Werewolf Harry (Patreon)

DO I HAVE A TREAT FOR YOU? Yes I do! This is everything I have written of werewolf Harry so far! I have a feeling this is going to be a long one so I wanted y'all to get a looksie at how its going. 

_________________________________________________

i.

It's stupid. 

Really stupid. 

Y/N should be in bed, snug beneath her covers, scrolling through some weird spooky forum that would aid in giving her a loitered unease, enough so that she's too frightened to leave her bed and every movement her pup made beside her nearly had her jumping from her skin. Should have just taken a hot bath, shaved herself nice and soft, moisturized like someone else might be feeling her legs that night, and in that thin knitted sleep sweatshirt she got about three sizes too big. Ought to have just finished off the remnants of her chamomile tea, warming her insides and bringing comfort to her weary bones. 

The week had been a hard one, full of tests and assignments and speeches that drew her towards mental exhaustion. All that, plus tacking on at least sixteen hours at the bakery creaming cupcakes and brewing coffee -- Y/N deserved such pleasantries as she'd described. Deserved to feel content, warm, and moments from being lulled to the sleep by the crooning rattle of her ceiling fan. To wake up tomorrow morning feeling refreshed, replenished, and with thick knitted socks covering her perpetual cold toes, not needing to leave her apartment for anything other than maybe the mail and a small walk for her pup -- Grandpa -- begin a binge of a show and fuck around for her entire Saturday, just relaxing, one of the few days that she was actually able to. 

But no! Of course not. Of course, Y/N would have gotten a call from Marcie, begging and pleading for some Pot Roast and Y/N couldn't find it in herself to say no, considering Marcie had just gone through the messiest break up known to man (her boyfriend was having an affair with Marcie's friend who was also her math tutor, coupling as his math tutor, and she walked in because the tutor had double booked and now Marcie was down one boyfriend and worried she would drop a letter grade because, "M'shit at calc! There's no way m'gonna make it with more than a D, unless Dr. Davies wants to have a whirl around with me"). So Y/N took her a bowl of pot roast, even though it meant walking to and fro in the dark, along the lining of a forest that always feels like something is staring out at her from. Which is doable during the day, but at night -- at night, she'd never realized how fucking creepy it actually was. Especially on the way back, where nobody was expecting her so if she went missing it wasn't an immediate alarm.

To add to all of this, it's freezing. Like the blood in her veins had all but iced over, body trembling with each burst of wind that worms its way beneath the fabric of her jacket, and causes her loose pajama pants to billow around her legs like waves after a storm. Damn her tender heart for her friend! If she could become cold as stone and say no to Greta every once in a while, then she wouldn't be doing things like this, but Marcie is so sweet and gentle and gets hurt all too often by people she's close with. Y/N doesn't want to be one of those people, even if it means sacrificing the comfort of her home to bring someone pot roast. 

So that bit, for all intents and purposes, wasn't stupid. 

What was stupid, was the fact that she heard the pained cry of what sounded to be a dog coming from within the lining of trees and she almost immediately headed towards it. 

That was really stupid. 

But she couldn't help it, the thought of a poor animal being hurt and alone in the cold makes her heart shatter, so Y/N is pushing through the thicket of leaves still clinging onto the branches to emerge herself inward to the forest. The cry didn't sound all too far off so she wasn't worried about not finding her way back as she turns on her phone's flashlight and uses it to guide her. Despite the moon's fullness, glittery white rays of light are subject to obstruction by the overly tall trees looming overhead so she was peering through a shroud of darkness while repeating to herself that most scary movies aren't real, like a mantra in her head to keep her from turning around and booking it out. She could call animal control, but they'd merely take forever -- if they were even open (everything sort of shuts down around 10PM here, with the only 24 hour any things being hospitals, a diner here and there, one McDonalds and three Taco Bells. Everything else they presume can wait for a little while. And maybe that would be the case, once she came upon the animal -- maybe it would just be a tail that had bent weird or a sprained paw, and Y/N would be scared away by a snarl and a growl.

