Scars, Part 5

by Geri ([email protected])

My homepage: http://www.geocities.com/geri_chans_fics/index.html

Rating: NC-17 overall

Pairings: Snape/Lupin, Ash/Tsubasa; also a little Theodore/Blaise, Dylan/Hermione, and Aric/Takeshi

Author's note: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts; [] indicates song lyrics.

Disclaimer: Based on the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling; song lyrics are from "Scars" by Papa Roach. No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.

Warning: AU. This story contains a character from Half-Blood Prince, but does not follow the HBP storyline.

Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising, Aftermaths, The Revenant, Ash's Story, and Summer Vacation III.

Summary: The staff and students speculate about Tsubasa's absence at dinner, while Tsubasa pays a visit to Ash.
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"I wonder what happened to Professor Tsubasa?" Lupin mused out loud, gazing at the empty chair at the head table in the Great Hall. "He didn't come down to dinner tonight."

Blaise, who happened to be sitting next to Lupin, pointed out, "The Headmaster told me that teachers aren't required to take meals at the school. Professor Blackmore and Master Diggory usually go home to have dinner with their families." As they had tonight, although Sirius occasionally came to the school to have dinner with his wife instead of the other way around. As for Lukas, now that he was married with a baby on the way, he faithfully rushed home to fuss over his wife each night after he was done working.

"Yes, but Tsubasa usually eats dinner in the Great Hall, at least during the school week," Lupin said with a smile. "Although he does sometimes visit his friends or family on the weekends."

"There's a first time for everything, Lupin," Snape said tartly. "And anyway, it's none of your business."

"Oh, and are you telling me that Slytherins never gossip and speculate?" Lupin retorted good-naturedly. "You know, I believe that Ash came by today for his fencing lesson."

"How delightful for Mr. Randolf," Snape said sarcastically. "Really, Lupin, I couldn't care less about who Tsubasa has dinner with." He glanced around and noticed that Flitwick and Hagrid were listening in on their conversation curiously.

"Professor Tsubasa likes men?" he overheard Hagrid whispering to Flitwick in a surprised voice. Lupin grinned, Blaise tried to hide a smile, and McGonagall, who was sitting next to Hagrid, frowned. Snape rolled his eyes; Hagrid was probably the only member of the staff who hadn't at least suspected that, considering Tsubasa's almost feminine grace and beauty, although beauty wasn't necessarily an indicator of sexual preference.

"And it's hardly professional to be gossiping about one of your colleagues," Snape added pointedly, speaking to Lupin although he raised his voice slightly so that Flitwick and Hagrid could hear him, and they immediately pretended to be fascinated by the food on their plates. McGonagall smiled slightly and gave Snape an approving nod.

"You're right, Severus," Lupin said in a repentant voice, hanging his head meekly, but there was a glimmer of mischief in his eyes that only Snape and Blaise noticed.

"I just got a letter from Theodore," Blaise said, to change the subject. "He's coming home this weekend for a visit."

"So did we!" Lupin said, beaming happily, momentarily forgetting about Tsubasa and Ash. "I'm sure that Lady Selima will want to throw a dinner party for him. You'll come, won't you, Blaise?"

"Of course, Remus, as long as I'm invited," Blaise replied with a smile.

"I'm sure that Mother intends to invite you and your grandfather, Zabini, but you may officially consider yourself invited by the Lord of Snape Manor," Snape said with a careless wave of his hand, and Blaise grinned.

"Then I'll be delighted to attend, Professor."

"And don't worry," Lupin said with a sly smile. "We won't keep Theodore at the Manor all night. I'm sure the two of you would like to spend a little time alone."

Blaise blushed, and Snape said dryly, "What did I say about gossiping about your colleagues, Lupin?"

"I'm just stating a fact, Severus," Lupin said, winking at Blaise.

For once, the merciless Potions Master took a little pity on his former student, and this time he was the one who changed the subject. "Did you know that Imogen Macnair was working at the museum, Zabini?"

Blaise looked a little surprised but grateful at the change of subject. "Yes, Professor," he replied. "She started there just a little after I did. But I didn't see much of her; she works in the office and keeps to herself." He smiled wryly. "The Zabinis are--or were--far below the status of the Macnairs, and mostly they snubbed me in school, so I never knew either Imogen or her brother very well. But still, I feel a little sorry for her. She used to be one of the popular girls in Slytherin, walking around proudly with her head held high, and now she creeps around the museum with her head bowed, as if she's ashamed, and the other workers gossip about her."

"So you don't know who she associates with?" Snape asked.

"No, I think that most of the Macnairs' friends and allies have abandoned them," Blaise replied.

"That's not surprising," Snape said cynically.

"Why do you ask, Professor?" Blaise inquired curiously.

"No real reason," Snape said, with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders. "An Auror that I know happened to stop by the museum, and he noticed Miss Macnair, so he asked me about her. Being paranoid is a job requirement for the Aurors, I believe."

"Like Mad-Eye Moody?" Blaise asked, smiling. "Draco found that out the hard way." His smile grew a little wider at the memory of Draco as "the amazing bouncing ferret". "Except that I guess it wasn't the real Moody who did that," Blaise added.

"Well, Mad-Eye did have justification for being paranoid," Lupin chuckled. "But hopefully the Aurors' concern about Miss Macnair is unnecessary."
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Meanwhile, at the Hufflepuff table, Laura had also noticed that Professor Tsubasa's chair at the head table was empty, and thought that he must have taken her letter to his friend right away. She hadn't expected him to deliver it so promptly that he would skip dinner, but she was delighted and grateful. She shifted in her seat restlessly, so excited that she could hardly sit still, and her gaze fell upon Celine Thompson, one of the new first-year Hufflepuffs--a shy, pretty girl with long brown hair that she wore braided with ribbons.

Most of the Hufflepuffs were curious about her, because although she was human, her father was a werewolf, and she had grown up living with Master Diggory's pack. And a few of her new housemates were also a little wary of her, not so much because of her connection to the werewolves, but because she regularly received letters and packages from Draco and Narcissa Malfoy--except that it was Narcissa Diggory now that she had remarried. But Narcissa and Draco were supposedly reformed, and Celine earnestly assured everyone that Draco and "Aunt Cissy" were both very nice to her, so the Hufflepuffs tried to set aside their misgivings about the Malfoy family and make Celine feel welcome. Loyalty was a Hufflepuff virtue, and the Sorting Hat had put Celine in their House, after all. The Hufflepuffs tried not to think too much about Amos Diggory, who had dishonored his House by trying to frame and murder his nephew--but even then, his crimes had been committed in the name of loyalty to his late parents and the family honor, although of course that did not justify them.

But right now Laura was not concerned about Amos Diggory's crimes; she was suddenly recalling the fact that Ash Randolf was part of Master Diggory's pack, so that meant Celine must know him! "Celine?" she called, trying not to sound too eager.

"Yes?" Celine asked, looking flattered to be addressed by an older student.

"I was just wondering," Laura replied. "You live with Master Diggory's pack...or at least, you did before you came to Hogwarts."

"That's right," Celine said, smiling proudly.

"So that must mean that you know Ash Randolf, the werewolf who works at the Ministry?" Laura asked. Rosie frowned, gazing at her anxiously; Laura had confided in her best friend about her run-in with Mr. Randolf, of course, and Rosie was probably worried that she might let slip some information about Ethan. But of course she wouldn't mention to Celine that she thought Ash Randolf was her brother; no one would think it odd that she was curious about one of the werewolves, because everyone else was curious, too. And after all, she had promised Rosie that she wouldn't talk about Ethan in public, but once she confirmed Ethan's true identity and he was reunited with his family, there would be no need for secrecy. She could hardly wait for that day to come!

But for now, it still had to remain a secret, so Laura added casually, "I was just curious, because I happened to run into him before dinner, when I was running an errand for Professor Sprout, taking some herbs to Professor Tsubasa."

"Yes, Uncle Ash is taking lessons in swordfighting from Professor Tsubasa," Celine said cheerfully. "He stops by the school about three times a week, I think."

"Really?" Kevin Whitby asked in surprise. "I didn't know that."

One of the other Hufflepuff girls spared Laura the trouble of asking, "So what is he like? Your 'Uncle' Ash, I mean. He's not really your uncle, is he?"

