Harry Potter and the Legend of the Silver Fox
Chapter One: Running
A.N.: Alright. As you all probably know, Yavie has let me take over her fan fiction. I decided to change a few things in this first chapter; the plot's the same but there are wordings that've been changed some different speech and descriptions added, ect. Basically I kinda revised this chapter but kept things generally the same. However since I'm a different author, you may want to read it over. Any advice is welcome, though that doesn't mean I'll take all the advice I'm given. Thanks. D
Breath came in choking sobs as he fled, his feet pounding the unyielding dirt with weary steps. The night wind swirled about him, piercingly cold through his thin white robes, but he heeded it not in his frantic retreat from… from what? Even this he knew not anymore. Something pricked behind his eyes, and he swiped a grimy hand across his eyes to banish the tears. But whether he wept from wind or sorrow even he could not say.
The silver ears of a fox lay flat against a wild mane of red hair, hair that should have belonged to someone else that he knew. Everything about him should have belonged to someone else; someone else who never had a chance to live.
He stole that chance, because of him there was a family missing their REAL child; a family that completely deserved a child, not the monster which they had received.
He drove the thought from his mind, wrenching it back to the present and the question at hand: where was he? To what end of the earth did he run to? What was he running from? Why was he running? He could always- no. No, not anymore. No longer could he delight in the shedding of blood and the shine of ill-gotten treasures, he'd seen too much in the few years he'd spent human.
Silvery tears streamed from his eyes as he remembered her; the one who had tamed the cold silver fox. He had been so sure she would understand, be compassionate and wise like always…
But nobody's perfect.
His thin chest heaved as he struggled for breath, his lungs burning like they were filled with white fire. He could not go much longer, he knew this more than he knew anything else at the moment, but he was beyond reason at this point.
He had run this far, why not run a little farther? And after that, why not a little farther? He had nothing left, after all.
That is emptiness best not discussed.
Finally his legs gave out beneath him, and he toppled head-over-tail to the ground. He lay there, panting and sobbing simultaneously. He did not know how far he had run. It would not have mattered anyway, seeing as he was nowhere near home. Home? Where was home? What was home? Did such a word have the right to exist?
He had nowhere. He had no one.
He lay on the ground, squeezing brilliant emerald eyes shut against the world, willing the ground to come and swallow him.
But fate is a cruel mistress, and besides that, she had something else in mind.
Harry Potter sighed as he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, his brow furrowing as he tried to remember the bizarre dream he had just had. It had been different than his normal dreams… well; perhaps normal was too strong a word. Especially since the dreams he usually had consisted of whatever Voldemort was doing at the moment or whomever he'd recently slaughtered. But still, this dream had been different from whatever decided to plague his sleep most nights.
It had been about a man… or was it a girl? Whatever it was, it had been no normal person, unless furry ears and tails were normal occurrences among human beings. What was it? He was bewildered. He had never seen anything like it in his life.
Although he still had not idea what it was, he still felt that the creature had been extremely miserable, and it had made him want to cry. He wished he knew why.
It's just a dream;he firmly assured himself of this, nothing more.
But why did he doubt that?
Harry was a wizard, albeit an underage one. On his eleventh birthday he had been told so, and was sent off to study magic at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a prestigious wizarding school in Britain. Since then, he had battled acromantulas, blast-ended skrewts (a rather gruesome concoction of his friend Hagrid, the Hogwarts Game-keeper), the Whomping Willow, and worst of all, the evil Lord Voldemort.
Voldemort was the dark wizard who had killed Harry's parents fifteen years back, along with a good number of other witches and wizards. He was the leader of a sinister group of dark wizards called the Death Eaters, and had killed and tortured countless people; wizard and muggle both. It had been a time of darkness and confusion until he tried to destroy the wrong infant. One-year-old Harry had ended his reign, rendering him a powerless shadow of his former menace, forced to inhabit the bodies of others.
Just two years ago he returned at full-force, eager to pick up where he'd left off, starting with Harry's murder; however, he'd been unsuccessful.
A Death Eater, widely believed to be dead, had hoodwinked the Triwizard Tournament at Harry's school, bringing him to witness the nightmarish wizard's resurrection. Cedric Diggory was an unfortunate victim of the deceit, though unlike Harry, he hadn't lived to see the horrific scene nor escape from it.
The following year -a few months ago, really, though the event was yet branded into his mind- Harry, along with several other students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had faced off against a group of Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries. They had barely escaped with their lives, and bore the mental scars of the encounter.
Though many had lived to tell the wayward tale, one had not left the Department of Mysteries that night.
"Sirius…" Harry whispered to the ceiling, gritting his teeth. A vague image of a man's face floated to the surface of his mind: a dark-haired man with a laugh like the bark of a dog…
"Go away!" he choked, ignoring the ache in his chest before mentally shoving the memory away. He shook his head to clear it. He would not think of it… What was past was past… he could not change that…
But how he wished he could.
