Community Centre
Sam Uley hasn’t liked James from the moment they met in the mountains.
There is something about the teenager that sets his wolf on edge, has it pacing inside and scratching beneath his skin. A darkness that calls to it. For the wolf to attack, just like it does for the Cullens. Beneath that is something comforting. Familiar. Something that stopped him—told him the teen is not like the bloodsuckers. It’s the only reason he didn’t order his pack mates to rip the boy apart when they first met on the mountain.
Sam isn’t sure if that was the best decision, seeing as they were unable to track the teenager down again. They knew where he was. They could feel him, could taste that darkness in the air as they stalked closer to his house. But then they would be turned around, confused, hunting an elk miles away or returning to the reservation with odd thoughts. Even in their human forms, they had no luck approaching the area they knew his house was.
Sam is forced to consult the elders. Something the Alpha in him dislikes doing—asking for advice, doing what he’s told. It grinds his wolf the wrong way, but the human in him accepts the wisdom the elders hold in their age. Still, Sam doesn’t like what the elders propose, though. They want to speak to the teen, to meet him and see for themselves. To invite him onto Quileute lands.
They’re fucking senile, Paul argues, They don’t understand.
Jared agrees, adding an enthusiastic, We should ambush him.
And all Sam can think is the way James spoke to them that first time, his voice soft and calm, hiding the darkness roiling inside him. The electricity Sam could feel on his tongue. We don’t kill innocents, he reminds his pack, the words hollow in his mind.
The elders ask them to escort James, using Billy Black to get the Chief to send the teenager their way. Instead of escorting him, Sam decides that they’d spend a bit of time questioning him first.
Remember, we’re just talking. No fights—and that means you, Paul, Sam thinks, snapping his maw at Paul’s ear. He is innocent until proven guilty.
He’s guilty, Paul hisses. I can feel it.
Innocent, Sam growls, lacing his thoughts with intent. Until I say so.
Paul whines slightly, dipping his head. Sam doesn’t get a chance to say so, since when they meet, James attacks first, sending him sprawling backward with an invisible force straight to his chest, a stinging on his hand as it is flung back from the motorbike. Paul attacks instantly, canines aiming for the teen’s neck as Sam regains his balance, forcing his wolf down inside.
Paul flies through the air. Crashes into a tree. He lets out a sharp yelp and Sam’s wolf takes over, snarls in his mind to protect his pack, his tribe, his family. Jared leaps next and is frozen mid-air, James waving his hand carelessly, like stopping a wolf is as easy as breathing. Sam can feel his transformation starting in his toes. And then James cuts off his engine, lifts his hands in surrender, and Jared floats slowly to the ground.
Sam realises he knows very little about the world around him.
They walk towards the reservation slowly. James has left his bike on the side of the road. He’d waved his hand at it and it disappeared. Sam refuses to ask. Paul and Jared border him, smushed against his legs tightly and he doesn’t know if its for protection for him or from James.
“So,” James says, dawdling up beside them, as though his pack mates aren’t foaming at the mouth to attack, their legs shaky with fear. “How’s it? Being a wolf?”
“An honour,” Sam grunts out. James looks at him with an odd expression.
Jared shuffles away from James discreetly, changing sides to join Paul. James notices and winces.
“Sorry about before. I can get a bit unreasonable when people order me around.”
He has the gall to look sheepish, as though he isn’t a threat to Sam’s entire tribe. As though he hadn’t flung his pack mates around without breaking a sweat. Sam doesn’t respond. He continues their fast-paced trek.
“One of you guys a Black?” James kicks a rock on the road.
“No.” Sam pauses. “Why?”
“We’re related. Sorta.”
Paul lets out a sorrowful howl and Sam is inclined to agree. Family is sacred. Family is off-limits. If James is truly related to the Blacks, they won’t be allowed to kill him, even with his freakish abilities and the danger he represents to them all.
“Related how?”
“Long story,” he says with a shrug.
Sam scowls and speeds up. No, he really doesn’t like James.
