Chapter Text
Hari’s first thought, when presented with the leader of the Native American tribe descended from The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, is that Ron was, somehow, by a miracle known only to the spirit of Godric Gryffindor, right about him. Her second thought, following right on the heels of the first, is that Hermione is going to be unbelievably annoyed, first at Hari, for being so wrong, and then at Ron, for being so right.
Shapeshifters.
Who’d have thought that Ron’s firewhiskey-fuelled ramblings the night before Hari left for the States that “maybe they’re shifters, Hari, wouldn’t that be cool,” would be the exact truth? Absolutely no one.
Chief Billy Black is sitting across the kitchen table, a perfectly normal muggle, watching Hari stare in shock at the young man who just walked in the back door. He’s wet from the rain that’s just started falling, dressed only in a pair of shorts and Hari would be cold just looking at him if she wasn’t so distracted by the magic he’s brought in with him. She’d felt the magic on the reservation when she arrived, but she’d never thought she’d see this much around one man here. It’s reminiscent of the animagus magic that surrounds Hari herself, but he’s a muggle and so it’s adapted itself to the lack of a strong enough magical core. It’s almost completely external, thick and heavy, entirely encompassing his frankly impressive form. He’s huge. And a shapeshifter. And frowning right at her.
“Sam Uley, Hari Potter,” Billy says, eyes flicking between Hari and the man in the doorway. “This is the gal I told you about, from England.” Sam nods, still eyeing Hari warily from the doorway. She stands and extends a hand to him, waiting until he shakes it before sitting back down at the table and staring at the chamomile tea in front of her. She has no interest in outing him, in case his chief doesn’t know what he is, but the curiosity is burning. She can’t help flicking her gaze back up to him, and it’s fascinating, the way she can watch his shoulders shift defensively (she’s never seen any shifter with such animal instincts but then, she’s never met a muggle shifter before) as he and his chief watch her watch him.
“You know what he is.”
The words that rumble from Billy Black’s chest aren’t a question. Hari answers him anyway.
“Shifter,” she says, watching Sam Uley’s hand grip the counter, sees shards land on the ground as his fingers start splitting the heavy wood. “I’m not exactly sure what kind, something predatory. A hunter.”
He glances over his left shoulder, a response to something she can’t hear and another piece clicks into place.
“You have a pack. There are more of you.”
“What are you?” The words sound like they’ve been forced out of Sam’s mouth, jaw grinding as he stares first at her, then at his chief.
“Well educated,” she answers easily, trying to suppress a smile at the look he gives her. She’s not planning to out herself to these people, no matter how much magic of their own they have or how many secrets they keep. “I promise I’m no threat to you.”
“You could be.” Again, the Quileute chief isn’t asking. Hari laughs.
“Of course, were I so inclined,” she admits, shifting her weight and leaning across the table to look him in the eye. “I won’t be, though.”
Billy looks to the shifter as he jerks his head in the direction of the back door and the young man throws it open and storms outside. Hari feels the magic swell and assumes he’s shifted, gone to tell the rest of his pack what’s going on.
“He’ll be back in a second,” Billy confirms, almost in tandem with her thoughts. “He’s gone to summon the others.”
Now that she knows there are more of them she can feel the magic that makes up the other shifters. There are two magical signatures almost as strong as Sam Uley, and other points of magic that feel oddly incomplete. Maybe they don’t all choose to shift? Or is it a pack hierarchy? She can’t help thinking that Hermione would be bursting with questions if she were here. Luckily for all involved, Hari’s always had an easier time taming her curiosity than Hermione, and really doesn’t want to offend these people before she has a chance to tell them why she’s here.
“You want to tell me what all this is about?” The chief is, again, almost in sync with Hari’s own thoughts. She opens her mouth to start explaining when Sam Uley comes back through the door. He doesn’t speak, so she starts anyway.
“Chief Black,” she says, beginning with what she hopes isn’t an invasive question. “How much do you know about the Black family history?”
“The Quileute are an old people,” he tells her, looking at Sam Uley with an expression she can’t quite decipher. He’s sat down at the far end of the table, obviously feeling that he should be part of the discussion. Billy Black doesn’t seem to mind, so neither will Hari. “The Blacks have led this tribe for a relatively short time. It started with Aquila Black, about half a millennia ago, before the white man came to this country. We’ve been here ever since.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she says, pulling the research she’d put together out of the bag at her feet and passing the documents over to the Quileute leader. “Aquila Black, youngest son of Aries and Lyra, came to America from England after his disownment from the family. He settled here, in Washington, and married a native woman, with whom he lived a long, happy life, blessed with many children. His oldest brother, Cygnus, the firstborn son, died at nineteen, while the second son, Scorpius, took over as the heir. The two surviving brothers were the beginning of the only living direct lines of the Black family. One, Aquila’s, leads directly down to you, and your son and daughters, Jacob, Rachel and Rebecca. Scorpius’s line, on the other hand, leads straight to me.”
“We’re related?” Billy asks, eyeing her with renewed interest. Sam is staring at the parchment in his chief’s hand with an odd expression on his face. Hari shakes her hand in front of her, so-so.
“Not exactly. I am related to Scorpius Black’s line, but that comes through marriage about nine generations too late. My godfather, Sirius, was the last direct male descendant, and he named me his heir.”
“So we’re the only ones left then,” he surmises, leaning back against his chair. “You here for some kind of research?”
“No, sir,” she tells him. “I’m here to transfer part of the fortune of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black to its descendants.”
“Fortune?” Sam says disbelievingly. “How rich were they?”
“Very,” she says. “It won’t be everything - I’ve set up donations to several charities in Sirius’s name and there’s a foundation, too. But I’d like to transfer the rights to the majority holdings to the Quileute Nation, since it’s more yours than mine.”
