Summer of the Wolf: Lesson one

The first day of school is always exciting, no matter who you are or how old you are. Schoolchildren, excited by the unknown and new expectations, are feverishly packing their school bags. Students reluctantly take notebooks and laptops with them, and older ones go with the determination of a military man who has been ordered to study – they did not expect to return the same as they were before.

Of course, there are still people who like to study, those are still psychopaths. Erudites who cannot be scared away from a topic that interests them.

Danil could hardly be called an erudite, or even a person who loved to study. He simply studied what could be useful to him in life. Or what was needed for work, at least the essentials. Surprisingly, he was able to learn new things with relative ease.

Magic had long been a necessity in his life, and studying it was surprisingly interesting. The fact that knowledge of magic could open the way for him to his home world was only additional motivation to continue studying it. It was the same with weapons training – Danil understood perfectly well that sooner or later he would have to get his hands dirty. The quests that the old Enderman left him hinted at that.

Therefore, he went to his first classes with werewolves with a battle staff at the ready and a desire to learn something new. People around didn't really whisper or point fingers in his direction; one day was enough for everyone to know about his existence. And werewolves knew very well what it was like to be locked inside the body of a monster.

Walking to a small clearing where children and teenagers were sitting on tree stumps, Danil sat down in the last row. With his height, he could see everything from there.

What he didn't take into account when he sat in the last row was that he usually sat there to talk with friends, not to listen to lectures.

"Hello!" The silver-haired girl sitting on his right hand squeaked. "Are you the guest who came to grandpa this morning?"

It was not difficult to guess whose granddaughter it was. The white curls on her head and blue eyes with vertical pupils gave a good clue.

"Yes, and you are Silver's granddaughter?" He asked her in response.

"My name is Sarah! And my grandfather is not a silver, he's a human!" She giggled at the little joke and held out her little hand to him. "Let's be friends, I don't have such tall friends yet!"

"Now you do, I'm Danil, but you can call me Dan." Danil answered and shook her hand. He never refused new friends, especially the nice ones.

"Okay, Danny! Oh, gra- teacher Silver is coming!" The girl corrected herself and sat up straight, as if an iron stick had been inserted into her back.

Silver stopped at the meeting of young animals and looked at everyone, narrowing his eyes. The children immediately became quiet; it was clear that discipline in the camp, even in turbulent times, was at a level, or Silver simply had enough respect even among the children.

"Good morning, everyone." Hearing a general "good morning" in response, he nodded with satisfaction. "As you may have noticed, we have a new addition – his name is Danil Khromov. Keep all personal questions not related to the topic of the lesson to yourself until the end of class, you can ask them later. Of course, if you manage to catch him."

Danil didn't like the way some of the kids started looking at him. Apparently, Silver's order was not a joke at all.

'Sarah, even you? I thought we were friends!'

"Now let's begin." Silver again attracted the attention of the class. "Many of you were born and raised here, knowing exactly what awaits you in the future. Some came to us with their families, and some found their way on their own. Some of you have a blessing, while others have a curse.

"You are all different, but at the same time, you are all the same. Know that your circumstances do not make you evil or bad, just different." The teenagers listened to his words with gloomy faces, and the children were already beginning to nod off.

Danil thought that Dumbledore should say similar things, at least sometimes without falling into senile insanity.

"Due to the fact that we have a new addition, I will not check your homework for today, but don't think that this will save you next time." Someone to Danil's left swore quietly in French. "Polnareff, you will stay after class. The topic of today's lesson is hit-wizards. Tell me, if you are being chased by a hit-wizard, what exactly will you do first?"

Blinking in surprise, Danil leaned forward. This was not what he expected from his first lesson at the Haven, but it should've been obvious. The life of werewolves wasn't easy if they didn't learn to fight on their own, life taught them, whether they wanted it or not.

"Escape to a busy area to give up the chase there, after which we should activate our personal portkey." A lanky guy from the second row answered. "A magical area would be best, where it would be more difficult for a wizard to track you through traces of magic. If this is not possible, you should hide from the enemy's sight and only then use the portkey."

Silver nodded approvingly. "That's true, but it could have been said better. Right now, your best way to survive is to run and there's nothing shameful in that."

Danil raised his hand and waited for Silver to nod in his direction. "What if there is no way to escape?"

"This is the topic of our current lesson." The leader of the pack answered calmly and began to walk back and forth. "Usually, people like us are hunted only by trained professionals who know our nature in advance, and self-confident idiots who decide to kill a wolf for profit. All you need to do, to take down an idiot, is take away his wand and they will remain defenseless, but with professionals there are much more problems.