----
Harry thinks the wolves are quite boring and, honestly, rather vindictive for such small slights. He supposes there’s a lesson in there about learning to reign in that habit he’s developed of attack-first-question-later. His time with the Aurors, working without a partner and often finding himself inebriated on the job led to his tendency to send off a few spells at the first hint of hostility. A horrible habit.
The Quileute tribe isn’t how Harry had imagined it at all. He was expecting a bit more mystique, what with their long history and imaginative tribe legends. Maybe something like Diagon Alley. A secret entrance, or a mysterious shapeshifter house. It looks much like Forks but smaller with houses spread further apart. Sam leads him to a community centre in the middle of a small clustering of stores selling local produce, hand made wares, and second hand items. They’re all closed.
Inside the community centre sits a huddle of three men with four empty chairs closing out their circle. Not the mysterious shapeshifter house he’d been expecting. Far less people than he thought, too. He glances at Sam and the two wolves—who both bare their canines at him when they notice his stare.
“What?” Sam gruffs out.
“There’s really only three of you?” Harry asks, cocking his head.
He assumes the other men aren’t shifters, since two are rather old and one is in a wheelchair. Although maybe he shouldn’t assume. Maybe grandpas can shift too. There was a part of him that was hoping there’d be more of them. That perhaps the Blacks would be wolves, too.
“For now.” Sam approaches the elders and nods his heads. “Elders. This is James. James, this is Billy, Harry Clearwater, and Quil Ataera Senior, our elders.”
“Hiya!” Harry waves his hand and smiles. He notices Sam’s low-effort attempt to hide Billy but decides not to comment on it. Yet. There’s only one reason Sam wouldn’t mention Billy’s last name.
“We have confirmed that James is not human,” Sam says gravely. “However, he denies any connection to the Cullens.”
“Is that so?” The man in the wheelchair, Billy, asks, looking Harry up and down. Harry feels the distinct urge to straighten his clothes for the man, knowing who he could be. “Thank you, Sam. Sit down boys, please. Jared, Paul.”
Harry sits down happily, directly across from the three elders, turning to unabashedly watch the wolves shift back. They trot out of the room when they spot him watching, the dark grey one sending a glare over his shoulder. Harry clicks his tongue and turns back. Sam sits next to him, strategically moving his chair forward, as though the extra centimetre would help him jump between Harry and the elders if he decides to attack. It’s a sweet thought.
“Lovely to meet you, gentlemen,” Harry says. The men don’t reply, eyeing him.
“Sam, what did you mean by not human?” Quil asks from beneath a rather fashionable camouflage cap.
“He—”
“Isn’t that a question for me?” Harry asks with a small tilt of his head.
The two shapeshifters walk back in, one with a sharp face, all edges and frowns, and the other with swagger, as though he hadn’t be shaking in his proverbial wolf-boots minutes earlier. They slink to the last two remaining chairs, dragging them as far away from Harry as they can. One of them has a large bruise radiating down his side, all purple and green, yellow on the edges as though it’s already healing.
“Did I break your ribs?” Harry asks, leaning over to inspect it.
“Get away from me,” the man hisses through clenched teeth. “I’m fine.”
Sam sighs. “I asked you to stop harassing my pack mates, James.”
“I didn’t realise showing concern is classified as harassing.”
“He’s fine.”
“I can heal him—” Harry offers, waving his hand in the shifter’s direction, which ends with the injured one clattering from his chair, shuffling backwards, and the other shaking in his chair as though he could burst from his skin. “Oh, sorry.”
Harry meekly lowers his hand. The elders look on with concerned frowns. Harry’s under the distinct impression he’s ruined this meeting before it even began. Maybe he should have asked Hermione to come with him. No, he should have asked Ron. He’s good at talking to others now, diffusing situations. He’s quite charismatic these days.
“He’ll heal,” Sam grunts out. “Stop waving your hands around. Paul, Jared, relax.”
“What are you?” One of the older men—Harry, ironically—asks.
“I’m a wizard.” There’s a long moment of silence and all three elders look disbelieving. The shapeshifters look rather thoughtful. “Why are you struggling with the concept of wizards when you have shapeshifters literally in this room?”
