Hermione didn't know where she was. The sun was sinking down and hiding in the tops of the trees that towered overhead.
"Mamma!" she called out, the words echoing.
She was hungry and thirsty and so tired. Her feet ached, the flashing lights on the sole of her shoes cast colourful beams with each weary step.
The cracking of a branch alerted Hermione to someone's approach.
"Hello? Is that you Mamma?" Hermione called spinning on her heels in the direction of the sound.
"What are you doing out in the woods by yourself pup?" A towering man questioned from behind.
Hermione spun around, her jaw dropping at the sight of the giant man, his face severe, covered in hair and scars. His intense animalistic eyes shining brightly in the darkening woods.
"I've lost my Mamma," she told the man, before remembering her manners and her parent's warnings. "My name is Hermione, but I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
"I'm Fenrir," he replied. "Where did you last see your Mamma?" Fenrir inquired.
"She was there when I went to sleep, we've been camping, and gone when I work up."
"Hmm," Fenrir hummed, tilting his head, eyes narrowing in thought. "Come with me and I'll see what I can do about your parents." Fenrir could sense something about this child. She was a witch, no doubt, she wouldn't have made it through the warding had she not been, but there seemed to be something intruding about the pup.
"I'm not supposed to follow strangers, or talk to them," Hermione repeated unsure.
"Good rules," Fenrir nodded before bringing his fingers to his lips and releasing a piercing whistle.
From the woods, a woman appeared. Hermione theorized that she must have been travelling close by, probably waiting for Fenrir's call.
"This is Melissa, she a woman from my pack -"
"Pack?"
"Tribe. From my tribe." Fenrir continued eyes narrowing in annoyance at the interruptions. "She'll take you to get some food and water while I'll go see if I can find your parents."
"It's only my Mamma." Hermione informed him, "I don't have a Papa."
Fenrir waved his hand at the pup and wordlessly stomped off in the direction that the girl scent was strongest.
"Hello, my name is Melissa and you are?"
"I'm Hermione," she replied timidly.
Melissa bent down in front of the girl, "just over the hill there is my pac- uh tribes camp, there we'll get you some food and water and let you rest up."
Rising to her feet again, Melissa offered the child her hand. After a second of thinking, Hermione grabbed it and the pair made their way into towards the pack's camp.
When Fenrir arrived back at the camp, the sun had long abandoned the sky and the moon hung heavy among the stars.
Near the centre of the pack, Fenrir located Melissa watching over the pup. The curly haired child was fast asleep, curled up in a ball with her wild locks concealing her face.
Fenrir lent down and pulled the animals hides up high, silently watching the child snuggle down.
"Her mother?" Melissa asked breaking the silence.
"No sign of her. The scent is faint, I would guess that she left some time ago, earlier morning, I don't know how long the pup has been walking around, or when she woke up."
The silence grew again, Melissa got up from her seat near Hermione's head with a final soft pat of her hand, reaching out and drawing Fenrir into her embrace. Fenrir just tightened his grip around his mate.
"There's something about her."
"I know I can sense it too," she said. "What are we going to do with her."
"Her mother abandoned her," Fenrir replied. "We can dump her with the humans but she'd have to deal with muggles that don't understand her."
"We could drop her at the Ministry, maybe there can be some magical adoption."
"There's still no guaranteeing that she'll be looked after. The last thing she needs is to be adopted by some pureblood bastard after more free labour."
"We could keep her," Melissa spoke quietly.
"Us?" Fenrir questioned, looking down at his mate with his piercing yellow eyes.
"I want a pup Fen. When she wakes we'll ask her what she wants then we'll decide what will happen. I hope she'll stay though."
Fenrir didn't comment but hoped just the same.
"Where is she?" Fenrir was interrupted by his mate bursting into the hut where he was holding a meeting with the elders.
"What?"
"Hermione! I can't find her. She's not in the hut, she isn't down by the river. The mothers watching the pups haven't seen her. I can't lose my pup Fenrir!" Melissa cried her voice cracking. "I can't locate her."
"Excuse me," Fenrir spoke to the elders, "I must find my pup. I would like to regroup at days end or in the morning."
Fenrir was Alpha, he didn't have to wait for an answer. They might be the wisdom of the pack but he was the leader, the protected.
Fenrir rushed out of the tent, his mate at his heel, scenting the air for any sign of his wayward daughter.
He caught the faint scent of his human daughter on the wind. "Stay my mate, I will return with her."
"You leave this meeting for a human?" The disgust rolled off the tongue of the man exiting the tent Fenrir had just vacated. "We are pack. She isn't one of us."
Fenrir turned snarling, crawls extended and teeth lengthening, the sharp canines threatening the throat of any that dare disrespect the Alpha, his mate or his family.
"Know your place, Anacio," Fenrir growled, tightening his gripping and allowing sharp crawls to pierce the skin. "Or loss your neck."
Fenrir dropped the elder man and rushed off into the woods, the longer he waited the more likely the scent would be carried away on the wind.
It was the scent of blood that altered Fenrir when he grew close to the pack boundary line. He could smell the scent of his pack infused in the wards, and a sharp iron scent that caused his blood to simultaneous quicken and cool. Lying prone in a mess of scattered limb was Hermione.
She looked so fragile, so doll-like in her motionless pale form. The crimson pool of blood surrounded her, drenching the ground in the copper liquid.
