A/N: This is really, very dark. Which is good - that's how it's supposed to be.
"A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, we bid be quiet when we hear it cry."
William Shakespeare.
He used to be bad, but now he's just sick.
She approaches him in a clearing near a small village, her hair a tangled, horrible mess and her eyes dancing. She wears the finest robes he's ever seen yet he swears he can smell blood on her, and he gets the impression of a very mad, very dark, very beautiful, soulless woman.
"Fenrir Greyback," she says, her voice nothing but breath against his cheek, her fingers not touching them but still there.
Greyback's composition doesn't change the slightest as he looks her up and down. She's either foolish or powerful – it's the afternoon of a full moon. The moon is merely an hour or so away. She's delusional. She's crazy.
And for the first time since he was cursed with his blessing, he's attracted to someone.
"I've heard so much about you," the woman murmurs, a twisted smile on her face. "And yet I know so little."
"What do you want?" he snarls as a defensive reflex.
The smile doesn't fade however, and she seems to be even warmer to him now than she was before. "I want you. I want your blood thirst, your savageness, and your vision for the future of the Wizarding world." The woman blinks and strokes her collar bone. "But I do not come seeking in a frivolous manner. I can offer you great things, Fenrir, great things. You can do great things, be great things."
He distrusts everyone; believes in no one. "If you want me to work for that Order-"
Bellatrix lets out a high, shrill laugh that sends shivers up his spine. He's disgusted with himself inside, nothing ever startles Fenrir Greyback. "Do I look like a woman who would work for such scum? My name is Bellatrix Lestrange, Fenrir, and I have a proposal for you."
And then her nails are resting on his arm, her eyes alight with terrifying possibilities. Bellatrix speaks of crushed bones and spilt blood, or screams and whispers and scratching, clawing, aching.
"If I do join you, who does the-" But his words are cut off as he feels the turning, empty, horrible feeling of shifting inside of him. His cry echoes through the clearing as his nails shoot from his fingers and his spine changes shape beneath his skin. Caught between wolf and human, hungry for her blood but not wanting to harm her, he almost lunges for her. It's too late, anyway – she's gone as the last stage of the change acts upon his filthy body; gone in less than a blink.
Greyback sits before a powerful man, surrounded by those in hooded cloaks and the lovely Bellatrix. She eyes him slightly, lust in every action, and then turns to face Lord Voldemort.
"I bring forth Fenrir Greyback, proud, savage werewolf, killer of children and feared by many. I see him as a valuable addition to our allegiance, my Lord."
The twisted smirk upon the Dark Lord's face is both calming and promising to Greyback as he sits back and lets them give him all the power he's ever wanted.
Bellatrix promises him things. Terrible, lovely things.
It's not so much in words that she promises him things, more in her actions. The way she cries out in the night, the way she hushes his name, the way her body moves next to his. The way they're dirty, sinful souls that deserve nothing but get so much. She can taste blood on his lips and she adores it. Her dark eyelids flutter as she falls asleep by his side in her crisp, expensive bed sheets.
Greyback knows she'll never leave her slime of a husband, Rodolphus. He knows she's sleeping with the Dark Lord and he's never been one to share, but he needs Voldemort's power the way he needs her body beneath his, agony and ecstasy as one.
She purrs his name, runs long fingernails down his back, and they return to their games. Hide and seek, the way they keep this a secret but find each other late at night. Or perhaps it's more of a duel, the way they're both tyrants and need to win, need to better each other, need to make the other scream.
Bellatrix Lestrange, wrapped in a bed sheet with her hair spilling across her highly-defined face is the second most beautiful thing he's ever seen, right next to image of blood and blond hair and bones and tears from the last full moon. But then she is gone, and he expects nothing more of the world than the empty disgrace he is trying so hard to grasp onto.
He does not know her name, or where she came from, or who she is.
But the bleeding, gasping girl before him has the most exquisite jaw line and dark, bottomless eyes. She has soft, midnight-coloured hair and she's draped in dark, silk robes that do not show the blood she's spilt. He's on top of her, his paws pinning down his shoulders.
A flicker of an image crosses his animal mind. Tumbles of messy knots, dark eyes, jaw line, thin lips, long fingers, soft voice, shrill laugh . . . For a second, he pauses, flickering between human and animal, lust and bloodlust.
Greyback howls as though his limbs are being torn apart as he steps away from the mauled body, crying at the moon as he involuntarily leaves his prey. The girl pants before scrambling to her feet and running, running as hard and fast as she can.
He wakes up with a dry, sore throat, thoroughly disorientated. Greyback runs his tongue over his teeth and hopes, prays that he can taste it, that it's there . . .
He swears loudly and kicks a nearby stump. He didn't even get a bite. Not one single bite.
Death to the mortal; death to the weak.
He is weak, weak, weak.
Bellatrix senses it on him. She smells of dark and hatred and sweat and he knows, he just knows, that she's returned from sleeping with Voldemort. Bile rises in his throat but he ignores it; she is powerful for manipulating and misleading others and being merciless, he is weak because he lusts for her, lusts so much he forgot who he was.