"No, but all the adults in the pack look after all the cubs--um, I mean, children," Celine replied. "So we call everyone 'Uncle' or 'Aunt'. Some people think that Uncle Ash looks scary, because of his scar, but he's really very kind. When I was little, he used to look after me sometimes when my parents were at work, and he'd play with me and read stories to me. Well, actually, we didn't have many books, but he would make up wonderful stories about dragons and knights and princesses."

Laura listened avidly; that fit her fantasy image of Ethan, whom she'd always imagined as a kind and loving brother, and it also fit in with the reality of the book of fairy tales she had found in the attic. He must have remembered those stories and told them to the young Celine.

"And Uncle Ash is very good with Muggle devices," Celine continued proudly. "Even if he comes across a new device that he's never seen before, with no instruction booklet, he can usually figure out how to work it in just a short time."

"That must be why the Minister of Magic hired him," Tristan Ames said with a smile. The second-year boy looked after Celine protectively like an older brother, perhaps because his cousin was Master Diggory, the leader of the werewolves. "Arthur Weasley loves Muggle technology."

"I don't think that he looks scary at all," one of the seventh-year girls giggled. "In fact, I think he looks very handsome. Does your Uncle Ash have a girlfriend, Celine?"

Celine grinned and said, "The other pack members say that Uncle Ash is a playboy. He's had lots of lovers, but he's never been interested in settling down with someone special before."

"Before?" the seventh-year girl asked. "Is he interested in someone now?"

Celine giggled mischievously. "Oh, I couldn't say. But my mum says that now that he has a respectable job, maybe he's willing to finally settle down and find a mate."

Laura noticed that Celine always spoke in wolf terms--things like "cubs" and "pack" and "mate"--which was no doubt the result of growing up in a werewolf pack. Meanwhile, the other girls were pressing Celine for more information about her Uncle Ash, but were distracted when the Malfoys' eagle owl flew into the Great Hall and landed on the Hufflepuff table, dropping a large package in front of Celine.

"Thank you, Ares," Celine said, feeding him a bit of roast beef from her plate. The owl gently took the tidbit from her fingers, being careful not to harm her with his large and sharp hooked beak. He gave her a dignified nod of acknowledgment, then launched himself into the air and flew off.

"What did you get?" her fellow first-years asked eagerly, and Celine opened the package to reveal a large box of Honeydukes chocolate and some hair ribbons--yellow and black, Hufflepuff colors.

"Draco's mum is always sending you presents," a first-year boy marveled.

"She says that she's always wanted a daughter to fuss over," Celine said, smiling. "So she fusses over the girls in the pack. And I think she misses looking after Draco now that he's all grown up, but in a few months she'll have baby Cedric to fuss over."

"It's hard to believe that they've really changed," Owen Cauldwell said skeptically.

"It was hard for me to believe at first, too," Tristan said. "But do you really think that Narcissa would have married a werewolf if she hadn't?"

"Well, you do have a point there," Owen admitted.

"I never knew Draco and Aunt Cissy before the marriage, although I heard bad things about the Malfoys," Celine said earnestly. "But whatever they were like before, they must have changed, because they're both so nice to me--to all of the pack. Aunt Cissy bought all my school books and supplies, and Draco gave me flying lessons over the summer. He says that he'll coach me if I want to try out for the Quidditch team when I get older, although he isn't sure if he should help a Hufflepuff beat Slytherin." She giggled and added, "I think he was a little disappointed when I wasn't Sorted into Slytherin, but I think that I'm better suited to Hufflepuff, because wolves are loyal to the pack the way that Hufflepuffs are loyal to each other."

The other Hufflepuffs looked a little startled, but they nodded, pleased with Celine's response. Even if the comparison to wolves was a bit odd, she was loyal to her House the way that a Hufflepuff should be.

"You really do think like a wolf, don't you, Celine?" Zacharias Smith chuckled good-naturedly.

"It's because I grew up with the pack," Celine replied, blushing.

"Well, a wolf is fierce and loyal, so that's not a bad thing," Zacharias declared, and Celine beamed at him, practically glowing at the older boy's praise. Laura remembered feeling much the same way as a first-year whenever Cedric spoke to her.

Celine passed the box of candy around the table, sharing it with her housemates, and told them a little more about life in the pack. It had not been an easy life--the werewolves had lived in poverty, and many times they had gone hungry--but clearly Celine had grown up feeling loved and protected.

Laura was gratified to know that her brother really was a kind person as she had imagined, and she couldn't wait to meet him and have her entire family back together. Since Celine was part of Ethan's--Ash's--family, that would make the younger girl sort of a foster sister, but Laura didn't mind. She liked Celine, and she had always wanted a younger sister.
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Rose Zeller frowned at Laura, who was smiling dreamily, oblivious to her best friend's worries. It had been all right for Laura to spin fantasies about her brother when Ethan had been safely dead, but now...Rosie worried that the family reunion Laura was planning might not turn out as happily as she expected. Laura tended to have an idealized vision of the world in general and her family in particular, but Rosie knew that Alden Madley was not always a nice man. He was a fair employer who paid his workers well, and he was generous in many ways--he helped pay for their children's school expenses, and had in fact paid for a good portion of the cost of Rosie's school books and uniforms, for which she was grateful.

But he could also be a stern and harsh man if someone defied him; he had fired workers in the past for breaking minor infractions of the rules. She had overheard her parents talking about how Mr. Madley had once doted on his beautiful wife after they first married, but something had gone wrong and he had turned cold towards her...perhaps it had been Ethan's death. And Mr. Madley was a very proud man; he was embarrassed about his Muggle origins, and hated it when someone brought it up--which the farm workers never did, at least in his presence, since they wanted to keep their jobs. He might not welcome a werewolf son...and there was something very odd about the silence surrounding Ethan's death, something that went beyond a parent's reluctance to bring up painful memories.

Rosie wasn't sure that she wanted to know the secret behind Ethan's disappearance. She liked her life the way it was now: her father happy with a stable job that provided a good life for his family, and her own friendship with Laura. All of that might be in jeopardy if Mr. Madley was not happy with Ethan's return and he found out that the Zellers had something to do with it. And although it was a terrible thought, she wished that Ethan would just remain dead.

Rosie immediately felt guilty and revised her wish slightly: she didn't wish any harm on Ethan, but she hoped that Ash Randolf would not turn out to be Ethan Madley after all. The adult werewolf did bear a slight resemblance to the boy in the photograph, but it was impossible to tell just from the picture whether the two were one and the same. It was probably only Laura's wishful thinking, Rosie tried to reassure herself.

But although she had little talent for Divination and normally scoffed at Professor Trelawney's lessons, Rosie had a strong premonition that things were not going be resolved so easily, and that Laura's chance encounter with Ash Randolf was going to cause trouble for everyone involved, including herself.
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Back at the head table, Lupin smiled as he watched Celine talk animatedly with her housemates. "Lukas was a little worried about Celine at first, but she seems to be fitting in just fine," he said to Snape.

"Hufflepuff was a good House for her to be Sorted into," Snape observed, somewhat to Lupin's surprise, since he rarely praised any House but his own. "Slytherins might mock her impure blood and poverty, although probably less so than they would have done in the past, before they met you." Lupin smiled, gratified, and Snape gave him a brief smile in return, lips curving for only a few seconds, as if he didn't want to ruin his nasty Potions Master image. "On the other hand," he continued, " the Gryffindors might find her association with the Malfoys suspicious. I'm not sure about the Ravenclaws; they would probably reserve judgment until they had a chance to get to know her. Only the Hufflepuffs would immediately accept her wholeheartedly, just because she is one of them. So it is a good House for an almost-werewolf child to be Sorted into."

"Wolves are loyal to their pack, so it's natural that a child raised in a werewolf pack would be drawn to Hufflepuff," Lupin agreed. "I wouldn't be surprised if more of the pack children become Hufflepuffs when they go to Hogwarts."

Snape thought of the rambunctious pack children and said wryly, "Actually, that's probably a good thing; I think that I would prefer that they be Sorted into a House other than mine. One werewolf in my life is trouble enough, thank you very much." Lupin just laughed in response. "Although," Snape mused, "it will be interesting to see how Cedric Drake turns out. He might well be worthy of Slytherin if he takes after his parents."