However, when she stumbles upon what appears to be a massive fucking wolf -- well, it was more than just a sprained paw. 

There were a few things wrong with what she was seeing. The first being, she was almost completely positive that wolves did not live anywhere near to where she was, and if they did then they certainly didn't look like this one; being the second thing wrong, it was abnormal in size. Surpassing a bear, hitting Twilight levels of stature and it makes her heart not only hammer against her chest in quick thuds, but sink to the bottom of her stomach as she stepped upon it. But maybe it was an anomaly, like a Guinness book of world records type thing. Like, maybe she could call them or something and have her name in the next issue for finding the biggest, and only gigantic ass wolf known to man.  Yet, the third thing wrong was that it was laying on its side, whimpering pitifully, it's paw sporting what appeared to be a bite from something just as big if not larger. 

Y/N's all wide eyes as she steps towards it, swallowing the fear bubbling within her as she gets closer to it, lowering herself to her knees besides it. Despite how frightening it appeared -- a huge, possibly rabid wolf that was in no way a lap dog like her pup Grandpa -- it was still hurt. Still in pain, and she couldn't just. . .she couldn't just leave it here, by itself. So she knees her way  up to it, inches away as she gets a better look at the blood matted fur of it's left paw, her flashlight still glaring it's light against it. She pans it up to it's face, flinching with a gasp when she sees that it's eyes are open, peering at her. Lip drawn up, baring his teeth with a low growl but it's clearly too weak to even lift up it's head so while the noise is jarring, it does little to deter her. 

She slips off her jacket, the adrenalin from this alone warding off the cold that had once been burning up her arms, "It's okay," she murmurs gently, "M'not. . .I'm not gonna hurt you." Her voice is light, and gentle as she can make it, tutting her tongue a little bit as she props her phone's light up on a thick rock. Reaching out, she carefully touches her fingertips to the fur, listening to it whimper as it flinches away the most that it could, "It's alright," she hums, picking up her jacket, then it's massive paw attentively -- the paw alone must've weighed near twenty pounds -- and wrapping the fabric around it tightly, tying it off with the arms. She winces at it's yowl, "I'm sorry!" she apologizes quickly, almost immediately petting at the non-injured foot like she does when she accidentally steps on Grandpa's paw, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're okay, I promise." The coat is soft, like a downy fur; she's gentle as she can be, shushing it's whimpers and cries as she caressed it. 

Though it settled, and quietened some, she knew that she couldn't just let it stay her. Picking up her phone, she unlocks it to see that she's got no signal. And though she doesn't want to leave it here alone, she knows that she needs to call for help, and go get him a blanket, maybe a pillow, and bring some water for it to drink.

So she slowly creeps to a stand, "I'll be back -- I promise I'll be back," she swears to it, searching out it's face, looking into eyes almost too blue, "I'm going to get help, okay? I'm going to get help and something for you to drink, and a blanket to keep you warm, yeah?" She focuses in, nodding her head -- more to herself than anything, "I'm going to be back." 

It hurts her heart to leave it there, but she tears herself from the scene, and runs home. Feet beating against the pavement as she trucks it, breathing hard through her nose, feeling like she's got no fucking time at all. A scream feels like its building in her throat from pure shock alone, but she bites it down by physically biting on her bottom lip. Ignores Grandpa's confused stares, heads tilted, stopping only for a moment between gathering supplies to scratch between his ears gently and press a kiss to his wet nose, before continuing to stuff a blanket, a pillow, extra gauze she had left over from a panicked care package her family had sent her when she went to school, an extra feeding tin she had and a water bottle so that she can take care of it. 

In the mess of it, she messages Marcie about her find and says she knows it sounds crazy but if she can send her location there she will. 

This is brew for one shitty horror movie, so if I turn up missing know I was mauled  by a werewolf

It was definitely not the calmest of messages but Y/N was definitely not the calmest of people at the moment, so it made sense. 