Love.
The word crosses his mind like a dagger, sharp and articulated perfectly as to not mislead him in anyway. Pure and simple and good and wholesome. We do not love.
"Are you listening to me?" Bellatrix hisses, digging one clawed hand into his shoulder. "I can practically smell it upon you. Weakness. Stupidity. What's wrong with you?"
"Do you ever feel bad?" he asks her suddenly. She gapes at him. "Do you ever regret, ever think of those you killed?"
She returns him with silence. Shocked, angry silence. He gives her a look and she laughs that high-pitched, maddening laugh and then they're tumbling, falling, getting lost on a bed, someone's bed.
They work together, partners in crime.
Bellatrix's laugh sounds around the empty street, her eyes dancing with the fire burning a little cottage apart. "And then we're burning, burning, burning to the ground!" she cries, flourishing her wand at the little mailbox, sweetly painted with four stickmen – two big ones and two little ones – with the words Henderson House written in a pink, childish hand-writing.
"Having fun, Fenrir?" she shouts back at him. Greyback wipes his mouth and joins her, mouth tasting of terrible, luxurious things that make him feel bad; bad right through to the bone, until he's nothing more than a cowardly but powerful collage of crushed whispers and broken hearts and death.
Bellatrix is smiling and there's nothing pretty about it – just venom and elegance and 'I win'. She's poison on legs, all deathdeathdeath and nothing whole, and he already needs her at these thoughts.
If there's poison in her blood then it's decorated by a nice, pretty whiskey bottle wrapped in a bow, now. She looks so damn beautiful, lit by flames and alive from her murder. Suddenly he's touching her, here and there and not there, but just like this . . .
Blood tastes so sweet.
"He will die," Voldemort tells them patiently as they wait for Hogwarts to hand him over. "He will die and we will have all the power in the world. No more Potter this, Potter that. His name will be poison, those who speak it shall die. We'll be surrounded by fear. Everyone will be afraid, will be hiding."
Bellatrix brushes a hand against Greyback's arm before replying. "And what a beautiful world that will be, My Lord."
Greyback's blood boils. He wants to kill Voldemort, wants to tear him apart with his bare teeth. He wants to see him screaming on the ground. Images fill Greyback's mind of Voldemort, powerful, making Bellatrix weak . . . The thought of him inside her . . .
A snarl rips from Greyback's teeth, and everyone turns to him, startled.
"Greyback," the Dark Lord snaps. "Explain yourself."
"Sorry, my Lord," Greyback grumbles faithfully. "Just picturing it . . . All the kids, all the blood . . ."
A few chuckles sound around him. Voldemort's face curves into a cruel, twisted smirk as he says, "Now, now, Greyback, there's plenty of time for that. First, we must get the boy, and then . . . Well, like you said, just picture it . . ."
And then dark desire seeps into the atmosphere, strangling each of them with the haunting, delicious ideas of what could be.
Greyback's hands are covered in blood, his fingernails coated with grime. He doesn't bother to feel his hair because he is positive it's matted and he ignores the sting of burns and the feeling of his flesh being cut as he staggers past a fallen knight's armour, a sword jutting out from it's outstretched hand.
And then he spots her, just a crumpled mess on the floor, as if she had simply fluttered to this spot from the rooftop like a feather. Greyback pulls the hair from her face, the vicious look still there on her pale face. Her lips are as red as blood and he notices bite marks just on the corner of her mouth - her own teeth drawing her own blood because she's dead, dead, dead.
And then he's screaming, yelling, howling at the moon that's long since disappeared as warm, human fingers wrap around his biceps and drag him away. He doesn't mind that they'll suck his wretched soul or torture him, should the Dementors even return to their position; all he cares is that he's being pulled away from Bellatrix, pulled away from a terrible, beautiful, dead thing.
Wretched soul, faithless follower.
WEREWOLF BITES THE DUST!
An exclusive insight to the world after the war by Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter.
The war, as haunting and terrifying as it has been, has come to a close. Yet no cries of rejoice sounded from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on that fateful night, while each and every lost soul mourned the dead (for further report, see pages 2-19).
Fenrir Greyback, savage werewolf and alliance of You-Know-Who, has been sentenced to a lifetime in Azkaban. The Dementors have not, of course, been reinstated as Azkaban's means of security, though it's all very hush-hush at the moment as to who – or what – is. Kingsley Shacklebolt, new Minister for Magic, has released a brief statement that Azkaban will have a more humane sense to it.
What are your thoughts on the matter? See page 24 where you can share your opinion.
Fenrir Greyback's grave stands solid and alone in a sea of tombstones, black and simple with no sign of mourning visitors. It's a wonder why Azkaban even bothered to put up a grave, because there is no one to grieve for his shameful soul. There is no one to even speak his name, now; he is just a whisper of horror among students' lips in History of Magic and Defence Against the Dark Arts.
He was weak, and now he is dead.