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see," Lupin said. He pushed away his empty plate and noticed that Snape had finished eating as well. "Shall we retire for the evening, Severus?" he murmured. "If you're not busy, perhaps you could continue helping me with my...research."

"What, again?" Snape asked, feigning shock. "I already helped you with your 'research' all afternoon, Lupin."

Lupin smiled coyly and purred, "I appreciate your dedication, Severus, and I promise that I will make it worth your while."

"Well, in that case, I suppose I can help you out, Lupin," Snape said magnanimously. He rose from his seat and swept out of the Great Hall, his black robes billowing around him dramatically. Lupin paused for a moment just to admire him, then hastily followed after his lover.

"Are the Professors working on improvements to the Wolfsbane Potion or something?" Hagrid wondered out loud.

"Something like that," Blaise replied innocently, and only his long years of practice at controlling his emotions in Slytherin enabled him to restrain his laughter.
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[I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut
My weakness is that I care too much
And my scars remind me that the past is real
I tear my heart open just to feel
--"Scars" by Papa Roach]

Ash was at the London townhouse, helping set the table for dinner. Although many of the werewolves now resided at Diggory Manor with Lukas, not all of them felt comfortable living in what had once been a pureblood mansion, so some of them, Ash included, still lived at the townhouse. So did Matilda, the gray-haired matronly werewolf who had welcomed Ash into the pack as a child, and she still acted as den mother to the remaining werewolves. Brian and Kyra were also living at the townhouse, at least for now. They had moved into their own flat after they got married, but had been thrown out by their landlord during the period of hysteria caused by the fake werewolf attacks. After all the furor had subsided, they had discovered that their old flat had been rented out to someone else, and they had decided that they didn't want to live in a building run by a bigot, anyway. So they had decided to go back to the townhouse and save up enough money to buy a place of their own.

"Someplace a little bigger than our old flat," Kyra had said with a grin. "Someplace big enough for a cub or two to run around once we're ready to start a family." And Brian, who had once detested all the werewolves and the fact that he'd become one himself, smiled delightedly at the thought of having "cubs".

Ash was still feeling slightly out of sorts, and he was surprised to hear Tsubasa's voice calling from the fireplace, "Excuse me? Is it all right if I come in?"

"Of course!" Ash replied, lifting the wards that blocked the Floo so that Tsubasa could enter. He looked gorgeous, as always, and had obviously showered and changed: he had exchanged his sweaty clothes for a clean kimono and hakama (dark blue and light blue, respectively), and his long tail of hair looked slightly damp.

Ash felt his spirits lifting as Tsubasa stepped through the fireplace, brushing ashes off his clothes. He wondered hopefully if Tsubasa had changed his mind about both the dinner invitation and Ash's intentions, but his hopes faded when he saw the solemn expression on Tsubasa's face.

"I need to talk to you, Ash," Tsubasa said.

"Well then, you're welcome to have dinner with us," Matilda said pleasantly. "It'll be ready in about ten minutes."

"Thank you," Tsubasa replied politely, "but I need to speak with Ash in private."

"Then you can have a chat with Ash and join us afterwards," Matilda said cheerfully.

"Um...we can talk in my room," Ash said awkwardly. The other werewolves grinned and winked at him as he led Tsubasa up the stairs, but somehow Ash didn't think that his visitor had romance on his mind.

"What is it?" Ash asked, a bit more abruptly than he'd intended, once they were alone in his room with the door shut behind them. In such close quarters, Ash could pick up a faint, clean, soapy scent rising from Tsubasa's body, and the mental image of Tsubasa taking a shower aroused Ash, which in turn made him irritable, because he couldn't do anything about it.

Tsubasa did not seem to take offense, but merely reached into the folds of his kimono and pulled out an envelope. "One of my students asked me to deliver a letter to you," he said.

"But I don't know any of the students at Hogwarts except for Celine," Ash replied, frowning as he took the letter from Tsubasa. "And those kids who worked for Sirius over the summer, although I don't know why they would be writing to me."

"It's from a Hufflepuff student, a fifth-year girl named Laura Madley," Tsubasa said, carefully watching for Ash's reaction. The werewolf turned pale, and he seemed to freeze in place, more like a frightened deer than a wolf, his eyes going wide with shock. He waited a moment for Ash to reply, but when he didn't, Tsubasa continued, "She's the girl you ran into when you left my classroom, and she seemed to recognize you. She wouldn't elaborate much, but she seemed to think that you resembled some long-lost family member who was believed to be dead. She asked me to give you this letter, and she wants to meet you, if you are the relative she believes you to be."

With trembling hands, Ash tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter inside. In his state of shock, it was too much for him to grasp at once, but key phrases seemed to swim before his eyes: "My name is Laura...my parents are Alden and Rosalind Madley...never knew that I had a brother...killed by a werewolf...found a photo in a book of fairy tales in the attic..." Finally, Ash shook his head and forced himself to focus, and he was able to concentrate hard enough to finish reading the letter, which closed with, "If you are Ethan, please contact me. For so many years I have wished that I could have known you! Mother and Father have missed you so much. It won't matter to them that you are a werewolf, if that's what you're afraid of; I know they will be overjoyed just to learn that you're alive. Please come home to us. Sincerely, Laura Madley."

Ash didn't realize that his entire body was trembling violently until Tsubasa placed a hand on his shoulder and asked in a concerned voice, "Are you all right, Ash?"

"No," Ash replied with a mirthless laugh, sitting down on the bed because he didn't think that his shaking legs would support him; Tsubasa sat next to him, still looking concerned. "She says that she's my sister," Ash said, crumpling the letter in his hand. "But that's impossible. My parents couldn't have children."

"They had you," Tsubasa pointed out logically. It did not escape his notice that although Ash claimed that Laura could not be his sister, he had just admitted that he was the Madleys' son.

Ash shook his head. "This Laura's father isn't my real father. He was my stepfather." And even though Ash had only known Tsubasa for a matter of weeks, not years, he found himself confessing the entire story of his past to the crane man--his illegitimate birth, his mother's marriage to Alden Madley, his stepfather's abuse which had driven him into the woods where he had been attacked by the werewolf that turned him--when he had never told it to any of his pack brothers and sisters. He had told just a little of this to Lukas, his pack leader whom he loved and trusted more than anyone else in the world, but even then, he had not told him the full story, only the bare facts--that his stepfather's abuse had indirectly caused him to be turned, and that he had run away for fear that his stepfather would lock him up or turn him over to the Ministry. And yet somehow it felt perfectly natural to share all these painful, personal details of his life with Tsubasa. Maybe this was because Tsubasa was meant to be his mate, or maybe it was only that he had been keeping these secrets locked up inside him for too long and they needed to spill out, like water rushing from a broken dam, and Tsubasa conveniently happened to be around when the dam broke.

As for Tsubasa, he felt his heart breaking for the young boy Ash had been, as the werewolf recounted his tale in a low, halting voice just above a whisper. It was difficult to picture the cynical, wary man beside him as the little boy in the story, so hungry for affection and desperately eager to please his stepfather, but he knew from the pain in Ash's eyes and in his voice that he was telling the truth. And somehow it felt perfectly natural to put his arm around Ash and draw his head down onto his own shoulder in an attempt to comfort him--a gesture that he would normally have performed only for a family member or a very close friend...or a lover. Except that all of Tsubasa's lovers had been casual ones, and he had never felt close enough to any of them to have comforted them this way.

Ash sighed, his body relaxing as it leaned into Tsubasa's, his head pillowed comfortably on Tsubasa's shoulder. He felt a hand touch his hair gently, tentatively stroking it, and Ash growled softly in pleasure, inhaling deeply and drinking in Tsubasa's scent.

Tsubasa knew that Ash had granted him an incredible gift of trust by telling him this story about his past, and Tsubasa felt obliged to return that gift with one of his own. It was a story of his own past that he never spoke of with anyone besides his father and stepmother, although it was not as tragic as Ash's.

"My mother was one of the most beautiful maidens in the valley of the crane folk," Tsubasa said, without any preamble, and Ash looked up at him curiously, although he did not lift his head from Tsubasa's shoulder. "She was named 'Aki' or 'autumn' because she was born in that season. She and my father Yokuto had loved each other since they were children, and they were wed as soon as they came of age.

