It was well past midnight, but the Muggle shop was still open, the lights in its windows visible for miles in the rural darkness. Food, cigarettes, etc proclaimed the neon sign above the entrance. A lone employee idled behind the till, fingers drumming listlessly on the counter, eyelids drooping. In his stupour, it took a moment for him to register the fact that the bell over the door had chimed, and someone had slipped inside with a gust of cool winter air. By then, the customer had disappeared down an aisle, out of sight.

Slightly more alert, the employee straightened and glanced at his watch: half past three. He raised his eyebrows; he wasn't accustomed to anyone showing up this late. Listening intently to the person's soft footsteps, the unfriendly notion of robbers flitted into his mind. In a nervous impulse, he reached beneath the counter to place his hand on the old hunting rifle that was kept there. The metal felt cold beneath his fingers, and reassuring.

But then, the customer wandered out from behind the shelf and he relaxed, rolling his eyes inwardly at his own stupidity. It was just a girl. A rather odd-looking girl, he reflected, as she wandered slowly toward him. It was difficult to determine her age beneath all the dirt and grime, and her painfully short and skinny frame in tattered, overlarge clothing spoke of life on the streets. He wrinkled his nose at the distinctive, dog-like odour that she was diffusing throughout the stop.

As she drew nearer, the employee couldn't help reaching again for the rifle. It was the way she was staring at him with her huge, pale eyes: so blank and devoid of feeling that it was creepy. No, disturbing, decided the employee, tightening his grasp on the weapon. Her bare feet made barely a sound on the tiled floor as she approached the counter and…smiled. Well, thought the employee, his heart thumping around wildly in his chest, you could call it smiling, but it looked more like she was baring her teeth, a mouthful of brownish-yellow teeth. What was more, the expression on her face was no longer blank, but (the employee cast around for an accurate word)… almost feral. He could have sworn there was a positively dangerous glint in her eyes.

'H-hello,' the employee managed, swallowing hard. 'May I help you?' Furiously, he told himself to get a grip. It was a little girl, for Pete's sake. It must have been the lateness of the hour playing tricks on him, making him jittery. The girl did not respond, only continued leveling her awful, appraising glare at him, so he tried again, 'Do you need help finding anything?'

She growled. That was the only way to describe the low, throaty noise that came out of her mouth, almost inhuman. The employee broke out in a cold sweat. His hands felt clammy, and his breaths uneven. She growled again, and he jumped slightly, then recoiled in his chair. The gaze she was fixing him with was now nothing short of terrifying, her eyes full of something like an animalistic greed, her lips pulled back to expose rotting teeth, her eyebrows lowered, her hands curled, claw-like, at her sides.

Shaking, the employee forced himself to speak. 'Listen,' he stammered. 'If you need something, I'd be more than willing to—,'

She pounced. In one fluid, animalistic movement, she launched herself over the counter and on top of the employee, driving him out of his chair sending him crashing to the floor. He didn't have time to even cry out before she had landed upon him, bony knees and sharp fingernails digging into his flesh, eyes flashing in triumph. In shock, the employee watched as she lowered her face to his neck: a sharp, searing pain, and then the warm wetness of blood. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, and then…nothing.

…

'Meat,' grunted Evan, holding up a large package of beef and grinning toothily.

Mortimer cast a glance in his direction. 'Take as much of that as you can,' he ordered, then turned to me, 'Bags. We need bags.'

'Yes, boss,' I replied, then headed down an aisle to where I remembered seeing them during my circuit of the shop. As I pulled down a couple of sturdy totes, something living caught my eye. Frowning, I looked again and smiled to myself when I realised that it wasn't a real rabbit, just a doll. I plucked the soft toy off the shelf and considered it for a moment. It was grey and long-eared, and felt warm between my hands.

'What's that?' Evan was ambling towards me, arms filled with packaged meat.

'Human toy,' I mumbled, shoving it back on the shelf. Mortimer appeared with a load of bright yellow rain ponchos, and together we shoved our finds into the bags, working quickly and methodically. There wasn't much else to take: Mortimer was very strict about the human things we used. Unprocessed food and certain clothing were okay, but most other things were off-limits. We didn't want to descend to their level—we were more advanced than they were, and didn't need such things as shoes and sleeping bags, chocolate and medicine.

'Look at this,' sneered Evan, grabbing the rabbit toy and showing it to Mortimer.

Mortimer cast it a disdainful glance. 'Human nonsense,' he said.

Evan's grin widened, and I knew that he was about to rip off the rabbit's head. 'Stop!' I yelled.

Both men stared at me.

'I want it,' I said. I didn't know why, but that was the truth. I wanted that human rabbit toy, as much as I wanted the beef. Mortimer and Evan continued to stare at me, and I was glad that my face was covered in so much muck, since I was sure that I was turning red. 'Give it to me,' I snapped, holding out my hand for it, but Evan lifted it out of my reach.

