Into His Arms

Hounds worth: part one

Harry sat up front with Sebastian, while Draco, Sirius, and Ciel rode in the actual carriage. Behind them Finney, Bard, Tanaka, and Mey-rin rode in another with the luggage. They had been summoned to houndsworth, a town that had found a loophole in the law. They had started dog fights, something the queen was purely against. It was their job to stop this, of course their reason was to find a perfect place to build the Queen's new hotspring resort.

While Ciel's workers sang behind them, Ciel was informing Sirius and Draco about the real reason for coming. Shortly thereafter the topic had changed to dogs, and Ciel and sirius' love of them.

"Hey look, somebody actually lives here!" Cried Finney. " Tanaka, stop!" When the carriage came to a halt he jumped out to help the villager. " Here, let me help you granny."

"Finney no!" Cried Mey-rin. " If your not careful the baby will-"

"What?" Finney asked throwing the carriage up in the air. Blanching, he turned to the old lady, "I'm so sorry."

"Oh, that's so aweful, is the baby okay?" Mey-rin asked. But looking into the basket she recoiled. Laying inside was the skull of a dog.

"There is no baby, it was eaten by it." The old woman muttered walking off pushing her carriage.

"What.." asked Bard.

"That's why we are here, apparently many of the villagers have been eaten or gone missing." Said Ciel. "The village has shrunk to a third of its size in the last ten years. Part of my task is to find out why and put an end to the plague." They rode the rest of the way in silence. Harry zoned out when a fight started in the village over whether cats or dogs were better. Seeing as he has never had either, he really didn't care.

They pulled up to the mansion they would be staying at and we're greeted by a… maid. Harry could tell there was something different about her, but couldn't put his finger on it. But she made him uneasy. Following at the back of the group, Harry was the last to enter but the one to see everything. Barrymore Castle, as it was named was rather rugged, even for this time. Immediately, Harry decided he didn't like it here, and resolved to sleep in the woods, where he could feel the magic calling him.

Harry already knew entering the town, that he had a different job here. There was something calling him, something that needed his help. On an animalistic level, it was calling for help from his phoenix and his Griffin. And he would be damned if he didn't help whatever it was. Harry stayed that way until nightfall when Sirius came to get him from the yard.

"Harry are you going to come in? It's getting rather cold out here."

" No I think I'm going to go for a quick fly,. Need to stretch my wings a bit." Harry said smiling at his dog father. Sirius grinned back knowing, exactly how he felt.

"Mind if padfoot tags along? I haven't stretched my legs on a while."

"Why not?" In seconds a Griffin and grim were standing side by side. After one shared look the Griffin leapt into the air as the grim bound forward. They kept each other in sight at All times, running and playing tag for a few hours.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw a large white dog. It was just watching them with a longing look. Making a quick decision, Harry swooped over, and tagged the giant beast. Padfoot caught on quick, and charged over into a playful stance. The beast yipped in joy, and began to play with them. But after an hour, Harry and Sirius noticed the beast was rather distracted, like it had somewhere it wanted to go. Landing and jogging over they both nuzzled the beast saying goodbye.

Hay bowed, before leaping into the air to fly off. Giving one last sad howl, the beast ran into the forest. Harry and Sirius returned to the castle, shifting back just before clearing the trees to find Draco waiting for them.

" Neat time you go for some animal exercise please let me come along. It was torture in there!" Draco whined draping himself over both of them in a hug.

"No problem Dray, we we're going to go again tomorrow, care to join us?" Harry laughed.

" Only if we can play tag, Merlin it's so boring just running for hours."

"Deal," said Sirius a dog like grin on his face. Together they walked in, laughing and planning the next night, unaware of the beast starting at them through the trees.