"As well as being beautiful, Aki was also one of the finest weavers in the valley, and she could have become the chief apprentice and successor to the Head Weaver. But Aki's spirit was restless, like the autumn leaves blowing in the wind, and she wanted to travel and see the world outside the valley, going wherever the wind might take her. Yokuto would have been content to spend his entire life in the valley, but because he loved my mother and wanted to make her happy, he willingly accompanied her on her travels. They continued to travel after I was born, taking me along with them. We traveled all over Japan, even staying in Muggle cities at times, but my mother loved the ocean most of all. She was entranced by the waves, so wild and unpredictable compared to the placid lake in the valley. We spent many happy days on various seashores, swimming and fishing and searching for seashells.

"But when I was five years old, my mother caught a rare illness that none of the healers could cure. The crane folk mate for life, and my parents were especially close even for cranes, and my father went mad with grief after my mother died. Her body was cremated, as is our custom, and by our traditions, her ashes should have been scattered in the wind to fly free in the valley. But my father insisted that he would scatter her ashes in the sea that she loved, so the clan let him go, believing that it would give him some comfort.

"They didn't know that he intended to do more than scatter her ashes. After he let the waves carry her ashes away, he picked me up and began walking into the water. He was smiling, for the first time since my mother died, but I was frightened by the strange look in his eyes--as if he were looking far away to someplace that I couldn't see. 'Don't worry, Tsubasa,' he told me. 'We'll be with Mother soon.'

"I was too young to understand what he meant, and at first I was confused but happy to know that I would see my mother again. I thought perhaps there had been a mistake, and she hadn't died after all. But he strode farther and farther into the water, until it reached his waist, and then mine, and soon our heads were just barely above water, and I finally understood that he meant to drown us both. I remember how cold the water was as it soaked through my clothes, and I remember feeling a little guilty when I realized that I didn't want to die, not even if it meant I could see my mother in heaven. I began to struggle and cry, but my father didn't seem to notice. He just kept smiling, with that faraway look in his eyes, and whispered, 'Soon we'll be with you, Aki, and we will all live together in the Dragon King's Palace under the sea.' There's an old Japanese legend, you see, that says that the Dragon King lives in a magnificent palace on the ocean floor.

"By coincidence--or fate, depending on your point of view--a young Japanese-American witch named Reiko happened to be visiting relatives who lived near the seashore where my father had decided to drown himself. She had recently graduated from Salem, and had come to Japan for her apprenticeship, to learn more about the Eastern ways of magic. On this day, she had decided to go for a stroll on the beach, and caught sight of me struggling in my father's arms, and she realized what he intended to do."

In spite of the painful emotions that his story had stirred up, Tsubasa found himself smiling at the memory of his young stepmother-to-be, as he remembered how fierce and determined she had been. "Without hesitation, the young woman--little more than a girl, really; she had only just turned eighteen--dove into the water, swam out to us, and tried to physically drag my father to shore, for all that he was at least half a foot taller than her and a good many pounds heavier. My father struggled, of course, crying out to her to let him die and go to his dead wife's side. Reiko slapped him in the face and shouted, 'Do you really think it would make your wife happy if you killed yourself and your son?! If it were just you, I would let you die, you selfish man, but I won't let you take the boy with you! And I won't let you die, because he needs his father, even if that father is an idiot!'

"And then my father looked at me--really looked at me this time--and saw how frightened I was, and he wept and begged me to forgive him. Reiko told him that he could cry all he wanted after we got back to shore, but he'd better start swimming. Only my father was very weak, since he had barely eaten or slept since my mother fell ill, and Reiko ended up doing most of the work of towing us back to shore. Once we were safely on the beach, she gave my father a blistering lecture about how stupid and selfish he was, and he got down on his hands and knees and bowed his head to the ground in apology, to both Reiko and me--and my late mother.

"We were all soaked to the skin, of course, so Reiko took us back to her uncle's house where she was staying to dry off. But even after he changed into dry clothing, my father was feverish and shivering; in his weakened state, in the cold water, he had caught pneumonia. I got a little sick too, although it was nothing more than a cold. So we ended up staying with Reiko and her uncle and his family while my father recovered, and she nursed him back to health, brewing healing potions and teas for him. She said that it was probably best that she kept an eye on him, anyway, to make sure that he didn't try anything foolish again. And because my father was too ill to look after me, she ended up taking care of me, too. She was the one who fed me, and told me stories and took me for walks on the beach to distract me from my worries about my father. She was the one who tucked me into bed at night, and sang me lullabies when I had trouble sleeping.

"And gradually, my father began to heal--emotionally as well as physically. At first he only clung to life because Reiko had made him realize that I still needed him, but little by little, he began to take pleasure in life again. He had been dutifully eating his meals without really tasting them, and I remember the first time that remarked on how good Reiko's soup tasted, sounding a little surprised that it should be so, and he did not quite laugh, but he smiled when Reiko pretended to be offended that he was surprised that her cooking tasted good. I remember how he truly smiled at me for the first time since my mother died, when I brought him back a seashell from one of my walks with Reiko. And I remember how he both smiled and wept when the leaves turned red in autumn, reminding him of my mother. I remember being worried, but Reiko gently told me that it was a good sign, that they were tears of healing.

"My father recovered from his pneumonia, but he did not really want to return home to the valley, which held too many painful memories of my mother. So we remained as guests in the home of Reiko's family, and my father wove them bolts of precious silk to thank them for their kindness and hospitality. Some of the silk they kept to make into kimonos for themselves, and some they sold, which more than covered the cost of our upkeep, but they were kind people and would have taken us in even if we had been penniless.

"Weeks passed, and then months, until we had been living with Reiko and her family for over a year. During this time, Reiko and my father had become friends, and gradually friendship turned into something more. And then one day Reiko and my father sat down to have a talk with me, both of them looking happy but very anxious at the same time, and they asked me how I would feel if they got married. By this time, Reiko was a surrogate mother to me in all but name, and I adored her, so of course I was overjoyed, and I told them so.

"My father's kinfolk were not entirely happy about this. They were grateful to Reiko for saving my father's life, and they could even forgive her for being human. But what they could not forgive was that she took me and my father back to America with her after they married. Despite his newfound happiness, my father was still very fragile, and Reiko could see how much the memory of my mother's death still pained him. So she thought it would be better if he made a fresh start somewhere new, without so many painful reminders of his past. My stepmother was truly a remarkable young woman, wise beyond her years. She never begrudged my father his love for Aki, but she knew that he needed time to heal before he could remember her with joy instead of sorrow. She also told me that she would be a mother to me, but that she would never try to take my mother's place in my heart. We agreed that I would call her 'Mom,' the American term, so that my mother would always be 'Okaasan' to me. That way I had a special name for each of them, and I didn't have to feel as though Reiko was displacing my mother.

"So over the protests of the clan, we moved to America, and I attended school at Salem. By the time I graduated, my father had healed from his grief and had begun to miss his homeland, so we moved back to Japan. Because he had grown used to living with humans, the clan appointed him as their representative to the wizards' council in Japan. Some of the clan elders still disapprove of my stepmother, but she takes great pleasure in annoying them, so everyone--except the elders--is happy." He paused, then added, "Only those of the clan who were adults at the time know the true story behind my father's second marriage. The younger ones, including my cousin Takeshi who was not yet born when my mother died, know that Reiko saved him, but they think that she only saved him from pining away with grief. They don't know that he tried to commit suicide and take me with him."

Tsubasa fell silent, his story apparently finished, and Ash raised his head from Tsubasa's shoulder and whispered, "Thank you." He understood the gift of trust implicit in Tsubasa's story, and he knew what must have motivated it. Feeling deeply touched, he said, "You didn't have to do that."

"But I wanted to," Tsubasa replied, and he was a little surprised to find that it was true. It felt good to share this secret with someone, as if he had been freed of a burden that he hadn't realized was weighing him down--which was strange, because the emotional wounds of his childhood had long ago healed, and he and his father and Reiko had been a close-knit and loving family for many years. Stranger still was the fact that it felt natural to share this secret with Ash, whom he had known for such a short time, when he had never told it to his cousins Ichiro and Takeshi, whom he had always loved like brothers.

"Your father..." Ash said hesitantly. "Was it hard for you to forgive him for what he did?"