She's gone full vet mode by the time she returns, finding the tree with a distinct waterlogged bend in it's branch that she had passed originally when she found it. Yet when she stops in the clearing where the wolf had been. . . .there's nothing there at all. Not a body, not a grizzly snout, or big paws with her soft olive jacket wrapped around it. Hell, there wasn't even really an imprint of where the body had been at all. 

Was she crazy? Did she imagine that? 

No. . .no, she couldn't have. She couldn't have because there, lying where had once been a paw, was her jacket. The once olive green now stained dark from it's blood -- the same that stained her palm, tinged pink from her attempt to wash it away but it refused to completely clear. 

Was she a little relieved that she didn't have to actually figure out what to do with what might have been a thousand pound animal? Incredibly so, but that doesn't release any of the worry that had begun storing in her chest for the animal. This also leaves a very pressing question that she doesn't exactly want to think about. 

What was strong enough to move an animal like that? 

                                                                         .                                .                                   .

"Oh, are you too busy messaging the gigantic wolf that you can't help me ice these cookies?" 

Y/N pouts her bottom lip, raising her head from her phone as she's leant behind the counter, adjacent to where Marcie is hunched over with a chocolate frosting bag, "C'mon, don' be mean yet, s'not even 8AM." 

Opening the bakery was the god damn worst, Y/N would be the first to say. One of the bakers -- Miss. Marianne -- comes in at 3AM on her shifts, whips up everything necessary for the day (she works Mondays and Saturdays strictly, just because she loves the craft of it but the whole rest of her week is booked with book clubs, knitting parties, and scheduled Bingo) but she leaves the icing jobs to them, which means coming in three hours earlier than the bakery even opens to make everything presentable; tied up with a nice little bow. That means Y/N has to roll out of bed every other Saturday and frost bumblebees, smiley faces, flowers (penises, but they eat those right away so nobody sees), which normally isn't that much of a toil. Only last night had been a week since she saw that wolf, and maybe. . .maybe she made a spur of the moment decision at 3AM to go check and see if it might have reappeared -- like it was on some weekly schedule. All she was met with, is a clear space, no wolf, and approximately three hours to sleep before a seven hour shift. 

Exhaustion and overthinking were not a great mix before walking into a bakery, so she was attempting to appease her racing thoughts by checking the Wilderness news to see if any huge wolves had been spotted. That did mean she was letting Marcie -- who thought she might have had a mental break -- do a majority of the work. 

"I can tell you're still thinking about it," Marcie notes, her knuckles to her sides as she's cocking her hip, "I'm telling you, maybe it was a sleep-induced haze -- you're prone to sleep-walking don't you know?" 

"So I fell asleep on the walk from your house to mine? Marcie how does that make any sense?" Her brows furrow, "Besides, I slept walk once and I don't even count it, I just wanted chocolate from your fridge!" She turns around to her counter, grabbing the yellow buttercream frosting with a sigh, "You saw the blood on my jacket, yeah? Something was there." 

"And I believe you!" She exclaims, "I do. What I'm questioning is your perception because no wolf is the size of a tree trunk" Waving her hand, she shakes her head, "But whatever, you got played by a wolf who probably wanted to snack on you but you got away too fast and he gave up. We'll let bygones be bygones, and I'll keep an eye out for any mammoth wolves when I'm on my way to class." She gives her a wink and Y/N snorts before continuing, "Now I need you to convince me not to bust Johnathan's windows in. I just remembered that the gate to his apartment building is broken and I've been itching to purchase a bat." 

Y/N saucers a cookie behind her, effectively clocking her in the side, "Vandalism is a felony, Marc, unless you want to kiss that scholarship goodbye I'd keep your bats to yourself."

Marcie doesn't get to really answer though, because the door chimes brightly signaling someone walked in. Which was concerning, considering the door had definitely been locked and the sign was on closed opposed to open. Their brows furrow, looking to each other before turning towards the intruder. A guy stands at the door, looking a little stunned, eyes wide. 

