Author's Note: Well this chapter made me fight for every word, wow. Alright, important note- I tweaked the ending of Chapter Two so that I could fix some logistical problems in the story. So I'm sorry in advance if it doesn't suit some folks. Secondly, the next few chapters are pretty thoroughly outlined now thanks to this chapter. I hate to say it though, it more of a filler really. So I'm sorry about that too. If anyone has questions or concerns please leave a comment and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Also, shout out to Seablue eyes 9311 for helping me straighten some things out in regards to this story. That's all really. Hope you enjoy.

"I'll just go ahead and take that as a no then."

"What's done is done. Fretting over the past causes nothing but heartache, something which you are well aware of."

Chapter Three: Snow Covered Findings

Burning cold violently woke Harry. This time for sure he knew he had been asleep, just a glance down at himself showed that. It looked to have been snowing when he fell into this world and it had done nothing but accumulate on himself while he lay on some sort of hard surface. Shuddering as a chill wind blew Harry slowly start to push himself up, brushing the dry snow off his chest as he did. Now that he was standing, he tried to determine where he was. Not that it mattered considering this was an entirely different world.

Squinting, he sees what he thinks might be a large river. Frozen, of course, and buried in snow; but the way the snow lies makes him think it might be one. Facing the river there didn't look to be anything but glaring white. The landscape may have once had rolling hills or maybe just grasslands of some sort, either way the snow had turned it into a level tundra. Turning the other way reveals a forest, which was far more promising than aimlessly wandering through the barren landscape in the other direction. He shivered again as went to get off of his vantage point, his teeth starting to chatter and his fingers needing that one second more to unclench from the fists he had put them in while trying to stay warm. Once he lowered himself to his knees, because he definitely wasn't about to just jump into snow Merlin knew how deep, he realized he hadn't been standing on a rock or piece of ice like he had originally assumed. Brushing more of the snow away he could only blankly stare at it.

An enormous tree trunk was laid out beneath him; blackened, either by fire or age Harry couldn't tell, and split by the ice that had managed to creep between the rings. It was easily twice as big as the trunk of the Whomping Willow. Harry could hardly imagine the sheer size the thing must have been when it was living. Leaning closer he saw that while ice had in fact managed to get into the grooves of the tree, there was already a solid protective layer between him and its actual surface. Under the ice were jagged points and uneven pits interspersed with smoother sections, like somebody had taken an axe to the tree before giving up and managing to tear it down some other way.

Torn from his thoughts as the stinging numbness in his fingers became too intense, Harry restarted his original efforts to get to the ground. After a few false starts he was eventually successful, it was surprisingly difficult to get a firm hold on an ice-covered piece of wood with frozen fingers. A few steps back showed that the stump leveled off around his chin, a fact that brought uneasy questions to mind regarding the potential inhabitants of this new world. Utterly bewildered Harry turned around and started to make for the forest in the distance.

As he began his trek, he noted that the sky had lost some of the pale blue tinge it had before, becoming a more foreboding shade of grey. I need to get out of here, he thought hurriedly. He already couldn't feel his toes and he wasn't even halfway to the distant forest. Suddenly he stopped as the ridiculousness of his situation hit him. For Merlin's sake, you're a wizard! Cast a charm! He rolled his eyes as he berated his own idiocy. Right until he remembered that he no longer had a wand. Clenching his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering, honestly it didn't really help, he looked helplessly at his hands. Obviously, wand movements wouldn't work, he was assuming they wouldn't anyway, and he knew that only the more powerful wizards were able to do it. There was a distant memory of a guy at The Leaky Cauldron and an even foggier memory of a class in History of Magic about Grindelwald, neither of which were particularly helpful at the moment.