Tsubasa shook his head. "I was very young at the time, and I wasn't thinking so much about what he had almost done to me. Mostly I was just afraid that I might lose my father--if not to suicide, then to the pneumonia--as well as my mother, and then I would be all alone. When I was older...I couldn't hate him for it; he wasn't in his right mind, and I understood why he did it. If we were human, perhaps it would be different, but the bond between mated cranes runs very deep. We always mate for life; mated couples never fall out of love or develop a desire for another. No one knows why this is so, although some of the human wizards think it might be a biological imperative, some sort of genetic trait. The crane folk do not ask why; they accept that it has always been so, since our race was first born, and they simply call it destiny. It is a great gift, to share such a complete and joyous union with another soul, but in a way, it is also a curse, because if one mate dies before the other, the surviving partner is overwhelmed by such grief that they often die of it. It is as if half of your soul was suddenly ripped away from you. Most often they slowly pine away, but sometimes they commit suicide. A parent will usually find the strength to go on for their child's sake. Some cannot bear the pain, but it is customary to place the child in the care of family members before committing suicide."

"You have rules for that?!" Ash exclaimed.

"We have rules for everything," Tsubasa replied, smiling wryly. "I am not very good at following most of them, which is why I do not live in the valley."

Ash shook his head in astonishment, then sighed. "The purebloods in Britain have a lot of rules, too, but I don't think they have any rules about suicide." He added bitterly, "They're too selfish to kill themselves, although they don't mind hurting other people. That's all I know about my real father, that he was a pureblood who thought he was too good to marry my mother. I don't even know his name." He laughed, a sound that came out sounding like a short, harsh bark. "I would have been content to be Madley's son, even though he wasn't a pureblood. All I cared about was that he was kind to me. I knew all along that he didn't really love me, that he was just trying to please Rosalind, but I didn't care; the pretense was enough for me. That's pretty pathetic, isn't it? And the irony of it all is that if Laura had been born just a few years earlier, then none of this would have happened. If he'd had a child of his own, then maybe he wouldn't have hated me so much. I wouldn't have run away, and I wouldn't have been turned into a werewolf, and we could have gone on pretending to be a happy family."

"But it would only have been a pretense," Tsubasa said gently. "And you would never have met Lukas and the rest of your pack, people who truly love you." He was still sitting close enough to Ash to feel the werewolf tremble slightly. "Blood ties are important, but sometimes family is something more than blood. Reiko is my mother in every way that matters, even though we share no ties of blood."

"I know that," Ash whispered, still trembling. "When I found my pack, I decided that they were the only family I needed. I never wanted to see my real...no, the pack IS my real family. I never wanted to see my biological family again. None of them ever wanted me, anyway. I never thought I would ever hear from them again. I don't know what to do. I don't want to see this girl. I just want to forget that the Madleys and the Parkers ever existed."

By now, Ash's body was shaking violently, and Tsubasa felt out of his depth; his friend clearly needed more comfort than a shoulder to rest on. He thought that Ash's pack, his true family, would be best equipped to help him, and he started to rise to his feet, asking, "Are you all right? Should I get someone...maybe Matilda, or Kyra...?"

Ash was suddenly filled with an irrational, frantic terror of being left alone, and he reached out and grabbed Tsubasa's arm, clutching at it so hard that the other man winced. Ash loosened his grip slightly and said, "No, please...don't leave." He didn't want to be alone, not even for the few minutes that it would take for Tsubasa to go downstairs and summon help. And then he realized that as much as he loved his pack brothers and sisters, he didn't really feel like explaining the long story of his childhood to them right now. No, it was more than that...he didn't want them at his side at this moment; he wanted Tsubasa.

"All right," Tsubasa said in a soft, soothing voice, dropping back down onto the bed. "It's all right, Ash; I'm here." He hesitated, silently debating with himself for a moment, then made his decision. He reached out to cup Ash's face in his free hand, and leaned forward and very slowly and deliberately kissed him.

It was the sweetest, most perfect kiss he had ever experienced, as easy and natural as breathing--or flying, perhaps, was a more apt comparison. He felt a sense of joy and exhilaration that was similar to soaring through the sky in his crane form, borne aloft on the wind currents. Ash was still for a few seconds, not so much unresponsive as stunned, as if he couldn't believe that this was happening, and then he returned the kiss, very hesitantly at first, then with growing hunger and intensity, until his tongue was pushing its way between Tsubasa's lips. Their tongues darted around each other, stroking and entwining as their mouths remained pressed together until they finally ran out of breath and had to pull apart, gasping and panting as they took in gulps of air.

"But...I thought...you said you wouldn't...not until I answered your question," Ash said breathlessly, and not quite coherently, although Tsubasa understood what he meant.

"Just this once, I will make an exception," Tsubasa replied, just as breathlessly. "Just for tonight, I will gaze at the stars with you. Let us share pleasure for this one night, with no obligations or demands placed on each other." A small part of him wondered whether he was really doing this to comfort Ash, or if it was just a convenient excuse to satisfy his own desires. Right at this moment, he wanted Ash so badly that it was difficult to think clearly.

He stroked Ash's hair, pushing it back from his face, then gently traced the long scar on Ash's left cheek with his fingers; the werewolf tensed, but did not object. Then Tsubasa tenderly kissed the scar, and Ash shivered--a shiver of pleasure, Tsubasa thought, although Ash's body was still tense, as if not entirely comfortable. He knew that Ash was self-conscious about the scar, and Tsubasa felt inordinately pleased that Ash permitted him to touch it, a privilege that he suspected the werewolf didn't grant to many people.

Ash moaned, shivering with mingled pleasure and shame as Tsubasa's tongue ran lightly down the length of his scar. He had always been secretly ashamed of his disfigurement, and he hated having attention drawn to his scar, but at the same time it felt amazingly good to feel Tsubasa's hands and mouth caressing it. He allowed Tsubasa to continue for a minute or two, then turned his head and claimed Tsubasa's mouth with his own, kissing him hard.

Tsubasa did not protest, and indeed, enthusiastically returned the kiss, moaning into Ash's mouth. And Ash did what he'd been wanting to do for weeks, ever since he'd first met Tsubasa, which was to reach up and loosen the cord that tied Tsubasa's hair back, letting it spill into his hands as he ran his fingers through the long, glossy black hair that spilled down to the swordsman's waist. It felt incredible, even better than Ash had imagined, like running his fingers through strands of pure, finely-spun silk.

He had thought that Tsubasa's clothes would be easy to remove--after all, they had no buttons or hooks or zippers, only straps of cloth to tie them in place. He had fantasized about it many times, but in this case, the reality was less satisfying. He cursed under his breath as he struggled with the ties of Tsubasa's hakama, which were wrapped around his waist in a more complicated arrangement than he had realized, crisscrossing over and under each other, not to mention that the knots were also tied more tightly than they'd been in his daydreams.

"Let me do it," Tsubasa laughed. He made a brief gesture with his hand, and the ties of his hakama unknotted and unwrapped themselves, and the garment slid down over his hips.

"Very impressive," Ash said with a grin. "Maybe you could teach me that spell."

Tsubasa laughed again. "Unfortunately I can't, since it's part of the Weaving magic unique to my people. We can easily manipulate cloth and thread--I could, for example, magically mend a rip or tear." Ash was wearing one of his comfortable, shabby old robes, and Tsubasa ran his finger over an inexpertly darned patch, and the crude stitches vanished, the patch melting into the original garment seamlessly. Then he ran his hand down Ash's chest and said, "Or I could, if I wished, make your clothes fall apart at the seams. But I trust that won't be necessary?"

Ash answered him with another kiss. The sash on Tsubasa's kimono came off with much more ease, with no need for magic, and with nothing else holding it in place, the loose robe fell open and was easily pushed back over his shoulders, leaving him clad in only a very ordinary pair of underpants that looked incongruous in combination with his more exotic outer clothing. But that too, was easily removed and discarded, leaving Tsubasa completely nude, and Ash's breath caught in his throat as he just stared at Tsubasa for a moment, spellbound.

"Now it's your turn, my handsome wolf," Tsubasa whispered huskily, and his hands reached up to undo the buttons on Ash's robe. But Ash remembered all the other scars that lay beneath his clothing, and was suddenly self-conscious again. He grabbed Tsubasa's wrists, halting his progress.

"What's wrong?" Tsubasa asked softly.

"Let's turn out the lights," Ash mumbled, looking down and not meeting his gaze.

