With a flourish of wands and the rustling of a feathers

Ariel had a feeling there was no hope but still...it was worth a try wasn’t it? No one deserved to be given up on, regardless of their health. Life was terminal, disease only hastened the inevitable. Still, the idea that a boy so full of life could ‘go’ at any interval was more than a little unsettling. Being prepared for death at six years old....Clemmie wasn’t even six yet. Ariel shifted uncomfortably in his seat and brought the mug to him mouth. He relished the burn. It had been a while since he’d gotten his hands on a good batch of Firewhisky. He didn’t know what Ollie drank anymore – some crappy Muggle larger if the fridge was any indication. Still, it was better than nothing. The idiot was embracing the Muggles with open arms; to the point of installing a television set and buying in Sky. Ariel didn’t mind so much because he rather enjoyed the football games.

Then the mood changed again as Jack’s mutterings filled the room. Ariel pursed his lips and smirked before putting the mug down and raising an eyebrow. “Am I now?” he shook his head and threaded his fingers through his hair. He brought his elbow up and leaned it on the back of his chair before smirking at Jack. “We’re both beautiful canines,” he added, reaching down to pat the animal. “You’re simply jealous,” Ariel poked his tongue out at Jack and grinned before picking up his mug again.

He missed the camaraderie he’d had with Jack. Ten years was a long time but somehow Ariel had managed to keep busy. Clemmie had made sure of that. Still, ten years wasn’t a long time in the whole scheme of things. He’d done nothing for a great portion of that time. He’d considered trying to get a job and had tried but he knew what the reception would be like and he wasn’t about to work for Muggles so he settled with continuing to spend his step-father’s money. Clemmie would leave him in a few years time and she’d enter Hogwarts without knowledge of what was to come there. Then again, she had more of her mother in her. She wasn’t nearly as brooding and angry as Ariel usually was. Despite the fact that Grace was an evil cow, she had managed to produce a beautiful, sweet child. Thank Merlin.

“I’m always busy,” Ariel lied with a half-smile. He picked up the sugar packet and tossed it back at her, aiming vaguely for her face but not really caring where it ended up. “They’re not a problem, not really. Most of them prefer it out in the garden than inside the house. It’s bizarre.” Ariel smiled a little and rubbed his eye. He stifled a yawn and looked at the Firewhisky with an idle smile. “They won’t change.” His outlook would always be bleak. Jack was the exception to the age old rule but that was only because she had to fight her own prejudice as well. They were one in the same weren’t they? Well, sort of. “It’s nice of you to try, though.”

Jack grinned and he threw the packet back at her. Her hand shot out, swatting the sugar packet out of the air and it fell to the ground, sliding down. Jack smirked, feeling a little shot of confidence swimming through her veins. She still had the old Beater genes. She loved the sport but did not play it every day for fear of excluding Goose. Instead, she waited until he was at school or at friends to indulge in old bad habits.

She heard tiny scuttling and then footsteps and scuffling. Fred suddenly bounded into the room. He sniffed the air and pivoted towards the sugar packet before launching onto it, picking it up with his teeth and beginning to rip it open. Goose slid in, looking around and Fred bellowed, "SHIT!" Jack stomped the ground. Fred looked up and seemed to remember the rules about young guests. "Taki mushrooms."

It was the only non insulting phrase she could get him to say, but it worked. Goose swiped at Fred but Fred hopped away. Grumbling, he pounced and grabbed at him with both hands, holding him tightly. He straightened up and caught sight of Jack and Ari, blushing slightly. "Sorry. Clemmie didn't want him to leave." He turned and left, tossing the packet on the table.

Jack smirked and tossed the packet after Goose, knowing full well it'd fly over his shoulder and Fred would go scrambling after it. Sure enough, she heard a cry of "FRED!" and she chuckled, turning back, so proud of her funny prank.

She turned back to Ari and nodded. "Well, let them know, if they need any medicine too... I have it. Potions, Wolfsbane... I have it." She often had them coming in and out. Cal Guthrie practically lived in her house surrounding the full moon, the poor guy. A bot of the pessimism that Jack had always shared with Ari crept into his voice and Jack smiled softly. "Ari, that's the thing. People are changing. Werewolves are starting t risk trusting wizards, and wizards are starting to give them chances. It's not much, but it's something. I have a few werewolf friends I helped get jobs working with the Ministry."