With a groan of frustration and no other ideas he closed his eyes and tried to think of warmth. Tried to clear his mind like the late Professor Snape had viciously tried to teach him and to imagine what it was like to just be warm. Nothing happened. It was taking even more effort to move his fingers and he could feel his headache returning from how tightly his teeth were pressed together. "Come on!" he growled as he rubbed his hands together, opening his eyes to be able to inspect them. As luck would have it, they seemed to be alright. For now, anyway. He spent a few more minutes just trying to warm up his hands against the biting cold before continuing his walk, frantically trying to think of a solution. It was near what Harry guessed to be the halfway point when he had another idea.

There were periods of time after his third year that the desire to become an Animagus scratched at him. He had spent hours trying to decipher different books on the theory of the magic but didn't really try to go further than that; he had accepted a long time ago that while he could understand human motives and read body language with relative ease, Hermione had the skill for picking out what an author actually means to tell you- not just what they've written. There was a instance during fifth year though, it still confuses him as much as it gives a sense of accomplishment, where he decided he was going to cast a spell mentioned in one of the books. It was relatively straight-forward in comparison to the book he found it in. Ideally one memorized the words, then the wand movements, then cast it on the person who wanted insight as to what their Animagus form would be. It offered a doorway of sorts, or a place to turn around. If a witch or wizard didn't like what they saw after the spell then they could turn away from the grueling process of mastering their form altogether, as opposed to obtaining the skill and never using it again. What was difficult about it was when the caster was also the intended target. Everything from wand movements to word choice had to be changed to be able to effectively narrow down the magical intent. Thankfully, Harry had done this before that incident in fifth year. That incident being when at the height of that chaotic year all he wanted was for something to go his way. So, without telling anyone, he cast the spell and promptly threw himself into teaching the DA. He had assumed he hadn't done it correctly when a week had passed by without anything happening. He had never been more wrong.

For at least two weeks, in between visions of Voldemort, he had been plagued with random dreams. Some he ran, one he slept, and another still he just walked- brushing against objects as he went. In all of them he remembered hearing the rustling whisper of fur and that four-beat drum of an animal running. He remembered how confusing it could be when he woke up too quickly. Getting used to being as tall as he was, which wasn't very, or to walking on two legs again. Even if he'd never actually experienced anything other than that. It wasn't too hard to pass it off as him being half awake though, that was nice, especially with all the scrutiny that Umbridge had been giving him at the time. His temper had been shorter during those two weeks as well, mentally anyway. He did his absolute best not to show it. He could recall very clearly how some of his encounters with Umbridge, Malfoy too occasionally, would result in him stalking away with clenched fists as he mentally pictured lunging for her throat. It was an unnerving experience and makes him cringe to this day.

But without any other ideas, Harry stopped and closed his eyes again as he brought the dreams back to the forefront of his mind. No sooner had he done this he became aware of a roiling intangible mass within him. Frequently during the school year Harry needed to exhaust himself a not think for a while, he mostly did this after meetings with the DA since it was convenient, and he had felt something similar after magically wearing himself out with a brutal dueling practice. It's near impossible for him to not know what his own magic feels like at this point really. Yet this was wilder than he was accustomed to and felt deeper, like a peaceful river with a raging current beneath its surface. With a few half-remembered theories in his head he drew out that feeling as he tried to bring it closer. A surge of unfiltered emotion coursed through him. His need for warmth intensified as his desire to find anything else in this new world increased ten-fold. Pieces of the dreams swept rapidly through his mind while they became ever clearer.

It was abrupt when it happened. One second, he was freezing and panting against the onslaught of emotion that he couldn't quite control, then the next he was on the ground and considerably warmer than before. As he took inventory over his body a groaning whine escaped him when a dull ache began to register. A whine which was quickly cut short as soon as it reached his ears. Lifting his head, he looked at himself excitedly

He was obviously a dog of some sort and a large one at that. Dark charcoal grey fur with near black and lighter grey mottling covered his new body and pushing through the ache he eagerly got to his feet, or paws rather. He felt tall still, not that he really had a good reference to go off of except the leveled snow surrounding him, but he assumed that even if he was short, he'd have some kind of notion of being smaller than before. A quick shake dislodged most of the snow from his side leaving only the more caked, half melted clumps behind. Twisting to sniff at his side he sneezed, the snow stinging fiercely from where it touched his nose. That's when something else occurred to him. He couldn't smell anything. Sirius had spent a few notable hours ranting about how strong everything smelled when he was shifted and no problem complaining about it when he wasn't, even if his human nose was only slightly stronger than the average person's. Harry knew he should be able to smell something, but all he could manage was a distinct lack because of the cold. Mood sufficiently dampened, Harry moved on to tackle the idea of coordinating four legs.

