Witches, and Wizards, and Wolves (Oh My!)

Chaos. It was September first at King's Cross Station, and absolute chaos reigned. Hogwarts students of varying ages rushed about platform 9 3/4, wishing parents goodbye, searching out friends not seen for months, dragging luggage and animals about in any fashion available.

All was chaos except for one lone compartment on the train, the very last compartment of the train, where a young girl sat, two large dogs guarding her person. She wasn't much to look at, tiny, smaller than even the smallest first year. At first look, one would place her age at seven years old, maybe a very small eight. Certainly she didn't look old enough to be attending Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, not at such a tender age.

While the chaos outside ebbed, students piling haphazardly onto the train, she sat, staring quietly out the window, waiting for only she knew what.

At exactly eleven o'clock, the Hogwarts Express pulled out of King's Cross Station, all students aboard and bound for Hogwarts.

A knock on the compartment door startled the small girl, and she shot the large black dog at her feet a scathing look before turning her attention to the door.

"Er, hello, I was wondering if this seat was taken?" The question came from a tall, gangly boy, with unruly black hair and piercing green eyes hidden behind round black glasses, and carrying a snowy owl in a cage.

Harry Potter stared at the small girl before him. Now that she faced him, he wondered how she was getting into Hogwarts. She didn't look older than seven! She was already in her Hogwarts robes. The robes were so long, they hid whatever clothing she may have had on underneath. She had long black hair, done up neatly in a French braid, all except a few pieces in the front, including a large white chunk of hair which seemed determined to fall over her left eye. She was small and fragile looking, her skin deathly pale. When he looked into her eyes, he gave a start of surprise. They were a deep forest green, and slitted, like a cat's.

She shook her head slowly. "Just step around the wolves, and the seat's all yours." She spoke oddly, none of the familiar accents colouring her words.

Harry looked in surprise at the large black dog lying on the floor, and the equally large white one taking up the other half of the girls seat, head in her lap. "Erm, wolves?" he gingerly negotiated a path to the other seat, careful not to step on any furry limbs. Cautiously, he sat across from the slight girl, placing the owl on the seat next to him.

"Don't worry, they won't bite..." she smiled wickedly. "Unless you happen to be Slytherin?"

Harry grinned. "Ah, well then, no chance of that. One proud Gryffindor, sitting right here." He pointed at himself, just to be sure.

"That's alright then. I'm Cat, Cat Black, and these are my puppies." At this, the white wolf gave a snort. "Mist," the white wolf growled. Cat rolled her eyes, "Alright, Mistral." She pointed to the black wolf on the floor, "And that's Sear. I had to get special permission to bring both of them, but it was worth the hassle."

Her strange accent was still baffling Harry, but she seemed open and friendly, if a little young. "I'm Harry Potter," he pointed to his owl, "and this is Hedwig." He looked at her cautiously. "Cat Black? Any relation to Sirius Black?" a strange mixture of hope and sadness coloured his words.

Cat shrugged her shoulders, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she should be in awe, sitting with the famous Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived. "Wouldn't really know, been an orphan for as long as I can remember."

Harry nodded. It was too much to hope for that this small slip of a girl might be in some way related to his departed godfather. "So," Harry tried for a different topic, "are you just starting this year?"

Cat looked at him in surprise. "Heavens, no! This will be my sixth year. Well, not really my sixth year, but I'll be in sixth year classes."

Harry looked at her, puzzled. "I don't understand."

Cat didn't seem surprised. "I'm sorry, I'm making an awful mess. Let me start at the beginning.

"I'm the new transfer student from Canada. I'm eight years old, and I'll be studying sixth year magic at Hogwarts this year."

Harry interrupted. "But how, I mean, we don't even start school till we're eleven."

Cat smiled. "Oh, Canada is the same way, but I'm special. I'm what you call a child prodigy." She pulled a face at this sentence, making Harry think she had been teased ruthlessly because of this fact. "I learn really fast. So basically, my older brother, who takes care of me, decided I was spending too much time home alone. None of the other kids really wanted to spend time with me. So he took me to ForrestHaven, that's the wizarding school in Canada, to have me tested to see if I could start early. So, these teachers had me take all these tests to determine where I'd fit in.

"Apparently, I did so well that the last few tests were actually my OWLS (lets hear it for standardized testing), and I just blew those out of the water, so the decided that I could attend as a sixth year, starting this year, as long as I didn't mind.

"I was thrilled that I was going to be able to learn more, but my brother got this job offer in Britain. He just couldn't refuse it, so we moved over here. At first I thought it was gonna wickedly suck, but the Headmaster at ForrestHaven apparently owled the Headmaster at Hogwarts and told him about me, and they arranged for me to attend classes here!"