"Any reasonable professional wouldn't work alone. They go in groups of three, and if you're lucky, it will be a teacher with two students. Their equipment – well, the things they use – is an order of magnitude better than what you're used to seeing here."

This didn't surprise the children much. On the mainland there were always artifacts that were an order of magnitude better than those made in a flock. It was enough to compare their clothes and those sold on Diagon Alley to feel the difference.

"Even their students always have at least two artifacts with them. One for defense, and the other for offence. Hit-wizards have even more, and they carry at least two wands with them. And if you are very unlucky, you'll meet a wizard with an arsenal of Alastor Moody on their back. It's best to avoid them if possible, and if they do follow you, it will be safer to kill them than to get a spell in the back later."

No one was very surprised by this answer. Life was a cruel thing, but everyone wanted to live. Kill or be killed, a principle as old as the world itself, werewolves couldn't live otherwise, not on this island.

"Hit-wizards perform worst in close combat, or in endurance combat. They are wizards first, and fighters only second. And for magic users, the main thing is mastery of the magic itself."

Wizards in general were quite lazy. Why climb the stairs when you can make them move themselves? Why do they have to go up the hill when they can just apparate there? Who will wash dishes by hand if half a hundred spells have already been created for this very purpose?

"I advise you to carry melee weapons, or artifacts enchanted to penetrate shields. A good choice would be to master the use of Muggle firearms. For some reason, many wizards think that next to magic, all Muggle inventions of the last fifty years stop working. Idiots."

Danil put this information aside in the subcortex of his mind. For his hands, he would most likely have to order a custom weapon, but that was the least of the problems.

'Can I craft a gun?' Deciding to check it out later, when he wasn't surrounded by a crowd of children and had enough materials in stock, he continued listening to the lecture.

"Beware of the Unforgivables, it's quite easy to get out of their way, especially since the verbal component in them is required, you will hear the attack. The fastest spells can fly at the speed of sound, but they have little power, with the exception of spells of the lightning element. Watch your hands the enemy and the movements of their wrists. It's better not to meddle where the wand is pointed."

Silver continued his lecture in the same vein, giving the children only bare facts and explanations. The squeeze out of useful tips and tricks ended in about thirty minutes. After this, Silver began asking questions so that the students could understand with their own minds why exactly they should do as he ordered.

He was a good teacher, although he did not shy away from cruel details, explaining exactly why one should never play with fire.

Remus, watching the lesson, could only shake his head. Silver may have been telling the truth and not hiding anything behind beautiful words, but his students were still children. Teaching them to kill and rip people's throats for looking sideways was simply wrong.

"A little cruel, but everything he said is true. Your own life is above all, it must be preserved, if not for your own sake, then for the sake of the happiness of your loved ones." Danil made his verdict when the lesson was coming to an end, but the students hadn't left.

"Teacher says that it is better to learn about the dangers from him than to face them later and be unprepared. You should hope for the best, but prepare for the worst." Sarah said with a wise look that made it difficult for Danil to contain his chuckles. "Oh, I almost forgot, are you staying with us until the next full moon?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Just wondering." The girl closed her eyes innocently, but Danil knew that she was avoiding answering. His sister did exactly the same thing at one time, and then she simply learned not to say anything.

"Now I give you permission to leave. The hunt has begun." Silver had just finished speaking when three particularly curious children attacked Danil. He would have stayed there, talking about himself all day, if not for one of his quirks…

Scattering into purple sparks, Danil disappeared, leaving the children to fall to the ground. The trio of friends groaned with resentment.

"That was mean, teacher!" The boy lying under the two bodies of his comrades said. "You can't apparate here!"

"Nobody said it was easy." Silver said calmly and slowly walked towards the forest where Kendrick stood, and to his left there was a barely noticeable blur in the landscape.

Danil watched as the children slowly rose from the ground and went about their business. Sarah carefully examined the place where her new friend had disappeared, hoping to find at least some traces of his teleportation.

"I didn't think Silver had kids."

"Not anymore. His son and his wife were killed during the first attack on the village. They stayed to look after the elderly. Now he only has Sarah left."

"... Why everything is so sad? Ya'll got another curse on you?"

"Maybe so." Kendrick didn't deny it. "But the girl keeps herself in check. Even now she finds some little things to feel happy about and share the joy with others." Only the deaf wouldn't have heard the pride in his voice. Sarah was a popular girl in their small village. Although she was only nine years old, high hopes were already placed on her.

