DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.

~ Duality ~

I have screamed until my veins collapsed,
I've waited as my time's elapsed,
Now all I do is live with so much hate. -Slipknot, "Duality"

I was one of them, once. A pureblooded wizard, a spoiled prince with the world at his fingertips.

If anyone in my family even remembers my name now (the name my mother gave me, not the one I am called by now - everyone recognizes my current name, if only as a thing that goes bump in the night and devours unfortunate children), they most likely do not know that name once belonged to the creature which I now am.

Seventy years ago, Amir Greengrass was devoured by a werewolf. He no longer exists. He died that night. He died, and Fenrir Greyback was born.

I still have a human side - not that anyone would believe that anymore, not now. I tried to keep existing as a human back then, but no one else in my circle would play along. I soon discovered that the curse of the moon does not last only one day a month. It exists every day. It is constant. When people know you're a werewolf, you aren't allowed to be a pureblood anymore. You're a filthy half-breed now, they'd say. And it hurt. Oh, how it hurt my younger self, to go from being everyone's darling to being the most despised of creatures in the space of a single night.

I lost everything that night. Everything that was important to Amir Greengrass was taken away from me with a single snap of some beast's slavering jaws.

I hunted her down, the werewolf who turned me. I intended to kill her. I intended to kill her, and yet-

It was another full moon night when I managed to track her down, my first since the night I was reborn. The part of myself that was still a pureblooded wizard, seething with anger over all he'd lost, wanted to kill her. But my wolf did not. My wolf had quite a different desire indeed...

Nothing I did in the world of men was respected anymore. Even though I was still basically human, the only thing I was judged by anymore was the fact that I turned into a wolf once a month. Twelve days a year, I turned into a monster, and suddenly the other three hundred and fifty-odd days did not matter. I was seen as a threat, and nothing more. All of the days of the year that I was safely human were seen by others as nothing but a countdown timer until their doom.

Eventually, I stopped trying to fit into the world of magic and men. I sought out the agent of my rebirth once more, and we became mates in earnest, and began to build our pack. In the world of monsters, I was embraced as a leader for the strength of the beast I carried within me. In the world of monsters, I became respected and feared by many.

And so I decided, long ago, to be the wolf always.

~end~