"But you've seen me," Tsubasa pointed out in a playful voice. "I want to see you."

"It's just..." Ash flushed, his eyes still downcast. "...I have a lot more scars than this one." He touched the scar on his face. "And I...I don't want you to see..."

"That's nothing to be ashamed of," Tsubasa said gently. "I have scars, too, see?" He took Ash's hand and placed it on his side, just below a long, thin white scar across his ribs, just barely visible against the white of his skin. "I got that in sword practice. And here..." He moved Ash's hand lower, down onto his thigh where there was an uneven, blotch-shaped scar about the size of a Galleon in diameter. "This was from a spell blast from a Dark Wizard. That was careless of me; I should have been able to avoid it." In response to Ash's startled look, Tsubasa said, "Oh yes, we do have Dark Wizards in Japan, too. Some of the humans believe that the tengu have hidden stores of magical treasures, and a few of them are foolish enough to attempt raids on the tengu villages from time to time. A strong enough healing spell or potion would have healed these wounds without a scar, but the tengu consider their battle scars to be badges of honor, so they keep their scars and wear them with pride." He kissed Ash lightly on the mouth. "So wear your scars with pride, too, Ash."

"But they aren't battle scars," Ash protested in a subdued voice.

"But in a sense, they are," Tsubasa replied. "They're proof that you were able to survive your childhood. A weaker person might have died, or might have lived, but with their spirit broken. You were strong enough not to let the past break you, Ash, and I admire you for that. I would never scorn you for scars. So let me see you, Ash--let me see all of you."

Still blushing self-consciously, Ash finished undressing, then found himself trembling as Tsubasa very tenderly and methodically began kissing each of his scars. Tsubasa pressed his lips to an old burn mark just below Ash's nipple, then flicked his tongue across the nipple, and Ash had the fleeting, traitorous thought that Takeshi had done the exact same thing the time that they had made love. But then Tsubasa kissed him, and Ash wrapped his arms around the crane man and pulled him closer, and all his attention focused once more on the man currently sharing his bed. He ran his hands along Tsubasa's body, stroking his back and thighs, marveling at how smooth his skin was. Ash almost felt as if he shouldn't be touching something so fine and smooth and perfect with his work-roughened hands. During the long years that they had lived in poverty, Ash and some of the other werewolves had often taken odd jobs in the Muggle world when there had been no work for them in the wizarding world, heavy manual labor that had left Ash's fingers slightly calloused--rather like the pads of a dog's paws, ironically enough.

But when his hands stopped moving, hovering uncertainly above his lover's body, Tsubasa moaned, "Don't stop!" Reassured, Ash resumed his caresses, his hands growing bolder as Tsubasa moaned again and kissed him hungrily. Ash stroked the scar across Tsubasa's ribs, then let his hands move across Tsubasa's chest, his thumbs lightly rubbing and circling Tsubasa's nipples. Tsubasa gasped, breaking off their kiss, and Ash lowered his head to lick and nibble and suck at Tsubasa's nipples, as he had fantasized about doing earlier today after their fencing lesson.

Ash growled, his inner wolf stirring, and he pressed one of his legs between Tsubasa's as he continued licking and nibbling. The wolf's excitement caused Ash to nip a little harder at one nipple than he'd intended, and Tsubasa let out a yelp of pain. Ash started to pull away guiltily, but then he felt something hard pressing against his thigh, and he realized that the bite had aroused his lover.

"Did you like that?" he asked, grinning wolfishly, and Tsubasa's face turned bright red, but he nodded. Ash nipped playfully at Tsubasa's chest, provoking another yelp and a slight twitch against his thigh. Growling deep in his throat, Ash continued planting little love-bites all over Tsubasa's chest, gently at first and then with more force as Tsubasa moaned and writhed beneath him, rubbing against his thigh with increasing urgency. The sight of bruises forming on Tsubasa's pale skin and marring his perfect beauty appalled Ash, but at the same time it excited him further, and he growled, baring his teeth as he pushed Tsubasa's legs apart...

As a teenager, Tsubasa had "played at love" with some of his clanmates (the crane euphemism for the casual experimentation of the young before they settled on a lifemate), and as an adult, he had taken several casual lovers among the tengu. The tengu had a rather bawdy, down-to-earth approach to sex, regarding it as a physical activity to be enjoyed to the fullest, much the same way that they approached eating, drinking, dancing, and fighting. But while lovemaking with his tengu partners had been quite athletic and even exhausting at times, it had never been violent--the tengu saved that for the battlefield. And while the occasional hickey or playful little nip was fine, Tsubasa had never found pleasure in pain before. But each time that Ash's teeth bit into his flesh, Tsubasa felt a sharp flare of pain that somehow turned into pleasure as it raced towards his groin, as if his nerve endings had misfired or gotten scrambled somehow.

Ash raised his head and growled, baring his sharp teeth, his eyes glittering ferally, looking more animal than human. Tsubasa found it a little alarming and yet strangely erotic, and he didn't protest as Ash pushed his legs open and began planting sharp little bites up and down the insides of his thighs. Tsubasa moaned wildly, his fingers reaching down to tangle themselves in Ash's hair, urging him on, each bite sending another surge of pleasure/pain through his body. The more Tsubasa moaned, the harder Ash bit, and the pleasure seemed to increase exponentially with the pain, until Tsubasa was nearly frenzied with desire, his fingers pulling at Ash's hair so tightly that it must have hurt, but the werewolf didn't seem to notice. Or perhaps the pain felt good to him, too.

Ash seemed to be deliberately concentrating on Tsubasa's thighs, ignoring his aching erection although his hair brushed against it, lightly and teasingly, when Ash's love-bites moved higher up his thigh, closer to his crotch. "Please," Tsubasa groaned, wondering if this was payback for the way he had teased Ash after the lesson--it really was a bad idea to tease a werewolf!

Ash's inner wolf regarded the bruises on Tsubasa's thighs with a kind of possessive satisfaction, while the human part of him was a little frightened by how hard he was biting Tsubasa and the fact that he couldn't seem to stop himself. It just felt so good to sink his teeth into that soft flesh, to hear Tsubasa moan, to watch the white skin begin to turn red and purple with the imprint of his teeth. At least he wasn't biting hard enough to draw blood, and Tsubasa certainly didn't seem to mind; his fingers wound themselves into Ash's hair, pressing down on his head, pulling him closer, not trying to push him away.

Overwhelmed by the wolf's instincts and his own pleasure, Ash was only dimly aware of the sound of Tsubasa's voice pleading with him. And then the shapeshifter suddenly spread his legs apart even wider and raised his hips, his eyes silently imploring Ash to enter him.

Ash found himself lunging for the nightstand drawer so fast that he nearly fell off the bed. But he managed to grab the headboard and keep his balance, and fumbled in the drawer for a tube of lubricant with his free hand.

For some reason, Tsubasa felt slightly annoyed that Ash had the tube so ready at hand. Had he been planning, or at least hoping, that Tsubasa would be sharing this bed with him in the near future, or had it been there for the benefit of his previous lovers? The younger werewolves, who loved to gossip, had informed him that Ash had been something of a playboy in the past. Tsubasa realized with a start that he was jealous of those past lovers, even his beloved cousin Takeshi, and was seized with the brief desire to slap his young cousin for being so dense that he didn't even know that he had broken Ash's heart. Not that Ash had said so, precisely, but he instinctively sensed that Ash's feelings had run deeper than he was willing to admit.

But those thoughts suddenly slipped out of his mind when he felt two of Ash's fingers pushing into him, a bit more roughly than he would normally like, but he was so eager to have Ash inside him, and his body still so afire with those mingled pleasure/pain sensations, that he didn't care. He moaned, raising his hips to meet those questing fingers, enjoying the sensation of them stroking and thrusting inside him. Ash's mouth crushed against his in a bruising kiss, and then his teeth nipped at Tsubasa's lower lip, evoking another exquisite little flare of pain that caused an echoing throb of heat in his loins. Ash's fingers scissored apart, stretching Tsubasa open wider, and he cried out, his body arching up off the bed with a jerk as he felt a third finger join the first two.

Tsubasa felt Ash's palm against his belly, gently but firmly pushing him back down onto the bed. "Are you ready?" Ash growled, his hazel eyes practically glowing with a feral, wolfish hunger.