For Ariel, being a father wasn’t nearly as traumatic or as difficult as he liked to make it out to be. Sure it was traumatic and difficult at times but not constantly. It was obvious that Clemmie wasn’t the terror he enjoyed making her out to be. She was lovely, hardly a master criminal. Ariel knew he was over protective. He was anxious with his back to her. She was almost like his pivot point; everything he did revolved around her. He didn’t know what he was going to do when she went to Hogwarts. Ollie asked him often enough and still Ariel continued to skirt the question as much as possible. She kept him level. When she started Hogwarts he’d have to get his arse in gear and do something sensible with his life. Until then though, he’d continue doing what he did best – winging it.

The next events baffled Ariel to no end. The ferret ran in, as did Goose and the ferret ran out again, getting an exclamation of ‘FRED’ from Clemmie. Ariel sat there watching the scene unfold as he drank the Firewhisky. That was his thesis...just drink the Firewhisky and the insanity will go away. Shaking his head, Ariel looked out through the door and spied Clemmie trying to charm Fred. It wasn’t really working but he admired her for her persistence. That was her mother’s trait. He knew that very well. The woman was absolutely incorrigible. He loathed her sometimes and he adored her other times. Grace was someone who he would never get along with again but was seemingly always going to be someone he could sleep with if the need for such things arose; not that it happened often. Well, not that often.

“Did I miss something?” Ariel joked, sitting forward and placing the mug on the table. “This place is...out of this world. Is that...thing always so rude?” He was sure Jack had covered this but Ariel just couldn’t get his head round it. “No pets...” he reiterated, mostly to himself. “Ever.” He added, again for his own benefit.

Then, the conversation turned back to the wolves. Ariel shrugged, not exactly sure what he was supposed to say. They didn’t usually need that much patching up. If they did then Ricky usually did it. Clemmie was there to supply comic relief and Ariel cooked the mother of all fry ups. There was a reason why the cupboards had bottomless spells on them; they were teaming with pots and pans that were always, always getting used.

“Fenrir will never be a fan of Wolfsbane. I remain confident that as long as you have a good relationship with the goddamn thing, it’ll work with you instead of against you. Then of course it depends on what you as a person want from it. Some of them take Wolfsbane to my knowledge. I always have some on the ready but I am sure they would appreciate someone that’ll give them less lip.” Ariel grinned and chuckled before adding. “I think I’m getting moodier in my old age.”

Smirking, Ariel ran a hand through his hair. He frowned a little and shook his head. It didn’t matter if werewolves were trusting wizards. They shouldn’t have been put into the permission where they couldn’t in the first place. “Why is this such an achievement?” he asked rhetorically. “I am a person aren’t I? Clemmie’s a person and certainly one of the brightest souls I’ve ever seen. My father is a person – not one of the best but a person all the same. Why are wizards deciding now that we’re worth their time? I am a human, Jack. Okay, maybe I’m not always but I’m no different to you am I? I...” Ariel let out a frustrated growl and bit his lip.

“Sorry. You’re helping. It’s great, I can’t deny it, but you shouldn’t have to. We should never have found ourselves in the position we’re still in, Jack. Werewolves will still receive prejudice. It works the same way as Muggleborns except really, their prejudice comes from Purebloods. Werewolf prejudice comes from anyone and everyone just because they’re scared. Clemmie is going to grow up having to deal with it because it is never going to go away. Even if no one knows...her surname will set of warning bells in everyone’s mind because everyone knows the Greybacks. They remember my father and Naomi for getting her sorry self kidnapped. They recall Risé because that was my ‘oops’ moment. They will remember my family and see that little girl as a threat. I will believe the change, Jack, when someone tells me that it’s okay to be what I am and genuinely means it. A stranger. Just...someone on the street that comes up and embraces me and pats me on the cheek and says it’s alright – someone who just walks into my life, brightens my day and walks back out again. I am scared Jack. I have always been scared. The safest thing has always been to immerse myself in my family, in my culture. I can’t find respect and acceptance anywhere else.”