Cat's story came out in one big rush, her calm adult facade cracking to show the excited eight year old underneath as she reached the end of her tale.

Harry blinked for a moment. "Wow. That's amazing."

At that moment, the compartment door burst open again, admitting two more people, one, a boy, taller than Harry, red-haired, wearing frayed robes, the other, a girl with bushy brown hair and a no-nonsense air about her.

"Harry! There you are! We've been looking all over the train for you." Hermione Granger exclaimed in exasperation. She was about to march over to Harry, when the redhead's arm shot out, stopping her.

"Hang on, 'Mione." Ron Weasley was looking at the large black wolf on the floor, a glint of fear in his eye. "Aren't those wolves?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly Ron, don't be ridiculous, there aren't any wolves in this part of Europe."

The small girl sitting across from Harry, looked at the two people who had invaded her compartment, and said, quite clearly, "There are now. Two in fact. There." She pointed to the black wolf on the floor. "And there." She pointed to the white one with its head resting peacefully in her lap.

Hermione seemed at a loss for words. "Oh, but don't worry," Cat continued, "They won't hurt you unless you try to hurt me."

"Hey," Harry spoke up, "you didn't tell me that, you just said they'd eat me if I was Slytherin!" he faked a hurt face, pouting in a goofy way.

"Oh, well, yes, that too." Cat nodded in agreement. When Ron and Hermione still made no move to come further into the compartment, Cat raised her left eyebrow fractionally. "Well Harry, aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?" she asked, once more the perfect mini-adult.

Harry ran his right hand through his hair, making it stick up worse than before. "Well," he said, an absolutely straight expression on his face. "The one doing the marvellous impression of a frozen trout with red hair would be Ron Weasley, and the one you stunned into silence would be Hermione Granger. Guys, this is Cat Black."

The name Black snapped Harry's friends from their trances. "Any relation to Sirius Black?" Ron asked, still not moving from the compartment door.

Cat looked at Harry, "Am I going to be hearing this a lot?"

Harry nodded, "Probably." The look on Harry's face clearly said he didn't want to be constantly hearing that name either, though the sadness in his eyes reflected the real reason.

Cat turned back to the two in the doorway. "Not that I know of. Why don't you come sit down?" Cat turned her attention to the wolf currently using her lap for a pillow, "Mist, down, please?"

The wolf gave her a look of long suffering patience, and gracefully hopped to the ground, taking up floor space next to the despondent Sear.

Ron carefully made his way to Harry's side, staring in disbelief at the wolves on the floor, while Hermione sat next to Cat, giving the wolves a watchful glance.

"How come you brought wolves? And how did you get them to let you have two? And aren't you a bit small for a first year?" The questions came tumbling from Hermione's lips, her quest for knowledge unshakable even in the face of large canines.

Cat smirked a bit and looked to Harry. "She always like this?" she pointed discretely at Hermione with her thumb.

Harry looked at Hermione, nodding slowly. "Pretty much."

"Well," Cat turned sideways, so her back was now to the window, and she faced Hermione. "I brought wolves, cause I'm from Canada, and there they are on the approved animal list, as long as you can ensure they won't hurt anyone. I brought two, because wolves run in a pack, and two is the smallest pack there is. It took some negotiating, and explaining, but basically, these two won't leave my side for anything." Here, she shot Mist a look; "They seem to think I'm a wayward puppy that'll get into trouble if they aren't around to watch. Since I'm only eight, it was agreed that some extra protection couldn't hurt. Especially since I'll be in sixth year classes, and everyone will be so much bigger than me. Here, Cat paused, reaching up unconsciously to push the white bangs from her eyes. "Anything else?"

Before Hermione could come up with any more questions, (and she looked as though she had a million,) the compartment door was once more pulled open, and a tall, blonde boy with a pointed face walked in, flanked by two heavyset boys who were almost interchangeable.

"Well, if it isn't Potty and Weasel, and his little Mudblood girlfriend." The sneer on the blonde's face suggested he had stepped into something filthy.

Ron was turning a violent red. "Sod off, Malfoy!"

Malfoy took a small step back, but it wasn't from Ron's comment. The two wolves on the floor had started growling. They hadn't yet moved from their positions of lazy unconcern, but a low rumbling was filling the compartment. A voice Draco Malfoy didn't recognize addressed him with contempt. "Potty and Weasel? That was the best insults you could come up with? A very lame attempt indeed. Just switch around a few letters and you think you have witty repartee. You couldn't even come up with an original insult for poor 'Mione, you had to use the old pureblood stand-by." The strange accent was mocking, and what was worse, Malfoy couldn't see where it was coming from. Cat was so small, she was completely hidden behind Hermione and her bushy hair. "All that inbreeding must be starting to affect the intelligence of the 'pure-bloods' if they can't even think up new insults."

