Magical Beings The Truth About Werewolves; Changing Long-Standing Beliefs and Misunderstandings in the Wizarding World

February 24, 2023

I had thought I was going to rewrite these and only post here when they were done. However, during the past day my brain has started to work on overdrive on this story despite me having COVID and I have realized that I need to remove the stories (both these and others that I have in mind) from the Harry Potter world and move them to my own world. The world will look very similar, but there are some key aspects that need to change (as you will likely be able to see from reading what I've already written) as well as some changes that I feel will enhance the world. The first "book" will be more refined than the second, but understand that I know even the first "book" needed a complete rewrite as much of what was written was stuff that I the author needed to know but not the audience or things that needed to be shared in a different and more concise way. I would LOVE any feedback on the story, including feedback on changes that you would recommend for my future world! Be aware that any that are given may be used in a possible future published book so sharing with me means that you would be giving me permission to do so. Thank you!

Chapter 1
Amy

Amy was the oldest child of the alpha of one of the only werewolf packs in Europe. From the time she was little, she had been taught that the wariness of her ancestors had been proven advantageous when the witch trials had started around them. They had been able to keep living under the radar and had not been caught up in the mania that surrounded them that had wiped out most other werewolf packs. Every time it appeared that they might be found they would move to a different area. As land ownership came around they had been able to secure ownership of many different large areas of forested land throughout the UK. Every time they found a large yet undesirable piece of land they would purchase it for cheap, create one or more earthen hills on it or utilize any hills that were already there, then plant a forest covering the whole plot of land in order to provide a place for their descendants to move to in the future. The titles would be kept in many different people’s names, whether they were pack members or made-up individuals, in order to not raise any suspicions. In this way, they had been able to hide the existence of their pack from the general population.

They had never figured out a way to hide a large brick, or even a large wooden, building so the pack houses were still yird or earth houses. Every pack house had a regular house, also known as a support house, closer to civilization that would be used when a pack member needed to invite someone to their house. As these houses were a front for different pack members the houses were built of brick and kept up to date. These houses would be let out to various individuals when they were not in use by the pack, which aided in keeping the houses in good repair along with bringing in a little extra income to the pack. Whenever the pack moved they would camp in tents for a while until they could either get the previous packhouse living conditions restored or if it was an area where there had never been a packhouse before they would have to dig out a place for the packhouse then reinforce the hill so that the packhouse would last for generations. They did not need to worry about creating support houses in the area as every time a plot of land was purchased a support house would be built soon after, to provide a place for the workers to live while preparing the land and forest.

The wariness that led them to create and then hold on to so many different places of escape also led them to change and develop rules that were different from other packs. While many werewolf packs tried to keep their existence hidden from the general public they turned a blind eye to the actions of other werewolves who were not part of their pack. However, Amy’s pack had a rule that they had to do everything they could to protect humans from any rogue werewolves that might exist. One way they did this was that every time they ran across a rogue werewolf they would follow them throughout the night in order to prevent the werewolf from coming into contact with anyone else. They would also try to contact them once they were back in human form in human form in order to invite them to join the pack, as they knew doing so would eliminate rogue tendencies in a person. They did this to reduce the chances that people would be killed, which would guarantee an investigation into how they had died. However, they would never force anyone to join their pack, and to ask a rogue while they were in their werewolf form would be the equivalent of forcing them to join, as their cognitive function was impaired. The rule of not forcing anyone to join their pack also applied to werewolf partners, with them being given the choice of whether to join the pack or not.

This wariness also led to the development of rules about both the amount and type of things pack members could own. There had been a time when everything a family owned had to be able to fit into a horse cart. They had even developed rules about when people would leave as they were moving, as well as a specific order that things were to be moved in! The first to leave was the Beta and his family followed in order from the lowest pack members to the highest, with the alpha’s family being the last to leave. The important pack documents and items the pack would need most were to be packed first, followed by the little children’s stuff, and finishing off with the stuff of the other pack members, in the same order that they would leave. This ensured that the pack could continue even if something wiped out the pack members who had not yet had a chance to leave. While the alpha family could have insisted that they went first it had been decided that they should be the last out, in order to support any still there and to show the pack that they would not require any of the pack members to do anything that they would not do themselves.