"Sir, we're not quite open yet," Marcie tells him and his mouth is popped open some, blue eye gleaming.

"Oh," he holds an Irish lilt, nodding, swallowing thickly, "Yeah, sorry, I must've missed the sign." He lifts his hand to point back at the door, "I'll go --" 

"Well you're already in here," Y/N rushes to say, a knowing twinge coaxing at her chest. . .he feels familiar. . .all too familiar, for some reason -- was he in a class with her? "Might as well get what you came for. How are you?" 

Something like recognition crosses over his features, him smiling gratefully and walking towards the counter, "I'm well. Could I have a buttercream cookie?" Y/N nods, moving to the display case and reaching in for the one from the top, with a smiley face decorating the top. She places it on top of a tissue sheet, sliding it over to him from her side of the counter, trying to ignore the way Marcie is eying her. Instead she's focusing in on how sheepish this boy is, with his eyes darting around, looking at her for only a moment before letting his eyes drag away. He appears to be panicking to some degree and she wonders why. 

The boy reaches into his pocket, handing over the money to her and that's when she notices that his hand is bandaged. His left hand is bandaged, and against her better judgement, when he's dropping coins into her hand, she grasps at the tips of his fingers with a small gasp, and for the first time their eyes lock, "What happened to your hand?" She asks him, brows pinching towards the center. 

"I -- uh. . .I -- um. . .cutting; vegetables. Was cutting; some vegetables and watching the telly, nicked my hand real good." He swallows thickly and it wouldn't take a genius to know that he was lying, but she doesn't combat him on it (mostly because she'd just grabbed his hands way too familiarly and he's a complete stranger). 

She nods, releasing him, feeling her face warm, "Ouch," she fakes a grimace, "Well, no more watching tv when you've got a blade in hand, yeah?" 

He nods, giving her a smile before taking his cookie and retreating. 

"D'ya know him?"  Marcie asks, "I'd hope so, with whatever you just pulled." 

"Mhm," Y/N hums, the lie coming out easy as she turns back to her cookies, "He's in my Abnormal Psych lecture. We sit next to each other." 

"You make him nervous," she notes, zigzagging the chocolate frosting, "Use that to your advantage and cheat off his tests when you don't feel like studying. He probably thinks you're cute."

Y/N's got a niggling feeling that, that's not why he's nervous around her at all. 

                                                                          .                                .                              .

Y/N sees the boy around often -- way too often actually. After first becoming aware of his face last Saturday morning, she had effectively seen him more than two handfuls of times; in the coffee shop she stops by for a vanilla latte before her Human Diversity lecture, at the library when she tries to half ass her way through an essay, at the store when she's buying herself (and her friend Liam) hot chocolate and marshmallows for the upcoming wind chill, and even when she walks into her bakery, ducking out almost immediately as she walks in and reaches for her frilled powder blue apron. It felt like he was always in her peripherals -- always lurking -- and quite frankly Y/N is sick of it. Though it feels like he means no harm, since there's never a looming darkness accompanying him, it still gives her the fucking creeps. 

That's why, when she takes a sip of her latte, burning the tip of her tongue, and flinches back to see that he's leaning against a tree at the corner of the crowd, lower half covered by a wilting shrub and she's just had it. Sets her eyes on him and begins stomping over to him, determined as she's ever been. It takes him a moment to actually understand what is happening, and when it finally registers in his brain, his eyes nearly pop from his skull, standing up straighter so that he could make a run for it, but Y/N's to quick for him, jogging the rest of the way so that she corners him at the tree. 

"Alright, who the fuck are you?" She says, keeping her voice marginally low as to not arouse suspicion by any passer-bye, "Seen you once at my bakery, then you're all over the damn place. Now unless you just transferred and miraculously have the same schedule as me, why the hell are you around every damn corner? Are you stalking me?" 