Harry looked as though he were trying very hard not to laugh. Ron had returned to his normal colour, and was grinning widely. Hermione looked like she wasn't sure if she should be appalled or overjoyed. The wolves continued their faint rumbling growl from the floor.

Seeing that the wolves hadn't moved, and didn't seem inclined to suddenly jump up and rip out his throat, Malfoy took another step into the compartment, attempting to see who was trying to get the better of his verbal sparring. "What's this, Potter?" he didn't notice that he'd actually gotten Harry's name right, the verbal jabs having actually succeeded in making him drop the ridiculous short form. "Gotten yourself another first-year fan girl?" He flicked his fingers vaguely towards the area beside Hermione, assuming correctly that since he couldn't see over there, that that was where the voice was coming from.

"Now why would he need a fan club?" Cat stood up, placing herself in the middle of the compartment, between her two wolves, much like Draco was placed between his human brutes. "He doesn't come into other people's space and spout off just because he loves to hear the sound of his own voice. And he certainly didn't spend the hours you did, pouring whatever viscous material you deemed appropriate into that slicked back mop you call hair."

Draco was taken aback, he had been fighting with someone who barely came up to his waist! He looked down at the small figure before him in a mixture of disgust and awe. After all, she had just insulted his hair. His first thought was that she was so tiny, she would surely break in a brisk wind. Her thick black hair pulled back in a neat French braid, the white fringe of bangs hanging over her left eyes making her look somehow menacing.

Draco laughed. "This is your great saviour, Potter? This tiny thing?" Draco pulled out his wand, waving it carelessly in Cat's direction.

Instantly, the two wolves were on their feet, growling loudly, and baring fangs. Draco recoiled. The wolves were huge. They didn't seem it lying down, but the reached the girl's chest, just below Draco's waist. They would have no problem knocking him down and tearing him to bloody shreds.

"Bloody Hell," Ron whispered, his face white as a sheet.

"Draco." Hermione said calmly. "You might want to put your wand away and back up slowly."

"I'll be damned if I take advice from you, Mudblood!" Draco snapped, still staring at the wolves only a short distance away. Sear snapped his teeth together, sharply. The two hulking brutes flanking Malfoy turned and fled, leaving him standing there on his own.

Cat took a step forward, placing a hand on each wolf's head. Instantly, the growling and snapping stopped, the wolves sinking back to the floor. "Your bodyguards seem to have left you," she said levelly. "I suggest you follow." Cat smirked, "And hope that Cat Black doesn't cross your path again."

She deliberately turned her back on Draco, showing that she didn't consider him a threat. He raised his wand at her exposed back. Without even turning around, Cat spoke softly and clearly. "I wouldn't. The wolves would love to chase a small ferret around the train before eating it."

Draco's face turned white as his wand dropped to his side. He whipped around and left the compartment as quickly as he could, trying not to look as if he were running.

As the door closed behind Draco, Cat resumed sitting next to Hermione, and Harry and Ron both burst out laughing.

"That was bloody brilliant!" Ron gasped out between breaths. "Did Harry tell you about Professor Moody turning Malfoy into a ferret?" Harry was already shaking his head 'no'.

Cat cocked her head to the side as she looked at Ron. "You mean I'm not the first person to threaten him with ferret-hood? Damn, there go my points for being original."

Hermione grinned. "Amazing, she not only got rid of Malfoy, she did it without using a wand. And got the better of him!"

Cat looked delighted. It seemed she had made some friends. Maybe this would be easier than she thought. Especially since Harry... Cat let that thought trail off, not wanting to think it.

"So, who wants to tell me some interesting stories so I don't feel quite so lost when I arrive at school?" Cat questioned, an innocent look on her face. She had to make sure she had her facts straight. This had to be the right place...

Harry grinned at her. "Well, maybe we should start in first year..." He then proceeded to give, what was essentially a life history of him and his friends, starting with their first year of Hogwarts. Cat sat, listening intently about first year and the Philosopher's Stone, second year and the Chamber of Secrets, third year and the escape of Sirius Black, prisoner of Azkaban, (with great emphasis on how he was innocent,) fourth year and the Tri-Wizard Tournament and the return of Voldemort (Ron flinching every time the name was mentioned), and lastly, fifth year, where Voldemort had finally revealed his presence once again, Harry's godfather Sirius Black had fallen in battle, and a prophecy had been destroyed.

If any of the children had been watching Sear, lying peacefully on the floor, they would have noticed him flinching every time Harry mentioned the name 'Sirius' in a pain-filled voice. Fortunately, Ron and Hermione were too busy adding their own points to the story, and didn't notice what would have been very strange behaviour for a normal wolf.

©2004