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“We could just curse them to tell the truth,” Harry suggested. “You know, let them be their own down fall and all that?”
“Sure. Great plan! Assuming they’re posing as humans and not immune. Which we can add to the list of things we don’t know, right after where and what they are,” Derek said snidely. Stiles joined Harry in rolling his eyes.
Things had not quite been going to plan for Stiles, since his cousin and his two friends had arrived from Britain. Harry, Ron and Hermione were supposed to be having a holiday after finishing their NEWTS, while also giving Stiles a chance to catch up with Harry after the bespectacled teen was MIA for nearly two years. Instead, in a rare show of solidarity, Derek and Scott had come barging in one afternoon growling about witches, magic and the latest big bad of the week. Things were said, fangs shown, wands were drawn and ultimately, Stiles was just glad Harry and Hermione were able to fix everything before his dad got home. Needless to say, it wasn’t how Stiles would’ve liked to introduce his kick-ass cousin and co. to the pack, but Harry did offer their help if only so Hermione could look at new resources. (He’d also mentioned feeling sorry for Stiles having to deal with a new baddie every other week, while he dealt with the same one every year. Stiles wasn’t sure how to feel about that…)
So here they were (grudgingly for most) gathered around a table in Derek’s loft. Derek marking points of interest off on a map of the town with Scott and Ron, while Harry and Stiles examined “evidence” (Harry being responsible for the inverted commas) and Peter making a nuisance of himself. Stiles had no idea where anyone else was, other than Hermione and Lydia, who had wandered off into another room to “make tea and compare notes” which none of the males in the room had commented on, though Stiles had a feeling the wolves had wanted to. Which may have been partially why Derek was getting even more bitchy with Harry. Which also seemed like a poor life choice in Stiles’ opinion.
Harry’s smile was sharp as he said, “Well you’re the man with the plan, never mind the map, Bloodhound. I thought, with all your huff and puff earlier, you’d have already figured it out. Or would you like me to give you a little incentive?”
While Derek glared at Harry, Stiles was eyeing the wizard’s twitching fingers, knowing that Harry was itching to twirl his wand threateningly around them. He spared a brief moment to be torn between, imagining his cousin go toe-to-toe with Derek and wondering for whose benefit was it that he didn’t have his wand in hand.
“Mate, your Dark Lord is showing,” Ron said distractedly, still looking at the map.
Harry shot a frigidly dark look at his friend for a moment before a wicked grin overtook his face. What Stiles (and he assumed everyone else) had been expecting to come out of Harry’s mouth, was something along the lines of a burning comeback. Suitably sharp and barbed, Stiles was sure. What actually came out, was a fluid, almost lyrical, stream of hisses that had Ron doing a full body shudder and sending his own glare at Harry. The red head, now thoroughly distracted from the map, thumped the other wizard hard in retaliation.
“Ow,” was the only recognisable thing Harry said, as he rubbed feeling back into his arm and another stream of hisses flew from his mouth, sounding much more vicious than before.
“Ronald Bilious! Stop discouraging Harry’s use of parseltongue!” Hermione shouted from the other room, making all those of the werewolf persuasion wince a little at the sudden noise. “Harry James, stop swearing at Ron in another language!”
Harry and Ron shared a commiserating look before rolling their eyes.
“Can I come stay with you?” Harry deadpanned, looking at Stiles.
“Harry!” Ron cried, seemingly bretrayed.
“What? She’s your girlfriend.”
“Sure, but she still knows where I live dude,” Stiles agreed with a slight grin, like the trio weren’t already over nearly every day to see him.
“That’s alright. Your dad’s a polic- Sheriff. She has a thing for authority, she won’t start anything in your house. She’ll probably knock when she comes looking for me, actually,” Harry shrugged.
“If you’ll recall,” Hermione said with a heated glare, as she and Lydia walked back into the room. “I robbed a bank for you, Harry Potter. Authority be damned.”
“Oh, for me?” Harry asked before smirking; “I thought that was for the greater good?”
Hermione hissed, more like a cat than whatever Harry had been doing, but before she could fire off a comeback, (and Stiles could find out if he was right about the different types of hissing) Scott warbled.
“Wait, you guys robbed a bank?!”
“It was just one gobin bank,” Ron brushed off. Like it was the troll hoard, rather than the journey to Mordor, Stiles knew it to be. He was impressed. Ron had clearly been paying attention to what everyone was willing to believe. That had probably got passed the walking werewolf lie-detectors too, judging by the way they were only glancing at him for a reaction rather than actually looking for an explanation. Stiles wasn’t the only one impressed apparently, by the way Harry and Hermione were trying to hide their (somewhat sappy) smiles.