Jack grinned. "He has to be rude. Their vocabulary isn't varied past insults and names." She grinned, chuckling as she fondly thought of her dysfunctional little family. "Odd is what we aim for." She smirked. Out of this world seemed like a fine description to her for the way she and Goose and their friends lived their life.

Jack smiled a small smile and said, "Well, I'm always home on full moons. I make sure to have a cabinet stocked full of th stuff just in case. I can't let them in on a full moon unless I know they'll take it though. Goose," she added by reason of explanation. Jack did not fear for herself so much as she feared for Goose. Typically, werewolves came days before and after the full moon, rarely on the actual night though.

Ariel began talking, and it seems he had tapped into some place within that held all of his bottled up pain and frustration because he did not stop for a long time. Jack nodded, fully understanding. It was rotten that the need for her job existed- however, she knew someone had to do it and she wanted to make sure the job gone done right.

When he finally finished, she nodded slowly, ticking her mouth and saying, "Do you think I'm any happier knowing that there is a need for my job? I have to see the direct results of the discrimination every day, but as an outsider, treated like a hypocrite by werewolves and a traitor by wizards. I know, Ari, I really do." She nodded. "It sucks. So much, this whole situation, it really does. But all we can do is stand together and hope and try to do better."

Vaguely, Ariel remembered his grandmother (everyone called her ‘grandmother’ because they knew she was related to them they just weren’t sure whose grandmother she actually was although how that worked Ariel wasn’t sure) in Greece who would sit in a rocking chair on the patio with a bottle of Mythos resting on the armrest, her fingers curled delicately around it. He could recall her swearing just as often as the ferret did. She was terrible. She took a particular dislike to her son who she would refer to as a ‘bástardos’ and would then proceed to use many adjectives and adverbs to describe her hatred for him. She liked Ariel though – probably because he shared her same bleak outlook on life. She ironically liked to call him ‘Puppy’ or ‘Koutávi’ in the Greek.

Needless to say, Ariel was glad that it was a ferret and not his one-hundred-plus-year-old relative who wouldn’t die because she knew it would annoy her son. Oh, how he loved his family.

“Ollie claims he once knew someone who had a cat with three heads.” Ariel said thoughtfully, a grin creeping onto his face. “Now I bet you can’t even surpass that level of weird.” he leaned forward and rested his arms on the table, even going as far as to quirk his eyebrow challengingly at Jack.

Ariel nodded in understanding, knowing the dangers that the Full Moon placed on the younger wolves more than anything. Fenrir was getting on a bit now - well, he’d been getting on a bit for decades but you could see the age in him now. Ariel was often placed with the younger wolves, teaching them and moulding them into sensible creatures. It wasn’t a difficult job. Most were put in their place way before they fell into Ariel’s paws and if anyone thought to challenge him, they were soon put back where they belonged. That was just how it worked. That was how it would always work. Clemmie would also be dealing with the cocky little ingrates one day. If Ariel sought to have any more children (unlikely) then he’d probably prefer to have a lad doing that sort of work; not because of sexist bigotry but because Clemmie was his baby – he didn’t want her to get hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Ariel murmured, running a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. You’re helping and I love you for doing that but I just don’t see how you will ever change the people of the Wizarding World who are so deeply-set in their own views. I’d love to help you but I lost faith in that a long time ago. I’ve missed your determination, really. I...actually...I’ve missed you Jack. Not just bits of your personality that always struck me so passionately but just you as a whole. I’ve missed you.”

Jack nodded as though she remembered something when he brought up the three-headed cat. "Oh, are you talking about Lester Richam? He always gives the Department of Regulation of Magical Creatures a load of trouble. I've had to go down to his house a few times and confiscate some weird things from him. He likes cats... Only man I know to try and breed kneazles and sphinxes..." She shook her head...

She did not deal with the type of people she had dealt with in Hogwarts so much anymore. She dealt with lawbreakers who bred weird animals, who legalized hippogriff fights, who tried to raise their own dragons. She dealt with fluffy pups who woke up on the wrong side of the doghouse, and with ignorant, obnoxious people, but that was it. She saw less and less of Death Eaters... She helped out the Order, but she was more freestyle, helping when they needed it, doing her thing before she actively engaged in the fighting politics that were involved in the Order.