"Pup!" Fenrir shouted, crashing down on his knees. His hands hovered over her, afraid to hurt her.
Fenrir had never been bad at wandless magic, but in that second he was powerful, calling his wand from where it sat in the packs camp to his hand with a voiceless, 'Accio'.
Fenrir pushed his magic core to response, pulling at it as he performed every healing spell he could think of in quick succession, his mind racing to recall wand movements and incantations.
When he had healed all that was in his power to Fenrir picked up his pup, gently lifting the weightless unresponsive frame in his arms, cradling her to his chest and ran faster then he had ever before.
The full moon wouldn't be for weeks, having just occurred, but Fenrir pulled at the wolfish part of his soul. Calling it to respond to the call of pack blood being spilt, for fuel his strength to make it back to the pack in time to save his pup.
Fenrir had to stop a further three times to reapply healing charms, his frantic movements warring with his need to remain calm enough to make it back as soon as possible.
When he did finally make it to the pack camp, he rushed past the tribesmen, didn't stop for his mates called instead rushing to the centre of the camp where the elders, children and healer resided.
Wordlessly Fenrir pushed past the cloth barring entrance into the healer's tent, placing his daughter down on the cot that the Healer had gestured to.
Removing himself from the tent at the Healers' command Fenrir was meet with his mate.
"Mate," Melissa whispered, taking in his form, taking in the blood that bathed his skin, drying in fractured blotches, clinging to the hairs of his chest and destroying the fabric of his pants. "Is she -" Melissa broke off unsure if she wanted the answer.
"She alive, but, but there was so much blood." Fenrir croaked haunted. His hands, still displaying claws that had yet to sink back into his nail-bed, griped at his wild locks.
"I can't lose her," Melissa whispered as her mate pulled into his embrace, her face in the hollow of his throat, one of the only place without blood.
Fenrir stood over Hermione, the scene not dissimilar to the one that happened months ago, his mate sat at the pups head, smoothing her hair and he watched over them both.
Only this time, tears fell continuously down his mate pale cheeks, her hand shaking with ever touch, the knot in her throat causing words to get stuck.
Watching his mate with his pale pup Fenrir couldn't help but dwell on the words of the Healer. Even St Mungo couldn't save her. There was too much damage. Fenrir had been prepared to give himself up, to face going to Azkaban just so his pup would live but had been informed that it was a pointless endeavour. Too much was broke, no potions or wand movements could reverse the damage.
"Do it," Melissa commanded of her Alpha. "Do it now Fenrir, before its too late."
"She might not want this life."
"She won't have a life if you don't do it."
"It's taking away her free will. I want her just as much as you do but I don't want her to resent me because I was the one to rip her away from everything she is."
"When has that stopped you before." Melissa snarled, lips curling over sharp teeth. Fenrir's sharp intake of breath forced her to realise what she had said so carelessly. "Fen, Fen, I'm so sorry, I'm not thinking. You know I know that you aren't like that anymore. I'm sorry I just can't bear for her to die. I need her. We need her. Fenrir, please." Melissa pleaded.
Fenrir swallowed the memory of his past, of his vicious youth, of the blood that stained his hands and the lives he'd ruined or taken. Forcing his mind to focus on now. On his pack, his beautiful mate and his dying daughter.
"Fine." Fenrir relented with a solemn and fortifying breath. "Leave, I will do it."
Melissa removed their daughters head from its place in her lap, resting the curly locks on the soft makeshift fur pillow.
Fenrir took her place, drawing his daughter up into his embrace. Already, even as she breathed, her skin was cooling. This was their only chance, Hermione's only chance.
When his mate was posed to cross the threshold, Fenrir stalled her with his words, "Tell Anacio that he got what he wanted. There will be no humans in this pack." With those final words, Fenrir bit down on Hermione's dainty wrist as Melissa turned away and the left the tent. Left Fenrir to bleed their daughter, left him to give her the gift that the Wizarding World would hate her for.
"Today is your first shift Hermione," Melissa began from her place in Fenrir's lap, her hand holding onto Hermione's. "We'll be right there with you."
"Will it hurt?" Hermione hadn't seen a shift but over the course of the few months that she had lived here she had heard it. From the warded and barricade stone cabin that Fenrir had spent almost an entire month building for her. "It sounds like it hurts"
"A bit, not much," Fenrir lied.
When he was not much older then Hermione he had been bitten. He had been taunted about the pain of transforming. The agony of every bone snapping and reshaping. But fear of the shift made it all the more painful, so he lied. He lied and would deal with her censor after the shift because he knew she would worry herself, would end up in more pain than necessary.
"It will hurt, but no one can remember the pain after the shift," he could, but no other wolf could. "You'll only know that it hurt, you won't remember with any clarity."
Hermione thought for a few seconds, before nodding, there wasn't much else she could do.
"Its time," Fenrir told the women, standing with an arm out to escort each witch out into the woods.
When the moon hung high above the pack of werewolves Hermione felt the first stirring of the creature beneath her skin. Then the pain. Bones slowly popped from their sockets, muscles straining, stretching and tearing under the force of the wolf, desperate to greet the moon. Hermione threw her head back and yelled. The hoarse scream echoing as her back broke, cracking as each bone elongated and grew stronger. Her nails fell from their bed, in their place yellow stain claws, deadly weapons.
The vomit inducing pain in her face fracturing and reshaping was Hermione's last thought before she was overcome by the wolf. There was no turning back, she was a werewolf.