"Just take the bacon and stop standing around!"
Despite his disconsolate mood, Harry had to struggle to keep himself from laughing at his aunt's grudging offer. Since he had come home from school last year, life with his relatives the Dursleys, was far different. This was mostly due to Alastor Moody's threat that he would come after the Dursleys if the did not take better care of him. Needless to say they complied, no matter how resentful they were whilst doing so.
His Aunt Petunia practically force-fed him third and fourth helpings at every meal as though she were afraid that Moody and his associates had bugged the entire house.
Harry wasn't sure if he should think of this as an improvement or not. But today came as a relief; it was the last day of the summer holidays.
"Are you done eating?" Aunt Petunia demanded irritably, though he couldn't imagine why, for she was already clearing his plate from the table.
"Yes, thanks," Harry replied politely. He was already treading on thin ice as it was, and had no wish to spend the rest of his life regretting a smart-aleck response.
"Go upstairs and get your trunk," Uncle Vernon ordered gruffly, his bushy mustache ruffling as he grumbled under his breath at his newspaper.
"Okay," he replied, eager for any excuse to leave the table. He hurled himself at the stairs, taking them five at a time. Although it harbored too many… memories… he was quite anxious to go back to school.
Harry was silent for much of the car trip, opting to stare out the window. When they finally arrived at King's Cross station, he muttered a "good-bye" and catapulted himself out the door.
He wheeled his trolley around the station, headed for platforms nine and ten. Hedwig, his pet snowy owl, screeched loudly in her cage as he hit a bump in the walkway. Several people stared oddly at him, but nobody said anything.
"Harry!"
A mass of red hair bobbed up and down on the sea of people and faces. Harry knew at once who it was.
"Ron!" he cried, standing on tiptoe to see that it was indeed Ron Weasley and the rest of his red-haired family hurrying through the crowded station toward Harry.
"Hey, Harry!" Ron shouted over the din of the station, tripping over his own feet and knocking into several important-looking businessmen.
After a hastily mumbled apology and several outraged glares, he disentangled himself from the businessmen and stood in front of Harry.
"How's your summer been?" his friend inquired, brushing off his pants and trying to pretend the last few seconds hadn't happened. They began walking toward Platform 9 ¾ while talking amongst themselves.
"Uh, okay, I guess. Yours?" Harry replied.
"Fine, if you don't count George blowing up half our chimney while trying to invent some kind of cursed chocolate. Mum invented a new shade of red with her face," he snorted, rolling his eyes. "They've made loads off that joke shop, though."
Eventually they came to the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Aiming their trolleys at the space in between the platforms, Harry, Ron, and Ron's sister Ginny dashed toward the seemingly solid brick wall and disappeared where if it were indeed a normal wall they would have crashed.
Once on the other side, Platform 9 ¾, a red train was waiting.
They lingered beside the door for a while, as they would be separated once they got on the train. Ron would have to sit in the Prefects' compartment, and Harry would find a seat elsewhere.
After entering the train, they were promptly joined by their friend Hermione Granger, another sixth year whom they had been friends with since their first year.
"Hi, Harry! Hi, Ron! Look at this book I got! It's called The Many Myths of the Wizarding World! It's very interesting, though I notice they're not very accurate on several of them," she frowned suddenly.
Ron's eyes widened in shock, "Ye Gods! Hermione doesn't agree with a book. I'd say it's the apocalypse, eh Harry?"
Harry sniggered, "Yeah, are you feeling under the weather or somethin' Hermione?"
"Oh, shut up, you two. I only meant that several dates were inaccurate," She snapped, smacking Ron lightly over the head with her book.
Not a moment later Ginny, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood appeared at the door to their compartment. Luna was a rather odd 6th year; she carried several issues of The Quibbler, photographs from various trips she had taken with her father, and (what she believed to be) a horn from a Snorkle-Topped Lunktipp, whatever that was.
Neville was a rather lanky boy with fear of almost everything and a terrible memory to boot. However, he could be courageous if he put his mind to it; in the first year he stood up to Harry, Ron and Hermione even though he had been hexed for it and the previous year he fought death eaters in the Department of Mysteries.
Ginny was Ron's sister; it was obvious by their matching red hair and freckles. She was a brave, adventurous young girl who was quite the wiz with a bat bogey hex. When they had been stuck with the Inquisitorial Squad while Hermione and Harry were trapped in the woods with Umbridge, she'd unleashed this hex upon Malfoy.
Though Hermione and Ron had to leave for the Prefects compartment, swearing they'd be back later on, the ride wasn't all that bad for Harry. He still had three other friends to talk with, though the ride to Hogwarts was more uneventful than not.