As time went on and automobiles were developed the alpha at the time had seen the benefit of them. While he would have liked the pack to be one of the very first to own one, recognizing how much they would help the pack, he had held off as he also was aware of the attention given to the first automobile owners. As soon as automobiles became common enough that they didn’t immediately catch peoples’ attention their pack had invested in a number of them and the amount of things pack members could own had changed based on the room available in the vehicles. As the number of vehicles the pack owned grew they realized that it would be beneficial if they owned a vehicle repair shop in the nearest town to the packhouse. If they were forced to move they would quickly work to purchase or start a repair shop in the closest town to where they moved to. Over time they had moved from one vehicle per family to one for every driver, which also helped increase the number of things that could be moved quickly. While most of these vehicles would be left at the pack repair shop on the edge of town, they always kept a few at the pack house. Once it became common for each family to have at least one vehicle of their own they also kept a couple of vehicles at the support house, in order to keep up appearances. Every time they got a new vehicle they would alter it in order to be able to hold the most things possible. They had found that with a few minor adjustments things could be stored under and in the seats, without being noticed, as well as in many other areas throughout the vehicles.

When campers became more common the pack purchased and modified a few of them in order to move more of the common pack stuff, thereby allowing individual families to own even more things. Later on, they had even developed a system for sucking the air out of items, including mattresses and couch cushions, long before the regular world had developed anything similar. This change had made a huge difference in what the pack could own. In fact, Amy could vaguely remember a time when the pack used to fill their mattresses with dried weeds, etc. from the woods so that they could be dumped and burned quickly in order to save space as they moved. While it had been years since the whole pack had moved to regular mattresses, the reason Amy could vaguely remember the discomfort that those mattresses were was because the Alpha family had been the last to transfer to better mattresses.

Not only had automobiles changed the number of things a family could own, but they had also changed how far most of them could live from the packhouse. With an automobile, a family was able to travel a greater distance together in the same amount of time making it easier for them to live in neighboring cities while still returning for pack meetings as well as to help the pack if needed. This had been a good thing because it was becoming more and more looked down upon to live in a yird, let alone to do that and homeschool children. It had soon become clear that not every family could live in the packhouse without raising suspicion due to the changing laws around children and families. While this had worked for generations, as things changed in the world around them the pack also had to change and adjust. Now the only ones who would live in the pack house were the alpha’s family and some of those who did not have children of school age.

If someone living at the pack house needed to meet with someone from the general population they would do so at the support house thereby preventing the general public from ever knowing about the pack house. Luckily the pack had always had pack members interested in differing trades and had the money to give them to support them in those trades. As such, they had never been without a pack member who was a nurse or doctor. This made it so that all of the pack children had been able to be born at home, without the government harassing them for doing so.

Had the government ever found out about any of this Amy was sure it would have caused a lot of trouble for the pack. However, no one, not even the young children just starting school, had ever let even a hint of any of this slip to anyone that was not a member of the pack. This was because werewolf cubs mature faster, mentally, than their peers so by the time they started school they already knew what they needed to keep quiet about and what they could share with others. However, in Amy’s case, it had been even more important that werewolf cubs mature faster mentally than their peers as from the time she was born strange things had happened whenever she was around. Things around her would disappear only to appear in other places in the house and even Amy appeared to be able to move places in ways that no werewolf, let alone a human child, could. Despite all of this the pack never picked on Amy. In fact, even though her father had not yet said who the next future alpha would be, many already felt that it would be Amy.

While there had been a time that her younger brother would have been selected as the future alpha while she would have been married off to another pack in order to create an alliance with them things had changed, at least in her pack. While many packs around the world would still overlook a female in favor of the oldest male child born to the alpha, her pack had decided that whoever would become the future alpha was the person that proved they would be the best leader for the future of the pack. In fact, the title of future alpha wasn’t just limited to the alpha’s children. If another child showed more promise than the alpha’s children they could become the future alpha, no matter who their parents were. This was done to ensure the best leadership for the pack for the future as well as to prevent the infighting that frequently happened in other werewolf packs.

The reason many pack members felt she would be the future alpha was that she had not only shifted at a young age but had started taking on responsibilities around the pack much younger than any of the other cubs had. Not only that but she also had a high interest in the workings of the pack, to the point that if people didn’t want her to know something was happening they would have to make sure that she wasn’t around before discussing anything. While many of the other cubs would spend their free time playing, Amy would often be found in the pack office doing what she could to learn more about the workings of the pack.

While Amy’s parents insisted that she spend time playing, they had long before learned that the best they could do in that regard was to provide blocks and other toys in the pack office for her to play with as she listened in on meetings. They had long before given up preventing her from being in these meetings as even if her mother had taken her outside to play she would either disappear from her mother only to give those in the meeting a scare when she showed up or items necessary for the meeting would disappear only to reappear when they finally relented and allowed her to listen in on the meeting. Keeping her from patrols had been even more fruitless as she would frequently appear near the patrol when they were far enough away that they had to continue on with her. She did this often enough that they finally decided to allow her to help with the day patrols, as long as she had an adult with her and promised to only join the patrols that she was scheduled for.

February 24, 2023

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