'It's a human toy,' said Mortimer in disgust. 'I thought you were over this sort of thing, Esther.'

'I want it,' I said again. 'I killed the human, so I should have what I want.'

'It's pathetic,' snapped Mortimer, taking a step towards me.

'You wouldn't understand,' I retorted, taking a step towards him. 'It's a female thing.' This usually made him shut up and give me what I want, because I was the only female with whom he spoke to on a regular basis, so he could only assume that I knew what I was talking about, but—

'No,' said Mortimer with finality. 'It is beneath you.'

Smirking, Evan wrapped his large hand around the rabbit's head and yanked. It tore off easily, revealing a load of white stuffing. Carelessly, he tossed the body and the decapitated head beneath the shelf. Anger, hot and ferocious, rose up in me like a tidal wave. I wanted to wrestle him to the floor and claw at his ugly face till I drew blood. But we weren't allowed to attack pack-members, so I bit back my fury. I could always find an animal to release it upon later.

Mortimer began dividing up the bags for us to carry. He was our leader, our alpha. We were supposed to follow his commands, and doing so was usually instinctive. However…he wasn't always right. Sometimes, I was right. I'd killed the human. I deserved a reward. There was another rabbit lying on the shelf. I wanted it. So before we left the shop, when the other two weren't looking…I took it. It felt warm and soft beneath my fingers. It couldn't be a human characteristic to feel fond of inanimate objects because I was fond of this rabbit… and I wasn't human.

…

We weren't that much of a pack. There were only six of us at the moment. There used to be nine, but Johnny and Hugh got killed by a couple of werewolf hunters, and Steve went off on his own. So we were down to six, and I was the only female.

We were a mixed bunch. Aside from Mortimer, Evan and I, there was also Nathan, Billy, and Marcus. Aside from Billy, we'd all been bitten by Mortimer. For me, it was when I was about four, and I had been the youngest. The others had been in their teens, and Billy had joined up a few years before when everyone else in his old pack got grabbed by the Ministry of Magic.

The Ministry was one thing we really had to worry about. Those human might have been dumb and pathetic, but they also had wands, which were dangerous. Mortimer had a wand, but he didn't like using it, and I had magic, but no wand, so we mostly fashioned our own weapons. We had knives and bows and spears, all made from scratch, but we knew that if the Ministry came after us, we were in trouble. So we hid. We moved around at night, sleeping in abandoned buildings and forest clearings during the day. What we had done tonight was rare—we seldom ever launched attacks on humans, to avoid attracting attention to ourselves. However, game had been scarce in the past weeks. We were planning on travelling north, to where we knew food was more plenty, but in order to do so we needed sustenance: it would be a long, hard trek.

'We'll start travelling tomorrow,' Mortimer announced when we'd returned to our camp. Our camp that night was a large, open field. It wasn't ideal, since there was no coverage, but it was in the middle of nowhere, so humans were unlikely to stray upon us. We would sleep during the day, curled up in the grass, and begin our journey as soon as the sun set. The full moon was not for another three weeks, so we would hopefully reach our destination by then.

'Did you have any trouble with the break-in?' Billy wanted to know. He was stretched out on the ground, gazing up at the stars.

'Nah,' grunted Evan. 'Just one old human.'

'Esther took care of him easily,' added Mortimer.

I felt my cheeks glow with pride from where I was sitting cross-legged against a boulder. It wasn't a small thing to be complimented by our alpha. As if he'd read my mind, Nathan put in, 'You're going to give her an overlarge head, boss.'

'It wasn't a big deal,' I said quickly, deflating. 'He was just one stupid human. He went down easier than most.'

Evan smirked. 'He was almost crying when she went after him.'

'It's quite strange,' muttered Marcus, 'that we used to be humans.'

Everyone turned to glare at him. No one really liked Marcus. He was always saying uncomfortable things like that. I was pretty certain that Mortimer regretted biting him—he was nothing but a nuisance.

'Shut it, Marcus,' snapped Nathan.

'We don't speak of such things,' Mortimer said to him coolly. 'The humans are beneath us, nothing more than glorified animals. We retain nothing in common to them. There is no purpose in dragging up shameful pasts.'

To his credit, Marcus looked slightly abashed.

Later, when everyone else was sleeping, and in Evan's case, snoring loudly, I pulled out the rabbit from where I'd stuffed it down my front. Thankfully, it had been too dark for anyone to notice the lump. Curiously, I wondered what I was supposed to do with it. Struck by a long-forgotten memory, I pressed the doll to my chest and wrapped my arms around it. A strange sensation of comfort and security washed over me. I closed my eyes. Considering how repulsive humans were, the toy was quite nice.

A/N: How's that? Please leave a review and tell me what you think! (There'll be canon characters showing up soon enough)