The Wild Girl

Stumbling on his feet, Harry collapsed onto one knee, the coyote falling out of his hand and despite one of its legs been injured, caught itself and turned, snarled angrily at him. Not in the mood to deal with being attacked anymore, Harry fired a Stunning charm at her, the coyote collapsing to the ground in a heap.

From there, after spending a little time to recover himself, moved forwards, gently picking her up and walking down the corridor of the house he was staying in.

It was the Unspeakable safehouse here in Porthleven in Cornwall, the department possessing twenty-seven scattered all over the country, one in each of the counties. Each of them possessing a separate storage room filled with Portkeys connected to every city and town in that county, ensuring that an Unspeakable agent could be everywhere they needed to be at any moment in time.

The safehouse itself was relatively small, a simple two story building one that blended into the surroundings to the point it was practically indistinguishable. It looked and felt like a common, everyday home that just so happened to not have many buyers besides occasional renters. Or that was the story surrounding it anyway, Harry himself being the latest in the long line of tenants. But inside, its parameters had been expanded with the utmost limit of Space-Expanding charms that it could withstand without breaking apart, ensuring that there were enough rooms to look after nearly fifty agents.

Four times that if there were four assigned to a room.

Pushing open the door into the small, spartan room, Harry gently laid the coyote down before opening a small draw. The lock on it, glowing as his hand grew closer, the ring he wore also flashing momentarily.

There inside lay a number of potions, but it mostly consisted of a lot of muggle equipment. 'Croaker does love his muggle stuff.' Harry hadn't understood Croaker's fascination with it at first. Sure he knew that the Muggle world had a number of great inventions, but from what he had seen of the Magical world, despite its backwards nature, magic could do a number of things that were just awe inspiring. It was a world filled with miracles, so he had always questioned Croaker's reliance on Muggle means such as First Aid and training equipment.

But, over the course of his training, he had come to learn that as great as magic was, it had its limitations as well. Limitations that Croaker had realised that muggle means did not possess and could circumvent.

One such limitation revealed itself in the act of healing.

There were spells and potions that could heal all but the most severe of injuries, but the human body had limits. Potions and spells despite their miracles, worked within the confines of what the human body could do, they accelerated the body's natural healing process. However, the more such spells and potions were used, the adapted the body comes.

Eventually, a spell that could once heal a deep, life-threatening cut would be unable to heal a paper cut. It would of course take time and with the way a normal Wizard and Witch lived, they would never experience such a problem. For an Unspeakable Agent, this was a much more dangerous problem. They suffered injuries on a number of occasions therefore, it was made a decree that the use of healing spells and potions were only to be used in the most extreme of circumstances such as during a mission or to help stabilise a near death agent.

Leaving the potions in the drawer, Harry instead grabbed the equipment needed for the job. He first started by cleaning the wound. It was awkward with the fur, but Harry didn't really know how to treat an animal with a gunshot wound so he just used what he had been taught him.

After that, he began to apply some of the petroleum jelly before wrapping the wound with a bandage. It wasn't a perfect fix, but Harry hadn't been given much experience with dealing with such wounds so he made do with what he could.

He then reached down into his pocket and pulled out the mirror. "Croaker."

There was a momentary pause before the man in question appeared on the other end. "Mister Potter, what do you need?"

"I made a mistake; I engaged the Werewolves before I had gathered the proper information. However, there is a reason for that." Before Croaker could speak, he turned the mirror so that he could see the unconscious coyote upon the bed. "They were after her, I believed it was best to intervene before they got her, it would allow us to better understand why they are so invested in capturing her."

"Yet you could have also waited, whether they want her alive or not is unimportant, what they need her for is. You could have allowed them to capture her and study what they did, ensuring that your presence remained a mystery." Croaker reprimanded.

"Like I said, a mistake." Harry repeated calmly. "However, there is other news. There's an Alpha on their way to England with two hundreds Betas. From what I've inferred, Fenrir isn't the only Alpha were dealing with and that they are at the top of the Pack hierarchy. Below them are the Betas and below them are those I engaged today."

Croaker didn't respond immediately, quietly thinking over what he had been told. "How many did you eliminate?"