While Ron may have missed the expressions on his friends’ faces, Peter didn’t sadly. Even if he had no context, Zombie-wolf clearly felt the need to comment.
“Yes, how touching. You resulted to thievery from another intelligent race in the name of friendship.”
“Bite m-”
Ron’s mouth may as well have been a snitch with the speed Harry slapped his hand over it. Hermione was only a second behind him though and her hand came with a dire warning.
“Don’t tell the actual werewolf to bite you.”
Ron’s reply was muffled behind their hands, but his wide offended eyes conveyed his question easily. Harry and Hermione shared an exasperated look.
“You mean aside from the fact that he’s smarmy enough to actually do it?” Harry asked rhetorically. “Most likely when you least expect it? You know, like a true Slytherin?”
Hermione rolled her eyes, clearly done with both of them now; “Because he’s werewolf enough for the bite to do something, but nowhere near alpha enough for that ‘something’ to be anything good.”
Where he had seemed amused before, Peter now just looked offended. Everyone else, however, wore various expressions of shock, horror, and disgust at the casual way the trio were discussing how the bite would affect them. (Except Derek, who probably was at least one of the three but just couldn’t emote anything beyond what Harry called his Perfect Potter resting bitch face. Apparently, it was a very familiar expression for people who weren’t fond of Harry and had few social skills.) Stiles couldn’t actually blame the pack for their reactions, considering they had no context for how different werewolf bites would affect a magical person.
Stiles, meanwhile, was just a bit in awe. Harry had told him about his friends in his letters. What they got up to and how close they were, obviously originally leaving out some specific (read; magical) details and then some besides. But Stiles had been able to read between the lines for the most part (not about the magic, though he should’ve noticed something there sooner), and knew these two were to Harry, what Scott was to him. He had guessed that it might go a little further than that (considering the boarding school circumstances) and that they might be living in each other’s brains, part-time at least. It was amazing to watch in person and the fact that he was right was made all the sweeter by knowing that this was just Act One. The Intro. They were just casually being awesome. They still had Act Two: The Plan to get to, where they would each be individually awesome thereby becoming a collective legend. (Collectively awesome?) He may also be falling just a little bit in love with Hermione Granger and her intelligence.
Harry must have caught some kind of look on his face at that thought. (And Stiles felt a rush of warmth in his chest at the evidence that Harry knew him just as well as Ron and Hermione, to be able to read the thoughts off his face. And not out of his brain, because Harry had admitted to being pants at any kind of “mind art.”) Though, his expression implied he’d be patting Stiles sympathetically on the shoulder if he had the hand free, rather than pummelling Stiles for making moon eyes at one of his best friends.
“Don’t worry mate, anyone with any sense is always at least a little in love with her,” Harry said. “She picked this redheaded teaspoon though, so I imagine only the best challenge will do.”
By the time he’d finished, Stiles did feel a bit better, and Harry’s two friends could’ve been used as traffic lights with how red their faces were.
“Harry James Potter!”
“What? It’s true-”
“Harry.”
“Yes, Hermione.”
Stiles nodded half in awe, half in wisdom; “Yeah, I see what you mean dude. I wouldn’t want to argue with her awesome either. Maybe just bask in it sometimes.”
“Right? I don’t know how Ron does it but he’s the best at it,” Harry agreed with an emphatic nod.
“Har-”
A loud burst of muffled noise from Ron had his two friends looking at his still red face (what they could see of it from under their hands at least) in surprise. Again, they shared a sigh.
“You’re right, we’re getting off topic,” Hermione said as she removed her hand.
Harry stared hard at Ron, making sure he had his attention before stating; “No more telling psychotic beta werewolves to bite you, yes?”
Ron nodded. Both ignoring the offended noise Peter made as well as Lydia’s snort.
“Good,” said Harry as he finally took his hand away.
“Can I tell him to bite me?” Ron asked as soon as he was able, waving a negligent hand at Scott, who looked less like a werewolf at that moment and more like a startled deer.
Stiles’ snort was lost beneath the outburst of voices that question prompted. Harry may have been staring contemplatively at Scott, but Stiles had told him enough about his best friend that Harry had to know he’d never do it. Scott would feel horribly guilty for even thinking about it, never mind actually doing it. Harry was just pausing for effect and ignoring the outrage around him because he could be just as much of an asshole as Stiles when he chose to.
Harry eventually shrugged; “Sure.”
“Harry! /Dude!”