And yet, with all the people she had dealt with since Hogwarts, why was it that she had not seen Ariel in such a long time? Or even Ollie. She might have spotted Ollie once or twice in Diagon Alley or in Hogsmeade, but she had hardly gotten a wave in. Jack had seen and met so many people, and yet she had not been introduced to her truest friend's child until now.

Weird.

Jack grinned. "I'm used to cranky pups snapping at me, figuratively and literally," she said, smirking. She had been lucky not to have gotten bitten. Very, very lucky. She nodded sadly and said, "It's hard to say when the community will change, but individuals change all the time. It's coming along slowly, but for the first time, it's coming along."

He said he had missed her determination and she grinned, saying, "You mean stubbornness." She smirked but slowly took a more somber expression as he went on to say he had missed her too. One of the sides of her mouth lifted and she smiled slowly. "Well I've been here the whole time," she said, shrugging. She shook her head. "I missed you too, though. We had many adventures our seventh year." She smirked.

Ariel raised an eyebrow at Jack’s words. It would only take a few mind-bending potions and some Muggle narcotics to come up with a harebrained scheme like breeding Kneazles and Sphinxes. Unless of course that man had been a Hufflepuff in his Hogwarts days; then of course there would be no need for anything even the slightest bit mind-bending. Muggles were creative but not nearly as mental as some of the Hufflepuffs that wandered through Hogwarts with Luna Lovegood-type looks on their faces. They were the types that thought it was a good idea to breed bizarre things together to make something so wrong that even the Magical Creatures department couldn’t handle it.

Regardless of his slightly negative thoughts on the matter, Ariel gave a slow nod and looked down at his glass of Firewhisky. “He should be put into St. Mungo’s really...” Ariel said thoughtfully before adding, “But then...a lot of people would be discharged because his ineptitude would make them appear sane.”

The idea of Jack being bitten had horrified Ariel when they’d been close and it most certainly horrified him now. He narrowed his eyes, wondering idly whether it would be worth teaching a few puppies where and where not to stick their teeth. Ariel was a lot stricter than his father had been. He’d laid down the rules as soon as he’d come into power, so to speak. His pack was still as wild as ever but there was a lot more control on his part. They knew the boundaries and they’d seen what happened to those who didn’t toe the line – and they’d seen what had happened to those that dared challenge the Greyback. Ariel didn’t usually condone inter-pack violence but some of those little brats needed a good beating – and so they got it.

“Are you alright with them?” He asked, looking at Jack carefully. “I can...I can help you. I won’t have them hurting you – whether they belong to our pack or not.” Ariel slumped a little in his chair and shook his head. “If that’s what you call it,” he replied with a laugh. “Ah yes, Seventh year. Quite possibly my best and worst year. There are a lot of memories there.”

Jack shrugged at his question. "We seem to get along. I still have my 'take no crap' attitude so they usually behave, but the difference is I give them a chance in the first place." He offered to help and she smiled, vaguely picturing Ariel showing up before and after full moons to help with polyjuice potions and whatnot-though unless his full-moon routine had changed, he would probably be more of a patient than a help.

But denying an opportunity to see Ariel more- Jack could never do it. "Anytime you want to help out, I'm sure I'll be here." She grinned, he had not stopped being protective it seemed. "I don't worry for myself, really, but sometimes for Goose. I usually send him to a friend's house but there's been a few close calls. I don't worry for myself. There's worse things that could happen to me than becoming a werewolf. I've known some pretty awesome people who were werewolves, after all."

She grinned at him. There was something special about Ariel that Jack couldn't explain. He made her.. try. Try to be different, try to care, try to be what she was too afraid to be, try what she was too afraid to do. Jack had never let anyone ever start to consider themselves capable of having any sort of 'relationship' with Jack, until Ari. Jack had planned to get a job that catered to her wants and served herself, until she met Ari. Jack had been quick to judge and keep that first judgment, until Ari.

Her grin spread. "We met when I was practicing for the Triwizard tournament. You thought I was so stupid, making all the paperweights fly around." She chuckled at the thought and then watched him, a smile still on her face. "I still have the Komboloi you gave me. From Christmas."