"I do not have a definite number at this time, I will review the memory soon and report back with the actual figures. At this moment, I estimate between thirty to forty are dead, possibly more if they don't have a skilled healer."

"An impressive number, but you believe that those you engaged today are of a lesser standard than the Betas, yes?"

"I believe so, yes." Harry replied. "Near the end of the fight, the high priority target, Derek Hale appeared with nine compatriots. All of them Werewolves, but six were former Wizards and Witches. They were combat veterans, skilled and dangerous. The muggles especially were incredibly skilled. They avoided spells fired at them with ease, it was only luck that allowed me to take out half their number. I believe that they were on the level of these Beta reinforcements."

Croaker hummed in thought. "I see, that is worrying." He then looked to Harry once more. "And your injuries?"

"Minor."

"Good." Croaker nodded his head. "We have lost the element of surprise, which is unfortunate however, your main priority now is to infiltrate the base and eliminate the Werewolves there before this Alpha arrives. Gather as much information as you can by any means necessary and ensure that this ends quickly. The situation in Russia is worsening which is having domino effects on the European front."

"And the coyote?"

"For the meantime, keep it with you. It's too dangerous to evacuate you or it at this time. Find out what you can in the meantime."

"I think I've already figured out what she is?" Croaker looked to him; one brow raised in questioning as to why he didn't bring this up immediately. "An Animagus who hasn't discovered away to return to her natural state. From what I saw of her memories, she was a young girl when it happened, I don't know the full story behind what happened, but she has been stuck in this form since she was around six or seven."

Croaker didn't respond straight away.

"I will send a potion over immediately that should reverse the effects in short order. In the meantime, collect some blood, it will be a necessary component in order to ensure that it works." Nodding his head, Harry closed off the connection and picking up one of the bloody wipes, pointed his wand at it and pulled.

Slowly, blood separated from the cloth and coalesced into a small ball, no bigger than a marble in size. Picking up a small vial, he let the blood ball fall into it and placed it into the drawer. Closing and locking it, Harry made to leave the room and paused just as he went to close the door behind him, turning to look at the sleeping coyote before shutting the door behind him.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Sitting quietly, Harry sat down upon the chair, clutching the green potion vial in his hand and the blood-filled vial in the other. His gaze looked upon the still sleeping coyote in thought, wondering just what it must have been like to be stuck as an Animagus all these years. While he had seen the memories and even felt some of the emotions, he knew it was only just scratching the surface of what she had been through.

And as his mind thought back to it, he also replayed over the confrontation between him and the Werewolf Pack. Things had gone well in the beginning, despite being outnumbered, the Werewolves didn't have much in the way of actual skill nor did they have any cohesion.

They were more like a mob, just firing upon wherever they thought he was and not where he actually was.

Outsmarting and outmanoeuvring them was simple.

The others however were far more difficult to beat. They were skilled in combat and had some experience in working together and while Harry knew that he had adapted well, him surviving as long as he had, and escaping was proof of that. But as quickly as he had adapted, they too grew better in turn, not as much as him, but it was the culmination of all of them together that proved to be the deciding factor.

He had replayed the scenario over in his head constantly, trying to figure out if there was a way in which for him to change the outcome so that he was the winner. But no matter how he tried to think of it, the result was always the same.

Truly, using Occlumency in such a way was a useful form of training, but it could also demoralise someone when they realised that victory wasn't possible, no matter what they tried.

If Harry were to engage them again, he'd need to try and take them out one by one, especially the elites. One thing he had realised was that as he was now, facing them all at once would not be in his best interested. Victory would be extremely difficult, not impossible, but extremely difficult.

Harry wouldn't come out unscathed and he would be so injured that he could be taken out quite simply by someone else. No, from now on Harry would have to withhold his urge to save everyone and fight as an UFA, not as Harry Potter.

Sighing, Harry popped open the lid to both vials, pouring the blood into the potion before placing the empty vial to one side. He then put the lid back in place and shook the vial, making sure the blood mixed with potion forming a murky brown colour. He then moved forwards, moving the coyote onto her back, and pouring the potion into its open mouth.