"That's a lot of responsibility for one grieving child. Are you sure she's okay?"

"You can be sure of it." Silver muttered as he finally came closer. "In our family there is no mourning. In our family there is only revenge."

Danil nodded slowly, digesting the new information. Looking at Sarah, it was hard to believe that this girl would actually take revenge on anyone, she seemed to be far too kind to do something like that. But everyone knew that there are devils in still waters.

-=-=-=-=-=-

The life of werewolves was not very different from the life of ordinary people. They still needed to eat, drink and sleep, except that their food contained more bloody meat.

Of the big differences, Danil could only notice a lot of Muggle things that almost everyone in the Iron Haven knew how to use. Clothes, shoes, books, lamps and other household items were popular here. Someone even installed a diesel generator right next to their house...

Near the same dugout there was a chaise lounge, definitely made of plastic, and not from something more natural, as the wizards preferred. How exactly such things worked together with nature, Danil had no idea, but he was going to find out. Plastic and earth usually didn't get along well.

"Do we leave anything behind?" Sarah said, hearing his question. "Not even a speck remains behind us, which means the forest won't drive us away. The main thing here is not to harm the Forest, then everything will be all right."

The girl's logic was ironclad – pardon the pun.

"When a wolf catches a rabbit and eats it, leaving only the bones behind, they will be carried away by other animals and birds, they will find where to use them. We are the same. If there is something left after us, then everything goes to the benefit of the Forest, we take away all plastic stuff. But even if we leave it by mistake, the Forest uses these things for its own good. And if you leave something intentionally, then the Forest will know about it. It will find out and punish you."

The thought of a sentient forest that could influence its inhabitants didn't scare Danil as much as it should have. Much more, he was scared of the unknown. 

What did the Forest consider bad and what was good? How did it reward successes and punished failures?

No one has been able to answer these questions for him for sure. None of the werewolves really knew if the Forest could actually think, it was just that everyone believed in his power to do everything justly. Even if this justice was unusual for the human mind.

"It's more a belief that everyone gets what they deserve," Remus explained. "Most magical beings don't believe in any Gods. But sometimes you want to believe in something, so we believe in a kind of form of karma."

"Yeah." Danil muttered skeptically. "It sounds like some Buddhists visited you. But you still don't believe in the Gods for nothing..."

After his death, Danil could not afford not to believe in Gods or karma. All these things could be quite real, and how many other things were just as mythical and completely unknown, it was even scary to imagine.

"No, it was not a Buddhist, but a priest of the Morduk. When he started to talk about karma, you wanted to believe in it."

And here it was again. An unfamiliar Deity, unfamiliar magicians who worship him. Was it also Creole, the Sumerian Magician whom Silver mentioned? Danil didn't ask.

Questions about faith in a world where ghosts were real and the existence of a soul had been proven in ten different ways over the past three centuries were at least uncomfortable to discuss. After all, if living beings have souls, then where do they come from? And where do they go to after death? Who's looking after them?

No matter how hard the wizards tried, they couldn't find the answer to these questions. So, the debate has continued to this day. 

But Danil knew what awaits people after death. Death itself in person and most likely a lot of fourth dimensional paperwork. Because even the Gods must have at least some kind of control system. But he wasn't going to tell the truth about it. No one would believe him anyway. 

At least the truth about the universe was useless to farmers who grew food for wolves using alchemical potions.

"Everything is natural here. Kendrick boasted, completely ignoring the chaise longue behind him. "And what is not natural is created by wizards for a while. Conjuration, you see."

A half-naked girl fell on a chaise longue and it creaked. Even the autumn cold couldn't stop her from enjoying the last rays of the sun.

"Do the magic deck chairs creak?" Danil asked doubtfully. 

"For the sake of authenticity."

The chaise longue creaked once more, as if agreeing with Kendrick's words. The girl didn't move an inch.

"What a madhouse." And another creak. "Even the chaise longue agrees with me. And how does she not freeze? Do werewolves have any resistance to the cold, or is there something I don't understand?" 

"Who, she?" Kendrick looked at the girl. "Bitch's just built different." 

The girl picked up a cold bottle of beer from the ground and drained it in one gulp, without even blinking. Only those who had blood alcohol levels always on the verge of a lethal dose drank this way. Alcoholics who have long forgotten the taste of water. 

"Sickel says she has a bike." Danil immediately said.

"Galleon says she has a forty-ton truck in Australia." Remus answered to his bet. 

As a result, the money ended up in Kendrick's hands. The girl didn't know how to drive.