I miss my family, especially my father, but I saw him before I agreed to be sealed in here. He understood, and he wished me the best. Besides, I still have this necklace he gave me, and it makes me feel close to him."

Harry nodded. He looked at the necklace and unconsciously leaned forward to get a closer look. It was beautiful in its simplicity and sentimentality, a black chord with an animal tooth hanging from it. Harry reached up slowly, as if he was expecting Jacob to swat his hand away. When Jacob merely cocked an eyebrow at him, Harry grasped the animal tooth and ran his thumb over it.

"What kind of animal did this come from?" he asked curiously.

"Wolf," Jacob replied with a grin. "Not from my pack or anything, but a real wolf. It had broken into my hut during the winter, crazed and snarling. My father had lost the use of his legs in a hunting accident when I was a child, so he was basically helpless. That was the first time I shifted."

Harry stared at him in something akin to amazement. "So you're basically an animagus?"

Jacob shrugged. "I guess you could call me that. That's what someone else called me. I prefer the term shifter," he replied.

Harry smiled his understanding. It took him a moment to realize he was very close to Jacob's chest and still caressing the wolf tooth. He blushed a little and went to move away when Jacob grabbed his wrist and gently held him in place.

"What?" Harry muttered quietly.

Jacob smirked. "You still haven't told me more about yourself," he reminded.

Harry tugged his hand back and rubbed his head sheepishly. "Okay, um, I go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he said softly. "I have two best friends, Ron and Hermione, who have been with me through thick and thin…well, almost through thick and thin. Ron can be a bit of a prat at times. My favorite class is Defense Against the Dark Arts, and, uh, I like the color green?"

Jacob let out a small laugh. "Are you asking or telling me?" His lips were quirked in that patented Black Smirk© that had Harry practically drooling.

He'd never found somebody so attractive before. Not even Cho, and that entire debacle had been a nightmare last year. Although, he thought as his eyes once again wandered to Jacob's chest, nobody could really blame him for being so attracted to his own gender. "Telling?" he squeaked, realizing that Jacob had once again caught him ogling.

"Well, Harry Potter," Jacob said softly, "that doesn't sound like you're boring at all."

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "I guess compared to how my life used to be, my life now can be pretty exciting," he admitted, remembering how the Dursleys had essentially snuffed out his personality when he was living with them. "But, as you already saw, some of that excitement isn't a good thing. In fact, most of it is the life threatening kind."

Jacob had somehow managed to move closer to Harry as he spoke, which startled the wizard once he finally looked up. The shifter had really dark brown eyes, Harry noted with a small amount of fascination.

"My old friend, Bella, she was like that. Always attracting trouble wherever she went," Jacob said softly. "She had garnered the interest of vampires, the good and the bad kind."

Harry cocked his head. "I've never met a vampire," he said. "My old teacher Remus is a werewolf, though, and he's really nice."

Jacob grinned. "See, there's another interesting thing about you," he commented as he reached up to gently tug a strand of Harry's hair.

Harry let out a small whine as he reached up and rubbed his scalp. It hadn't hurt, but the action had surprised him and seemed surprisingly intimate. Intimate in the way that implied that either Jacob had known him for quite some time, or that they had been lovers. Either way, Harry decided to ignore it because to say he didn't like it would be a lie, and saying he did like it implied something he had yet to truly think about.

"How long have you been in this dreamcatcher?" Harry asked. It was somewhat of an abrupt change of subject, and Jacob knew it going by his teasing smile.

"Over a thousand years," he said nonchalantly.

Harry's jaw dropped. "That's a really long time," he said finally once he got over the shock. "Are you always going to be in there?" That would be an incredibly unfortunate fate, not only because Harry was ridiculously attracted to the shifter but also because Jacob deserved to see the outside world. A lot has changed in the course of a thousand years, and Harry couldn't imagine someone would be okay with living in a dreamcatcher for Merlin knows how much longer.

"No," Jacob said.

Harry waited for him to clarify, but huffed when the boy remained silent. "Do you need help getting out?" he asked.

Jacob leaned back on his elbows in a pose that had Harry vehemently focusing on the shifter's face. "Nope," he said, popping the 'p' and smirking. "Don't you worry about me. The point of me being here is to guard you from whatever ails your dreams. We've solved the big problem, but we'll need to be sure."

Harry sobered immediately, nodding his head solemnly. "Do you think there's anything else inside me?" he asked quietly. "I mean, you said a piece of Voldemort's soul was inside me. Could he have left anything else?"

Jacob sat up slowly. There was an uncertain pause between them spanning several heartbeats, and before Harry could work himself into a panic, Jacob easily pulled him into a hug. He let out a yelp, his body colliding with Jacob's strong one, but there was no chance to stammer or feel embarrassed. Jacob wrapped his arms around Harry and they sat there quietly wrapped in each other, listening to the calming waves of the ocean.

"I will not let anything happen to you," Jacob promised.

Harry felt his body relaxing. That hadn't been a yes, but it wasn't a no either. He rested his head on Jacob's chest and just listened to the boy's heartbeat. It was strong, and Harry forgot for a moment that he was in a dream.

He let Jacob's heart lull him into a peaceful rest.

A/N: So...long time no see? I know it's been a long time (three freaking years) since anybody has seen me, and I do apologize. Long story short, I lost the password to both here and my e-mail for this account, and despite how many times I requested a password reset link from here and even going as far as e-mailing the admins, I've only recently managed to get back in. Not to mention the fact that my laptop had issues that didn't get addressed for quite some time (well over a year) and it was very lucky that I managed to google a fix. Good news is that most of my files were saved. Bad news is that I've completely lost the outlines to this story, Midnight's Call, and The King and His Hero. Please bear with me as I wing it and hope that this comes out okay.

Because this isn't getting abandoned. I won't update as often as people will like, and I do apologize for that, but this WILL be complete.

That being said, if anybody likes Glee, I do have another account on here (famigleea) in which I have started writing Glee fanfiction. Anyways, please review. I know it's not long enough for having waited three years, but it's better than nothing. Thanks!