It ended up being easier than he thought it would be once he stopped concentrating so hard on the action itself. Once he started treated this new form like he was still a human the motion came to him like he'd been more in that shape. He was soon trotting through the snow with only the occasional misstep as his legs got tangled. As he neared the forest, he paused by the tree line and tried to listen for anything out of the ordinary, constant vigilance and all that. Again, he was met with nothing. He could hear the wind moving through the trees and even that seemed too stiff to be natural. With the snow falling at the rate it was he understood why there might not have been any birds, but he couldn't even hear the smaller ground animals- like martens or lemmings. Both of which had kept Harry awake more than once with their darting through the ground cover during the misery that was seventh year. Uneasy and a bit concerned he walked slowly into the forest.

With the trees blocking most of the wind the silence was now nearing on oppressive. He could hear his heart beating in his ears and every step that broke that crunched through the snow had him flinching. The trees were getting denser too, and larger, now that he had entered the forest proper. The darkened spaces between the trees further ahead were making his hackles rise, an entirely discomfiting sensation that he did not like whatsoever. When he was gingerly picking his way over a fallen tree faint sounds of movement reached his ears. Harry determinedly kept moving over the tree, his movements becoming a fraction stiffer against his well at his inability to see what was most most likely a threat.

As soon as he cleared the trunk the sounds got louder. He studied the nearby trees as he tried to follow the noise and braced himself. It ended up being for naught as a creature stepped out from behind an evergreen opposite to where he was looking.

"State your purpose stranger." The wolf, it was definitely a wolf now that Harry could see it, snapped impatiently. Frantically Harry tried to come up with an answer.

"Uh… I'm lost?" He finally managed. He was mentally cringing at that even before he saw the wolf's open hostility dissolve into a fine mixture of caution and disbelief.

"Lost? And how is it exactly, that a wolf such as you have lost your way?" While the other wolf's hackles fur had flattened a bit with his words, his posture was still incredibly aggressive. At least I know what I am now, he thought bitterly. Identity aside, Harry quickly needed to convince this creature that he wasn't any threat. One, because he knew he'd lose in a heartbeat if this encounter got violent and secondly, he had a bad feeling that if this meeting went poorly, he probably wouldn't have any luck elsewhere.

"I-I'm sorry, I don't know. I woke up on that giant stump back that way and thought I might find help here." Harry explained. The stranger was silent for a while, studying him intensely with his ears fixated in Harry's direction. Harry's ears twitched as the other wolf suddenly broke the suddenly broke the uneasy quiet.

"Who are you?" The wolf's posture relaxed minutely. The question itself made Harry's thoughts stop right in their tracks. He could easily go on philosophical tirade as an answer however seeing as he valued his life, as weird as it had become, he refrained. With his actions during his school years, the ending of Voldemort, and the wizarding community's penchant for dramatics, his name had felt increasingly like a title to bear. Not who he was. So, what was he supposed to say? He was in a new world, his name would mean nothing to this creature, and frankly...he had enough guilt at leaving Hogwarts behind in the first place. He didn't want to be constantly reminded of his decision every time someone said his name here.

"I, don't think the name I have...suits who I am anymore." He replied slowly. His response led to another prolonged silence. It took him shifting uncomfortably for a second time before the wolf heaved an either exasperated or just exhausted sigh and said, as he turned away, "Very well. Follow me."