The only exciting thing that happened was a chocolate frog jumping down poor Luna's shirt. She had taken the whole thing as a very funny joke, and had even eaten the frog once it hopped back out her shirt collar.
"Ohhh…"
He blinked his emerald eyes wearily. He ached all over, as he should after running for six days and nights straight. Where was he? This forest was unfamiliar, and he had not seen many of these trees before.
He propped himself up on one elbow, gingerly taking in the dark trees and damp air, trying to figure out where in the world he was. Strange sounds echoed from all sides and eyes blinked and glowed in the endless abyss beyond the clearing. It was as though he was inside a cavern with trees.
"But I suppose it really doesn't matter much now," he said to the night air, his ears lying flat against his head again. He swished his silver tail sadly while examining his surroundings further from his place on the ground. "Though it might help some."
He pulled himself slowly to a sitting position upon the wet earth, breathing deeply and trying to control the emotions that ran rampant through him. He looked up toward the tops of the trees, trying to glimpse the sky, but the thick foliage obscured any vision of the world beyond the trees.
He felt completely alone, and for good reason. He was alone. Perhaps if…no; he would always live with the guilt. It was punishment worse than anything Hell itself could devise, and he deserved it.
Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Ground of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, not to mention care of magical creatures teacher, stalked through the Forbidden Forest that lay beyond the sprawling grounds of Hogwarts. Fang, his mammoth boarhound, had been barking at something by the edge of the woods all day. Hagrid fully intended to see what it was, for Fang rarely barked at anything unless he considered it a threat. Though the dog was a coward, he wasn't exactly all that stupid.
With him he carried a crossbow of enormous size, and a quiver of arrows was slung across his massive shoulder. He never went unarmed into the Forbidden Forest. Even the name suggested the danger that could be lurking within: werewolves, vampires, you name it. Even Hagrid, a large half-giant, was in harm's way.
Suddenly Fang began to growl, his hackles rising as he broke loose from Hagrid's hold on his collar and went into a mad dash straight ahead into the trees.
"Fang!" Hagrid called. "Git back 'ere!" When he suddenly let out a bark, the gamekeeper thundered headlong into the forest as well.
When he finally found Fang, he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight before him. A young girl was lying curled up against the bole of a tree, her silver-streaked red hair obscuring her features. Though this was an odd scene to say the least, it wasn't what made Hagrid start. It was something else.
Poking out of her hair was a pair of silver ears like those of a fox. They were currently drooping in a dejected fashion. He hesitantly inched forward, his eyes never leaving the girl for a moment. He towered over her, noticing a long silver tail hidden among her white robe-like garments.
"Down, Fang. Er… 'Scuse me, miss? Are yeh alrigh'?" Hagrid asked tentatively, reaching out to shake the girl's shoulder lightly.
"Mmmf," she moaned, lifting her head slowly. She jumped slightly as she laid eyes on the gamekeeper. "Wh- Who are you? What do you want with me?"
Hagrid in turn jumped as he realized that the 'she' was in fact a 'he'. He had a rich, musical voice, though it was cracked and thin from weariness.
"Oh… er, sorry. What're yeh doin' out here in the middle o' the night? Where'd you come from, eh?" He inquired, kneeling down beside the strange fox-boy. He kept his hand on his crossbow, however, just in case this boy was stronger than he let on.
The boy was silent for a while, and lowered his head again. After a few minutes he looked back up at Hagrid with brilliant emerald eyes. "I do not come from here. Are you going to shoot me?" he sounded strangely calm.
"Wha'? Oh, this. No, I'm not gonna shoot yeh. Are yeh lost?" He replied, stowing his crossbow.
"Very," the boy replied, eyes seeming to take on the dull luster of a wilted leaf. His face remained vacant, expression unreadable.
"Would yeh like to come inside?" Hagrid inquired kindly. "Yeh've gotta be cold out 'ere."
"I don't mind," said the boy. "But if you insist."
He got to his feet, and made as if to take a step in the direction Hagrid started off in, but collapsed to the ground in a senseless heap.
"Poor kid. Prob'ly bin out 'ere all nigh'," He grunted. He hefted the unconscious fox-boy onto his shoulder and set off at a brisk walk for the castle. "Professor Dumbledore's gonna love this, he will. An' I still gotta meet that train…"
Pigwidgeon hooted madly as he zoomed around the train compartment. The train had stopped already, and all the students were eager to get off.
Harry looked wistfully out the window. It had only been last year that... He choked back a lump in his throat that threatened to rise, and looked instead at Ron who was desperately trying to get Pig to calm down.
"Shut up, Pig!" Ron wailed, trying to catch the hyperactive bird.
"If you don't shut your beak, I'm gonna give you to the house elves to cook up for Thanksgiving dinner!" Ginny warned, wagging a finger in the little owl's direction.
Needless to say, Pig shut up.