“It’s—it’s not something we’ve heard of before,” Billy says. “Please, explain.”
Harry eyes the man for a moment. He glances at Sam, who tenses slightly and avoids his eyes.
“Billy, you wouldn’t happen to be a Black, would you?”
“Yes, I am. Why?”
Harry sends Sam a shit-eating grin. Sam scowls at him.
“James here has claimed a relationship to the Blacks. Although he did not explain how,” Sam grunts out.
“A relationship?” Billy snaps his head back to Harry.
“How much do you know about Phineas Black?” Harry starts, leaning forward slightly. “Father of Ephraim Black. The first Alpha, no?”
“How—How do you know that?” Billy asks.
So Harry explains it all to the best of his ability: Phineas Black being a wizard who left their society and how his magic reignited the shapeshifter ability in the Quileutes. How Harry moved here under the impression there were no magical creatures and was rather shocked meeting the shapeshifters on the mountain. That he was equally dismayed when he noticed the Cullens at his school.
“How does this make you related to the Blacks?” Sam asks, face softer, less angry.
Throughout the conversation Jared and Paul had relaxed, too. One of them even sent out questions, like how many wizards are there? (more than you’d expect), and can you fly? (only on a broom), and he had more, so many more, but one of the elders made him stop asking questions lest they be there forever. Harry was thankful. He was bordering the Statute of Secrecy with the whole conversation, playing around with how much he was willing to tell and how much he thought half-muggle creatures should know to ensure their peaceful co-existence. That’s the term Harry settled on for both the shapeshifters and the vampires—half-muggle creatures.
“My godfather was a Black. I guess I’m not technically related, but he’s the only family I ever really had.” Harry scratches his head as the thinks. “I guess he would’ve been your second cousin, Billy. He was descended from Phineas Black’s brother.”
Billy looks a little sad. “So, he’s passed then?”
Harry remembers Sirius, face falling lax, eyes flat and empty as his body falls through the veil. Sirius, who promised Harry a home and love, who fought against Peter before anyone else knew, who stumbled over his best-friend’s bodies to pull Harry from their house. Siriuis, who survived Azkaban with nothing more than vengeance on his mind. He remembers sitting in front of the fire at Grimmauld with Padfoot curled next to him, the shaggy black dog whining whenever he stopped petting his ears. Harry thinks of Sirius calling to him from the veil, from the void of Death’s embrace, from the stone he lugged to his death.
“I’m sorry,” Billy says softly, pulling Harry from the depths of his memories, from his grief. He hadn’t even needed to respond. “For your loss.”
“I had hoped to meet you today.” Harry changes the subject with a small shrug. “Once I learnt that there were Blacks here. I inherited a lot from my godfather, you see. I’d like to share what I can. Nothing too magical, of course. I think my godfather would have liked you all—he could transform into a dog, you know?” Harry laughs slightly. “I think if he’d known you were here, he would have joined you years ago.”
“He could turn into a dog? Can you turn into a dog too?” Jared asks, pulling his chair closer. “What type of dog? Was he big? And—”
“Jared, god, shut up.” Paul shoves the teen. “Can you, though?”
“Unfortunately, no. I haven’t spent the time learning the magic necessary.”
“Oh, so it’s not just, like, there? You have to learn it? That’s kinda lame, you know. For us it just happens. Like, one day you’re normal and then you’re hot and angry and—”
“Jared.” Sam cuts him off.
“Yeah, magic’s not like that. We go to a wizarding school from eleven-years-old so we can learn to use our magic.”
“Tell me more,” Jared whispers.
So, Harry explains what he can about Hogwarts, about the Wizarding World, redacting information where he deems necessary, like the fact they have unforgivable curses and maniacal dark lords and high-school death tournaments. He keeps the Wizarding World how he wishes it were—fun, safe, a world full of kind people and without bigotry. In turn, he collects information on the wolves.
He learns that the members who can shift are those descended from Ephraim Black’s original pack, which isn’t necessarily a limitation on who can shift, since the pack members have married between families and mixed without. Like Jared, who has a father from outside of the pack and whose lineage isn’t directly related to any of the original members.