"No!" He rushes to answer, shaking his head quickly, "No, m'not I --" 

"Then who the hell are you?" She demands, brows pinched so deep she can feel each crinkle of her forehead.

The guy sighs heavy, swallowing thickly, "I'm. . .I'm Niall. My name is Niall." 

Huffing, Y/N kisses the back of her teeth, "Okay, Niall," she begins, "Why are you following me?" 

He looks nervous, shifting from leg to leg, eyes darting and Y/N takes a moment to look him over. He's wearing a thin cotton shirt, sleeves long but not long enough to cover his bandaged hand. Albeit a little ragged with a dusty scruff of a shadow, hair disheveled, light bag beneath his eyes but not unlike any other college student that she's seen before. Though his silence is irksome, she gives him a chance to gather is thoughts, because despite how pissed she was there was something tugging at her heart. Something familiar. . .like how she'd felt that night she helped that wolf and while her mind is attempting to draw parallels he answers quietly, "You helped me, the other night." His voice is lower, a slight tremble, "I. . .I wasn't myself and you helped me. Been scared to go back -- Harry told me not to go out that night, but I did and he'll be so mad if he knows I'm fraternizing with a hum--with you. He'll be mad, but I don't have anyone and m'scared to be alone, and that's a lot to put on you but your presence is. . .is comforting." 

Y/N is -- for lack of better phrasing -- fucking confused. She kind of guessed as much that he had something to do with the wolf she'd found, but he was cluing in that he was that wolf which doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense because werewolves are reserved for starry-eyed Taylor Lautner's, David Naughton's attacked late in the night, and Michael J. Fox's dunking basketballs. Not this guy, slumped against a tree, but as annoying as it is, it makes sense. It makes fucking sense! Why is left hand is wrapped, why he knows her, and unless he's a brilliant actor every single emotion and word he's conveying plucks at her heart. Especially as she's looking into his eyes, searching for any inkling that he's lying. 

"I know how this sounds," he continues, "Really I do -- this shite shouldn't be real. I shouldn't be alive but I woke up like this n' now I'm -- now I change into that thing! N' I don't know what to do. Hell I've slipped so far under the radar that you're the first person I've talked to in two weeks, which I guess is why I'm spilling all of this to you. . .right now. I'm sorry." He rubs both hands over his face, shaking his head, "This is fucked." 

"You're telling me," Y/N responds, attempting to wrap her head around it. Maybe he was on drugs though. . .maybe this was an elaborate acid trip? Y/N knows she doesn't do drugs but she's almost a hundred percent sure that a trip doesn't last this long. "If -- if you aren't screwing with me right now and what you're saying is even a little bit true, then who the hell is Harry, why are you scared of him, and why can't your fraternize with me?" 

Niall looks pained, "I -- he's like the boss? I don't know. He's intimidatin'." 

"And all of this just happened to you?" She tilts her head, palm dampening from the warmth of the drink radiating onto her, "How m'I supposed to believe this? How do I know that you aren't just following me 'round, making this up so I don't call the --" 

"Ya saw me didn't ya?" He stresses desperately, "You saw me and I growled." Then he blinks for a moment, nodding his head, "Your thoughts. . .I could hear 'em, is the thing, and you were thinking that I could've been in the Guinness Book. Y'knew I was dangerous but you still cared enough t'a help -- you've got a dog named Grandpa that you kept thinking about the whole time -- I yowled like he does when you step on his foot." His words are rushed but true; so true that Y/N feels her stomach drop to her knees, giving out a trembling breath. 

"Jesus Christ," she huffs through her nose, feeling her face dip and divot into a distressed frown. 

He nods, "I know, m'sorry, god I'm really sorry but m' only telling you this because I might need some place to stay." 

