Family

The day of Harry’s eleventh birthday had started out perfectly and that honestly should have been the first warning sign that everything would go to hell. After he’d finished lunch, Harry slowly began to head towards the forest nearby the village they’d settled in alongside Moony to gather herbs. Lately, they’d heard outlandish stories of some sort of monstrous werewolf in the forest for a few months now and Harry was no longer allowed to go into the forest without Remus, Sirius, or Moony. Since Remus and Sirius were both working in the village at the moment, Moony had taken it upon himself to keep an eye on Harry while he went to gather ingredients. While he hadn’t been allowed to do any magic using his wand over the past two years, he had been taught potions by Remus and had been quite shocked to learn that he was a bit of a prodigy now that he was being taught correctly. He hadn’t been good at potions not only due to Snape not really teaching them properly, but also because apparently quite a few of the Slytherins had been subtly ruining his potions whenever he was distracted.

Remus had given him a soft, melancholy smile as he told Harry how much like his mother he was. She’d only been second to Snape when attending Hogwarts and Harry had much of her natural affinity towards potions, once he’d been taught properly of course. It had brought a new passion towards Potions he hadn’t had since his first class with Snape and Harry learnt all he could. Harry had even begun experimenting with potions, using ingredients that hadn't even existed in their world. He was already finished with learning Newt level potion making in only two years since it had been one of the only things he could really do magic wise until his eleventh birthday. Sirius had been so excited that he’d finally turned 11 and that his magical core was mature enough to perform magic with his wand once again. Remus and Sirius planned to begin reviewing the spells he’d learnt at Hogwarts once they returned home after work as well as begin teaching him runes now that he had learnt all he could from them about potions.

Harry carefully walked through the forest and placed the plants and flowers he needed to restock for his potions. Moony had decided to sniff everything before allowing Harry to grab an ingredient, much to Harry’s amusement.

“Moony, I know what’s okay to grab and what to avoid. Do we really have to do this every single time we gather ingredients? I don’t need to be protected, I swear.” Harry asked with a small, indulgent smile.

Moony gave him the most deadpan stare a wolf could give and Harry burst out into laughter.

“Okay, okay. You can keep doing your inspections.” Harry said through his giggles before he continued gathering the ingredients he needed.

Suddenly Moony’s fur stood on edge and he began growling. Harry stopped with a nervous frown, looking around to see what had set Moony off. It took a few minutes before an auburn-haired woman he hadn’t seen before walked towards them. Harry wasn’t sure what to think, but decided to remain alert. While the woman didn’t seem to be threatening and they weren't sure if there were even any kind of magic-users in this new world, they could never be too careful. Especially since Harry knew that appearances could be deceiving. Not only that, but Moony obviously didn’t like this person and that was a big red flag in his opinion.

“Oh, finally! I found someone! I’ve been trying to find the village, but I got lost. Can you come with me and show me the way, please?” The woman said, voice trembling and eyes glassy from unshed tears.

Harry made sure to stay behind Moony as he watched her wearily, “I’m sorry, but I can’t come with you. I’m not allowed to follow strangers and my pet is very protective of me. Just walk straight that way and you’ll find the village.”

Harry pointed to the right, in the direction of the village, and watched uneasily as the woman’s face darkened momentarily before being masked into a concerned face.

“I can understand being wary of strangers, but I don’t think it’s safe for a child to be out all alone in this forest.” She told him as she tried to get closer, stopping at the warning growls of Moony.

Harry silently cursed at himself for leaving his wand back at the house and took a few steps back, remaining behind Moony, “No. I think it would be best if you leave now.”

The woman’s face darkened before she suddenly began to transform. Harry watched in horror as she changed into a some sort of creature resembling some sort of clown with a demonic face that had black markings resembling tears below it’s eyes. Not only that, but Moony began to also transform. Moony now was five times bigger than he’d originally been and stood on two powerful legs, resembling a humanoid werewolf. Moony’s arms became longer and muscular with sharp claws while his muzzle opened wide to let out a rather blood-thirsty howl. Moony quickly scooped Harry into his arms before racing away as the woman-turned-creature arms turned into cannons and began shooting at them. Harry clung to Moony as he knew the werewolf would protect him from whatever was currently attacking them. Was Moony the werewolf everyone had been talking about? How long had this been happening? And was the reason Moony became a werewolf because of these creatures, like the one that attacked them just now? They came to abrupt stop not even 10 minutes later when they came across three teens and two older men wearing black and silver coats. Two of the teens were boys, one with red hair and the other with white hair while the last teen was a black-haired girl. One of the older men was small elderly man and honestly resembled a panda in Harry’s opinion. The other man looked to be in his late 20’s or early 30’s with two-toned hair and pointed ears.

“What the—?” The red-haired teen started to say before Harry interrupted him.

“You have to run! There’s some sort of creature attacking us. She turned into some clown creature with cannon arms!”

They all suddenly became alert and the red-haired teen pulled out a small hammer for some strange reason. Before Harry could question why they weren’t running, he heard a laugh echoing in the trees behind them and turned to see the creature slowly walking towards them.

“Exorcists!” It hissed as it stalked towards them.