Harry doesn’t try to understand it, simply memorise it, so he can regurgitate it back to Hermione later. Maybe just give her the whole memory. Only from the moment they started to get along. No need for her to see the whole kerfuffle of the first few minutes.
The wolves tell him about the Cullens, about how they are frozen, inhuman beings. How they are only allowed to live because of a treaty started by Ephraim Black—how the Cullens think of themselves as ‘vegetarians’ since they only drink animal blood, which is the sole most hilarious thing Harry has ever heard before. Drinking from animals makes you quite the antithesis of vegetarian in Harry’s opinion, even if there’s something to be said for the vampires restricting themself from their main food source.
They explain their treaty with the Cullens and how they maintain a watchful eye over them. Paul seems ready to rip them to shreds simply for existing. Sam comments that their existence alone is what turns them into wolves. It’s what awakens the magic in their blood, Harry supposes. Hermione will be delighted to learn about this. It really is like a protection ward of sorts, woven into their DNA when the half-muggle vampires are nearby. Likely why it skips generations at times. When the Cullens—or others—aren’t nearby, there’s no need for the shapeshifter magic to awaken.
The meeting ends on a good note, with Jared seemingly obsessed with Harry, Paul grudgingly impressed, and Sam, as expected, bristly and distant. They form a new treaty, not to trespass on each other’s dedicated lands and to maintain secrecy. If Harry harms a human, the wolves will attack. Harry requested the same condition in reverse, simply because it seems rather hypocritical of them to assume that Harry’s more dangerous than a pack of six-foot-tall wolves.
Harry sits on the front steps of the community centre, waiting for Sam to finish his top-secret-meeting with the elders and escort him back to his motorbike. He wanted to head off alone—it’s much faster, after all—but Sam requested rather harshly that he wait for an escort. Harry doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers of their new treaty quite that quickly, so he waits on the step, arms draped over his knees and a cigarette dangling from his fingers. The reservation is quiet and the main street is empty apart from the distant sound of a truck plodding along. There’s a low fog rolling in across the road, oozing from the tree line.
“I didn’t think wizards would smoke,” Billy says as he wheels up behind Harry.
“We all have our vices.” Harry stamps the cigarette out anyway. He looks at Billy briefly over his shoulder but promptly turns around with a lump in his throat.
He knows that look.
Hermione used to have that look a lot. Merlin, she still does more often than he’d like. More people than Harry would like to admit have looked at him like that. With soft, sad eyes. Crinkled at the edges. Mouth slightly pursed as though they’re both holding back words and struggling to speak. Faces off worry and concern.
“So. Your godfather,” Billy starts off in an extremely not nonchalantly way. “How long ago did he pass?”
Harry closes his eyes. “Nine years ago.”
Billy rolls his wheelchair next to Harry, as close as he can get to the step.
“You must have been young. You’re seventeen now?”
And yeah, he was young. Seventeen was a fever dream to him. But he wasn’t eight when Sirius died. Maybe if he was, it wouldn’t have hurt so much. He wouldn’t have known him, just like his parents. He could have learnt about Sirius later and imagined all the what-if’s without actually knowing, without actually having felt his hug or heard his laughter or known what it was like to have Sirius fight by his side. Sirius didn’t die when Harry was eight. And Harry’s not really an unscarred seventeen-year-old. But Billy can’t know this, even if he’s one of the last Black’s left.
“Yeah,” Harry mutters back, wishing he hadn’t stamped out his cigarette.
“Your parents?”
“Dead.”
“After?”
“Before.”
“Anyone else?”
“Just me.”
Billy sits quietly. Eventually Sam arrives, scowl permanently etched onto his face and his loyal pack mates trailing behind him. Harry’s excited to leave, standing up and slithering down the stairs as fast as he can, wishing the wolves would stop stomping along and pick up the pace.
“Not anymore, son,” Billy says, calling out just enough for Harry to hear him as he retreats hastily.
Harry rubs at his chest until it hurts.