"What?" She exclaims, eyes nearly popping out of her skull, "What in the --" 

"I know! Tha's a lot but I can't go back, and I 'ave nowhere to go, which would be fine if I could change voluntarily apart from the full moon but I can't yet. . .so M' sleeping on a park bench and s'hurting me back, yeah? And you're nice and the only person I know right now so please," he looks fraught and hopeless, eyes brimming with tears which is almost startling from such a gruff looking man, "Please, jus' for a tick, 'til I get on me feet?" 

What the fuck?

What the fuck! 

                                                                     .                         .                        .

Y/N has done an incredible amount of dumb things in her life; forgetting she had a seven page paper due until four hours before she had to turn it in, make pancakes when she's got an aggressive cold and has taken more than the required dosage of cold medicine (she burned her fingertips on the stove), leaving a cucumber on the counter because her friend Adam had her convinced that it would turn into a pickle, filling up the tub a mere few centimeters from the top and not accounting for the fact that her body would displace the water and splash outside of the tub, or even the time she'd put cookies in the oven, forgot to set the timer, and was startled to see her kitchen cloudy with smoke when she went in to get a glass of water. 

But at the top of the list -- letting a supposed werewolf stranger sleep on her couch. 

That had to be the dumbest. 

Could she explain herself? Not really, no. Only that something deep to her marrow had convinced her that Niall was telling the truth so she couldn't turn him away. Instead, she warned him that she'd taken one folklore class so she knows how to deal with him, she sleeps with a bat in her room (minor fib, but she does have a broken post of an old bedframe in her closet, though it will work just the same), and if he tries anything at all then, "I'll call this Harry guy myself and turn you right back into 'im." All to which he nodded expressively, a grin spreading over his mouth to a near cheek splitting degree. 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" He'd repeated again and again, until she rolled her eyes and nodded her head, "I'll cook for ya! Don' remember much of what happened -- of what I was before this, but I do recall I can make a mean roast." Then he'd nodded, sure of his words, "I'll get a job and pay you for my stay -- thank you so much, kind soul y'a got, you won't regret it!" 

You won't regret it!

Y/N sure hopes she doesn't.  

That's how Y/N had ended up skipping her (far too late in the day in her opinion) Human Diversity Lecture in favor, taking Niall to a diner, and watching him eat ravenously while he explained what he remembered. She learns that as far as Niall knew, he'd been just as good as born three weeks ago, when he woke up in a bed of soft soil and crunchy blades of grass, a terrible bruised bite on his side that burned a pain that he was unable to describe  (he lifts up his shirt to show off the raw, pinken flesh), and broken sobs clawing from his chest. He couldn't remember where he was, how he'd gotten there, his name. . .nothing. Nothing at all. And he was stuck there, petrified and hugging his knees until a voice appeared before him, startling him out of his wits. 

"Hello," he'd mocked a deep British lilt, "Come with me." 

Niall did -- he had no place else to go, nor did he have any idea what else to do. He soon found that the man who had come to retrieve him went by Harry, was stoic in nature but helpful. "He bandaged me up, tol' me everythin' would be jus' fine, and I would start t'a remember things as time went on. Explained that I. . .that I was different now. That me first change would be scary, but I just needed to stick within the walls of his estate." He picked up four fries at a once, twisting them in ketchup, "But I started goin' batty bout three days in, finally remembered my name so I felt a little bigger bout meself, but was feelin' itchy beneath my skin, they were keeping me away from everyone and anytime I asked him what was going on he told me that I'd be okay -- wouldn't explicitly tell me tho'. Pissed me right off, so I ran, but that was stupid 'cos then. . .then things went bad." 

He then went on to describe that he doesn't remember much of him. . .changing, nor does he remember much of galivanting through the woods as a different species, but what he does remember is being confused, scared, and getting hurt. Remembers her tending to his wound the best that she could have, and only distantly remembers fleeting out of fear, limping away, and waking up naked. "Wandered 'round the forest till he stumbled on a cabin, broke in and stole some clothes, then went to the emergency room for my pa-- my hand." 

Niall then explains that he had. . .had followed her scent. That's how he found her at the bakery; that's how he kept finding her.