Before the chief can come up with a response to that (she sees the look he exchanges with Sam Uley and knows she’ll have to find a way to prove it without outing herself) two young men come through the back door. They’re just as big as Sam Uley, that same shifter magic surrounding them and Hari immediately knows them for the two magical signatures she’d felt earlier. She can see the way their magic links, realises that the two of them are linked to Sam more than to each other. He’s the leader of their little pack. Now they’re all together she can see it’s just the three of them, the links in the magic complete. She’s not sure about the other signatures yet.
“Jared Cameron, Paul Lahote, Hari Potter.” Chief Black’s brief introduction sees the two men focus on her as she stands and extends a hand. Jared shakes it first, gruffly confirming his name as he eyes first her and then his alpha. Hari leans over to greet Paul without looking at him, watching the exchange between the other two shifters. It’s not until she looks away and makes eye contact with the man in front of her that the whole world shifts and for the second time in an hour her mouth drops open in shock.
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Hari’s staring. She knows she’s staring, can, in fact, feel the way her eyes won’t move from the man whose hand she’s still holding. She can’t stop staring.
She knows about soul bonds. Down a particularly deep Horcrux-induced rabbit hole in sixth year she and Hermione had read everything the Hogwarts library had to offer on souls (and if they’d raided the Restricted section then no one else needed to know about it) so she knows soul bonds exist, knows how to make one and how to break one and most importantly, how to recognise one when it happens. And, undoubtedly (she’s staring at her magic as it wraps its way into the core of Paul Lahote, sees the clear, thick aura around him intertwining with her and feels it settle into her chest) this is a soul bond. With a muggle shifter. In the States. Because of course this is her life.
“Oh Merlin’s balls.” She’s definitely going to regret that that’s the first thing she’s said in front of him. At some point. Because they’re soul-bonded oh God. Her eyes snap to Sam Uley, even as she wants to keep her gaze fixed on Paul, who looks like he’s been clubbed upside the head by a mountain troll. “You have soul bonds too? What kind of shifters are you?” She gives into the urge to stare some more at Paul, watching her magic moving with his. She sounds slightly hysterical, which would bother her more if it wasn’t accurate, given the way her hands are shaking and her brain feels like a particularly excited bludger is banging around in it. Sam has now joined Paul in looking like he’s suffering from a mild concussion. Jared, by contrast, looks ecstatic.
“Dude,” he says to Paul, a ridiculous amount of gravity in that one word. “You imprinted on her? That’s sick, man, congrats!”
“Wolves.” Paul answers her question instead of Jared’s, eyes still fixed on her face. “We’re wolves.”
“And yes,” the chief rumbles. “They imprint. How do you know that’s what just happened?”
“I can see the magic,” she says without thinking, and oh shit. Well. They’d have had to find out somehow. This is probably for life. “We’re connected now. Bonded. Imprinted, if you like. The magic’s linked. I can see it.”
And she can. Jesus.
“Sorry, what?”
“You can see magic?”
“You’re a witch.”
That last statement comes from Paul, and Hari feels a little curl of warmth up her spine that he sounds impressed rather than horrified. She nods.
“Um, yes. I am. A witch, that is. With um, magic.”
“Miss Potter,” the chief says. “I think you’re in shock.” Hari sinks into her chair at his words, eyes still locked onto Paul’s.
“You might be right,” she admits. “Bonded to a muggle shifter, oh my God.”
“Werewolves,” Sam corrects her, folding his arms across his chest. He looks unimpressed. “We’re werewolves.”
“No, you’re not,” Hari tells him frankly. Paul turns away from her to reach for the kettle and she makes a mental note to ask him what kind of witch he thinks she is. “You’re shifters. Werewolves are the storybook full moon half man half beast type of people. You just shifted in broad daylight three weeks from the full moon and anyway, the magic is different. Trust me, you’re shifters.”
“Why should we trust you?” Sam snaps. He’s got a point, she thinks to herself. “We don’t know you from Eve and suddenly a witch who knows too much about us has arrived and one of us imprints? I don’t buy it.”
“Watch it.”
Paul’s voice is liquid lead as he places a mug of tea in front of Hari. She doesn’t realise her hands are still shaking until she wraps her hands around it.
“No, he’s right,” Hari says. “I’ve got some explaining to do. I’m Hari, by the way.” She knows she’s blushing as she looks up at him, watches him blink before a smile breaks out across his face.
“Paul,” he introduces himself, eyes flicking to the mug in her hands. “Paul Lahote. I don’t know if you make tea differently in England but you probably need the sugar.”
“I’m okay,” she tells him, sipping it gently. It’s awful. “Just surprised. I really wasn’t expecting this.”
“I don’t think any of us were,” Chief Black says wryly. “But here we are anyway. You say you’re a witch?” Hari nods. “What does that mean?”
“I can do magic,” she tells him carefully, watching him for any kind of adverse reaction. “Like, wave a wand, say the magic words, cast a spell type of magic.”
“Where did you learn it?” Sam asks. His brow is furrowed and his hands are clenched into fists.
“At school.” Hari watches his eyebrows go up in surprise. “There’re magic schools, all over the world, where magical children can go and learn. I started at eleven.”
“How did you know about the imprint?” Chief Black asks. Hari looks at Paul and can’t help the smile she can feel spreading across her face.
“I watched it happen. The books call it a soul bond,” she explains. “My magic is part of him now, and his is part of me. I watched the bond form.”
“You can see it?” Paul sounds almost out of breath, the longing in his voice clear as day. Hari nods. “Can you show me?”
“I’ll figure out how,” she promises him. “It’s beautiful.”