"Yes," Tsubasa moaned. He had never been readier in his life. In the past, sex had merely been a pleasurable physical sensation to be enjoyed; he had never before experienced this kind of frantic, overpowering need, as if he would die if Ash didn't enter him. He would have been frightened out of his wits, except that his need and lust left no room in his head for rational thought at the moment.

Ash's favorite position, as he had once jokingly told Takeshi, was doggy-style, but with Tsubasa lying beneath him, his legs splayed apart wantonly and his eyes frantic with lust, Ash knew that he wanted to make love to Tsubasa face-to-face. He wanted to see the pleasure in Tsubasa's face, the need in his eyes, the flush in his cheeks, and his lips parting to form an eager moan. He wanted to see how much Tsubasa wanted him. Kneeling between Tsubasa's legs, he positioned himself and entered his lover with a swift, hard thrust.

Tsubasa cried out as Ash thrust into him; there was a little pain, but mostly pleasure, and in any case, he could no longer really distinguish the difference between the two. What happened between them was not so much lovemaking as it was the primal coupling of two animals in heat. Ash thrust down into him, and Tsubasa arched up eagerly to meet him, but their coupling was awkward at first, with both of them so frantic with need that it took a couple of minutes for their bodies to fall into sync. And then it was good, so good, to feel Ash moving in and out of his body at a steady rhythm, but it still wasn't enough. Tsubasa moaned, and without thinking, raked his nails down Ash's back.

Ash gasped, his back arching, and his eyes went wide with surprise and then lit up with a fierce, feral hunger. He snarled eagerly and then began pounding into Tsubasa even harder and faster, as Tsubasa sobbed with pleasure, wrapping his legs tightly around Ash's waist and clawing at his back, digging his nails hard into Ash's skin to drive him on.

Sharp lines of pain raced down Ash's back where Tsubasa's nails clawed at him, but it only served to further stoke the heat of his lust as drove into Tsubasa at a frenzied pace. Merlin, it felt so good to feel Tsubasa's legs locked around his waist, to finally feel himself buried deep inside his lover's body, even better than he'd imagined it would be--and he had imagined it many times since he had met Tsubasa. He had spent more than one night alone in his bed, thrusting into his own hand as he pictured Tsubasa beneath him, and the orgasms resulting from his fantasies had somehow been more intense than the ones he'd had during his casual affairs with his werewolf friends. But the fantasies turned out to be a mere shadow compared to the reality of actually making love to Tsubasa.

Part of it was that Tsubasa's pleasure enhanced his own; it excited Ash to no end to know that it was him who was making Tsubasa moan and claw at his back, to know that he was the one who had put that look of desire in Tsubasa's eyes. The way that Tsubasa's hips eagerly pushed up to meet each thrust, the hardness rubbing against his belly as he leaned down to kiss Tsubasa and press their bodies closer together--it was all proof that Tsubasa wanted him as much as he wanted Tsubasa. And that was just as satisfying as the actual physical pleasure.

Tsubasa bit at Ash's lip as the werewolf kissed him, and heard Ash growl in response--not an angry or threatening growl, but a growl of pleasure. Tsubasa was not quite sure how he knew the difference, but he did, and the sound sent a shiver of excitement running down his spine. He gasped and panted, sounding not unlike a wolf himself as his hips rocked against Ash's. He was close, so close to coming...and yet climax remained tantalizingly, infuriatingly just a hairsbreadth out of reach. He threw back his head, moaning in frustration, and then he saw Ash's eyes gleam, and without warning, the werewolf snarled and sank his teeth into Tsubasa's throat.

Tsubasa had only a fraction of a second to register fear and surprise, and then the intense pain in his throat sent him over the edge, and he cried out as his body convulsed in the most incredible orgasm he'd ever had. All the thoughts in his mind--already vague and half-formed due to that overwhelming lust--shattered completely, breaking into a million little pieces that scattered and blew away like a handful of dust, leaving him conscious of nothing but the intense wave of pleasure wracking his body.

Ash felt Tsubasa come, semen spilling across his stomach and chest as Tsubasa's inner muscles clenched around him in little spasms that milked his own climax from him, and he threw back his head and the wolf howled in triumph.

Ash was not really sure how long it took for the wolf to retreat and for full consciousness to return to him, but eventually he became aware that he was lying next to a trembling Tsubasa; it took him another moment to realize that he was trembling also. He began to shake even harder when he saw the bruise on Tsubasa's throat and the full implications of what he had done began to hit him.

"I'm sorry," Ash whispered, reaching up with trembling fingers to very lightly touch Tsubasa's throat. "I've never done that before, not to anyone." The other bruises he had left on the beautiful shapeshifter's body disturbed him also, but the one on his throat most of all, because that was the way that a werewolf claimed its mate. But that should make him happy, because he wanted Tsubasa to be his mate...didn't he? He nervously brushed off that thought, telling himself that he was worried that he had hurt Tsubasa.

But Tsubasa smiled at him and said, "I'm all right," although he looked a little shaken, too. "It just took me by surprise because I wasn't expecting it, but it was very...ah...intense." When Ash still looked anxious, he added, "In a good way."

"I'm glad," Ash said, kissing his throat in apology. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I just got...um...a little carried away."

"I'm fine," Tsubasa said, kissing him lightly; Ash was vaguely aware that his lip still stung slightly where Tsubasa had bitten him. "I've received far worse bruises in my training with the tengu." Ash felt a sudden surge of jealously and suspicion that must have shown on his face, because Tsubasa smiled and said, "Not quite the same sorts of bruises, of course, nor in quite the same places."

"Ah...of course," Ash said, blushing. He wrapped an arm around Tsubasa, and his lover moved closer, resting his head on Ash's chest. {What the hell is wrong with me?} Ash wondered as he lay there, torn between the conflicting desires to cradle Tsubasa in his arms, and alternately, to jump out of bed and run as far and fast as he could. Kyra had once sarcastically told him that he was allergic to commitment, and he had laughed it off at the time, but maybe she had been right.

Tsubasa felt Ash tense, and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," the werewolf replied, then sighed. "Everything. I don't know what to do about this girl."

"Well, if you are asking my advice..." Tsubasa raised an eyebrow in inquiry, and Ash hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "I think that you should meet her." Ash frowned, looking as though he wanted to protest, and Tsubasa continued, "I'm not saying that you should forgive your parents, but Laura has never done anything to hurt you. She is your sister, after all, and she seems like a kind person." He recalled that she was the only one who had voiced concern about the house-elves in his class when Owen had mocked Hermione Granger's efforts to help them. "Perhaps it might be possible to have a relationship with her even if you don't wish to have one with your mother and stepfather?"

"I don't want a relationship with her!" Ash snapped, sitting up in bed and pulling away from Tsubasa. "I have nothing against the girl--"

"Laura," Tsubasa reminded him.

"Nothing against Laura," Ash said sullenly, because he didn't want to be reminded of her name. He didn't want to have to think of her as a real person instead of just another faceless member of the Madley family. "But I have no desire to meet her. I don't want to think about my family. I don't want any reminders of them in my life."

"The bonds of blood are not so easy to break," Tsubasa said quietly.

"My family and the families of my packmates found them quite easy to break, I assure you," Ash said acidly. "What kind of relationship am I supposed to have with this girl, anyway? She clearly has an idealized view of her family. Do you really think she'll take kindly to being told that her dear Mummy is a shallow, social-climbing bitch who got knocked up by the first pureblood boy who would have her, or that Daddy is a controlling, abusive brute? I don't think she even realizes that I'm not her father's biological child, which means that either she doesn't know what year her parents got married, or she's too stupid to count, since it should be obvious that I was born more than five years before the wedding."

"No, of course I don't think that it will be news she wants to hear," Tsubasa sighed. "And I don't think that Miss Madley is stupid; she seems to be a clever student. Perhaps your parents lied to her about the date of their marriage. You asked for my advice, Ash, and my advice to you is to see her, if only to tell her that you don't want any further contact with her or her family. It's your decision, of course, and if you don't want to meet her, I'll tell her so, but I don't think she will accept it unless she hears it from you personally. She is, as you've noticed, rather idealistic, and I think that she'll continue to pursue you until she finds out why you don't want to see her. I've noticed that Hufflepuffs are sometimes mocked by the other Houses, but they can be quite tenacious when they put their minds to something, like the badger that is their House emblem."

