This latest applicant was something Remus had never encountered before. It was like a werewolf transformation gone horribly, horribly wrong.
He approached the boy... wolf... person cautiously. "Hello," he said carefully, wondering if he could be understood. Already his mind was pondering the puzzle this boy presented, and he viewed him with wary fascination.
Robb smelled the caution on him, the wariness; it wasn't enough to excite him the way Doug's had, but that and something... else, something strange that he smelled on the man were enough to make him hesitate. He blinked at Remus and made a soft, curious sound, taking a step away.
"It's all right," Remus soothed, not moving any closer, but trying to appear harmless. He added, after a moment's thought, "You're in a safe place." Even if he couldn't be understood exactly, he hoped the reassurance would help.
Remus was right about that much. Robb still seemed a little uncertain, but his hackles settled slightly, and he didn't move away again. He wasn't entirely sure he believed the man -- he wasn't sure he'd ever assume that anywhere was safe again -- but at least he wasn't trying to kill him. Openly.
He tipped his head to the side, appearing to be waiting for Remus to continue.
The listening expression encouraged Remus to continue. "You're at a place called Hogwarts. It's a school for the teaching of magic. People seem to wind up here for some reason... Some of them are even stranger than you are." He smiled wryly.
Robb tried to concentrate on the words, focusing his human side; they obviously had information he needed. But when Remus spoke, what he said seemed impossible. A school of magic? Surely he wasn't at the Citadel, or the Pyromancer's Guild... Had he found the place where the red priests trained? Or -- surely not -- the home of the mythical warlocks?
Granted, he really had no place to be skeptical, appearing as he did, but... real magic? Suddenly, he had a million questions, and no way of asking them. He growled in frustration, shaking his head.
Remus thought he detected confusion on the wolf's face and sighed. "You know, we really are going to have to figure out a spell of some sort that will let you communicate. I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not entirely certain how."
Communicate? Yes. Robb nodded emphatically, his tongue lolling. Back before... before, he'd always had a rapport with the wolf that was now a part of himself. While they were now quite literally closer than ever, he had never appreciated how limited the communication skills of a direwolf were. He'd never had any trouble communicating with Grey Wind. But others did, he realized, people who didn't understand, and now people wouldn't understand him...
...yes, a spell was needed. Badly. A lot of him was wolf, now, but the human needed a way to speak.
"I really will see what I can do," Remus promised. It would be a project. And aside from tutoring Arya, he didn't have many of those. But for now he had to vote the boy somewhere. Unfortunately, while his first choice would have been Ravenclaw, which happened to boast both Lily and himself, it wasn't really the house he thought best suited to the boy.
"I really ought to vote you somewhere," he ventured aloud. "I don't suppose you have any preferences? I'm tempted to go with Gryffindor."
Robb knew little about the houses, but Gryffindor sounded familiar -- Arya had mentioned that, he realized. He nodded vigorously, his ears perking. As little as he knew about this place, he knew that he wanted to be with his family.
He approached the boy... wolf... person cautiously. "Hello," he said carefully, wondering if he could be understood. Already his mind was pondering the puzzle this boy presented, and he viewed him with wary fascination.
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He tipped his head to the side, appearing to be waiting for Remus to continue.
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Granted, he really had no place to be skeptical, appearing as he did, but... real magic? Suddenly, he had a million questions, and no way of asking them. He growled in frustration, shaking his head.
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...yes, a spell was needed. Badly. A lot of him was wolf, now, but the human needed a way to speak.
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"I really ought to vote you somewhere," he ventured aloud. "I don't suppose you have any preferences? I'm tempted to go with Gryffindor."
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