Ash groaned, and Tsubasa smiled at him sympathetically and put his arms around the werewolf comfortingly. He started to kiss Ash, but broke it off when Ash tensed up again, his body going rigid and unresponsive.

"What's wrong, Ash?" he asked quietly. "Besides Laura, I mean. This seems to be something to do more with you and me."

"I'm sorry," Ash said miserably. "I just...I don't think I can do this right now. You and me. Everything happened so fast, and this thing with that girl...with my sister...it's just too much to handle right now."

"I see," Tsubasa said, wondering why he felt so hurt. Wasn't he the one who had told Ash that this was just a single night of pleasure with no obligations binding them? Hadn't he told himself that he was merely comforting Ash? He was a little angry at Ash for pushing him away, but mostly he was angry at himself, because he was the one who had lied to himself. He'd known that he shouldn't sleep with Ash until he was certain that the werewolf was ready to be in a relationship, but he'd convinced himself that he could keep it casual, when he should have known from the intensity of his attraction to Ash that he couldn't.

"I understand," he said, carefully keeping his voice level and neutral. "You don't need to apologize. We agreed that it would be only one night with no strings attached." He climbed out of bed and began to get dressed.

Still looking guilty and anxious, Ash said hastily, "It's not that I don't want to be with you, Tsubasa. I just need to work out this thing with my sister before I can figure out anything else. Please..." His voice trailed off, as if he wasn't really sure what he was asking for, but his eyes stared at Tsubasa pleadingly.

He looked so unhappy and vulnerable that Tsubasa relented inwardly, his resentment dissipating. After the miserable childhood he'd had, it was little wonder that the werewolf should have trouble forming attachments to people. {Who am I to judge, anyway?} Tsubasa thought with a bit of bitter humor. {I've never had a serious relationship in my life, either. I can't even get along with my own clan, outside of a few family members.}

"I understand, Ash," Tsubasa said, in a more sincere voice this time. "It's all right. What do you want to do about Laura?"

"I don't know," Ash replied in a subdued voice. "I need some time to think it over."

"All right," Tsubasa said. "You can send me a message at Hogwarts when you make your decision. Or..." He hesitated. "You can just tell me at our next lesson."

The sudden look of hope in Ash's eyes gave Tsubasa a little hope, too. "You...still want to teach me?" Ash asked in a small voice, looking more like a puppy than a wolf at the moment--like a stray puppy in an alleyway staring hopefully at passersby, but without any real expectations that someone would pick him up and take him home.

That look was almost impossible to resist. "Yes, of course," Tsubasa replied gently, and he leaned down to kiss Ash. He wanted to kiss him on the mouth, but knew that he wouldn't be able to keep such a kiss brief and chaste, so he settled for brushing his lips against Ash's cheek, and even then, he let his lips linger a little longer than he had meant to.

Ash inhaled, drawing in a ragged breath, then released it with a sigh and said, "Thank you."

"I should get back to Hogwarts," Tsubasa said. "If you want to...well, I guess that's a bad choice of words. If you decide to meet with Laura, let me know, and I'll arrange it."

Ash thanked him again, still sounding subdued, and Tsubasa left the room and headed downstairs. The werewolves sitting around the dinner table all grinned at him knowingly, and Tsubasa felt his face turn red as he belatedly remembered that they had never bothered to put a silence spell up on the bedroom.

"It's lucky that the children are all at the mansion," Matilda said mildly as the other werewolves snickered, and Tsubasa felt his face turning even redder.

"I'm sorry," Tsubasa mumbled, feeling like a chastised schoolboy caught doing something very naughty. He resolved to have more sympathy for his students from now on.

"Well, it's nice to see our Ash so taken with someone," Matilda replied, her eyes sparkling mischievously. "Will the two of you be joining us for dinner?"

The werewolves looked around, taking note of the fact that Ash was nowhere in sight. "Worn him out, have you?" Kyra asked with a grin and a wink.

"I...ah...have to return to Hogwarts," Tsubasa stammered. "I...I'm sure that Ash will...um...be down for dinner soon. Goodnight!"

"Come back anytime, dear," Matilda called after him as Tsubasa made his escape and fled through the Floo.
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Meanwhile, up in his room, Ash groaned out loud, "I am so stupid!" After weeks of chasing Tsubasa, he had finally managed to get the crane man into his bed, and had then practically thrown him out of it. Tsubasa had said that he wasn't upset, but Ash was depressingly certain that he had screwed things up beyond mending.

What was wrong with him, anyway? He'd gotten a second chance with Tsubasa after being turned down the first time, and the sex had been great...and Ash finally realized what was bothering him so much. The sex had been great, all right--it had been TOO great. He had never felt the desire to bite his partner in that claiming manner until he had met Takeshi, but even then, he had been able to control and stop himself, because he had known that Takeshi wasn't meant to be his mate. But with Tsubasa...Ash had never before experienced such a complete loss of control, had never been so completely overwhelmed by the wolf except during his transformations before he'd started taking the Wolfsbane Potion. And that terrified him. Accepting that the wolf was a part of him was one thing, but it was another thing to surrender himself to it entirely, to give in to mindless rage--or lust. He wanted Tsubasa, could maybe even fall in love with him, but he didn't think that he could bear to lose himself so completely in another person if it was going to be like this every time they made love.

And yet...the thought of losing Tsubasa was equally unbearable, and he had been relieved when Tsubasa had offered to continue their lessons as if nothing had happened. Ash fervently wished that he could go back in time and start over again, take things more slowly this time. Maybe things would have turned out differently.

He had used it as an excuse, but maybe this fear he felt really was due to the letter from his sister. The thought of having to deal with his family made him feel like a wolf with its leg caught in a steel trap, so frantic and desperate that it would gnaw through its own leg to escape.

Actually, what he really wanted to do was crawl into a deep, dark cave and hide there until all his problems went away. So he settled for crawling under the covers, and refused to come out even when his packmates called him down to dinner.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Back at Hogwarts, Tsubasa stepped through the fireplace into his quarters. He was tired, sweaty, sticky, and his body ached, although there was an underlying feeling of pleasant satiation. He decided to shower and soak in a hot bath to soothe his aches, and perhaps ease his mental turmoil as well. He stripped off his clothes and headed for the bathroom, then paused when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror--no wonder the other werewolves had grinned at him so knowingly! They hadn't needed to hear his moans or Ash's howl to know that the two of them had been having sex. The mirror reflected his blush of mortification, as well as disheveled hair, a swollen lower lip, a large bruise spreading across his throat, and rings of mottled red-and-purple bite marks all over his chest and inner thighs. He looked like he'd been mauled by a wild animal, and he thought to himself with a smile of embarrassed amusement, that in a sense, he had been.

He was probably going to have to wear one of Ichiro's high-necked British-style robes tomorrow; a kimono would expose his bruised throat, and he could just imagine the students' reactions if their teacher showed up with a huge hickey on his neck. Humiliation aside, the Headmaster would not be amused--no, on the other hand, he might well be amused, but Deputy Headmistress McGonagall definitely would not.

He had a little mild bruise salve on hand, but he didn't think that it would completely erase the mark on his throat by tomorrow morning. He could ask Professor Snape or Madam Pomfrey for something stronger, of course, but he didn't really want to explain to them why he needed it. For the same reason, he didn't want to ask Takeshi, either; he didn't want to see his cousin grin knowingly the way the werewolves had, and he was in such a bad mood that he might actually give in to the temptation to slap his cousin, which he would no doubt regret later. And it would probably make Ash mad at him, too. Whether or not Ash was actually still in love with Takeshi, he was obviously very protective of him, which annoyed Tsubasa even more.

He supposed that he ought to apply the salve that he had on hand and just hope for the best, but as he stared at his reflection, he realized that he didn't really want to heal the marks Ash had left on him. He wanted to keep them as proof of...what, he wasn't exactly sure. The memory of their night together, perhaps, because it didn't look like he was going to get a chance to repeat the experience anytime soon. And although he ought to be too sated and exhausted to even contemplate the idea of a repetition right now, he found himself beginning to get aroused by the sight of his own bruises, his body shuddering with an echo of pleasure at the memory of how those bruises had been made...

Tsubasa swore under his breath as he marched into the bathroom. It looked like he would have to trade that hot bath for another cold shower.

Chapter 6

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